Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Phil is born with pieces missing—four of them, to be exact.

It was easy to guess, Mother told him, that he was the firstborn of his soulmates. He was utterly inconsolable as an infant. He cried no matter how many bottles she offered him, how many diapers she changed, or how many hours she held him. He cried like he was dying. He cried like he was heartbroken. 

“Dreadful thing,” she said, “seeing your baby suffer and not a damn thing to be done about it.”

(Phil wouldn’t understand just how dreadful until decades later.)

To his mother’s great relief, his temper improved as he grew older. He adjusted to the sensations of his new body and was able to put names to them: hunger, thirst, frustration, emptiness. The emptiness was the only thing his mother could never fix, though that never stopped her from trying. She would hold him in her lap on the emptiest nights—the nights when he could choke on a heartache he didn’t understand—and she would rock him from side to side with her lips pressed to his forehead and her wings mantled around him like great, dark walls.

“It’s your soulmates, baby,” she whispered. “They’re not here yet. You’re missing them.”

Phil knew about soulmates, of course, like he knew about dogs and flowers and the sun. He just didn’t understand how he could miss someone he’d never even met. It wasn’t fair. But, fair or not, the feeling persisted. On the good days it was like an itch he could never reach, or a limb he couldn’t fully stretch—nagging, but manageable. 

On the bad days he wanted to scream and cry and smash his fists against the walls. 

He didn’t, of course. He was polite and well-behaved and mannered and everything Mother wanted him to be. Her life was difficult enough, raising him all on her own, without the help of mate or flock. He couldn’t bear to make it any worse by throwing tantrums like other nestlings did. It wasn’t her fault, anyway. It wasn’t anything she could fix. 

(Wasn’t that the worst part? Wasn’t that the part that made Phil angriest? His mother was supposed to be able to do everything. She was supposed to be able to take care of him no matter what! So why couldn’t she just fix this, too? What was so difficult about it that even Mother could be deterred?)

Phil didn’t think very much of soulmates, no matter what Mother said. They didn’t seem very helpful to anyone in particular, if all they did was make him feel lonely and grumpy. Mother told him they were going to be very important to him—closer than anyone else—and he rather thought that was a load of bullshit. If they were so important, wouldn’t they make him feel happy instead? It would be better not to have soulmates at all, wouldn’t it, if he could live his own life free of this unending dissatisfaction?  

Phil doesn’t want soulmates, he decides, so there.

Chapter Text

Phil is six when the first piece clicks into place.

It staggers him more effectively than any physical blow could. He’s drawing on a piece of parchment, humming under his breath, when very suddenly there is something in his head that wasn’t there before—something, or some one. He startles so hard his wings jerk, and he accidentally clips his mother across the chin with one. 

“Oh! Phil, what—?”

“Sorry,” Phil says, immediately, tucking his wings sharply against his back. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to.”

“Are you alright?”

“I’m—”

Phil hesitates. There is something new in him—but no, no, it’s not new, not really, is it? It’s sudden, but it feels familiar. It feels like coming back to a warm fireplace, or collapsing into his nest after a long day, or having his wings preened by steady hands. It feels like inside jokes and old recipes and dog-eared books. It feels like coming home. His eyes prickle, and he swallows thickly around the lump in his throat. 

I know you, he thinks, I’ve known you forever.

“Phil?” Mother prompts, again, resting a hand on his shoulder. “What is it, baby?”

“I think,” he says, swallowing again to keep his voice from cracking, “my soulmate’s here?”

Mother is delighted, of course, and almost overwhelming in her enthusiasm. Phil excuses himself to the bathroom, and then sits and breathes quickly and tries to not cry. Why should he be crying? He feels—gods, he feels so much better. He feels like he’s finally eaten something after starving for a decade. He feels like he’s finally worked out a stubborn knot in a sore muscle. He feels like he finally has a soulmate.

“Hi,” he whispers, choked, and has to laugh at the absurdity of talking to empty air. Like his soulmate can hear him! Phil doesn’t even know who they are, or where they are, or—or anything about them, really. (But that doesn’t stop him from feeling like he does.) “What took so long?”

His soulmate, quite predictably, does not respond. 

In reality, there are no grand changes to Phil’s life. His mother won’t hare off after a fresh soulmate, not when they know the least thing about them and Phil has lessons to attend. Instead, Phil spends his days much as he did before. But he’s getting older, and his questing flights from the nest have turned into longer, exploratory excursions. In the meantime, one corner of his brain is occupied by what he generously refers to as Grumpy Baby. Grumpy Baby is a collection of his soulmate’s transient emotions. Mostly these are grumpy, and babyish. Phil wonders if Grumpy Baby is missing pieces of themself, too. At least they aren’t missing all four.

At first, Grumpy Baby has only the simplest of feelings. Phil guesses that’s because they’re—well, a baby. They’re hungry, sometimes, and other times they’re tired or startled or content. There’s nothing particularly complex about them. There’s nothing to tell Phil just who they might be. They’re only a little, constant presence Phil carries with him. 

Despite this, Phil loves Grumpy Baby immediately and intensely. 

Probably he would kill someone for Grumpy Baby.

Phil’s not quite sure what Grumpy Baby feels from him, but he tries to make sure the feelings are positive. Whenever he pokes around the soulmate section of his brain he tries to project happiness, and curiosity, and confidence. He tells it jokes. He tells it stories. He shares his fondest memories with it.

Eventually, Grumpy Baby begins to respond.

The attempts are clumsy, at first, and without any self-awareness. Grumpy Baby bursts with delight when Phil does, and musters up its own curiosity to match Phil’s. He likes to imagine a downy, fat nestling staring intently at its ceiling while it thinks very hard about the emotions Phil shares with it. 

As the years pass, however, Grumpy Baby becomes more intelligent. They reach out to Phil on their own, prodding him with interest and sharing their emotions freely. It becomes clear, between the two of them, that words and thoughts do not pass through the bond. They seem limited to emotion transference only. That’s alright. That’s all Phil really needs.

It does, however, make locating each other a little harder.

This becomes even more of a pressing issue when Grumpy Baby starts to feel pain. 

Of course, Grumpy Baby has been hurt before. Phil has witnessed secondhand the pain of scraped knees and bruised elbows and all the little hurts of childhood. This, though—this is something different. The pain his soulmate feels is sudden and enormous. It’s enough to crumple Phil’s wings, and he barely manages to land on a promontory before he collapses. He curls into himself, gasping wetly, as his soulmate tears apart. 

The pain is too generic to localize, this time—it’s an all-over thing, twisted tightly with terror and adrenaline. It makes Phil’s wings shake. He digs his fingers into the rocky soil below, choking for breath. Is his soulmate dying? Is that what this is? But they’re so young, they’re so small, Phil hasn’t even met them—!

Keening, Phil presses his forehead to the promontory.

The ache of it lasts several hours. When it finally subsides, receding like a wave from shore, it is replaced by sorrow. Phil reaches out to his soulmate, desperate for the comfort of feeling them alive, only to run up against a barrier. The emotions behind it are muted and distant. Phil wants to claw through that barrier until he finds something real and powerful and living, but he hesitates. What if it’s there for a reason? What if his soulmate doesn’t want him right now? 

It is the first time his soulmate builds a wall between them. 

It will not be the last.

By the time Grumpy Baby turns into Grumpy Teenager, Phil is at war.

The walls between them were a terrifying thing, at first—now, Phil couldn’t be more grateful for them. Every morning he reaches out to his soulmate with a wash of affection, and more often than not his soulmate responds in kind (lethargic, still, but no less warm; they must sleep late). Then, Phil will draw himself back and seal his soulmate off. 

There’s no reason, he thinks, to subject a teenager to the hate and pain of a war.

(He was thirteen, when the war first started. He doesn’t want that for his soulmates—not ever.)

“Private!”

“Sir.” Phil straightens immediately, snapping to attention as his captain approaches. Her wings are still half-spread, golden feathers ruffled and spattered with blood. Her hair escapes its loose ponytail, falling in tangled strands around her face as she thrusts a sealed packet at him. “What’s this?”

“A message for Colonel Johnson,” Captain Jose says. “See that she receives it, quickly.”

“Yes, sir.”

Phil steps back as the captain spreads her wings, yielding the first takeoff to her. Her broad wings beat the air around them, the force of it stirring Phil’s own hair as she dives back towards the battlefield. He launches himself up after her, his lightweight armor clanging as he moves. The thin chainmail spanning his wings jingles as he banks, carving his way higher and higher. He stops to hover once he can see the full width of the field, his eyes singling out the snapping banner of Colonel Johnson’s tent. 

There’s little enough that Phil can do well, yet—he’s only eighteen, built small and gangly. His wings aren’t yet large enough for overseas travel, nor strong enough for engagement in an aerial battle. He’s clumsy on the field and clumsier with a sword. But he is quick, and his superiors make good use of that. He makes his way to the colonel’s tent in less than two minutes, flattening his wings and feathers to divebomb the ground for a landing. He pulls up sharply to get his feet beneath him, his wings battering the air violently.

“Private,” one of the other soldiers says stiffly, standing; his own wing is bandaged to his back, stained with soot and blood.

Phil nods and does not bother to tuck his wings. He’ll be off again as soon as Colonel Johnson drafts a reply. “I have a message for Colonel Johnson,” he says, striding towards the tent, “from Captain Jose.”

The soldier takes Phil’s message and disappears into the tent. Phil takes the chance to catch his breath, although the short flight was hardly enough to tax him—but he knows better than to shirk the chance for a break. He’s still fresh on the field right now, his feathers itching for flight after a night’s rest: but the days stretch long. He could be carrying messages for the better part of eighteen hours.

Inside the tent, voices rise, and Phil isn’t polite enough not to listen in.

“What do you mean?” the colonel’s voice cries. “Where the hell at?”

“Across the river, sir,” an unfamiliar voice responds. 

“And no one noticed until now? Fuck’s sake! If they get there first, we’re all damned.”

Colonel Johnson herself bursts out of the tent a moment later, a crumpled piece of parchment in her hands. “Take this,” she says sharply, “to the major general.”

Phil’s breath catches.

It must be really bad, then, to get the general involved.

“Sir,” he says, snatching the parchment and flinging himself into the sky without a second to spare. 

The general’s tent is two miles from the front, tucked behind rows of bristling soldiers and stamping cavalry. Several crossbows lift to greet Phil, and he backwings long enough to wave his friendly signal—a scrap of flag in green and gold. The crossbows drop, and Phil is signaled in for a landing. 

“A message for the general,” he says immediately, and a band of soldiers escorts him to the tent. 

The canvas of the tent is thick and full of smoke-smell. Phil folds his wings back to enter through the doorway, the chainmail biting into his side and his fingers sweating where they grip his message. A low cartography table takes up most of the tent. Around it stand the general and his advisors, all speaking intently to each other. The general’s secretary steps forward to meet Phil at once, taking the message from him and to the general.

Phil isn’t dismissed after that, and so he stays rooted in place as the war falls apart.

“The Nether,” the general announces a moment later, his voice hollow; a sudden silence descends across the tent. “They made a portal to the Nether.”

Phil’s sudden, lurching terror must be strong enough for his soulmate to feel, because Grumpy Teenager stirs. Even through the wall built between them, Phil can feel their concern. He tries to reassure them, but whatever confidence he manages to scrounge up is false. If the enemy breaks into the Nether and recruits the beasts there, then…

Then what chance do Phil’s people possibly have?

The tent explodes into noise, and there’s a mad scramble to place the Nether Portal on the map. Phil can’t follow the conversation, shouted and hectic as it is. Then, the general says his name.

“Private Phil Za, isn’t it?”

Phil lifts his chin and swallows, nodding sharply. “Yes, sir.”

“You’re a messenger.” The general steps around the table, coming to stand in front of him. His own wings are twice the span of Phil’s, mottled gray and massive. “You must be fast.”

“Yes, sir.”

“How long has it been since you received Captain Jose’s message?”

“Twenty minutes, give or take, sir.”

“Good.” The general rubs his chin, his eyes dark. “I want you to fly to the Nether Portal.”

Phil’s feathers bristle in instinctive alarm. “The Nether?”

“Courage, man,” the general says briskly. “Do you love your people or don’t you?”

“Of course!”

“Then you will go to the Nether, and you will hold off the enemy ambassadors until we have a chance to bring our own people below. If they recruit the whole of the Netherbeasts against us, we’re fucked. Mind, I’m not asking you to fight—I’m asking you to parlay. Only prevent their ambassadors from ruining our reputation and it will be a job well done. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then what are you waiting for? Go!”

Phil doesn’t need to be told twice.

Phil is only twenty-two when he’s made captain. 

A great deal of that promotion owes to his desperate flight to the Nether, and to his ensuing recruitment of several sounders of piglin. That part had been fairly easy, once the general’s own ambassadors joined him with their heaps of gold. Piglins are greedy hoarding creatures, easily bribed, and as like to turn on Phil’s people as to turn on his enemies. 

Phil’s just glad he got to them first.

His reward (if it could really be called that) was to be named captain of three elytrian platoons and two piglin platoons. The elytrian platoons are simple enough to manage. The piglin platoons are, frankly, fucking stupid.

Phil’s not sure who thought organizing multiple sounders into one platoon was a good idea, but he’d like to strangle them. He doesn’t know much about piglin culture himself, but even a few days’ interaction with them is enough to make known their family dynamics. Piglin sounders are tight-knit groups of twenty or less, and viciously territorial. To cram so many sounders together was bound to be an issue. They fight each other more often than they fight the enemy, and their internal bickering leaves them all injured and bitter.

“They’re your soldiers,” his lieutenant scoffs, when he brings this up to her. “Control them.”

Drat it all, Phil tries. He tries bribing them with gold and pacifying them with rum. That works, for a little while, but there’s only so much he can buy out of pocket. He’s a captain, not a damned billionaire. When the funds fail, he resorts to threats he isn’t able to follow through on. The sounder brutes see through him instantly, scoffing when he flares his wings and hisses at them. One look at their shining tusks is enough to assure him that he cannot, in fact, bully them into doing what he wants (not if he wants to come out in one piece). 

The only real solution is to reorganize his platoons, but his superiors are set against it. Phil can’t even understand why. Certainly, platoons have worked successfully as a military unit for centuries—but that was with elytrians and humans, not with piglins. It shouldn’t be expected that the same thing will work for every species. Tradition shouldn’t precede logic.

Grumpy Teenager must sense Phil’s irritation, though he does his best to hide it from them—but each night, when the wall between them comes down, they’re also frustrated. They must be feeding off of him. He hates to make them feel negatively in any way, and so he tries his best to mask the annoyances of his new promotion. Instead, when he’s contacting them, he thinks of gentle memories and hums soft birdsong. It soothes him and, in turn, them.

The breaking point is when one brute, undoubtedly agitated by its forced proximity to the brutes of other sounders, turns on an elytrian. The screaming of piglins is a horrible thing, shrill and hoarse and goddamn chilling in the dead of night. It curdles Phil’s stomach as soon as he hears it. He scrambles to his feet, yanking on his boots and stumbling out of his tent. Piglin fights aren’t unusual, but this is—

This is, because there is an elytrian soldier gutted on Phil’s front lawn. 

A towering brute stands over it, breathing hard, with blood trickling from its muzzle. Before Phil can even speak, another brute rams it, and the field erupts into a mass of squealing and shrieking bloodlust as two sounders collide. Phil sees the murderous brute fall with a sword gouged through its throat.

“Captain!” 

Someone seizes his arm, and Phil whirls around to see a piglin clutching his elbow. Her eyes are dark, glittering furiously, and her yellowed tusks gleam wicked in the moonlight. It’s easy to tell she’s one of the sounder elders—she drips with gold, necklaces swallowing her throat and earrings swinging from her scarred ears. Her voice is heavily accented, but her words are clear.

“You must put a stop to this,” she hisses, her tail lashing. “We cannot live this way. Our brutes are not so easily controlled as your toy soldiers, and I will not be held responsible if they continue to turn on your elytrians. My sounder will not stay here.”

“You promised—you were paid—”

“I will give all the gold back,” the elder says, “but I will not sacrifice any more of my sounder—or yours—to this senseless bloodshed.”

Phil swallows thickly, balling his hands into fists. He knows he’s supposed to be in charge, he’s supposed to be the captain, but something like this—

“Tell me what to do,” he says helplessly, “and I’ll do it.”

The elder starts in surprise, her ears pricking. “Will you, now?”

“I don’t like this anymore than you do,” he says. “It’s pointless, and for what? For clinging to our traditional ideas of fighting units? It’s stupid. Tell me how to make the sounders safer and I will. Fuck the lieutenant.”

A treasonous statement, maybe, but there is a dead elytrian in front of him. Fuck the lieutenant.

The next day, after the blood has been scraped from the sand and the elytrian taken for a proper burial, the elder Tachmahall comes to visit him. She comes with a smaller piglin, and a list of demands.

“The brutes must be kept separate unless they are littermates or bonded, or they will kill each other. The spirits will be louder than any command I can give,” she says, sitting primly at his table and sipping tea. Her (child? escort? guard?) younger companion remains standing, its own dark eyes watching Phil calculatively. “This is why we require larger territories.”

“We can’t just get them to bond?”

Tachmahall snorts. “Bonding is the spirits’ will. It is not something that can be forced.”

“Okay,” Phil says, and makes no argument against the reality of the spirits. He feels like such a thing might be blasphemous to a piglin. “Right. Okay.”

“A cave would be best,” Tachmahall continues, “but even a large tent will do, as long as we are at least a square mile away from any other sounder. That distance will be enough to keep the brutes from smelling each other. They will not fight then.”

Phil drums his fingers anxiously on the table, ruffling his feathers. To spread his troops out over such a distance grates on him. Wouldn’t that make the piglins more vulnerable to attack? To communicate between all of them would be more difficult, too. The lieutenant won’t like it at all. But isn’t it better than cramming them all together and watching them butcher each other?

“Alright,” he agrees. “I’ll see what I can do. There are four sounders in each platoon, so you would need—what, eight miles?”

“Yes, that would do.”

“If I can get the land, would you all be willing to set up your own camps?”

“Naturally.”

Phil nods, humming thoughtfully. “What other considerations need to be made?”

“That is the main one,” Tachmahall says. “Sounders are not meant to live so closely to one another. It is against our nature. Reparations might also be made to those sounders who have lost piglins to the fights. Some gold would not be remiss, as far as that is concerned.”

Gold, Phil thinks wearily, always with the gold.

“Very good,” Phil says. “But what about battle? Will the sounders fight together, or must they be spread throughout the battlefield?”

“As long as there is a greater enemy present, the brutes should focus on that instead of each other,” Tachmahall says. “It is not uncommon for sounders to ally together against withers or dragons, as long as the spirits are in agreement. But it is never for so long as this. A months-long campaign is unheard of—and while sharing territory, too! It is a foul thing.”

Phil’s wing twitches.

“Not,” she adds, seeing this, “that it is so for you birdfolk. It is a different sort of thing for you. You like to be crowded.”

The smaller piglin snorts in amusement, and Phil glowers at it.

Tachmahall, too, says a sharp word to the younger piglin. It looks away, its ears drooping. 

“As part of my own sounder’s reparations,” Tachmahall continues, “I will leave Technoblade with you.”

“You’ll what?”

Phil’s face drops, and he swears he sees the younger piglin smirk.

“Technoblade is one of our youngest brutes,” Tachmahall says, “out of my own bloodline. He is bookish and knows some of your language already, but he desires to learn more. He will also help you arrange the sounders’ new territories. If you should have any questions regarding our customs, he will be your guide.”

“Right,” Phil says, his jaw setting. “You want me to keep him.”

“After all,” Tachmahall says, setting her tea cup down, “it doesn’t seem sensible to me to have someone commanding a piglin platoon without any advice from a piglin.”

Technoblade snorts in agreement, folding his arms over his chest. He’s small—for a piglin, in any case; he’s already Phil’s height—but broad-shouldered, with several golden hoops looped through his right ear. His eyes are dark and cunning. 

How clever, Phil thinks, grimly. He’s underestimated Tachmahall’s intelligence. However prettily she likes to say it, Technoblade is no advisor—he’s a spy, and a means of controlling all of the sounders through his influence on Phil. Well played, Tachmahall. 

Phil won’t be making the mistake of trusting her again.

“You really speak my language?” Phil asks the small piglin, once Tachmahall has taken her leave. A part of him hopes that the piglin doesn’t speak it at all, or at least not as fluently as Tachmahall proclaimed he did. At least then Phil would have some excuse to reject him. Maybe Tachmahall would accept some extra gold, instead. Phil’s not above bribery.

To his disappointment, however, Technoblade nods.

“So say something,” Phil demands.

“Somethin',” Technoblade drawls, and then for good measure adds, “asshole.”

It is not an auspicious start.

Phil is made colonel after the successful reorganization of the piglin platoons, and Technoblade is instated as his official advisor and piglin ambassador. The little bastard sticks to him like glue, and always butts in with a sly comment whenever he begins to discuss piglin maneuvers with his lieutenants or captains. He’s a pest if Phil ever saw one.

“You know,” he says now, leaning against Phil’s bed and chewing on a wheatstalk, “maybe you’d accomplish more if you weren’t constantly sleep-deprived. Have you thought of that?"

“Hypocrisy,” Phil mutters, hunched over his battlefield maps.

“Mm, you’re right.” Technoblade sprawls across Phil’s bed, grunting in satisfaction. “I’ll take a nap here.”

“Get out of my bed,” Phil says, but with no real heat. 

Technoblade squirms around, instead, like a pig wallowing in its mud. Phil’s jaw ticks.

But the last thing he can afford is to piss off Tachmahall’s advisor—not after her suggestions made him so successful—and so he takes a deep breath, leaning into his soulmate instead. Their emotions are a balm to his own, merry and smug. He wonders what they’re doing. Whatever it is, he’s glad they’re having fun.

Phil thinks about going to find them, often, but he’s in the middle of the war. The last thing he wants is to drag an innocent teenager into his own problems when they should be growing up with their own family. So, sighing, he resigns himself to waiting until after their victory—a victory which he is supposed to be facilitating, if only Technoblade would quit distracting him. 

“Will you go do that somewhere else?” Phil grouches, when Technoblade begins to sharpen his tusks against the bedposts. There are already gouges there from a hundred previous attempts. “Fuckin’ boar.”

“That’s culturally insensitive,” Technoblade says placidly, and scrapes his tusks again. 

“Brute or not, you can control yourself perfectly well and you know it,” Phil says, standing and whirling around with his wings half-flared. “If you’re not going to help, get out.”

Technoblade looks at him, startled. It’s not often that Phil is so upfront with his irritation. He rarely snaps at his soldiers, let alone his own advisor—almost immediately, guilt sets in. With a groan, he slumps back into his chair and pinches the bridge of his nose. 

“Phil?” Technoblade says, his voice quieter. 

“Forget it,” Phil mumbles. “I’m just…”

He waves a hand helplessly. He’s just trying to design an attack plan for tomorrow. He’s just trying to find a way to get most of his soldiers home safe. He’s just trying to win a war.

“Okay,” Technoblade says. He grabs one of the spare wooden chairs and scoots it up to Phil’s desk. “Tell me what you’re tryin' to figure out.”

Against his greater reservations, Phil does.

Technoblade proves himself to be an adept hand at war. He sees weaknesses that Phil misses, and presses advantages that Phil’s innate wariness would ordinarily bar him from. He knows best how to utilize the piglin sounders, and how to keep the brutes focused on the enemy instead of each other. By dawn, their battleplan is as foolproof as Phil can think to make it. He stands, ready to deliver his papers to the general, but Technoblade grabs one of his wings like an ill-mannered nestling.

Phil startles, jerking away, and Technoblade seizes the distraction to grab his papers. 

“You,” he says, “go to bed. I’ll take these.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Phil, come on.” Technoblade cocks one hip to the side and sighs, looking at Phil the way his mother would if he disappointed her. It rankles him. “If you can’t trust me, what’s the fuckin’ point, man?”

To openly admit that he doesn't trust Technoblade would be to drive a wedge between himself and Tachmahall, and between elytrians and piglins—a wedge that they cannot currently afford. So, grumbling, Phil flings himself into bed and draws his wings around like curtains. He hears Technoblade chuckle, low and throaty, before his footsteps fade.

When he wakes again, Technoblade is still gone; his soulmate is furious and hurting.

Phil jerks up with a cry of pain, clutching his head. Wherever his soulmate is, whatever they’re doing, they’re in agony and Phil just wants it to stop. He slams up a wall between them, muting the pain enough for him to think, and gasps for breath. Fuck. Fuck! Maybe he was wrong about waiting to find them. If they’re getting themself into this much trouble without him, maybe he should track them down to protect them and war be damned. 

He has little enough time to think about that, however, as seconds later his door slams open.

“Colonel!” a little white-winged messenger gasps, their wings shivering and windblown. “You have to come quickly. The enemy has attacked on the western border!”

Phil is up and dressed in minutes, hastily throwing chainmail over his wings as he pushes through the tent. The soldiers are up and moving outside, stirred by the low cry of the bugle, and feathers dust the ground. His anxiety for his soulmate boils over into anxiety for his men, and as he springs into the sky his hands shake. A flock of guards fall in beside him, and together they wing towards the general’s tent. 

The enemy’s attack was early, but not unprecedented. They had been amassing troops for some weeks, now, and Phil’s plans account for—

Phil’s plans!

Fuck, he thinks, his wingbeats stuttering. Where is Technoblade?

There’s no time to search, now—he can only hope that the general received his plans before this. He lands neatly on the outskirts of the general’s tent, dragging his wings in even as he runs for the entrance. Once there, the general confirms that he did receive the plans; what’s more, he wants Phil to execute them today.

“That little runner of yours volunteered to mobilize the piglins,” the general says, like that isn’t something to snatch Phil’s breath from his throat. “He left early this morning.”

“Technoblade,” Phil says, horrified. “You mean Technoblade?”

“If that’s the little piglin always followin’ you around.”

Phil is moving the second he has his orders, flying to the west—flying to the sounders. They’re already engaged in battle when he arrives. From his spot high above them, he can see them clashing with the enemy’s own piglins. Their tusks tear through hide like paper, leaving long splatters of blood along the dirt, and their swords glint dangerously under the red dawnlight. Against his better judgment, Phil hovers in the air a moment longer as his eyes seek out one piglin in particular.

He finds him. 

Oh, gods, he finds him.

Technoblade is on the far north of the field, recognizable only by his small size and by the subtle glint of three gold earrings. Phil dives for him, hitting the ground so hard he staggers. The area around Technoblade is mercifully empty, the mud trampled by heavy boots and hooves. Technoblade isn’t moving. He is one still body amidst a hundred others.

“Technoblade!” Phil shouts, dropping to his knees beside his advisor. “Tech, Techno, come on, mate, come on.” 

Technoblade doesn’t respond, but he’s breathing—short, shallow breaths, but breaths all the same. Blood curls around his tusks, still hot enough to steam in the winter air, and it coats the black-and-gold plates of his armor. Phil grabs him up, hauling the piglin onto his back, and fuck’s sake when had Technoblade gotten so heavy? Piglins grow fast, and Technoblade has put on several inches in the months since their meeting, but this is truly ridiculous. 

“I am never letting you hear the end of this,” Phil pants, staggering his way back towards their own military’s lines. Technoblade’s black blood soaks into his clothes, his hair, his feathers. “You fucking jackass. I am so mad at you.”

Technoblade stirs, his tusks brushing against the back of Phil’s head. 

“Hey, watch it,” Phil snaps, flipping one wing around to whack Technoblade gently. “Teeth to yourself. Who raised you?”

Despite their vigor, however, his words are full of relief—because Technoblade is alive enough to breathe and move. Always a good sign, right? He’s going to be fine. He’s going to be just fine. 

Phil finds himself repeating it under his breath, a desperate mantra, until they reach the field hospital. He rolls Technoblade off of his back, shouting for the nearest nurse, and stays just long enough to watch his advisor being hauled away by an older piglin. That’s all he can do. He’s not a doctor, he’s a soldier, and standing here is a useless act of solidarity. He needs to leave.

It is the hardest thing he’s ever done.

It is one small mercy that his soulmate’s emotions have fallen quiet, and he is undistracted as he soars back into the battle. He allows his rage (for his soulmate and for Technoblade both) to sharpen him, and he tears through the enemy’s ranks with a viciousness he has never before felt. Many men fall before him, their wings broken or their hides torn or their bones smashed. 

By the end of the day, Phil is bloodier than he’s ever been, and the battle is won. Crows descend on the battlefield as he stumbles off of it, greedily stripping flesh from the corpses and cawing their ill omens. Over their calls, he hears the whispers of his men. They’re scared—of him? His wings tremble with fatigue. Why are they scared of him? He did it for them. He did it all for them. 

Phil rinses the blood from his hands.

Then, he goes to the field hospital. 

The tent is packed with wounded soldiers of every species—elytrian, piglin, and human alike. Phil even sees a skeleton on a cot, rattling its bones in pain as a nurse tends to its fractures. He moves numbly through the crowd, his eyes raking over the soldiers (over his soldiers). He finds a flustered nurse near the back of the tent and stops beside him, falling into parade rest.

“What can I do to help?” he asks.

The nurse looks at him, the both of them bloodied and weary, before handing him a roll of bandages. “Follow me.”

Phil works late into the night, his own minor injuries forgotten in the face of his soldiers’ lacerations and amputations. He knows he isn’t a tremendous help, with little medical experience to his name, but he follows the nurses dutifully and does whatever they instruct him to. He splints limbs and stitches cuts, plucks burnt feathers and administers healing potions. The elytrians murmur his name gratefully when he crouches near them; even the piglins mumble “Colonel” in their gravelly voices. It is one of the few elytrian words they have all learned, now. 

A young piglin nurse named Ionamane finds him, eventually, and instructs him to separate the injured piglins into groups. “The tent is too small to keep the brutes apart,” she says, her tail flicking nervously, “and the spirits are too loud. When they are strong enough, they will try to continue the fight, and they have only each other to attack now. If we cannot separate them all, quickly, then we must put some juveniles between them.”

“Juveniles?”

“Yes: piglins will not attack our young, not even the brutes. It is not our nature.”

“If you mean to suggest we put children between them—”

“Of course not,” Ionamane says, stiffening. “I do not mean piglets, I mean juveniles. What do you call them? They are teenagers? Look.”

Ionamane leads him to another piglin. This one is crouched next to an elytrian, grunting softly in an attempt at comfort as it works an arrow out of the soldier’s wing. The soldier yelps as the arrowhead is removed, and the piglin quickly thrusts a piece of gauze across the resultant hole. 

“Well done,” Phil says, kneeling alongside them. “Both of you.”

The piglin wags its tail, and the elytrian nods gratefully. 

“Yimalla,” Ionamane says, and then speaks to the other piglin in a series of grunts and growls. Yimalla nods, an agreement clearly reached, and then bares her teeth at Phil. “Look, Colonel. Do you see there are less teeth?”

Phil squints, and counts. On Yimalla’s bottom jaw, behind her curving tusks, is a line of four flat premolars. Ionamane shows Phil her own teeth for comparison; she has three molars in addition to the four premolars. 

“Juveniles have less teeth, and they should not be wearing armor; they are not allowed to fight,” Ionamane says. “This is how you will identify them. Bring them and put them between the brutes.”

“How do I tell which ones are brutes?”

Ionamane snorts. “It is easy. They are the ones that smell angriest.”

With that baffling set of orders, Phil descends upon the ranks of injured piglin. The first juveniles are easy to find: they work to assist the nurses, or as messengers, and are easily convinced to sit between their brute brethren and keep peace until the sounders can be separated. But even those juveniles there are not enough of, and the brutes are beginning to eye each other warily. So Ionamane suggests that Phil might go and check some of the smallest armored piglin.

“They like to disguise themselves in armor and sneak to the battle, when we will not let them go,” she says grudgingly. “The juvenile brutes especially. You might find a few.”

Several times Phil nearly gets his fingers snapped off, prying open the jaws of unconscious piglin to count their teeth, but at least he has some success: two more juveniles are found and laid between the brutes to stifle their most aggressive instincts. It is almost enough, and it is in this search that Phil finally sees Technoblade again.

“Shit, Techno?” Phil kneels alongside his advisor, splaying one hand over his chest. Technoblade is still unconscious, lain neatly on a cot with a thin blanket over him. Most of his armor has been removed, and large swatches of bandages cover his chest and shoulders. “Gods, mate, you don’t do anything halfway.”

“He’ll be alright.”

Phil startles, looking up to see a young elytrian nurse standing beside him. “You’re taking care of him?”

“Mm.” The nurse dips their chin, kneeling alongside him. “His injuries are extensive, but piglins are hardy. He’ll heal.”

“He wasn’t even supposed to be out there,” Phil mutters. “He’s an advisor, not a soldier. He should have known better.”

The nurse shrugs. “He’s one of those brutes, Colonel. I’m not sure what you expected.”

It’s a cold reality that Phil has, until now, managed to ignore. Intellectually he knew that Technoblade was a brute—Tachmahall had told him as much—but it had been so easy to forget. Technoblade was mild, and mannered, and enjoyed reading books and making tea more than any sort of swordplay. How could he be the same as the piglin brutes led by bloodlust and instinct and imaginary voices?

“Idiot,” Phil whispered, setting a hand on Technoblade’s stupid thick skull. His skin is warm under Phil’s palm, covered with a fine layer of pink fur. Under any other circumstance, Phil might be tempted to pet him. As it is, he holds still, afraid of causing Technoblade anymore pain. “What were you thinking, huh?”

Then—then, because Technoblade is small and unconscious and Phil has to be sure— he reaches down and pulls the piglin’s lip up to see the wet gleam of his teeth. There are his tusks, curving up and shining white. There are his premolars, solid and powerful. There are his dark, toothless gums. Phil counts once, and then again. 

“He doesn’t have enough teeth,” Phil says hollowly.

The nurse raises her eyebrows. “Come again?”

“There aren’t enough teeth. He’s—” Phil swallows, letting Technoblade’s lip slide back down to cover the evidence of his lies (the evidence of Phil’s negligence). “He’s young.”

“A juvenile? That’s good.” The nurse brightens. “You can take him over with the others to keep the brutes apart.”

Phil does.

Phil takes Technoblade over, settling him in between two brutes of different sounders, and watches the way their eyes soften towards him. One of them (a piglin of Technoblade’s own sounder, Phil recognizes) leans over and nudges Technoblade’s shoulder gently, rumbling deep in its chest. Technoblade’s brow wrinkles, and then he relaxes as the piglin curls up next to him. 

“Take care of him, please,” Phil whispers, and the brute grunts an affirmative.

Then, Phil goes home and washes the blood off of his hands again. He feels dirty long after his skin is scrubbed pink in scalding water, and doesn’t stop feeling so until he lapses into a deep and dreamless sleep. When he wakes next, he’s sore and stiff all over. A deep ache spreads across his wings, and he hisses under his breath as he peels himself out of bed. By the wash of sunlight through his tent walls, it’s early afternoon already.

Breakfast is a pot of cold porridge: Phil eats woodenly, his tongue heavy. He dresses in a spare tunic and trousers. Yesterday’s uniform is so tattered as to be useless, and his coat will have to be mended before he can even think of wearing it again. He preens his feathers, smoothing them out where the chainmail had crushed them together, and splashes his face with cold water.

Without any other excuse to procrastinate, then, Phil goes to find Tachmahall.

It isn’t difficult. She’s rounded up her sounder overnight and escorted them back to their territory with the help of several nurses and soldiers. A new medical tent has been set up for her injured piglins. Phil imagines that Technoblade is there, and his feet fumble for a moment before he directs himself towards Tachmahall’s tent again. He finds her bowed over a sheaf of papers, her ears low. 

“Tachmahall,” he says.

“Colonel.” Tachmahall looks up at him, weary. “Come in.”

“I commend your troops,” Phil says, although the civility stutters his tongue. It sounds altogether too forced. “We won a pivotal battle yesterday. You will be rewarded handsomely.”

Tachmahall bows her head. “Your plans were cleverly made, and your soldiers brave in their own turn. It was a united effort. In any case, we look forward to fighting alongside you again.”

“Good. But I do have one problem we need to address.” Phil takes a deep breath, squaring his shoulders. “You left me with a child, Tachmahall.”

“Technoblade?” Tachmahall sighs, looking away. She doesn’t look surprised. “I suppose I it was only a matter of time until he told you. You must understand, Phil—”

“I don’t have to understand anything. You employed a literal child as a war advisor. He should be safe at home in the Nether, not—not—!” 

Not at war, Phil thinks, desperately, not like me.

“I know. I would that he had never seen any of this war.” Tachmahall lifts her eyes, looking steadily at him. “But I gave him to you to keep him safe. He is a wicked, hotblooded thing. If he does not have something to focus his attentions on, he rages and he fights and he gets himself hurt. I was hoping, if he could help you, he would not be so tempted. I underestimated his will. Forgive me.”

In the face of such candor and regret, Phil’s indignation has no choice but to gentle.

“You couldn’t have told me?” he asks plaintively. “I could have kept him on as a runner, or a messenger, or an aid, even.”

“A war advisor suits him better,” Tachmahall says, with a little smile, “you must admit. He’s done well, has he not?”

“He has,” Phil says grudgingly, “but war shouldn’t be a child’s responsibility.”

“Well, it’s not as though he’s a piglet. He has sixteen of your years already.”

Phil shakes his head. “I understand why you did it, but I can’t keep him.”

“Has he given you much trouble?” Tachmahall’s brow furrows. “I rather thought you were beginning to warm up to each other.”

That, Phil thinks, is exactly the problem.

“We are,” Phil says bluntly, “which is why I can’t be responsible for him.”

Tachmahall shakes her head, her necklaces tinkling. “I don’t understand.”

“I can’t be a part of this. He’s your responsibility, and you have to do what you think is best—I’m sure you know more about raising brutes than I do. But I can’t be a part of it. I won’t keep him on this battlefield and watch him throw himself into danger every time there’s so much as a spat.”

“Then keep him distracted. This was only a hiccup.”

“I can’t afford to risk it. Maybe he’ll endanger himself either way, but I won’t have anything to do with it. Give me another advisor if you want. Just make sure they’re grown.”

“This is only to preserve your own conscience,” Tachmahall says, her snout wrinkling. “You’re thinking about this too much like an elytrian.”

“Because I am an elytrian!” Phil cries. “And if Techno was too, he’d be kept safe in a nest somewhere! He’s hardly more than a fledgling!”

It’s not true—not exactly. There are thousands of elytrians far younger than Technoblade who have been doomed to war by circumstances beyond their control. Phil was one of them. He still remembers his mother’s blood-sticky feathers, his village burning, his nest pillaged. He had only been thirteen. He had only been thirteen.

Phil can’t change what happened to him—

—but he can change what happens to Technoblade.

“I will not have him anymore,” Phil says, grimly. “I’ll speak to him when he wakes up.”

For days after the battle, Phil’s soulmate flickers in and out. Most of their emotions are confused, tremulous things. They reach for him often, greedy for comfort, and Phil provides it in abundance. He floods them with warmth and affection and the stable, steady feeling of safety. It’s alright, he thinks to them, though he knows they can’t hear. You’re alright, mate. I’m here.

It’s a suspicious occurrence, and one Phil doesn’t like at all. 

For his soulmate to have been in pain at the start of the battle, and near incoherent after it—what if they were in the battle, and recovering in Phil’s own field hospitals? What if they’re one of his soldiers? What if they’re one of his enemies?

But Phil shakes his head at the thought, scoffing. It’s a strange coincidence, and surely nothing more. His soulmate has been hurt before. They’re only reckless. 

(But, Phil thinks, he’ll have to keep a closer eye on the times they’re hurt to be sure.)

In the meantime, Technoblade is feverish. He wakes to eat and drink, the nurses tell him, and then drifts back to sleep. Phil stops by every day to check on him. More often than not, a member or two of his sounder is there as well. The brutes eye him warily whenever he approaches, but they do not attack him. Tachmahall is there, once. They do not speak beyond what curtesy demands.

A week after the battle, Technoblade is finally recovered.

“Phil!” Technoblade’s head snaps around when he hears Phil’s footsteps approaching across canvas floor of the field hospital. He’s beaming. “Hey! We did it.”

Phil drops onto the cot beside him. “Yeah. We sure did, mate.”

“What’s happened? Brassbolt says I’ve been here for almost a week, but I don’t remember any of it.”

Phil’s tongue itches to scold him, to drive him away from the war once and for all—but Technoblade is happy and guileless, for once, and only just recovered. Maybe it can wait.

“Everyone’s only recuperating. We won, did they tell you that?”

Technoblade smirks. “It was the first thing I asked.”

“I should have known.”

“It was awesome,” Techoblade continues, reaching up to run a hand through his mane. He winces when it snags on a tangle. “You should have seen me out there.”

“You shouldn’t have been out there in the first place, you know.” 

Phil clucks his tongue, then motions for Technoblade to turn around. The piglin obeys, and Phil begins to finger-comb the tangles out. His hair is greasy, clumped with dried sweat, and legitimately disgusting. It will need a good wash before they braid it.

“I know,” Technoblade says, and at least has the decency to sound sheepish. “I was going to come back to your tent, after I dropped the plans off with the general, but then I saw the enemy movin' across the river and I had to warn the sounders. I guess I just got caught up.”

Phil makes a low, dissatisfied noise and ruffles his feathers. 

“I’d clip your wings if I thought it’d make any difference,” he mutters—one of his Mother’s favorite sayings, when Phil himself was being particularly reckless. “Come on. Let’s go wash this rat’s nest. You’re disgusting.”

Technoblade huffs his offense, but obligingly follows Phil out of the tent and to the stream.

Phil leaves him with Tachmahall, that night, with hair freshly washed and braided. Technoblade had insisted on returning the favor; there are several small braids scattered throughout Phil’s blond tufts. Technoblade had exclaimed about how soft the hair was. 

(“Like a baby chicken! It’s even the same color. Is it down feathers?”

“It’s just hair.”

“Hum, I don’t believe you. The books say elytrians have down feathers in their hair.”

“Yeah, when they’re three.”)

As Phil settles back into his own tent, he combs the braids out with some regret. Technoblade really can be sweet, when he wants to—and that’s exactly why Phil can’t let him be ruined by this war. He’ll talk to Technoblade about returning to the Nether tomorrow, he decides, and then curls up under his blankets to sleep. 

All at once, his soulmate blazes with fury.

It’s strong enough that it bursts through the wall between them, and Phil twists around with a yelp—twists too far, as a matter of fact, and topples off of his bed. He fights his way free of the blankets and sits up with some alarm. Whoever that anger is directed at had better watch out. Grumpy Teenager is a fierce little thing. 

“Phil!”

Phil’s alarm peaks exponentially at Technoblade’s bellow, and he’s reaching for his sword before he can think. For Technoblade to sound like that—are they under attack again?!

“Techno? What is it?” Phil demands, kicking off the blankets and lurching up. Boots, where are his boots? “What’s wrong?”

Technoblade bursts into his room, chest heaving. “You bitch.”

Phil falters. “Sorry, what?”

“Tachmahall told me you fired me,” Technoblade exclaims, appalled. “You can’t do that!”

“Oh. Oh, gods.” Phil slumps back onto his bed, letting his breath out in a whoosh. “I thought something was really wrong. Don’t do that to me.”

“Somethin' is really wrong! You can’t just fire a man while he’s unconscious, Phil.”

“I was waiting for a better time to tell you.”

“There is no better time. Besides,” Technoblade says, and scoffs, “I’m not lettin' you fire me.”

“See, that’s not really how it works.”

“As piglin ambassador,” Technoblade says, with a smugness that does not encourage Phil whatsoever, “it is my duty to inform you that a piglin cannot be driven away from its sounder without a proper duel.”

“I’m not driving you away from the sounder,” Phil says, appalled. “I would never! They’re your family.”

“Yes, and you’re a part of it now, like it or not.” Technoblade stomps one heavy boot. “So there.”

“I’m—what?”

“Come on, you’re my bondmate, Phil,” Technoblade says, his eyes gentling for a moment. “Of course you’re sounder.”

Phil blinks. 

This, being evidently an improper response, draws a sigh from Technoblade. “You’re a stubborn old man, you know that? If you’re mad because I went to fight, I won’t do it again. I’ll stay in camp from now on.”

“No, I—go back, go back.” Phil presses his fingers to his temples. “Bondmate?”

Technoblade cocks his head. “Yeah. Bondmates become sounder. I mean, you don’t have to anything you don’t want to. It’s not like you have to live with the other piglins, or anything like that, it’s more of a formality than anything but—”

“Is this something to do with your spirits again?”

“I mean, sort of.” Technoblade looks away, crossing his arms over his chest. “You’re my bonded. You’re one of the only things that makes them gentle, and I can’t—I don’t want to lose that.”

Phil grits his teeth. “You’re telling me you want to stay here, in the middle of a warzone, because your auditory hallucinations like me.”

“Well.” Technoblade scratches his chin. “When you put it that way.”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Tech, but no. I’m not doing this. You’re a good kid—you’re a great kid—and you’ve been very helpful. But I don’t want a child on my staff. Go back home. Forget the war.”

“I’m not a kid,” Technoblade spits, his shoulders hunching. “I’m sixteen and I’ve killed people already.”

Phil’s heart sinks at the reminder, and he turns his back on Technoblade to breathe. “You shouldn’t have had to. You should have stayed in the Nether.”

“I’d have killed people there, too. Do you have any idea what I am, Phil?” Technoblade says, his voice darkening. “The spirits are angry in me. They have always been angry in me.”

“The spirits aren’t real!”

“You tell me that when they’re screamingg at you every hour of every day,” Technoblade hisses, his boots thudding on the floor as he storms closer. Phil’s wings raise defensively. “You tell me that when all they want is blood and violence and cruelty. You tell me that when it takes everything you are most days just to hear yourself think over them!”

The both of them stop, breathing hard into the silence. 

“So I’m sorry,” Technoblade spits, “that I fucked up once. I’m sorry that I don’t align with your idea of a perfect little nestling, and I’m sorry that you can’t fix your childhood trauma by being completely overbearing. But sendin' me away isn’t going to make anything better for either one of us. I know you feel guilty, but you know what? Get over it.”

Phil dares to turn back around, his feathers bristling. “Don’t tell me how I feel. You have no idea how—”

“I have every idea how you feel!” Technoblade cries. “Even with the walls up, I feel so much. I’m sorry I can’t make it better for you. I’m sorry I can’t fix it. I would do anything to fix it, but I can’t—I won’t abandon you! That’s the one thing I can’t do, Phil.”

“The walls,” Phil says, and falters.

The walls—the walls between his soulmate and himself are still up, but shuddering beneath the weight of their combined fury and guilt and grief. Phil’s breath comes in short, sharp bursts. The roof of his mouth buzzes. Black dots dance in the corners of his vision. 

“My soulmate,” Phil gasps. “You’re my soulmate.”

“Well, yeah.” Technoblade cocks his head, bemused. “Why do you think I asked Tachmahall to work with you in the first place? It's sure not because you were charmin'.”

Phil drops back onto his bed, putting his head between his knees and sucking in deep breaths. It wasn’t a strange coincidence, after all. This whole time, his soulmate has been right here and Phil was too thick to see it. Of course it’s Technoblade. Gods, of course it is. There is a rightness to it that settles deep in Phil’s chest—an ancient recognition finally appeased. 

It it absolutely fucking terrifying.

“Phil? Hey, Phil—oh, jeez.” The bed creaks as Technoblade sits down next to him, nudging one trembling wing out of the way so he can lean their sides together. “Just breathe, okay? In for four, hold for seven, out for eight. Yeah, that’s right, you got it.”

Phil wants to hug his soulmate.

Phil wants to throw up.

Phil does neither of these things, and only curls his wings tightly around himself as he gulps for breath. The darkness at the edges of the world recedes, and his trembling fades slowly. Technoblade rubs his back, thumping awkwardly between his shoulders. 

“There, there?” he tries. “It’s okay. I thought—you really didn’t know?”

Phil groans.

“Right, right, okay. Um. Sorry for not tellin' you? I kind of thought you knew, and we were both just dancing around it because we’re emotionally constipated, but I guess you don’t have spirits to—anyway.” Technoblade thumps him again, too hard. “Sorry. Elytrians are weird.”

Phil groans, again, and then flops sideways on his bed.

Technoblade covers him with a blanket and then lays next to him. “So, like,” he says to the ceiling. “I can stay with you?”

“Persistent little shit,” Phil rasps.

“Yeah.” Technoblade rolls over to face him. “If you really want me to leave, I won’t make you duel me about it. I’ll go. But I want you to send me away because it’s what’s best for us, not just for you. You’re being kind of selfish.”

“I guess I am,” Phil admits. “I just wanted you to be safe the way I couldn’t be.”

“I know. It’s okay. But we’re at war, and I’m not going to sit at home while my sounder fights. I’m young, but I’m not that young.” Technoblade is quiet, for a moment, his tail flicking thoughtfully. “How old were you when you joined the war?”

“Thirteen.”

Technoblade gasps, scandalized. “Hypocrite!”

“Yeah.” Phil laughs wetly. “I know.”

“I guess I get where you’re comin' from. If I could have kept you out of the war back then, I would’ve,” Technoblade admits. “So, how about this? I won’t fight in another battle. I’ll stay with the other juveniles in the field hospital. I’ll even step back as your advisor. But I still want to stay in camp and work with you sometimes. And when I get my teeth you won’t try to keep me from fighting!”

“You drive a hard bargain.”

“Technoblade the bargainer, that’s what they call me.”

“You have a deal, Technoblade the bargainer.”

Technoblade sits up straight, his eyes brightening. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Phil says, and then jabs a finger at him. “But no fighting until then.”

Technoblade grins, nodding earnestly. “Yes, Colonel! I’m gonna go tell Tachmahall!”

Phil huffs as Technoblade scrambles over him and off of the bed, one of his knees slamming enthusiastically into the small of Phil’s back. He trots out of the tent, humming a jaunty little tune, and Phil can feel his soulmate—can feel Technoblade’s— excitement and joy pulsing in the back of his mind. He relaxes into the feeling, sending his own contentment back, and feels Technoblade brighten even further.

The next day, Technoblade shoves a necklace into Phil’s face.

“This is for you,” he declares, “because you won the battle.”

“Oh?”

Phil takes it, turning it over in his hands. The necklace is a thin golden chain, the links all smooth and delicate below the pads of his fingers; a small, square emerald dangles from its center.

“Sounders share riches after battle,” Technoblade explains, unwilling to meet his eyes. “You’re sounder, so I thought—but if you don’t like it, it’s whatever. I can return it.”

Phil harrumphs, settling the necklace around his neck and tucking the emerald beneath his tunic.

“Mate, you can’t have this back,” he decides, “ever.”

Technoblade beams.

(The next day, Phil gifts him with an earring of his own—gold, to match his others, but with an emerald hanging off of it. Technoblade hugs him so hard his ribs creak.)

Chapter Text

The next three years pass far more swiftly than Phil would prefer them to.

Technoblade sticks to his promise of pacifism, although there’s a near-manic light in his eyes every time Phil goes to fight and leaves him behind. Each time Phil wins a battle, too, Technoblade foists more gems and jewelry at him. Phil's coat now sports several resplendent gold buttons, more tassels than he knows what to do with, and a pair of silver cufflinks. Much to Technoblade's disappointment, most of the other jewelry is set aside for special occasions (save for the emerald necklace he always keeps tucked beneath his shirt collars). If he had his way, Phil would would be strutting around like a bedazzled prince every day of the week.

As it is, however, Phil is a soldier and not a prince; so some concessions must be made.

When he isn't busy dressing Phil up like a seamstress' mannequin, Technoblade occupies himself by devouring Phil’s small collection of books, and then by filling his own shelves with diagrams of ancient battles and scrolls of philosophy. He takes a real shine to war tactics, and always offers clever advice whenever Phil is designing battle plans. He wrestles with the other brutes in his sounder and attends lessons with Tachmahall, gleefully rambling about the new knowledge he acquires in a host of subjects: literature, history, farming, the arts. Phil thinks he learns more from Technoblade's enthusiastic rants than he ever did from his own lessons, when he was a nestling. 

(Then again, those long-ago lessons had been cut short. Phil's just glad he learned basic writing and arithmetic in time.)

It’s good to see his soulmate growing up, Phil thinks, even if it is in the middle of a war camp—and grow up Technoblade does, in more ways than one. By the time his adult teeth erupt, he’s gained another two feet in height and towers over most people. Phil estimates him to be around two hundred and fifty pounds already, and with more to gain if the other brutes in his sounder are anything to go by. He is, in a word, massive.

Phil has commissioned a set of armor for him: black and gold, in the manor of piglins, with bracers inlaid with ruby, and a pair of sturdy black boots. At the rate he grows, it won’t fit him for long, but it’s the thought behind the thing. Technoblade hasn't won any gold or jewels for himself since his first (and only) battle, and while Phil doesn't feel bad about keeping him out of the fray he does feel bad about that. But Technoblade balks at the thought of accepting unearned treasure, and while Phil can understand the pride behind that particular piglin custom he also finds it a little silly. The armor, he hopes, will be a happy medium. It's not quite a war-present, but a it's present to prepare for a war, so surely that's acceptable. He plans to present the set to Technoblade on the eve of his first real battle. 

That, too, comes sooner than Phil would have hoped.

“Phil!” Technoblade ducks into his tent, tail lashing. “Guess what!”

Phil eyes him warily. “What?”

Technoblade opens his mouth to display a truly fearsome array of tusks, incisors, and molars. “Teeth!”

“Teeth,” Phil agrees.

Technoblade closes his jaws with a heavy, bone-chilling snap, and then whines like a piglet. “Phil, seriously? You were supposed to be excited.”

“I know, I know.” Phil laughs, turning to face him fully. “Congratulations, Technoblade. You’re a real man now.”

Technoblade straightens up, lifting his chin. “Yes. Yes, I am. You know what that means?”

“You’re a war monger.”

“I get to go to war!” Technoblade exclaims, heedless of Phil’s wry comment, and flexes his fists in excitement. “When is the next battle? Put me in it. Give me somethin' fun to do. Can I fight with you? Are you going to fight, too?”

“Techno, Techno, mate, calm,” Phil says, patting Technoblade’s chest—the highest point he can easily reach, these days. “The next battle won’t be for a few weeks. But I’ll keep my word, alright? You’ll be in it. I expect you’ll fight with your sounder, but if you’d rather be with me we can make it happen.”

“Yes! I want to fight with you, Phil. I’ve never seen you fight.”

“Sure you have.”

“Sparring’s not the same. You know they call you the Angel of Death?”

Phil does, in fact, know this. It is a bitter thing.

“Yes,” he says.

“Oh.” Technoblade tilts his head, studying Phil. “You don’t like it.”

It’s not a guess. Phil is sure he can feel as much, through their bond. They’ve been trying to wall each other off less, these days, as long as they’re not in private conversations or at war. 

“I’m sorry,” Technoblade says. “I won’t call you that. But, I think I want to have a cool name. What do you think about the Blade, or the Blood God?”

“Melodramatic much?”

Technoblade harrumphs, collapsing onto Phil’s bed; the springs squeak dangerously, ill-prepared for a piglin's bulk. “You have no taste. Hum, but Phil? I have a question.”

“What is it?”

“What are we actually fighting for?” Technoblade frowns, steepling his fingers. “I’ve been thinkin' about it and I don’t understand. I mean, I did, at first—your people were trying to drive off the invaders. But we’ve done that now. Your lands are safe.”

“They are,” Phil agrees, “but the King wants to expand our borders. It’s a form of reparation.”

“Since they attacked you, you’ll take their land? That way, they won’t want to attack again?”

“Exactly.”

“How much land?”

“What?”

“How much land will you take?”

“I don’t know, mate. However much the King decides he wants.”

“I don’t see why the King should get to decide,” Technoblade says, and then flicks his tail dismissively. “But that’s besides the point. You’ll be made General after, won’t you?”

“I expect so.”

“And that’s what you want to do?”

Phil pauses to think about it, and Technoblade doesn’t rush him. Phil thinks about the nestlings safe in their homes, with their parents alive and away from war, far far far from the borders of any other land. He thinks about expanding their military might until their enemies are dust beneath his shoe. He thinks about never being scared for himself or his family ever again. 

“Yes,” he says, “it is.”

Technoblade sits up, looking warmly at him. “Okay. That’s all I wanted to know.”

A week later, the battle begins. 

Phil glides high above his troops, surveying their movements as they advance on the enemy’s fortress. It isn’t a large outpost, by any means, but it sits directly on the River Reine and is a pivotal trading point. If they can seize it, they can choke one of the enemy’s most vital supply lines and weaken their forces even further. The piglin sounders have been arrayed on the frontlines, being better-equipped to bear the brunt of the first bitter fighting. Phil doesn't like placing Technoblade there, but there can be no special treatment if Phil wants to keep him as an officer, and it would shame him to be held back when his sounder marched to the front.

“Wing two points to the left,” one of his scouts calls.

Phil looks away from the sounders to see the flash of a green friendly flag from the elytrian messenger approaching, and his signalman waves a welcome in return. The messenger comes into position off of Phil’s left wing, slowing to keep pace with him. 

“Private Jenkins, sir,” the messenger says briskly, “reporting from Second Lieutenant Technoblade.”

Phil arches an eyebrow. “Oh? What’s he want?”

A quick glance through Technoblade’s emotions confirms that his soulmate isn’t injured, but is concerned—though about what, Phil could hardly guess. 

“He requests a private word with you, sir.”

Phil clucks his tongue, glancing down once more at his troops. All seems to be advancing well, though the western front is lagging—and isn’t that where Technoblade’s sounder is? Frowning, he says, “Take me to him.”

Together, they circle to the western front. Technoblade waves him down. He’s standing off to the side of his sounder, and the rest of the brutes mill anxiously in front of him. Phil wonders if these are pre-battle jitters. But Technoblade had been so excited for his first real action—Phil seriously doubts any nerves could make him back out now.

“Techno,” Phil says, shaking out his wings with a rattle of chainmail. “What’s the problem?”

“There are bombs on the riverbank,” Technoblade says. “We smell them.”

Phil draws up immediately, his chest tightening. “What? Are you sure?”

Technoblade hesitates. “It smells like a bomb does, anyway,” he says. “I’ve smelled it before, in the demolitions workshop. I wouldn’t know for sure without digging one up, but I wouldn’t want to do that. I suppose they’re rigged to blow when we disturb them.”

“Alright. Alright.” Phil takes a deep breath, his wings twitching. “Can we march around them?”

“Not easily. There are a lot of them. It would take at least a few days to mark out all of their locations without losing anyone, and another few days if we wanted to skirt them.”

“I’ll speak to the general,” Phil decides. “Halt your troops. Don’t go anywhere near the bombs.”

“Colonel,” Technoblade agrees, and then turns to shout the new order at his fellow brutes.

Phil lunges into the air, easily swallowing the distance between himself and the general’s encampment. His wings have grown larger and stronger in the years since he was a messenger, but he still hasn’t lost his speed or agility. He makes it to the tent in good time, and lands briskly with his guard. He’s ushered in, though not without a few surprised looks. One particular officer eyes him warily, and moves away when he looks towards them in return.

“Colonel,” General Smith says, glancing up at him as he enters the tent. “What is it?”

“There are bombs,” Phil says abruptly, and at once a low murmur begins among the staff. “The enemy has placed them along the riverbank. There’s no quick way through or around. We have to halt the march."

“We can’t do that. The King’s orders are to seize this fortress no matter what. Surely, if we marked out the bombs’ positions—”

“It would take days,” Phil argues, “and the troops would need to make their way through the minefield one at a time. Exposed like that, our soldiers would only be good target practice for the enemy archers."

“How did you find them?”

“What?”

“The bombs, how did you find them?”

“The piglins,” Phil says. “They can smell them.”

General Smith nods slowly, looking down at his maps. “I didn’t expect that,” he murmurs. “Richards, have the piglin sounders fall back. I don’t want them anywhere near the bombs.”

Phil sighs gustily with relief. “Good. Thank you, General. I’ll go to facilitate the retreat.”

“Oh, Phil.” General Smith’s eyes flick up, weary and unhappy. “I can’t let you do that.”

The general’s guards suddenly close in behind him, seizing his elbows. Phil flinches, startled, and looks around at them with wide eyes. 

“What are you doing?” he asks. “Get off, what’s—General?”

“The King’s orders,” General Smith repeats, gravely, “are to seize this outpost without fail. The bombs are a misfortune, but nothing we can’t handle. The demolitions experts expect no more than a couple hundred deaths. It is a worthwhile sacrifice.”

“You knew,” Phil breathes, horror creeping over him. “You knew the bombs were there. You marched us straight for them, you—!”

“It’s a shame,” General Smith admits, “but if we retreat now we will give the enemy hope. We can afford to lose a few soldiers, Phil, but to give them hope? Unthinkable.”

“You motherfucker!” Phil snarls, lurching forward. The guards’ fingers dig into his arms, hauling him back, and a third guard crushes his wings against his sides when he tries to flare them. “You can’t do this! Those are our soldiers out there! Those are our people!”

“Well, not initially,” General Smith mutters. “Initially, it was the piglins.”

Phil shouts and lunges forward again, straining desperately against the guards. He feels the rough bite of a rope secured around his wrists, and then another around his wings to bind them to his back. He thrashes against the restraints wildly, frantically—he can’t let them do this! He can’t let them march his men to their deaths for the sake of a fucking trade post!

General Smith regards him with pity. “Take him to the brig. Clip his wings.”

Phil screams curses and insults as he’s dragged out of the tent and into the makeshift brig, but the general's staff only look at with deep unease. The guards pin him down, hands heavy on his shoulders, and shear his flightfeathers without finesse. They shove him into one of the brig’s few, dusty cells and snap a padlock on without bothering to untie him.

“You murderers!” he shrieks after them, flinging himself against the heavy iron bars. “Don’t you have any conscience? They’re going to die! They’re all going to die if you let this happen!”

At once, Technoblade tears the wall between them down, reaching for him with a wave of worry. Phil is too furious to respond, and only paces circles in his cell while he breathes between clenched teeth. He strains his wrists against the ropes and feels rough fiber bite, again; hot blood trickles down his palms and from the tips of his fingers. 

“Forward march!” 

The command rings above him, above the troops, and Phil screams. 

At some point General Smith must tire of his howling, because one of the guards comes and slams his head into the floor. 

When Phil wakes again, he’s groggy and sore. He rolls over and reaches for his blankets. Why is it so cold in his tent, and so damp? He blinks his eyes open on darkness and sees iron bars in front of him. This isn’t his tent, is it? This isn’t—

“Fuck!”

Phil sits up quickly, and the room spins around him. He groans and puts his head between his knees, breathing deeply to quell his sudden nausea. At some point the ropes have been removed, but his wrists are chafed and sore. His wings hang limply behind him, the feathers sliced at jagged and ugly angles. 

He has no idea where he’s at. He’s certainly not in the field brig anymore—the air is too cool and still, and the cell is one in a line of many others. He’s alone here. He paces a small circle, his heart cramming itself into his throat. The silence is unnerving. How did he get here? Was he taken by General Smith, or by the enemy? 

Most importantly—what happened to his soldiers?

Technoblade wouldn’t have marched his sounder forward, not even with a general’s order. But if the piglins had been ordered to the back of the army, they wouldn’t have been able to warn the others. When the first bombs went off, there must have been some confusion on the front lines—but the soldiers would have been pressed forward, inevitably, into their own violent grave. 

Shit, Phil thinks, crouching and hanging his head as bile creeps hot and sour up his throat. Shit shit shit.

In the back of his mind, Technoblade’s emotions simmer: rage and bloodlust and terror. They don’t tell Phil anything he didn’t already know. He can only hope that Technoblade and his sounder escaped safely. They might be convicted for desertation, but that’s better than being blown up by the bombs. Phil’s reputation can’t protect them if they are deserters, though—Phil’s reputation can’t protect anyone anymore, because the goddamn general arrested him.

Phil slumps to sit in the far corner, curling his wings around himself and chirping once, like a frightened nestling. A half-clipped feather drops to the floor, and he reaches forward to pluck the rest of the loose feathers off of his wings. His face feels bruised and swollen, his jaw sore where it struck the floor. He thinks he probably lost a tooth. 

Techno still has less than me, he thinks, half-hysterically. Pig teeth.

Driven by boredom and desperation both, Phil makes his way to the front of the cell to examine the locks. They prove to be both sturdy and clever, and he gives up shortly. There’s no point wasting energy on useless effort. There has to be another way out. He tugs the bars at the front of the cell, testing for weakness, and prods along the stone walls and flooring. All is unfortunately well-constructed. No matter. Someone has to come for him eventually—to feed him, if nothing else—and he’ll be able to get more information then.

Unfortunately, no one comes until late that evening, when Phil has lapsed into another doze. He wakes up to the clang of a distant door to find a bowl of rice already in front of him, and curses himself for sleeping through a potential escape attempt. He shovels the rice into his mouth, determined to keep his strength up against future need, and then slumps back against the wall.

The next morning, he finally meets one of his captors.

“You!” Phil throws himself against the bars, baring his teeth. His captor—a boy who can’t be older than twelve—flinches back with a startled squawk. “Who are you? Where are we?”

The boy ruffles his freckled feathers uncertainly, sliding a bowl of oatmeal between the bars of Phil’s cell. “I’m, um, Jeff,” he says. “You’re in prison.”

“I can see that, Jeff,” Phil hisses. “Where is the prison?”

“Under—underground?”

“Did they hire you for your conversational skills or your intelligence?” Phil snaps, and regrets it when the boy’s face flushes in embarrassment. “Shit, no, I’m sorry, Jeff. Don’t listen to me.”

Jeff takes this plea entirely too seriously and leaves, ignoring Phil’s shouts for his return.

When he does return, it’s dinnertime and another bowl of rice.

“Hey, Jeff,” Phil says wearily. “What’s up?”

Jeff eyes him uncertainly, nudging the bowl towards him. 

“Where are we?” Phil repeats, when Jeff doesn’t immediately bolt for the exit. “I mean, are we in one of the King’s prisons?”

“Yeah,” Jeff says, and Phil’s shoulders sag. “Because you’re, um—a traitor?”

Phil bristles indignantly. “After everything I’ve done for them!”

Jeff steps back, and Phil schools himself into some semblance of calm once again. “They said you were a colonel. They called you the Angel of Death,” Jeff says, wringing his hands. “Is that true?”

“Yeah.” Phil scoffs. “For whatever good it did.”

“That’s pretty cool. So, uh, why did you leave?”

Phil shakes his head. “Never mind, kid. It doesn’t matter.”

Whatever story General Smith is going to spin won’t be kind to him, he’s sure—and who would believe him over a soldier of decades and friend to the King? He is reminded, bitterly, that despite everything he is still only a orphaned nestling. There’s nothing special about him. He has no noble blood, no royal connections, no powerful family. He’s just—

He’s just Phil, and Phil is disposable.

“What happened out there?” Phil asks, tired. “Who won the battle?”

“It’s still going on.”

“Really?” Phil’s brow furrows. “It was supposed to be a short siege.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t know.” Jeff’s wings shuffle anxiously. “Um. I have to go now.”

“Right.” Phil curls up against the wall again. “Bye, Jeff.”

Throughout that night, Technoblade’s fury is unceasing. Phil finally reaches out to him, offering him a sliver of comfort, and Technoblade seizes greedily on it. His worry surges up to overcome his anger, and Phil hums softly in his throat. He tries to send back some sort of assurance that he’s okay, but his emotions are too bleak to be much comfort for his distressed soulmate.

I miss you, he thinks. Techno, be safe.

In the distance, Phil hears bombs.

Phil spends a month in the prison.

Jeff is a constant companion: supplier of endless rice, oatmeal, and information. He updates Phil on the status of the war and asks for stories in return. Phil is happy enough to offer them, once he’s realized Jeff is better utilized as a friend than an enemy. He tells Phil that the war is still going, although the military seems to be dividing. 

(“Good,” Phil says bitterly, when he hears this. “I hope they hang General Smith.”

“Oh.”

“What?”

“I get why you’re a traitor now.”

“Shut up, Jeff.”)

In the meantime, Technoblade’s anger is unfaltering save for brief intermissions for sleep and gleeful victory. Wherever and whoever he’s fighting, he seems to be winning. His confidence grows with each passing day, and his self-assurance soothes Phil’s anxieties. Technoblade might be young, but he’s smart and he’s skilled. He’ll be alright. 

Then, at the end of the month, the prison is stormed.

Phil hears the shriek of swords above him and jolts awake, pressing himself to the back of the prison with his wings flared. There are distant screams and shouts, and the thunder of heavy boots on the floorboards upstairs. His breathing quickens, and he flexes his fists as he wonders who’s come for him. 

A gentle prod towards Technoblade reveals that his soulmate is thick in the haze of bloodlust again, fighting viciously somewhere. Phil hopes, uselessly, that it’s here. But General Smith would never let Technoblade so close to him, not if he had any sort of intelligence whatsoever. If Technoblade ever found out what he did…

Phil can only hope, somehow, that Technoblade does find out. He might not be able to avenge his men himself, not imprisoned and stripped of rank—but Technoblade can, and would be more than willing to. His soulmate’s sense of justice has always been ruthless and absolute, and his sense of mercy near non-existent. But to hope that would be to hope that Technoblade turns on General Smith, and such a thing would see him branded as a traitor, too. 

Deeply unhappy with the situation no matter which way he looks at it, Phil begins to pace again. He only stops when he hears the door at the end of the hall swing open, and the familiar patter of Jeff’s feet comes running for him. A much larger set of footsteps follows behind, heavy and dangerous: a predator prowling.

“Phil! Phil, we have to—”

Jeff’s voice cuts off around a scream and a gurgle. 

“Jeff?!” Phil throws himself forward, straining to see down the hall, and—

Jeff is there.

So is Technoblade.

Phil barely recognizes him. His new armor, so lovingly maintained, is now dented around the edges and crusted with dry blood. His mane hangs in matted disarray around his shoulders. There are new scars across his snout, and a rip through one of his ears. Blood dapples his emerald earring. The light reflects red from his wild eyes.

He is up to his tusks in Jeff’s throat.

“Technoblade! Tech, Techno—” Phil reaches uselessly for him, twining an arm through the cell bars. “Stop, hey, what are you—what’s—?”

Technoblade draws back, letting Jeff’s body slide to the floor. He snorts, spattering fresh blood across the wall, and gives himself a shake hard enough to rattle his armor. He walks quickly towards Phil, rumbling urgently in his throat, only to stop when another piglin comes down the stairs behind him—at this, he whirls around and snarls. The piglin wisely retreats.

“Techno.” Phil grabs Technoblade’s arm as soon as his soulmate is close enough. His fingers slip over the bloodied bracer, catching on the facets of rubies. “Gods, fuck, what are you doing here?”

Technoblade lowers his head, pressing it to Phil’s through the iron bars. He stinks of old blood and sour sweat. He’s rumbling low in his throat again, his eyes roving over Phil for any sign of injury or illness. Satisfied that Phil isn’t in imminent danger, he turns his attention on the locks and makes quick work of them with a crushing snap of his jaws.

As soon as the door slides open, Phil surges into Technoblade’s arms. 

“Mate,” he says, his eyes stinging, “what took so long?”

Technoblade rumbles even harder, the noise echoing through Phil’s hollow bones, and holds him close. He snuffles at Phil’s hair and touches one wing delicately, his rumble trading off for a blistering growl when he realizes how short the feathers are. He brings his hand back up, cupping the back of Phil’s head, and only falters in his growl when Phil wraps his wings around them. 

“It’s okay,” Phil whispers, pressing his face to the sleek plates of Technoblade’s armor. “It’s okay. They’ll grow back, right?”

Technoblade huffs in response, nuzzling the top of his head. 

“I—” Technoblade clears his throat, as though it’s difficult for him to speak. “I was—worried. You’re okay?”

“I’ll be better once we get out of this shithole,” Phil says, “but yeah, I’m okay, mate. What about you? You look like garbage.”

“Rude and ungrateful slander,” Technoblade mutters, but his amusement pulses over their bond. “I’ll have you know, old man, that I have been very hard at work leadin' a coup d’etat while you’ve been sitting around here twiddling your thumbs.”

“You’ve been what?”

Technoblade leans back, peering down at him. “General Smith tried to march our men into the bombs. I wouldn’t let him. I thought that would make you happy.”

“It—it does, I just—I don’t understand.” Phil shakes his head, appalled. He expected Technoblade to refuse the order, but to have refused the order for the entire army? That will certainly see him labeled as a traitor to the crown. “How did you—?”

“Well, it was easy, after the first few ranks started blowin' up. The soldiers weren’t really fond of being used as fodder, and they were more than willing to listen to me after I killed General Smith.” Technoblade cocks his head, a sly glint in his eyes. “They call me  the General, now.”

Phil’s heart plummets to the pit of his stomach.

On one hand, he’s relieved that the soldiers were spared their grisly fate.

On the other, Technoblade murdered General Smith.

“Technoblade, you can’t just do that!” he cries, stepping back.

“Actually, I can, and it wasn’t even that hard. That man was old and weak. I don’t know why he was still in charge when they could have had you, instead.”

“He was appointed by the King! Tech, this is—holy fuck, this is treason, this—”

“It isn’t. The piglins are your allies, not your slaves. We were free to leave the King’s service at any time. It’s only good sense that the elytrians decided to leave with us.”

“Oh my gods.” Phil crouches, scrubbing his hands over his face. “We’re dead. We’re so dead.”

“Nonsense. The military is mine, now, and so are you. I won’t let anything hurt you.”

“The King—!”

Technoblade crouches, too, his dark eyes catching Phil’s. There is an intensity to him that Phil has never before witnessed. Suddenly, it's easy to think of him as a brute—half-mad, bloodspattered, hulking. Blood God, Phil thinks hysterically. It’s the Blood God.

“I don’t fight for the King, Phil,” the Blood God says softly, reverently. “I have never fought for the King.”

What the hell is Phil supposed to say to that, huh?!

Fortunately, he doesn’t have time to say anything. The door at the end of the hallway slams open again, and Technoblade turns on it with a savage roar. Phil snatches the dagger from Technoblade’s hip even as his soulmate hauls his battleax off of his shoulder, and the two of them lunge to the fray. Technoblade cuts down the prison guard blocking their way up the stairs, and they explode into the upper chamber. 

“Colonel!” Yimalla roars, her tail whipping with vicious delight. “You are back!”

“Hi, yes,” Phil says, scaling up Technoblade’s back to properly survey their surroundings. The upper chamber is in full melee; Technoblade’s piglins are engaging closely with the prison guards, and the floor is awash with blood. “Now let’s get the fuck out of here.”

Technoblade bellows the command, his voice carrying over the chaos. 

Phil springs from Technoblade’s shoulder, landing neatly with a flutter of his wings. He sticks close to Technoblade’s side as they make their way towards the exit, driving off any of the guards who dare to come at his soulmate’s back. He only stumbles when he hears a distant, muted pop; he looks around, baffled.

Then, Technoblade howls.

“Techno?!” 

Phil lurches around to Technoblade’s front, gripping his arms to halt his sudden staggering. Technoblade tosses his head, snarling and coughing. A fine red powder coats the front of his face and throat. At first, Phil is terrified that it’s blood—but it doesn’t have any wet shine, and the scent of it is pepperish and stinging. Already, Technoblade’s eyes are beginning to swell shut, and mucus streams from his nose and mouth. 

“The hell is that?” one of the other piglins cries, drawing up in alarm. 

“Poison,” another hisses. “They’ve got poison guns.”

Another pop echoes to Phil’s left, and he drags Technoblade forward. “Out!” he shouts. “Everybody out!”

Technoblade stumbles blindly after Phil, slinging his head. “Phil?” he rumbles, and there’s fear in his voice. “Phil, I don’t—I can’t—”

“It’s alright, mate,” Phil says. “Just stay with me, I’ve got you. We’re getting out of here.”

Phil shoulders the prison doors open, shoving Technoblade out into the fresh air. Technoblade cries out in disapproval, reaching back for him, but Phil pushes his hand away and turns back for the other piglins. Several of them, too, have been blinded by the pepperguns. Phil shepherds them as best he can, though several are so battlemad they lunge to bite him when he tries. 

“Phil? Phil?” Technoblade’s voice rings over the crowd, thick with distress.

“Go on!” Phil shouts, shoving one small piglin ahead of himself. “Go wash your ugly mug and I’ll be right out!”

The miasma of pepper hangs thick in the room, and even Phil isn’t immune to it. His own eyes are beginning to water, and his throat itches as his nose starts to stream. Whatever awful concoction the guards have created, it’s damned effective—and how much more so must it be against the piglins, whose sense of smell is so keen? 

“You!”

A hand catches Phil’s ankle, yanking roughly. He hits the ground. His chin cracks against the cobblestone, and he kicks until he feels something crack beneath his boot. The hand releases him, but several more hands pile on top of him as soon as it does. The guards’ weight presses him down, his ribs straining, and he struggles to breathe against the pressure and the pepper both.

“Get off,” he hisses, his nails scrabbling against the floor. “Get the hell off of me!”

“Not a chance. You’re going to hell, you fuckin’ traitor, and I’ll take you there,” one of the guard snarls, and Phil feels something blunt strike the back of his head—once, twice, and then—

Then, there is darkness.

Phil wakes up in another prison.

The despair he feels upon realizing this is so great as to be crushing. He was so close to escaping. Technoblade was right there! They had been together, they had been free, they had been—

Phil covers his face, breathing shakily. Fuck. Fuck, he wants to go home. Forget the fighting. Forget the war. He just wants to go and build a nest with Technoblade, somewhere far away from borders and battles and kings. He’s given his people his loyalty for twenty-five years, and it hasn’t mattered a goddamn bit. 

Technoblade’s distress is even more prominent, now, through their bond—but there is no physical pain coming from him, so Phil has to hope that the effects of the pepper have worn off. It’s encouraging to find that, though his soulmate is agitated, he is not defeated. If anything, his determination has only grown.

It's only a matter of time until this prison is stormed, too.

The King must know it as well, because the next day a pair of guards comes to fetch him. Phil isn’t sure what he expects, but it isn’t the cold and dank room they deposit him in. There is only a single chair bolted to the floor, and no windows. The darkness is complete. Phil stays here for several hours (at least, he assumes; his sense of time is skewed by the dark), and the drab monotony of the day is only broken when an elderly human steps inside to light several of the sconces on the wall.

“Colonel Phil Za,” the man greets, setting down a large black bag. “It’s a pleasure.”

“I wish I could say likewise.” Phil shuffles his wings uncertainly. “Who are you?”

“They call me Yancy. I’ve come to ask you a few questions. You’re of a bit of interest to the King these days, you see.”

“You’re his interrogator,” Phil surmises, doing his best to ignore the clammy animal fear that wells up from his belly.

Yancy clucks his tongue. “That’s such an unflattering term. If you cooperate, I expect you’ll find me an easy man to work with.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Well, then.” Yancy smiles at him. “Not so much.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Sit down, please.”

Phil looks at the wooden chair, his hands curling into fists.

“Don’t make this harder than it has to be,” Yancy says, clucking his tongue. “If we work together, you’ll get through this just fine.”

Phil sits slowly, digging his fingers into the armrests.

“Now, you were Lieutenant Technoblade’s colonel, weren’t you?” Yancy asks, setting out an array of tools on the low table alongside the wall. 

“I was.”

“Then you knew him well?”

“As well as I knew any of my officers; less so, maybe. He was newly promoted,” Phil says, his fingers twitching. He could grab one of those tools. He could grab that small dagger and lodge it into Yancy’s jaw and—

—and then what?

Then, he’d be trapped here with a corpse.

“Rumor has it he’s your soulmate,” Yancy says breezily, and Phil’s heart stutters. “Is that true?”

“No.”

“Well.” Yancy smiles at him, stepping over to fasten a leather restraint around his wrist. “You know how rumors can get out of hand. Were you friends with him?”

Phil yanks away from the restraint, his heart hammering. “No! I didn’t—I—what are you doing?”

“Now, now, you know it has to be this way—if for appearances than nothing else,” Yancy says, and looks at him with disappointment. “Put your arm back down. I won’t make it tight.”

Phil leans away from him, instead, his throat tight. He doesn’t want to be restrained. He doesn’t want to be in this room with this man and those tools and these questions. But the room is empty, and dark, and there is no way out. If he doesn’t comply, Phil has no doubt that the guards will be brought in to make him comply, and Phil is very tired of being bullied by guards. Maybe, if he can stay on Yancy’s good side…

Phil sets his arm back down.

“Good,” Yancy says, with a pleased little smile. He tightens the restraint, securing Phil’s wrist to the armrest. “Not too tight?”

Phil shakes his head wordlessly, and trembles as Yancy repeats the process on his other wrist and both ankles. His wings are left free, but pinioned between his back and the chair, and useless enough when he can’t even fly with them. He could strike Yancy, maybe, but the angle is too awkward for a solid blow. The most he'd do is make him sneeze on a faceful of feathers.

Phil is trapped.

“Now, Technoblade—he’s one of your new officers, you said?”

“Yes. He was just made lieutenant a few weeks ago.”

“But he served under you before that. He must’ve, to have commended himself to you for a promotion.”

“He came from the Nether with the first piglin sounders,” Phil admits. “I’ve known him a few years.”

“He must be fond of you, to have broken into the last prison and freed you.”

Phil looks away, his jaw clenching. “He’s foolhardy and reckless.”

“I should say so!” Yancy laughs, leaning against the far wall. “Not acting on your orders, then?”

“Not at all.” 

That part’s true enough—Phil’s last order was to keep the sounders from marching on the bombs. He certainly hadn’t told Technoblade to stage a coup, or to break into a royal prison just to get Phil back. He can’t say he’s disappointed that Technoblade did, but it wasn’t Phil’s idea. That part was all his stubborn, clever soulmate.

“I have to believe you there. General Smith says you weren’t aware of the bombs until shortly after the march began, and he arrested you after that. You wouldn’t have had time to communicate anything to Technoblade.” Yancy cocks his head. “Unless, of course, you were soulmates.”

“We’re not,” Phil repeats, “though there’s no way I can prove it.”

“No,” Yancy muses. “S’ppose not.”

Yancy drifts back over to his table of tools, picking up a pair of rusted pliers and twirling them. Sweat breaks out on the back of Phil’s neck, and he shifts his wings restlessly. There are a lot of things those pliers can be used for, and none of them pleasant. 

“The problem is, Phil—can I call you Phil?—the problem is that Technoblade is coming for the King. He’s managed to seize control of General Smith’s troops, and his little militia is rampaging all over the continent looking for you. Clever little thing! I can see why you promoted him. But you understand why we can’t have uprisings like this in a civilized society. We need to stop him, and you are going to help us.”

“No,” Phil says, the word tearing from his throat. “I can’t.”

Yancy arches an eyebrow, crouching in front of him. “No? Whyever not?”

“I can’t help you from here,” Phil says, swallowing thickly. “I don’t even know where he is or what he’s doing.”

“No,” Yancy allows, “but you’re the one who taught him, aren’t you? He was your little war advisor, back in the day. I don’t think he’s forgotten the great Colonel Phil Za’s tactics! So, Phil, tell me—what do you think your little protege is going to do next?”

Phil's jaw tightens, and a furious shiver runs the length of his spine. To give them any sort of advantage over Technoblade is unthinkable. It would be a far worse treason than anything he could do against the King, who has been so distant and uncaring when Technoblade has been so close and kind. Maybe, once, Phil fought for a King—but Technoblade is right. Phil doesn't fight for the King, anymore. 

Phil hasn't fought for the King in a long time.

“Fuck,” Phil says, “you.”

“Ah, well.” Yancy straightens up. “Can’t say I didn’t try to be civil.”

Phil wants to grit his teeth and bear the torture without a noise, just to stick it to this cocky asshole—but by the second yanked fingernail, he’s gasping, and by the seventh he’s chirping like an injured nestling. When Yancy brings the brand around, pressing the hot poker into his skin, Phil screams.

It is almost a relief to be brought to the gallows.

It has been ten days of torture and questions he cannot answer—not without putting Technoblade in danger. It has been ten days of little water and less food. It has been ten days of darkness, and silence, and isolation. It has been ten days of Technoblade’s fear and helplessness and rage boiling ceaselessly in the back of his mind, driving him to misery even in sleep. It has been ten unbearable days.

On the eleventh, Phil is marched to the city square of the capitol.

There’s no energy left in him to fight. The pads of his feet are sliced and sore to walk on. He leans heavily against the guards as they lead him out, and he cringes when the sunlight breaks onto his bruised face. The roar of the crowd is overwhelming. Above him—far above him, always far above him—stands the King, his snowy wings spread and his crown glinting gold in the sunlight. His cloak falls like a wash of blood down his back.

“My people!” he calls. “Today, we execute a traitor. Let this be a reminder to those of you who have witnessed the rebellion coursing across our lands. That rebellion, too, will end at the gallows. This is where the rebellion dies. This is where Technoblade dies. This is where Phil Za dies!”

The crowd booms with noise around him, and Phil cringes. The guards jostle him towards the stairs. Phil looks up, and up, and up. A rope hangs over his head, creaking softly in the breeze. The sky above it is clear and blue and endless and Phil is reminded of the rope swing Mother made him in the flower garden when he was small. 

Home, Phil thinks. I want to go home.

The King is still speaking, and the crowd is still screaming. 

Phil is a traitor, somehow: a traitor and a criminal and a rebel and he never once meant to be any of those things. Maybe that's just the way Phil's life is. Maybe there's no point in trying to be anything at all. 

The executioner fits the noose around his neck, securing it snugly. It’s rough, sun-warmed. He swallows and feels it press against his pulse. The crows are already circling high overhead, cawing raucously to each other in anticipation. One of them perches on the gallows, tilting its head to look Phil in the eye.

It looks so sad.

I’m sorry, Phil thinks, and his eyes sting. Oh, gods, I’m sorry.

He knows what it feels like to be born without a soulmate, but he does not know what it feels like to live after losing one. He’ll have to leave that to Technoblade, now, and to the three other soulmates yet to be born. It’s not fair. He did everything right. He did everything right, so why…? 

So why is he still so miserable at the end?

For once, Technoblade is quiet across their bond, plying Phil with gentle assurance. He must feel Phil’s sadness, his weariness—he must think he can still fix it. How crushed will he be when he finds out Phil is dead? Will he give up entirely, or will he destroy the rest of the kingdom in his rage? Will he turn on the people Phil has fought his entire life to protect? Will he turn on the people who condemned Phil to death?

There’s no time to wonder, now.

The executioner steps to the lever, and Phil takes one last breath.

Then, he falls.

Chapter Text

The second piece clicks into place when Phil dies.

The space between lives is ephemeral and warm and Phil curls into it, breathing deeply. There is no ache in his muscles, no sting along his skin or hunger in his belly. There is no fear. The worlds beyond feel distant and muted, unconcerning. A blanket lies across him, heavy, and he hears a soft humming song at the edges of his consciousness. He doesn’t want to open his eyes. 

If he opens his eyes, he’ll lose this.

If he opens his eyes, he’ll be back in a cage.

“Phil?” The voice is soft and feminine, deeply familiar. “Phil, love? I know you’re awake.”

Phil brings his wings up, hiding himself beneath the weight of them, and hears the voice laugh. It’s a bright sound. It lights him up from the inside out, makes him shiver his feathers with delight, and finally convinces him to open his eyes—if only to see the source of such a sound. 

The god of death kneels next to him.

Kristin, Phil thinks, the name dredged up by a memory he cannot fully recall. Love.

The god’s face is round and kind, framed by dark rings of curls. Her eyes are equally dark, but full of a warmth Phil hasn’t felt in so, so long—his own eyes sting, and he blinks furiously as feeling returns and ancient grief wells up in him. He’s missed her so much. He’s missed her for years and years and years.

“Kristin,” he rasps.

“Hey there, love.” The god gathers him into her lap, and he presses his face to her stomach to stifle a sob. “Hey, shh, shh-shh-shh. You’re okay. I’ve got you.”

Phil shakes in her arms. He is so scared. He is so scared and angry and lost and tired. He can’t remember why. He can only recall flashes of vague emotion and snatches of memory, but he knows that something bad happened. This is not how he usually comes to Kristin. This is him unwilling and frightened and in pieces.

“I know, baby, I know,” Kristin whispers, rocking him gently. “I’m sorry. It’s not fair, I’m sorry.”

Phil whines, miserable and senseless, and tangles his fingers into the black, pooling fabric of her dress. He wants to disappear. He wants to stay with her forever. He wants to go back home. But home is in pieces, too, scattered across the terrible vastness of this reality, and as distant from him as the moon from the tide.

“I miss you.” Phil’s voice cracks, and he mantles his wings around the one piece of himself he still has. “I miss everyone so much.”

Kristin kisses the top of his head, her fingers carding through his hair. “I know you do. I wish I could tell you they’d be here soon, but I don’t want to lie to you; it’s going to be a little while.”

Phil takes a deep, shuddering breath and bites down on his tongue. He feels like a toddler again, outraged by the absence of missing pieces. He wants so scream and cry and hit things until the universe bows to his whims and he is made whole again. But it was his fault they split up in the first place, wasn’t it? This whole wretched puzzle is because he was too impatient and too dissatisfied and too fucking curious.  

“No—no, don’t think that,” Kristin says, cradling the nape of his neck protectively. “Don’t ever think that. This is not your fault—and even if it was, everything is going to work out for the best. I never would have agreed to it otherwise.”

“I have—I have to go back,” Phil says, his vision fragmenting around tears, “don’t I?”

Kristin pauses, and then she shakes her head. “No,” she says softly. “No, baby. If you’re too tired of this world, you can stay here until the others come back again. They’ll understand. They wouldn’t want you to put yourself through this if it hurts you so much.”

For a second, it’s tempting. 

For a second, Phil thinks of staying here with Kristin. He thinks of forgetting the pains of this world—of forgetting the cage, the knife, the noose. He thinks of waking up in his wife’s arms every morning and showering her face with kisses. He thinks of making blueberry pancakes and laughing at inside jokes and flying anywhere he wants to on tireless wings. He thinks of a hundred peaceful, perfect years.

Then, he thinks of Technoblade, and he thinks of Tommy, and he thinks of Wilbur.

“I can’t stay,” he whispers, and Kristin hums sympathetically as she traces aimless patterns between his wings. “I have to be there for them.”

Kristin doesn’t agree, or disagree. She only makes a thoughtful sound and bends to kiss his head again, her lips cool on his brow. “It’s your choice,” she repeats. “No one will think less of you either way.”

Phil laughs wetly. “You know—you know what kind of trouble they get into when they’re left alone,” he says, hiccuping. “Little shits.”

This, at least, gets Kristin to laugh again, and Phil’s grief eases some in the wake of it. “Little shits,” she agrees, and brushes a stray curl of hair off of his forehead. “All of you.”

The darkness around them begins to recede, giving way to a muted gray, and Kristin takes a deep breath. They both sit and turn to watch the light rise. Kristin’s crows flutter at the edges of the dark, their feathers shining and ruffling in a soft susurrus of noise. One of them turns to Phil, cocking its head expectantly.

“Be safe,” Kristin says, leaning her head against Phil’s even as he stretches a wing out to cradle her against his side. “I don’t want to see you again for a very long time. Oh, and Phil?”

“Hm?”

“Always remember that I love you.”

Phil falls again, away from death and her god, and doesn’t spread his wings to catch himself.

Phil wakes up in a river.

He splashes, chokes on a mouthful of freezing water, and proceeds to hack up most of his lungs. Then he thrusts his head stubbornly above the frothing current and glimpses a shore. He paddles towards it, but his wings and clothes weigh him down and he only just manages to heave his upper half onto the shore before collapsing. He spends a moment panting into gritty gray sand before dragging himself the rest of the way out of the water.

Shit, Phil thinks. Fuck hell damn. 

Where is he? Oh, and also, what the actual fuck? Wasn’t he just in prison, with Yancy? But no, he’d been taken out by the guards that morning, and to the city square for the exec—

Holy shit the execution.

Phil sits up quickly, or tries to—his sodden wings flop heavily against the shore, and he subsides with a groan. Not a waterfowl. Definitely not a waterfowl. 

Execution, okay, right. That was—a thing? Or was that just a really weird trauma dream? But as Phil reaches up, rubbing his throat, he can still feel the sting of raw skin and the low ache where his neck snapped. His heart trips in his chest. If it wasn’t a dream, and they really hung him, then—how the hell is he here, and thinking, and breathing? He should be dead. He was dead. He can’t remember much after the executioner pulled the lever, but he remembers the darkness and the quiet.

Maybe he was just unconscious? 

In any event, he has somehow managed to escape the gallows and end up in a river, so that’s…an interesting development. Did Technoblade have something to do with this? It seems like Technoblade might have something to do with this. Cautiously, Phil reaches for his soulmate, and—

—and recoils, instantly.

The wall between them is thicker than it’s ever been, but Technoblade’s emotions are so volatile that they leak through to Phil anyhow. What’s even worse is the sheer misery behind those emotions, because Technoblade is grieving. His sense of loss is on a scale Phil has never before felt (not even when Mother died), and it makes Phil’s own chest tighten. Beneath that grief simmers a deep well of rage, and a madness that frightens Phil to look closely at.

Technoblade, he realizes, doesn’t know that Phil is alive.

Phil immediately throws himself against the wall, desperate to tear it down and reassure his soulmate, but whatever Technoblade has done to it makes it impossible to get through to him. Why the hell would he do that? Sure, Phil was dead, but that didn’t mean he had to get cut off quite so thoroughly!

…Phil was dead

Phil was dead.

Phil was dead.

Phil wonders what it would be like to have an empty, rotting space where a cherished soulmate once thrived, and he understands the wall a little better. 

But there’s something else, too—there’s some one else where before there was only ever Technoblade. It feels like another piece of himself come home. He reaches out to it in disbelief (could another soulmate have really been born while Phil was dead? what poor timing!) and feels a dark, steady warmth emanating from it. It is achingly familiar and achingly adored. 

Hi, he thinks to it, starstruck. Oh, gods, hi. 

It doesn’t respond to him—not even in the silly, babyish way Technoblade used to—but he doesn’t feel ignored. Despite the silence, he feels seen and known and loved. Whoever and wherever this soulmate is, Phil will find them—but he’s got to find Technoblade first. Between the two of them, Technoblade will be in infinitely more distress and danger.

So, Phil is doing things the old-fashioned way! He’ll just have to find wherever Technoblade’s militia is camped (and that should be easy, given how large and destructive it is) and go to see his soulmate in person. His plan thus decided, Phil jumps to his feet—and almost immediately topples back over, weak and sore and sodden.

Okay, so Phil is doing things the old-fashioned way but more slowly!

Gingerly, Phil picks himself up again. His wings hang limply from his back, dripping water from their shorn feathers, and he winces as he tucks them in. He must have strained a muscle or two fighting the current. His feet are still scabbed over from Yancy’s interrogations, and his fingernails have only just begun to grow back. The burns across his chest crack when he stretches too far, and the wet drag of his tunic across them stings. 

“Gods have mercy,” he mutters. “This fucking sucks.”

“Fucking sucks!”

Phil jumps, whirling around to face a—is that a crow?

“Fucking sucks,” the crow repeats, hopping towards him and cocking its head. “Sucks.”

“Yeah,” Phil breathes, “it does. What, were you waiting to eat me? Sorry to disappoint, mate, but Phil Za is alive and well and not on the menu today.”

Somehow.

The crow caws, then lurches into the air and flies north. Phil’s own wings twitch miserably. If he could fly, this would be so much faster. As it is, he can only limp barefoot after the crow. Where there’s an animal, there’s food—and, hopefully, people. The crow leads him through a sparse forest, and then to a dirt road, before stopping and looking back at him. 

“I don’t have anything for you, unless you’re really fond of wet feathers,” Phil says wryly.

Ruffling its own dark feathers, the crow launches up and leads him farther down the road. Phil walks alongside the path, in the springy grass, to spare his feet some abuse—but by the time he reaches a town some two miles north, the cuts are cracked open and bleeding again. He hesitates on the outskirts of the town proper, hugging one arm loosely around himself. 

What if the King is looking for him, and the townspeople turn him back in? Besides that, Phil is sure he looks awful, and he has no gold or silver on him. Hell, even his clothes are worthless gray tatters. It’s some small mercy that he’s dried off on the walk over, although he’s fairly certain he has sand in every possible crevice. He’ll have to rely on generosity and pity to get him anywhere. Maybe, if he begged…? 

The crow caws impatiently. 

“I’m coming, I’m coming,” Phil mutters, staggering towards the town. “No help for it, I guess.”

To his surprise, however, the townspeople are more than willing to receive him. As soon as he sets foot in the town square, a young boy ushers him to an inn. Several more townspeople huddle around the tables there, and their wings hunch as they look at him—but when they glimpse his bedraggled state, their eyes soften with sympathy. 

“Aye, it’s another one,” the innkeeper says, sighing. “Come on then. Have a seat, lad, and we’ll get you fixed up. Where are you from?”

“Montresser,” Phil says, surprised into honesty. It’s true, kind of. He was born there, although he hasn’t stayed in any one place for more than six months since he joined the military as a teenager. “I’m sorry to intrude like this, but I had nowhere else to go.”

The innkeeper nods, pushing a mug of hot tea towards him. “It’s a common story around these parts nowadays. Ever since the military fractured, there’s been refugees and deserters all pouring through. Good for business, I’ll admit, but a damn shame otherwise.”

Phil sips the tea gratefully, cupping the warm ceramic of the mug between his palms. “Is the military very close by, then?”

“No, lad, you can rest easy.” The innkeeper slides a plate of fruit pastries to him, next, and Phil is far too hungry to refuse. He hasn’t had anything warm to eat since—since—well. “Most of the fighting is down by the capitol, now.”

“How far is the capitol from here, then? I think I got turned around on the trip, so I’m…” Phil looks sheepishly at her. “I’m a little lost.”

“I’d say,” a gruff man agrees, slouching onto the barstool beside Phil. “You look like a canary the damn cat dragged in. The hell happened to all your feathers?”

“Rufus!” the innkeeper scolds. “Don’t you pay him any mind, now, lad, he’s a right ruffian and make no mistake.”

Phil smiles around a mouthful of apple strudel and tries not to spray crumbs when he replies, “No, it’s alright. I had, uh, a bit of a run-in with some soldiers who didn’t much like me. They clipped my wings and threw me in the river.”

“Ugh! What’s the world coming to, when we can treat people this way?” the innkeeper demands, bristling her tawny feathers. “Rufus, you go on now and get the boy some proper clothes. It’s the least you can do if you’re going to be interrogating him.”

Rufus goes, grumbling, and retrieves a fresh set of clothes for Phil. They’re a little big, but Phil accepts them gratefully and retreats to the restroom to clean up. He splashes himself with fresh water from the washbasin, scrubbing sand out of his hair before tugging on the tunic and trousers. He sits down and dabs the blood off of his feet before pulling on Rufus’ wool socks and a pair of farming boots—also too big, and spattered with manure and mud, but serviceable. 

“Thank you,” he says to Rufus, when he returns to the bar, and the old man grunts. “I’ll do what I can do to repay you, but I don’t have anything on me right now.”

Rufus snorts. “No shit—ow, Martha, fuck’s sake!”

The innkeeper glowers at him, her rolled newspaper raised for another scolding swat. “I told you to behave,” she says. “Can’t you see the boy’s too exhausted for your grumbling and grouching? You’re lucky you’re my soulmate or I’d have you kicked to the curb already.”

Despite this scolding, however, Martha slides Rufus another chocolate croissant when she brings a tray of them for Phil to devour. Phil’s chest aches to see the two of them together—their banter, their traded looks, the easy way they carry conversation. He reaches, uselessly, for Technoblade again. All he feels is bloodlust.

“So,” Phil says, and swallows another buttered bite of croissant, “the capitol’s nearby?”

“Oh, no,” Martha says, bustling to serve a pair of elderly woman their own steaming tea. “It’s almost a hundred miles south of here.”

Phil’s eyes widen. How the hell did he travel so far, so fast? Did the river carry him all that way? 

“And we’re almost as far from Montressor, too,” Rufus says, eyeing him skeptically. “How’d you get to be here?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think the river would have carried me that far, but…” Phil rubs his temples, his weariness growing. How is he going to travel a hundred miles to the capitol on foot? “The last I remember, I was in the capitol square.”

“You were in the rebellion?” Martha asks, and several more of her tenants look over. 

“A little,” Phil says, and sighs. “I didn’t want to be. I was in the military before it—before the coup, and I got caught up in the crossfire, I guess.”

“Before the coup?” Martha’s frown deepens. 

“You must’ve lost your memory,” Rufus says. “Coup’s been months ago.”

Phil’s stomach plummets, and the pastries threaten to evacuate. He swallows quickly. “What?”

“The coup was in spring, and it’s near autumn now,” Martha says, reaching over to rest a hand over Phil’s. Her eyes catch on his fingers—on the blunt, bloodied spaces where his nails should rest—and she presses her lips into a thin line. “You must’ve been through so much. Why don’t you rest here a couple of days?”

“I—I can’t, I have to find my soulmate, I—” Phil swallows again, his heart thundering a panicked tempo against his ribs. It can’t have been that long. “I was in the capitol. I was just in the capitol.”

Martha and Rufus trade another knowing look, and Rufus stands to set a hand on Phil’s shoulder. Phil flinches wildly, scrambling onto his feet and putting his back against the wall with wings flared. They cast ugly shadows on the wall, crooked angles and lopsided feathers. The other tenants all tense, watching him with wariness—and, worse, with pity.

“What are you doing?” he demands. “Don’t touch me.”

Rufus holds his hands up, palms out, fluffing his feathers like he’s trying to coax an agitated nestling to settle. “Easy now. We don’t want to hurt you. But you’re confused, and you oughta take a couple of days to get your shit together. Then you can figure out how to get your soulmate back, yeah?”

It’s distressingly logical, when all Phil wants is Technoblade right now. 

But they’re right—he won’t get far like this, and he needs more information if so much time really has passed since he last saw Technoblade. Slowly, Phil lets his wings and shoulders drop, and Rufus hums in approval. 

“That’s a boy,” he says brusquely. “Come on upstairs. You can pick your room.”

“We’ll leave you alone,” Rufus adds, once Phil has slunk into the first open room he’s offered, “but you come down when you get hungry, and I’ll put you to work if it’s money you’re needing. Only thing we ask is that you don’t get yourself into trouble. If you hurt anybody around here, I’ll turn it back on you twofold, you understand?”

Phil nods, jerkily, and immediately shoves the dresser in front of the door to barricade himself in when Rufus leaves. Only then does he collapse onto the bed, toeing off his boots and tugging anxiously at his feathers. Several more slip out between his fingers, clumped with sand and sweat. He makes a half-hearted attempt to preen, but it’s difficult without fingernails, and his exhaustion quickly overcomes him. 

Phil slips down, and into sleep, and he does not dream.

Phil spends a week at the inn. 

Mostly, he sleeps and he eats. The first few nights, his sleep is mercifully quiet—and then, the nightmares begin. In them he sees Yancy’s face, and the crown above the gallows, and the noose. He sees Technoblade’s bloody tusks and matted hair. He hears distant explosions and sees soldiers strewn across the battlefield, their limbs and lives torn away. He wakes up shaking, slick with sweat, and paces the floor for hours despite the sting in his injured feet. In the coldest hours of the night, he will reach for Technoblade—and, when that fails, for his new soulmate. He can lean into their darkness and silence his mind, clinging to them until the panic fades.

In the mornings, he helps Martha cook and clean. She teaches him to make croissants, and lemon tarts, and fresh glazed donuts. He teaches himself how to make blueberry pancakes. They drink tea in the mornings, after the brunch rush, and Phil takes his with as much honey as he can get. The other tenants wave their hellos to him as they come and go, and he lifts his own mug in greeting. 

In the evenings, he’ll help stack wood for the fireplace with Rufus. They’ll gather around once they’re finished—it’s too warm for a proper fire, yet, but the armchairs are comfortable—and trade stories. It is here that Phil chips away at the details of what, exactly, has happened since he’s been gone. 

“It was the piglins, you know, what started it,” Rufus tells him one evening, his square fingers sifting carefully through Martha’s freckled feathers. “But who am I to tell you that old story, eh? You was there. What was it like?”

“You don’t have to talk about anything you don’t want to,” Martha hastens to add.

“It’s alright. It wasn’t all bad.” Phil looks into his mug—warm milk, sweetened with honey and spiced with cinnamon. “We were winning. This was when the military was all under General Smith, of course, and the King. We’d been ordered to seize an enemy outpost.”

“This was in the spring?” Martha asks.

“Yeah,” Phil says, distantly. “I guess it was.”

“That where the bombs were?” Rufus asks grimly. “Heard about that from a lass what came down a few months ago. Her brother’d died being marched across them.”

“That’s where the bombs were,” Phil agrees, and drinks. “General Smith marched our men across them—or tried to, anyway. The piglins refused.”

“Technoblade, wasn’t it?” Rufus muses.

Phil startles, to hear his soulmate’s name from another person’s mouth—but Rufus doesn’t look angry, or suspicious, only curious. “Yeah,” Phil says softly. “Yeah, it was Technoblade. He refused to march the sounders across, and he killed General Smith for giving the damned order in the first place. Most of the elytrians sided with him after that, I imagine.”

Martha looks at him, her feathers puffed with excitement. “Including you?”

Phil hesitates. Would he have sided with Technoblade, then? He wouldn’t have agreed to kill General Smith, but he wouldn’t have marched his men forward, either. Could he have prevented the disaster, or would he only have prolonged it? Would he have averted the coup or forestalled it? Would he have fought to be made General, himself?

“Yeah,” Phil says. “Including me. Didn’t last long, though—some of General Smith’s officers caught up to me and threw me in the brig. They took me to the capitol, clipped my wings, and when I escaped they tossed me into the river. I expect they thought I’d drown.”

“How horrible,” Martha murmurs, bringing a hand up to cover her mouth. 

“Things only got worse after that,” Rufus says. “You oughta consider yourself lucky you don’t remember it all.”

“What did happen?” Phil asks, setting his mug aside and leaning forward. “To the King, to Technoblade? I don’t remember any of it.”

“Well, let’s see.” Rufus sits back, with the air of an experienced storyteller. “That’s when they named Technoblade as General. He took up Smith’s military and turned it on the King, and there was some long, hard months of fighting after that. Eventually it got to be in the capitol.”

“Phil, are you sure you want to hear this story before bed?” Martha frets. “I don’t want you giving yourself nightmares.”

“It’s okay,” Phil insists. “I want to know.”

“You boys,” Martha says, and sighs.

“Now, this is all hearsay, you understand,” Rufus warns, “from a man I knew what came here after everything. But they say when Technoblade made it to the capitol, he saw his colonel killed by the King. It was the same colonel that damn near raised him—they were as good as brothers, the two of them, or at least that’s how the story goes. What was his name, Martha, you remember?”

“It was Phil, wasn’t it?” Martha says, glancing towards Phil. “Colonel Phil Za. The King sent a message out, warning the rebels that the same thing would happen to them if they continued to fight.”

“You can imagine Technoblade didn’t take kindly to it, when he saw his colonel’s body rottin’ in the city square,” Rufus says wryly. “Sure did send a message, but it wasn’t the one I think the King wanted it to be.”

Phil digs his fingers into the knees of his trousers, breathing shakily as his stomach knots. He can’t imagine it. He doesn’t want to imagine it. It’s bad enough that Phil was killed, but for Technoblade to have seen his corpse…

But that has to be wrong, doesn’t it? Phil’s body is here. He’s in it, and while it’s a little roughed-up he thinks he can safely say that it’s not rotting. So unless whatever magic landed him a hundred miles and a season away could also undo the decomposition process, it wasn’t Phil’s body hanging on the gallows. 

Phil prays that it wasn’t his body hanging on the gallows.

“Then what happened?” Phil asks, tucking his fingers beneath his knees to hide their trembling.

“Technoblade went mad,” Rufus says. “He killed the King that day and slaughtered the princes in their beds the next. The King’s men didn’t stand a chance—not when they’d been livin’ cushy in the capitol while the rebels fought for years in the outlands. I think they tried to reinstate some order, but everybody they crowned Technoblade would cut down. It’s anarchy there now.”

“Which is exactly why you shouldn’t go,” Martha interrupts.

“Martha,” Rufus sighs.

“I mean it. It’s not safe there.” Martha reaches forward, grasping Phil’s hand. “The capitol’s a wasteland, and all the cities around it. The military is falling apart because Technoblade’s too wild to keep them together. There’s looting and pillaging everywhere. If you go, you’ll be killed.”

Well, Phil thinks, that’s nothing new.

“My soulmate,” he repeats. “I have to find them.”

Martha squeezes his hand, her eyes overbright. “Let them come to you.”

“I wish I could.”

“Can’t you speak to them? You have to be able to communicate in some way. What do you share with them? Thoughts, or images, or—”

“Emotions.”

“Well—well, that’s a tricky one, but I’m sure we can figure something out,” Martha says, determined. “Your soulmate wouldn’t want you to put yourself in danger.”

My soulmate thinks I’m dead.

“He isn’t listening,” Phil says helplessly, looking away from their worried eyes. “He’s walled me off. And if he’s out there pillaging, and destroying, and killing, then I have to stop him. It’s my fault. If I had just—if I had been there, he wouldn’t have—”

The room fragments, blurred by tears, and Phil takes another shuddering breath. 

Do you have any idea what I am, Phil? The spirits are angry in me. They have always been angry in me.

You’re my bonded. You’re one of the only things that makes them gentle, and I can’t—I don’t want to lose that.

The military is mine now, and so are you. I won’t let anything hurt you.

I don’t fight for the King, Phil.

Phil chokes on chirp, and then on a sob, and Martha wraps her arms and wings around him. She is warm, and she smells like cinnamon, and it has been so long since Phil was held by someone who didn’t want to hurt him. Even now his skin shivers, twitching like a terrified animal at the contact, and he has to fight the urge to flinch. 

“Oh, honey,” Martha whispers. “Honey, honey, it’s okay. It’s not your fault.”

Slowly, she coaxes him into rocking—small, steady movements that loosen his muscles and ease the grip of guilt on his throat. He relaxes into her, gulping in little breaths, and she fluffs her feathers over him. He is reminded, painfully, of his mother. 

“If you want to go, you will,” Rufus says quietly, “but we’ll get you supplies first.”

“You don’t have to—”

“We’ll get you supplies,” Rufus repeats, and claps him on the shoulder. “Hang tight, son.”

The next morning, as promised, Rufus hands him a heavy duffel bag. It’s crammed full of things: blankets and gold, tunics and trousers, fresh fruit and wrapped pastries. Phil immediately pushes it back to him, fumbling. 

“I can’t possibly accept—I have no way to pay you back, I—”

“You pay us back by coming back alive,” Martha says, poking him in the chest. “Bring your soulmate, too. We’ll make pancakes.”

Phil blinks furiously against the sting of tears. He’s been such a crybaby lately. “Yeah,” he says, wobbly. “Yeah, I think he’d really like that.”

Phil can imagine it, now—the four of them laughing in Martha’s kitchen, dusted with flour and batter. Technoblade would eat the blueberries before they got mixed in, and tease Phil about his sweet tooth when he dolloped too much honey into his tea. They’d sweep the floor and play-fight with the broomsticks when they were done. Technoblade and Rufus would curl up by the fireplace, trading war stories, while Phil dog-earred a recipe in Martha’s book.

“Come on, then,” Rufus says, gruffly. “The sooner you go, the sooner you can come back.”

The three of them step onto the porch, and Phil takes a bolstering breath. The air is still warm, but there’s an edge to it, and the scent of smoke—autumn is coming, and quickly. He’ll have to travel fast if he wants to reach the capitol before winter. His wings are already itching with the old, migratory urge to fly and fly fast. 

“Thank you,” Phil says, to both of them. “You have no idea how much I appreciate what you’ve done for me.”

Martha reaches to take his hand again. “Oh, we have some idea, lad.”

“You take care out there,” Rufus says. “Stay off of the main roads, and keep clear of the piglins. Actually, do me one better and keep clear of everybody, huh? They’re all hooligans right now.”

“Yeah, okay,” Phil says, with a little laugh, and waves as Rufus steps back inside.

“While you’re out there, Phil,” Martha says, squeezing his hand, “could you do me one favor?”

“Anything,” he says, honestly; he already owes them so much. 

“Will you keep an eye out for my grandbaby? He was employed near the capitol, the last I heard, as an aid. I haven’t seen him since the coup. I don’t know that he’s even alive anymore, but if he is—if you see him, will you bring him back, too?”

“I’ll do my best,” Phil promises. “What’s he look like?”

“Just a little guy, not even a teenager yet,” Martha says, “with wings like mine, and brown hair, and blue eyes. He’s got freckles all over.”

“He sounds like a cute kid,” Phil says, and Martha smiles. “What’s his name?”

“Hm? Oh, it’s Jeff, sweetheart. You tell him to run along home as soon as he can.” Martha looks up at him, bringing her free hand up to wipe her eyes. “Okay?”

“Okay,” Phil whispers, feeling his throat close. “Okay.”

The capitol is a bloodbath.

Bodies spill into the streets—soldiers and civilians both—and old gore leaks into the gutters, crusting on the pavement. The city smells like rot and fetid meat. Crows flock around Phil, cawing as they descend to their grisly feast. The shops are desolate, their windows smashed in and the doors hanging on their hinges. It is eerily silent. 

Phil moves through the streets slowly, cautiously. He winces when glass crunches beneath his boots, and jumps when a stray cat streaks across the sidewalk in front of him. He pauses in the city square, looking for the gallows. He finds a patch of ash and burnt rubble instead. When he kneels and drags his fingers through the soot, it’s cold to the touch.

“Oh, Techno,” he breathes. “What did you do?”

The palace, when Phil reaches it, is still standing—but the royal banners have been torn down and shredded, and the elegant gardens trampled. The fountains run dry, and deep gouges mar the steps up to the massive, splintered front doors. Inside, the carpets are splattered with red and black blood both. In several places Phil can see the prints of heavy combat boots. 

The throne room is the worst off. Everything in it has been burnt or shattered or smeared with blood. White feathers litter the floor below Phil’s boots. There is no body, and there are no bones. The throne itself sports several deep ax strikes, and on the wall above its broken remnants there are words scrawled in red: BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD and FOR THE ANGEL.

The west wing of the palace, when Phil reaches it, is less damaged. The kitchens could almost be called clean, and the libraries are untouched. As he makes his way to the infirmary, he picks up on the low sound of voices and grows at once more wary. He reaches for the dagger at his hip—pilfered from one of the unfortunate corpses outside—and creeps forward. He presses his ear to the infirmary door to listen, and—

—and immediately gets whacked in the face when someone tries to open it.

Phil stumbles back, yelping and rubbing his jaw. 

“Ah! Who’s that?” The door slams shut again. “Brassbolt?”

“What? No, it’s Phil. Do I sound like Brassbolt?”

“Phil?” A piglin cracks the door open, looking suspiciously at him. It’s Yimalla, Phil recognizes. Her own eyes widen when they land on him, and she flings the door open. “Phil! Holy fuck guys it’s Phil!”

The voices within the infirmary crescendo, and suddenly a gaggle of piglins has surrounded him. Phil recognizes most of them from Technoblade’s sounder, and they snort gleefully at him in greeting. They all lean in to sniff, unable to believe their eyesight, and whip their tails when his scent reaches them. 

“It’s really you,” Ionamane says. “I can’t believe it. We thought you were dead!”

“Fuck that, you were dead!” Yimalla says. “We saw your body. We smelled your body. No offense, but it was kind of rank.”

“Sorry I was putrifying,” Phil says, wrinkling his nose. “I’ll do better next time I die.”

Yimalla snorts in amusement, and then draws up to her full height—much taller, now, than Phil remembers her being. She’s grown as quickly as Technoblade. “But if you were really dead, then how are you here?”

“I’d like to know that, too,” Phil admits, stepping inside and shutting the infirmary doors. Several elytrians lay on the cots inside and are beginning to stir at the commotion; a low buzz of conversation begins around the room. “Where is Technoblade?”

Yimalla and Ionamane trade an uncomfortable look.

“Technoblade’s not here, Phil,” Ionamane says. “He went east with the rebels a few weeks ago. They’re trying to crush the last of the King’s army.”

“Fuck’s sake.” Phil slumps against the wall with a groan, pinching the bridge of his nose. 

“He hasn’t stopped fighting since you…” Yimalla looks away, uncertain. “It took him hard.”

“We should talk to Tachmahall,” Ionamane says. 

Phil perks up, looking between the two brutes. “Is she here?”

“Mm. I’ll go and get her. Yimalla, make Phil comfortable.”

As Ionamane goes to fetch their elder, Yimalla leads Phil further into the infirmary. Several of the elytrians climb to their feet to greet him, shaking his hand and clapping him on the shoulder. They look delighted to see him, their smiles full of disbelief and relief both. They clear a cot for him to set his things down on and scoot their own cots closer to listen in.

“We’ve been set up on this side of the palace since we took over the capitol,” Yimalla explains. “It’s where we’ve been keeping our elders and our injured while the others fight. The other sounders have taken up places in the city, and most of the elytrians, too.”

“Are you injured, then?” Phil asks, his brow furrowing in concern.

“No, no,” Yimalla assures him. “Ionamane, Brassbolt, and I are the guards. The King’s men are too afraid to come into the city anymore, but if they did I would really give them what-for!”

“Of course,” Phil says, with a flicker of a smile. “So most of the others went east?”

“Yeah. The King’s military has one last hold-out there,” Yimalla explains, flicking her tail eagerly. The golden bangles looped around her tailtip jangle with the movement. “Once Technoblade defeats them, this whole territory will be ours. Only, I don’t think he really wants the territory. He says he doesn’t even want to be King.”

“What? Then what does he want?”

Yimalla looks levelly at him. “You.”

“I’m—”

“Right here, I know—but he doesn’t. He still thinks you’re dead. He’s angrier than I’ve ever seen him before, and I saw him after Tachmahall banished his sow!”

“Tachmahall—?” Phil shakes his head, appalled. You know what? That’s a story for a different time, when he can properly corner Technoblade and ask him exactly what the fuck. “So what happens after he’s decimated the kingdom? He’ll just give up and go home?”

Yimalla scratches her chin. “The spirits are very loud in him; they won’t just let him sit and grieve. He has to keep moving and fighting, so I guess he’ll probably start attacking other territories after this.”

“But if he doesn’t care about having territory, why would he fight for more?”

“Anarchy everywhere,” Yimalla explains, with a shrug. “It’s all he wants now.”

“And you just let him do this?”

“I don’t see any problem with it. If the government would march his men on bombs and then kill his bondmate just because he told them no,” Yimalla says, and cocks her head, “why wouldn’t they kill me for the same paltry reasons? As far as I’m concerned, they can all go to hell. No one’s going to have that sort of power over me and mine unless I let them.”

“Spoken like a true anarchist,” Tachmahall interrupts, and they both spin to face her. “Phil. I thought you were dead.”

“Me too,” Phil says, and spreads his hands helplessly. 

“What happened? How came you here?” Tachmahall says, approaching. She moves more slowly now, a stiffness in her joints that was not there before. She holds a gold-tipped cane in one hand. Ionamane hovers close to her, pinning her ears and grunting a warning when one of the younger brutes gets too close.

“I don’t know,” Phil says, standing up to let her sit on his cot; she waves him off, snorting. “It was spring, and then I—I just woke up in a river, and all of a sudden it was autumn.”

“How peculiar.” 

“Yeah, that’s one word for it. I was a hundred miles north, so I’ve been traveling here for the past couple of months. I just arrived today. I need to talk to Technoblade.”

“Yes,” Tachmahall says somberly, “you do.”

“But he won’t be back for at least another week,” Ionamane says, clicking her teeth together thoughtfully. “He’s your bonded. Can’t you speak to him that way?”

“He won’t let me.”

“Stubborn boar,” Tachmahall says, “but I don’t blame him. To lose a bondmate is a terrible thing. It would drive even the mildest of us to madness.”

“Which way did they go? I’ll go after him,” Phil says, desperate. He is so close to his soulmate. “They can’t be that far if they mean to get back before the winter storms come.”

“Nonsense,” Tachmahall scoffs. “You’re staying right here where I can make sure you don’t die again. Technoblade will be back within the week, and you will speak to him then.”

“But I—”

“It is not a request, Phil,” Tachmahall says, looking down at him. “If you get yourself injured again, only think of how it will effect Technoblade. He’s wild enough without your endangering yourself to no cause. Have a little patience.”

“I have been patient,” Phil says, baring his teeth. “I have been away from him for half a year, and look what’s happened to him! He needs me!”

“As you need him,” Tachmahall comments, eyeing him. “You look like shit.”

“You try being imprisoned, tortured, and murderered,” Phil spits, bristling the ragged remnants of his feathers. “It’s no fucking spa day.”

“Gathered,” Tachmahall says. Then, she turns to Ionamane. “Watch him. He is not to leave this palace without my explicit permission.”

Ionamane bows her head, and then turns guiltily to Phil. “Anywhere you want to go, Phil,” she says, like she’s not another fucking guard to take Phil’s freedom from him. “I’ll take you anywhere, as long as it’s inside the palace. Just ask.”

Phil wants to scream. 

Instead, he storms back to his cot and flings himself down on it and hisses like a slighted raptor. He is descended from carnivorous dinosaurs and let no one forget that—not even the massive warrior piglins! Ionamane wisely takes the hint and settles on her own cot, leaving him to cool down. It is going to be a terrible, awful, horrible week. There is absolutely nothing that could make it better.

It is a terrible, awful, horrible week, but Yimalla bakes cookies so that makes it better.

Technoblade returns on the dawn of the seventh day.

Phil sees him coming from the windows of the upper gardens, which Ionamane and he have taken to visiting after breakfast. At first, he isn’t sure exactly what he’s seeing. He’s only leaning in the window, breathing in the crisp air and watching the sun rise over the desolate city. Then he glimpses a stirring of movement on the horizon, and he sits up straight.

“What is it?” Ionamane asks, squinting. Her own piglin eyesight is far worse than his, and he doubts she can see the movement at all over the glare of the sun. “Do you see something?”

“No,” Phil says, after a moment, and settles back down. “It was only a bird.”

But his wings are twitching at his sides, and he cannot tear his eyes away from the horizon. Slowly, the movement grows nearer, and it resolves itself into a mass of ragtag soldiers. They’re scattered out along the main road, not marching in any disciplined formation but making their way into the city at will. Phil can see piglins among them, and humans, and elytrians. They fly no flag.

Somewhere in the castle, a bell begins to toll.

Ionamane comes back to the window, exhaling slowly when she sees the soldiers. “They’re back,” she says. “Come on, Phil.”

“Where’s Technoblade?”

“I don’t know. Somewhere in there, I imagine.”

Phil stands and narrows his eyes, raking them over the soldiers as they trickle through the battered city gates. Several times, he sees a piglin that might be Technoblade—nearly the same size and shape—and his heart jumps into his throat. But as they get closer, he can tell that no, that isn’t him. Then he glimpses a gap in the throng of soldiers, and a single piglin in that gap.

Technoblade, he thinks.

Technoblade moves with his head down and his eyes unfocused. A crown rests on top of his head, lilting carelessly to the side, and a gaudy red cloak hangs down his back. Phil recognizes both as items of the King, and looking even more closely he can see that the white fur ruff of the cloak has been interwoven with snowy feathers. The other soldiers do not walk near him, and if he ever glances in their direction they quickly look away and give him room to move past. 

It breaks Phil’s goddamn heart.

“Phil, come on.” Ionamane tugs gently on his arm. “Let’s go downstairs. Tachmahall will talk to Technoblade first, so it’s not such a shock, and then—Phil? Phil!”

Phil shakes her grip off, then slams his elbow into the glass of the window. It shatters, and he throws himself out of it. He can’t fly with his feathers clipped, but he can damn well glide. He spreads his battered wings, snatching clumsily at the air with them, and drops onto the roof of one of the castle keeps. He hears Ionamane jump down behind him, and he scrabbles quickly over the edge of the keep and into the air again. He springs from rooftop to rooftop, making his way down to the castle courtyard and laughing all the while. 

In his excitement, his last landing is a little quicker than he’d prefer. He bruises a knee, but that pain doesn’t slow him down at all as he lunges to his feet and pelts down the road ahead of Ionamane. He can hear her bellowing in exasperation, unable to scale the parapets as quickly as he had even on clipped wings. He’s breathless by the time he comes into view of the rebel soldiers, but it’s a good breathless—sharp and exhilarating. 

Several of the soldiers spring out of his way as he barrels past, tossing him baffled looks, and one piglin brute lunges for him. But Phil is fast, and flying across the road, and there has never been a finish line more compelling. He darts and weaves between the soldiers, their sporadic spacing making it infinitely easier, until he can see the emptiness in which Technoblade resides.

“Technoblade! Technoblade!”

Technoblade comes to a stop, drawing his head up as his eyes sharpen. He snorts a wary warning, stepping back as Phil runs towards him. Phil doesn’t slow until they’re mere feet apart, and only skids to a complete stop when Technoblade reaches for his battleax.

“Technoblade, Techno,” he pants, tears springing to his eyes. “Holy shit, have you gotten bigger?”

Technoblade only stares at him, motionless. 

“Techno?”

Technoblade bursts forward, throwing himself at Phil with an angry roar. Phil shrieks and darts to the side, narrowly missing the full brunt of his soulmate’s not-inconsiderable weight; when he whirls to face him again, he flares his wings to make himself look bigger. Against a piglin of some three hundred pounds the intimidation is very much lackluster, and Technoblade doesn’t even give him the consolation of hesitation. He whips back around with damning speed, and this time when he lunges Phil isn’t fast enough to dodge.

Technoblade bears him to the ground, roaring full in his face, and Phil wheezes beneath him. His breath stinks of blood and rotten flesh; his hands are heavy on Phil’s shoulders, squeezing to the point of pain; the savage gleam of his teeth is bright in the dawnlight. He opens his mouth and surges down, his lethal tusks pressing against the soft flesh of Phil’s throat, and then—

Then, Technoblade freezes.

“Techno,” Phil whispers. His throat bobs, and he feels the press of those tusks on his hammering pulse. “Hey. Hey, shh. It’s me. It’s just me.”

Technoblade doesn’t move, but Phil can hear the whuffling of his breath—can feel the bursts of hot air as his soulmate drags in his scent and snorts it back out in confusion. Slowly, Phil reaches for Technoblade’s hand. When that doesn’t get his head torn clean off, he dares to slide his hand up to Technoblade’s shuddering shoulder.

“Hey,” he says again, careful to keep his voice soft and soothing. “Just me. Just Phil. You wanna lean back for me, bud? You’re kind of crushing me. Bird bones over here.”

Technoblade leans back and looks down at him, black eyes wide, like he can’t quite believe what he’s seeing. “Phil?”

“Yeah.” Phil smiles up at him, wobbly but true. “What took so long?”

Technoblade makes a desperate keening noise and shoves his nose into Phil’s throat again, gulping in the scent of him. He’s careful to keep his tusks away, this time, and his weight off of Phil’s chest. The wall between them shatters, and suddenly Phil can feel his soulmate’s emotions—can feel his disbelief and his confusion and his heartache and his overwhelming, blinding joy. He reaches up, wrapping his arms around Technoblade’s neck, and hugs him as tightly as he can. 

“I missed you,” he whispers. “Gods, how I’ve missed you.”

And Technoblade says “Phil,” over and over again, the word pressed like a prayer to Phil’s jaw, his neck, his face. “Phil, Phil, Phil.”

Chapter Text

At this rate, Phil is going to be bald.

Technoblade hasn’t stopped grooming him since they settled into the throne room. It’s one of the few things that soothes his soulmate’s frantic anxieties, and so Phil submits to it without protest—but Technoblade’s tongue is rough, where it swipes over his scalp, and after half an hour Phil is starting to feel sore. His skin is nowhere near as thick as a piglin’s hide, and as Technoblade pauses to chew yet another nonexistent knot out of his hair, he can’t hide a wince.

“Phil?” Technoblade rumbles, worried.

“I’m okay,” Phil says, “but I think my hair is about as clean as it’s going to get, mate.”

Technoblade draws back to examine him with a critical eye, and then sets his chin over Phil’s head with a deep sigh. “Mm,” he says.

Without the distraction, Technoblade’s anxiety almost immediately begins to swell again. Outwardly, there’s little sign of it—his soulmate is still and quiet, his eyes distant as he holds Phil in his lap. But the bond between them is frayed and tight with tension, sparking with a fear that Phil doesn’t even begin to know how to soothe.

Because Phil was dead, and Technoblade wasn’t.

Phil knows which fate was more horrible.

“You could try my wings,” he offers, stretching out his right wing.

“Don’t know how,” Technoblade mumbles regretfully. “I’d fuck ‘em up.”

“Can’t be any worse than they already are,” Phil says pragmatically, and it’s true. His wings are a mess. The godawful shorn feathers aside, they’re dull and dry and plucked half to death. “Look, I’ll show you.”

Phil squirms around to reach his wing, realigning a few feathers. He can’t smooth the barbs properly—his fingernails are still only halfway grown—but at least he can get everything to lie flat again. He rubs a thumb across the preening gland at the join of his wing, although the oil is slow to come. When it does, he smears it across the first few feathers. It makes them look a little better, he thinks, though he doubts they’ll be back to their full health until after his next molt. 

“See?” Phil says. “It’s easy.”

Technoblade makes an uncertain noise, but he reaches for Phil’s wing and begins to clumsily shift the feathers. Not all of them find the right spot, but it’s nice anyway. It reminds Phil of a nestling’s first attempts at preening, slow and fumbling. He sighs and stretches his wing, fluffing his feathers to give Technoblade better access, and relaxes himself in stages.

“‘s nice,” he mumbles. “Thanks.”

Technoblade relaxes, too, his anxiety fading as he loses himself in the simple, repetitive rhythm of preening. His tail curls idly around Phil’s leg, and a low rumble starts in the pit of his chest. It’s lower than his worry-rumble, deeper and calmer—very nearly the purr of a massive, predatory cat—and it lulls Phil’s eyes shut. He hasn’t felt this safe in months, and he is fucking exhausted.

Slowly, Phil forces his eyes back open and reaches for the portion of Technoblade’s mane that hangs over his shoulder. It is, somehow, even more of a mess than Phil’s feathers are. Several of the mats are so thick Phil thinks he may have to cut them out. But he makes a start on the lesser of the tangles, easing the clumped strands apart with his fingers. Technoblade leans more heavily on him as he does, his ears drooping as he begins to relax.

Phil’s not sure when he falls asleep.

When he wakes up again, it’s to the tune of Technoblade’s savage growl.

Phil’s sleepiness vanishes at once, and he stiffens in his soulmate’s arms. He tries to sit up straight, but Technoblade holds him more tightly and snarls a warning. His heart fluttering in his chest, Phil freezes and directs his eyes to the doorway to see—

“Tachmahall?” Phil squirms, again, but there is no wiggle room in Technoblade’s arms. “Tech, it’s just Tachmahall.”

Technoblade allows his lips to cover his teeth, again, but his stuttering growl does not cease.

“Techno?” Phil looks up at him, baffled. He’s never once growled like this at any of his own sounder; even in playfights, his growls are only gentle snatches of noise, and his blows are soft. He would never hurt his family. He adores them. So why is he—?

“It’s alright,” Tachmahall says; she looks so tired, when she sees Technoblade. “I won’t come any closer. I only came to check that you were both okay. It’s almost dinnertime.”

Phil slumps back against Technoblade’s chest, and is rewarded with the subtle relaxation of his soulmate’s grip. “We’re okay. We’ll be out soon. Right, T?”

Technoblade doesn’t answer, his eyes sharp on Tachmahall. 

“No,” Tachmahall says, after a moment, and looks away. “Maybe you’d best not, tonight. I’ll have something sent up for you.”

“But I—”

“It’s alright, Phil,” Tachmahall says wearily. “Only stay with him.”

Phil had no plans to do otherwise, but it’s disturbing to see Technoblade’s aggression extending towards those who have raised him even from birth. Only once Tachmahall steps out does Technoblade lapse in his growl, and loosen his muscles with a quick shake. He blows out a breath and drops his heavy chin onto Phil’s head again. 

“What,” Phil says, “the fuck.”

Technoblade grunts noncommittally. 

“No, that is not an answer.” Phil stands up, and this time Technoblade lets him. “That’s Tachmahall! You love Tachmahall! What’s with the whole scary growly piglin thing?”

“I don’t know,” Technoblade says, and his conflicted emotions trickle across their bond. “When she comes here, I feel—bad. When anyone comes near me—near you—I feel bad.”

“They’re your sounder.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Technoblade looks at him, distraught. “I know what it is to love them. I know what it is to trust them. But right now, I can’t, and I don’t even know why.”

“Tech, you were scared, but you don’t have to be anymore.” Phil sits on the arm of the broken throne, leaning their shoulders together. “I’m here now. We’re going to figure things out together.”

Technoblade sags against him, and Phil braces a leg against the ground to support his soulmate’s weight. “Okay,” he says wearily. “Whatever you want, Phil.”

Phil reaches over to tug a strand of Technoblade’s coarse hair, humming. “Know what I want right now?”

“What?”

“I want to wash this godawful mess. Come on. We’re going to the baths.”

Technoblade grabs his hand, unwilling to lose physical contact for even a moment, and allows himself to be tugged out of the throne room. He is immediately more tense, hovering close beside Phil and startling at shadows. Phil knows what that’s like—to come back after a battle and see an enemy in everything. Technoblade’s battle has lasted months. 

“Let’s go, slowpoke,” he says, with a confidence he doesn’t truly feel. “Almost there.”

The palace baths are extravagant, and another one of the few places Technoblade had left undamaged for his sounder’s sake. The floors are slick ivory tile, sloping to deep basins of clear, hot water. Phil shucks off his boots, rolls up his trousers, and takes a seat on the edge to dangle his feet into one of the steaming pools. He ushers to Technoblade to sit next to him, and after a moment Technoblade obeys.

“It’s nice,” Phil says, to the curls of steam rising off of the pool.

“Mm,” Technoblade says, but his eyes are all for the exits. 

“Take off your armor and I’ll clean it for you while you wash,” Phil offers.

Technoblade hesitates, brushing his fingers over the rubies in his bracers. “Rather not.”

“Why not?”

“If someone comes, I want my armor, just—just in case.”

“If someone comes,” Phil reasons, “you’ll smell them first, and we can put it all back on.”

“I guess.”

“If you really don’t want to, that’s fine—but it’s gross, and you’re gross, and this is probably the safest place we could be right now.”

Technoblade scents the air and, having confirmed that they’re alone, slowly begins to shuck off the plates of his armor. Phil starts to take them off to the side, but stops when Technoblade whuffles at him in sudden alarm. 

“Stay close,” he says, and then miserably tacks on a little, “Please.”

So Phil sits next to the pool, scrubbing dried gore off of the armor while Technoblade scrubs dried gore off of himself. The divots and grooves of the iron plates are difficult to get entirely clean, but Phil plucks a loose feather and uses its narrow shaft to pick out the worst of the filth. In several places the gold plating has been scraped off, and Phil clucks his tongue. Where are they going to find a blacksmith to fix that? A few dents, too, will have to be hammered out. 

“Maybe I’ll just commission you a new set,” he muses aloud, before remembering that he is currently a war criminal and convict. Money won’t be easy to come by anytime soon. The gold that he has is all from the generosity of civilians on his trip here, and he knows he’ll have to hold onto that for supplies. “It—it might not be soon, but I ought to.”

“I don’t care,” Technoblade says, submerging to his snout and blowing bubbles before coming back up for breath. “It still fits.”

“Barely.” Phil sighs wistfully, picking up a bracer to shine the rubies. “They grow up so fast.”

Technoblade snorts, scrubbing his ears with frothy green soap. The water around him is brown with filth and old blood, and Phil decides that he will not be soaking his feet in that pool again today (or probably ever). The cuts on his soles have healed shut over the course of his travels, but he’s still reluctant to risk any sort of infection. 

As Technoblade soaks his mane in the soap, Phil reaches for the cloak lain to the side of the pool. It’s definitely the King’s—Phil would recognize that dark red wool and fur collar anywhere. The white feathers are a new feature, and a sick sort of prize that lights Technoblade’s eyes up when he sees them. Even now he looks proudly at it.

“Do you like it?” he asks. 

“The feathers are a morbid touch,” says Phil. “Very you.”

“Thanks.” Technoblade wags his tail under the water, stirring the current. “They’re the King’s feathers. I killed him myself.”

“I assumed as much.” Phil sets the cloak aside and reaches for the crown it had covered. The gold glints dully in the light, steam condensing on its gaudy jewels. “What happened to the rest of him?”

“I ate him.”

Phil whips around. “You did not.”

“Mm.” Technoblade makes a show of licking his chops, a sly grin on his face. “A little feathery, but not gamey at all. Pretty good.”

“Shut up.”

“Tasted like chicken.”

“Technoblade, that’s awful!” Phil says, but he’s laughing. “Oh my gods, I can’t believe you. Did you really?”

Technoblade sniffs haughtily. “He didn’t deserve a proper burial.”

“You ate him,” Phil repeats. “You ate the King.”

“Well, what was I supposed to do with him?”

Phil bursts into laughter again, and Technoblade follows suit. It’s the first time he’s heard his soulmate laugh since returning, and it makes something warm and giddy well up in him. They’re going to be okay. They’re together, and they’re going to be okay. Technoblade wades over to the side of the pool, leaning against it and looking happily at Phil.

“So earlier,” Phil says warily, “when you were licking me.”

“Mm-hm,” Technoblade says, and grins like the bastard he is. “Tastes like chicken.”

Technoblade snaps his teeth playfully on the air, and Phil shrieks and dunks his head under the water. He’s sure he only succeeds because Technoblade lets him—Phil could hardly make the piglin go anywhere he didn’t want to go. When Technoblade bursts out of the water, he slings his head and spatters Phil.

“Oh, gross, dude.” Phil skitters backwards, nearly tripping over the crown, and only sits down again once he’s safely out of splashing range. “Underhanded tactics.”

“My speciality,” Technoblade says, and then submerges again.

While Technoblade rinses the soap off of his hide and out of his hair, Phil turns the crown over in his hands. It’s heavy, and he hates it. He still remembers the way it looked above him when he stood on the gallows, condemned for the crime of caring about his men. He wants to throw it across the room and leave it there. 

Then, he sees the emerald.

It hangs on a thin gold chain, looped several times around one of the crown’s spines, and winks green in the light. Phil brushes a thumb over it, his heart clenching. That’s his. That’s his emerald. The guards had taken it from him in the first prison, along with all of his other things. How on earth had Technoblade found it again? 

“The guards had it,” Technoblade says, evidently sensing his curiosity, and wrings his hair out over the pool. “I took it off of them after we stormed the first prison. You can have it back.”

“I don’t want to take your prizes.”

“It isn’t the prize I really care about,” Technoblade drawls, “now is it? Don’t be silly. The necklace is yours, if—I mean, only if you want it. I’ll keep it if not. I’m not sure how you feel about necklaces after—after.”

Phil unwinds the necklace from the crown, hanging it around his own neck. It’s loose and light enough that it doesn’t bother him, and the emerald feels right where it presses against his chest. It feels familiar. It feels like it belongs. After all, Technoblade’s claim on him has never once been a noose.

“Thanks,” Phil says, a small smile on his face. “I missed it.”

“Of course,” Technoblade says warmly. “Anything for you, Phil.”

Phil can believe that—and, honestly, it’s a little terrifying. If Technoblade can dismantle an entire kingdom for Phil, what can’t he do? The blind loyalty and power he holds over Technoblade makes him nervous, and he sets the crown back down before his soulmate can notice his hands shaking. But the bond between them is still wide open, and Technoblade frowns.

“We have to talk about it eventually,” Technoblade says, “don’t we.”

“Mm.”

“Not tonight? I’m not—I just want to be with you, tonight.”

“Not tonight,” Phil agrees, “but someday soon.”

Technoblade grunts in agreement and scrambles out of the tub, reaching for one of the plush gold towels hanging on the wall. Phil tosses him the fresh clothes they’d brought, and gathers up the armor while he dresses. He offers it, but Technoblade shakes his head. 

“In a minute,” he says. “I can leave it off a little longer. Will you do my hair?”

Phil sets the armor back down, his heart full to bursting, and motions for Technoblade to sit in front of him. He stands—he can't reach the top of Technoblade’s head, otherwise—and starts at the far end of his soulmate’s mane, picking out stubborn tangles. It’s an arduous, time-consuming task, but it soothes both of them. In the end, Phil only has to cut out a few mats, and he can barely tell a difference once he’s combed through the rest of the mane.

“There,” he says, running his fingers through the fresh, shiny strands. Technoblade really does have beautiful hair. “Want me to braid it for you?”

“Oh, yes, please.”

So Phil begins a simple braid, twining three thick strands together to keep Technoblade’s hair from tangling again. He ties it off with a strip of black leather and slides one of his own feathers between the braids, admiring the way ebony offsets pink. Technoblade admires it, too, turning this way and that to examine himself in the murky water of the pool. Phil helps him back into his armor, and the two of them make their way out of the baths in high spirits. They find food waiting for them in the throne room—dry brown bread and watery soup—and sit on the floor together to eat. Technoblade tells him about the rebellion’s most recent movements, and Phil tells him about the journey here.

“—so it just kept following me the whole way! I don’t guess it had a flock to go back to,” Phil says, chasing a soggy and unidentifiable vegetable with his spoon. “It looked pretty young. It’s been hanging out in the garden these days.”

“We have a lot of crows in the city. Maybe it will find a flock here.”

“Maybe.” 

“Phil, what do you want to do?” Technoblade mops up the last of his soup with a lump of bread, frowning contemplatively into his bowl. “After all of this, I mean. Now I have you, I don’t really care what happens or where we go.”

Phil leans back on his hands, humming. “I don’t know. I’ve been fighting for so long, I guess I never really thought about what I’d do after.”

“I made a real muss of it for you, didn’t I?”

“What?”

“Everything,” Technoblade says, looking away from him. Then, he looks stubbornly back. “I’m not saying I regret what I did. I don’t. General Smith deserved to die, after what he tried to do to our men, and I’d kill the King himself a hundred times over for hangin' you. As far as I’m concerned, government’s rotten to the core. To hell with it. But, it does make things harder for you. This was your home, and the military was your life, and I’ve really botched it.”

“You have,” Phil says, and chuckles. “You’ve really, really botched it. I’ve never seen anyone botch something so much and so quickly. Did you practice botching before you started?”

Technoblade wrinkles his snout. “Alright, alright. You don’t have to rub it in.”

“I’m not angry about what you did,” Phil adds. “General Smith and the King were both wrong. I wish there’d been another way to fix things, but you did the best that you could in a really awful situation.”

“I always wondered what you would do. Every time I had to make a decision, I wondered. I wished you could have been there with me.”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t.”

“Well, it’s not like you had much of a choice.” Technoblade takes a deep breath and shakes himself off. “But enough about that. Do you want to stay and fix things, now, or do you want to say fuck all and go somewhere else?”

“Saying fuck all is very tempting,” Phil admits, “but I think we have to fix this, Tech. It’s a mess out there. The military is running wild, and the civilians are suffering for it. Those are people’s homes out there—innocent people.”

“They stood and watched you hang.” Technoblade peels his lips back from his teeth. “There is no innocence in this city.”

“Yeah? What about the children? What about the elders? What about the people who had nothing to do with it? They’ve lost everything now.”

“They should have stood up for you!”

“What, and been hanged themselves? Technoblade.”

Technoblade snorts and looks away, pinning his ears sullenly. 

“Grump,” Phil says, scooting closer and leaning their sides together. “Let’s dissolve the military. Send everyone out of the city.”

“Will you be King?”

“What? I thought you didn’t want there to be a king.”

“Well, but if it were you.”

Phil laughs, elbowing him. “You’re ridiculous. I don’t want to be king.”

“Well, me neither.”

“Say fuck it, then,” Phil says. “The people can figure out their own government.”

“Or, they could stay anarchists,” Technoblade says hopefully. “You know, private institutions are much safer than a single ruling body. I’ve been readin' up on it. There’s a novel by Tulles I think you’d really enjoy; maybe I can read it to you.”

“That sounds fun,” Phil says, even though a novel on anarchy sounds very much the opposite. But if it would make Technoblade happy, he’d listen to a whole damn series. “But before we make any big decisions, I think we need to sleep. I’m beat. Where’s your room?”

Technoblade looks sheepishly at him. “Been stayin’ here.”

“You’ve been sleeping in this—this?” Phil looks at the ransacked throne room, wrinkling his nose. “Okay, no. We’re going upstairs.”

Technoblade follows him to the upstairs gardens, clinging like a fresh-imprinted nestling and baring his teeth at any hint of movement in the halls. The one time he sees another piglin, he snarls and draws himself up to his full height. The piglin flinches and retreats. Phil elbows his soulmate in the gut. 

“Tech,” he scolds. “Relax. They’re our friends. They’re not gonna eat you.”

Technoblade doesn’t relax at all, and only hovers closer as Phil tugs him upstairs. They make a pallet of blankets in the middle of the gardens, surrounded by moonlight and dirt and growing things. Technoblade sprawls out on his back, his tail flicking lazily, and Phil curls up on his stomach. One wing hangs over Technoblade’s side, feathers brushing the churned soil below. The rise and fall of Technoblade’s chest is a comfort, as is the low wardrum of his heart under Phil’s cheek.

When Phil jolts awake several hours later, startled by nightmares, Technoblade rolls over and rumbles soothingly. He curls around Phil, and Phil tucks his wings in to be held more securely against that powerful chest. His flashpoint panic fades, surrounded as he is by the familiar scent and touch of his soulmate, and when a rough tongue swipes over his forehead Phil allows his eyes to drift shut again.

Their tentative peace shatters only a few days later.

Phil had noticed, of course, how Technoblade’s behavior had changed in his absence. He had noticed the skittishness, the second glances, the fear crackling over their bond even in the quietest of moments. He had noticed the bared teeth, the raised hackles, the glowers sent towards any single person whenever they came too close. Phil had passed it off as a trauma response (and a very justifiable one, at that) to be healed with time and patience.

Gods, if only it had been that simple.

The truth of it is that something fundamental has changed in Technoblade, and Phil is too damn naive to notice it until it bites him in the face. He’s walking back from the gardens with Technoblade one morning when he rounds the corner at the same time Yimalla does; they bump into each other, and Phil steps back with an apologetic smile. He opens his mouth to say something, but—

—but before he can, Yimalla stumbles backwards in terror. Her ears fall back, her eyes widen, and her tail lashes low at her heels. Beside Phil, Technoblade has frozen in place. His hold on Phil’s hand is suddenly iron, and he opens his mouth to display the full fearsome length of his tusks. Yimalla swallows. 

“Technoblade,” she says, and falters.

A growl begins to rattle in Technoblade’s chest, and all Phil can feel over their bond is sudden, choking rage. It is hideously out of proportion to the situation—on par with battle rage, only the two of them are safe at home and with sounder. All Yimalla did was bump Phil, and Technoblade reacts as though she’s run him through with a sword.

“I don’t want to fight,” Yimalla says firmly, turning her head to the side and averting her eyes. “Just—shit, I’ll go, man.”

Yimalla steps back, but before she can retreat fully around the corner Technoblade springs. Phil tries to pull him back, but Technoblade is far too strong for him to physically overcome anymore. He yanks so hard that Phil’s shoulder twinges, and he yelps. The anger over their bond flares even more at the noise, and Technoblade and Yimalla collide in the middle of the hallway. 

For all her reluctance, and her friendship with Technoblade, Yimalla is still a brute and a fierce warrior. When Technoblade lunges for her, she whips around and bares her teeth with her own fearsome snarl. A piglin fight is a shrieking, horrible cacophony of noise and blood. It’s worse now, off of the battlefield, when the both of them are unarmed and resorting to teeth and tusks and shattering strikes. Phil doesn’t dare get between them, well-aware of how fragile his own body is compared to their thick hides, dense bones, and massive size. He’s as like to get trampled as anything, and so he stumbles several steps back as they tear into each other.

The noise draws several other piglins, although the small space of the hallway prevents them from crowding. Tachmahall is foremost among them, and she recoils when she sees her own brutes turning on each other. Yimalla has already been forced to the ground, and Technoblade is straining to drive his tusks through her face or throat. She holds him off with a forearm across his neck, and he’s choking himself trying to get to her. 

The red light has returned to his eyes, and Phil can’t breathe.

“Technoblade!” Tachmahall bellows. “Stop this at once!”

Technoblade may as well be deaf. The whole of his attention is focused on Yimalla, and on the kill. He’s winning, though not by any true measure of skill—he’s advantaged in full armor while Yimalla wears only a tunic and trousers, her hide open to his vicious bites and slashes. She’s bleeding from several deep wounds already, the whites of her eyes rolling as she tries to shove him off. Behind Tachmahall, Ionamane is tense and twitching. It’s clear that, should Yimalla be put into mortal danger, there will be more than just the two of them in this fight. Technoblade may be strong, but even he won’t be able to defeat the whole of his sounder brought to bear against him. Phil has to stop him, and quickly.

Phil has no fucking idea how.

He’s never seen his soulmate like this. Even in the heat of battle at the prison, Technoblade was rational and focused. Like this, he’s a wild thing—an animal with only the injury on its mind, backed into a corner and striking at anything that comes close. But even at his angriest, Technoblade has never turned on Phil. He can only hope that’s true this time, too.

Phil lurches forward and shoves his arm into Technoblade’s gaping mouth.

Instinctively, Technoblade’s jaws clamp shut. His molars grind against Phil’s flesh, pressing hard against the skin, before hesitating. He draws back, snorting in confusion, and Phil presses his advantage. He shoves his arm forward, driving Technoblade’s head back and giving Yimalla the space she needs to scramble away. 

When Phil draws back, wiping pig spit off of his forearm, Technoblade blinks.

Ionamane and Brassbolt move, next, slamming into Technoblade while he’s still baffled. They press him to the ground and he shrieks in alarm, gnashing his teeth but unable to shove off the bulk of two other brutes. His rage quickly turns to fear in their bond, the emotions feeding off of each other in a vicious cycle, and Phil’s heart squeezes painfully.

“Hey—hey, stop, you’re scaring him,” he says, stepping towards Technoblade. “Guys, stop.”

“Phil.” 

Phil looks over, at Yimalla. She stands with her head low, black blood dripping from several long gouges across the side of her face. Her eyes are pained and solemn. A fine tremble works its way through her limbs, and her flanks heave to catch her breath.

“They,” she says, “are not the problem.”

Guilt seizes Phil’s throat, and he suddenly feels very small, because she’s—

She’s right.

Technoblade is the problem, here. Technoblade is the perpetrator. Technoblade is the monster, the rabid dog, the wild card, and Phil can’t do a damn thing to make it better. He turned Technoblade into this. He brought Technoblade into this world and this war. He died and he left Technoblade all alone to cope with the fallout.

He died, and he made a monster doing it.

“He can’t stay here,” Tachmahall says, her eyes overbright with grief. “Not while you’re here, Phil. You make him worse.”

Phil blinks, hard, against the sudden sting in his own eyes. “I don’t mean to.”

“I know. It’s not your fault, little one. If it’s anyone’s, it’s the King’s.” Tachmahall turns her head to look at him. “I don’t mean to blame anyone. It isn’t your fault you died. It isn’t Technoblade’s fault that the spirits have grown stronger than his will. It is a bad situation all around. But I can’t let him stay here—not when he’ll turn on his own sounder to protect you from a threat that is not there.”

“I understand.” Phil squeezes his eyes shut. “I’ll take him. We’ll go somewhere until he’s better.”

“Yes,” Tachmahall says, approaching Technoblade. “You will.”

Ionamane and Brassbolt tighten their grip on Technoblade, and he thrashes even more furiously when Tachmahall comes into his view. His shrieks are high and fearful, trapped as he is, and Phil wants to cover his ears and never hear them again. But he forces himself to watch—to witness what his soulmate has become in his absence.

Tachmahall speaks softly to Technoblade in their own language, and he settles enough to hear her. He breathes hard, pink foam dripping off of his tusks and blood caking his nostrils. When their dark eyes meet, he finally falls still. Tachmahall kneels before him, reaching out to cradle his face tenderly in her palm, and—

Technoblade snaps at her.

His teeth miss by inches.

“Oh, Technoblade,” Tachmahall says, her voice cracking. “Oh, little fighter. Always know I loved you.”

Then, Tachmahall braces her hand against Technoblade’s chin and forces his snout up so he can’t bite her again. In a movement as quick as it is cruel, she leans down and bites him savagely. He screams in pain, his thrashing renewed, and when Tachmahall draws back there is blood dripping like ichor from her teeth. A chunk of Technoblade’s delicate ear has been torn off.

“You will go from here,” Tachmahall decrees, “and you will never return.”

The winter is cold, and it gets colder as Phil presses north.

Breath condenses around his face, wreathing his chin, and he wraps his scarf more snugly over his nose and mouth. Snow crunches under his boots, and he traps his hands beneath his armpits to warm his fingers. The jacket he wears is too thin, but he doesn’t have the gold for anything thicker—and Technoblade needs the protection more. Piglins aren’t meant for the cold. They’re born and bred for the dark, hot spaces of the Nether. This winter will kill him as easily as anything if Phil isn’t careful, and so he spent much of his remaining gold to outfit Technoblade in a heavy coat, thick mittens, and knitted hat. His soulmate wears his red cloak above it all, pulling it tightly around himself as he follows in Phil’s footsteps.

He’s quiet.

He’s been quiet ever since they left the capitol, and his sounder.

They haven’t talked about it. They haven’t talked about anything, actually, because Technoblade won’t talk. He follows Phil in grim silence, the only sound his footsteps and his breathing, and Phil is too tired to push for more. He just wants to get them both somewhere safe—and that, at this point, means somewhere as far away from other living creatures as possible.

So. They go north.

Phil’s sense of direction is always accurate, and it is an easy thing to follow the magnetic fields of the earth towards true north. The frosted tundra turns to ice beneath his shoes, and the days grow shorter. In the evenings, colorful lights curl above their heads like banners. It is one of the few things that draws Technoblade to a complete stop, his eyes wide as he watches the sky. 

“The aurora borealis,” he says, his voice rough with disuse. “I read about this.”

Phil looks back at him, the snaking lights reflecting in blues and greens from the black of his eyes. Even the red of his cloak looks dull in comparison. Snow clumps his white fur collar, and packs into the tread of his boots. He holds their pack mule’s lead in one hand, and she stands placidly with her head down and her tail switching. The last of the money they’d gotten from selling the crown had been just enough to buy her.

“It’s beautiful,” Phil says, unable to muster up much feeling. He’s too cold. He’s too tired. “Now come on. We have a long ways to go.”

Technoblade shakes himself off and wordlessly falls back into line, tugging the mule along behind him. He doesn’t ask when they’ll stop, or where they’re going. He lets Phil lead the way without complaint or input. He’s put a wall between them, again, and his emotions are too bleak now for Phil to sense even if he tries.

He doesn’t try.

The only time the wall between them comes down is when Phil leaves Technoblade behind to enter a village for supplies. He doesn’t dare bring his soulmate near other people, and Technoblade refuses to let him out of sight without the reassurance of their bond flung wide open. Phil never stays in the villages long. If he does, Technoblade will come after him, and the villagers do not deserve that grisly fate.

When they reach the ocean, Phil stops running.

It all spreads out endlessly before him, the water dark and thick with ice floes. The waves crunch against snow drifts as they push tirelessly into the shore, and the smell of salt rises on a stiff breeze. A pair of skuas wheel high above, calling to each other over the sound of the surf. Phil’s crow caws in response from within the depths of its covered cage, and Phil rests a hand on the thick quilt guarding it from the cold. 

“Here,” Phil says. “Let’s stop here.”

Technoblade noiselessly agrees, dropping the mule’s lead and beginning to unload their tent. Phil helps him, and then he traces blueprints into the snow before the campfire while their fish cooks. Technoblade watches over his shoulder, eyes half-closed. The arctic is an inhospitable place for a home, but Phil has faced worse odds and won.

The next morning, he gets up to the memory of a bugle cry.

“Alright,” he says, poking Technoblade with his toe. “Let’s go, T. We’ve got work to do.”

On the edge of the world, Phil builds a home.

It is small but sturdy, and warm. Technoblade cuts down swathes of juniper trees with his battleax and stacks the logs where Phil instructs him to. They make a cabin, and a paddock for the pack mule where she can rest untethered. Phil insulates the cracks of the walls and ceiling with straw purchased from a village ten miles west, and sets up a fireplace with an iron pot overhanging it. Smoke trickles from the chimney like the breath of a giant, sleeping beast.

There are two bedrooms, and in one of them Phil makes a nest. 

It isn’t anything like the nests from his childhood. He fills it with the caribou pelts and polar bear furs from Technoblade’s hunts, and wool from the hardy cheviot sheep they begin to raise. He makes pillows fluffed with his own molting feathers. He borders the edges with old clothes, and he makes it big enough to fit a growing piglin and then some. 

Each night he falls asleep below the northern lights, curled up on the floor in a nest of his own making, and he dreams of wars distant. Inevitably, he will wake to Technoblade crawling in beside him—still cold and shaking with nightmares, snuffling for the comfort of Phil’s scent. Phil will spread a wing over him, fluffing his feathers like he would for any frightened nestling, and draw his soulmate’s head to his chest. The nightmares come slower, then, for both of them.

They sleep late, and in the mornings they make blueberry pancakes.

Technoblade starts a farm. It’s difficult to tend frozen soil, but he has little else to occupy his time. He breaks up the ice with an old plow and their pack mule’s labor, and he drapes the furrows with a tarp to keep them warm. When they buy glass for the cabin windows, he takes the extra and starts a greenhouse. He experiments with a host of different crops—most fail, but by the end of the season they have a surplus of fat yellow potatoes.

Phil sells them at the village, and comes back with new books and seeds.

Technoblade begins to talk again.

“It’s pretty,” he says, gazing out at the ocean. Phil’s crow has been let loose of its cage, and soars high above the black waves with the skuas. “You picked a good place.”

Phil leans comfortably against him, sipping a mug of hot tea—one made with too much honey. “Mm,” he says. “It’s comin’ along pretty handsome. What do you think about another pasture, to the east of the sheep pen? The herdsmen are raising up a pair of bison I might like to have.”

“Whatever you want, Phil,” Technoblade promises.

The next day, they go to work building the fence. 

Phil’s molt lasts almost three months, that year. He spends his evenings plucking itchy feathers and then some; when he becomes too aggressive in his plucking, Technoblade takes his hands and rubs circles into his palms. Then, he ushers Phil to turn around and lays a hot, damp towel over his wings. When the towel cools and Phil begins to fuss again, he takes over the preening himself. He rolls the new pinfeathers between his fingers, breaking off their keratin sheaths and coating the fresh feathers in a layer of preen oil. 

When summer comes, Phil can fly again.

It’s harder than it was, before—his wings and shoulders have grown weak with disuse, and it takes many short flights for him to regain his strength. He darts with the crow above the waves, playing breathless games of chase in the cold while Technoblade watches idly from their cabin. He learns from the skuas how to hunt from the air, plunging into the ocean and seizing on the unfortunate fish there. He comes up dripping and half-frozen each time, but they eat fresh salted salmon that night, and the next morning Phil catches a silver tunny half as big as himself. The sight of him flailing in the air while the fish thrashes sets Technoblade to laughing, and Phil can’t help but laugh with him. 

As the sun sets, Phil makes spicy tuna rolls and Technoblade tells him to leave.

“You can fly now, and the season is as mild as it’s going to get,” Technoblade reasons, refusing to look at him. “It would be a quick journey.”

Phil stares at him, mouth still full of sticky rice and salted nori, and can barely convince himself to swallow. “What?”

“If you’re going to leave, you should do it now, before the weather gets worse.”

“What the fuck are you on about?”

Technoblade looks patiently at him, setting aside his own plate of sushi. “Phil, you have to know how much I appreciate your stayin' here with me,” he says, like he’s explaining something to someone particularly slow. “But you can’t stay here forever, and I can’t go back.”

Something dark and insidious begins to curdle in Phil’s stomach. “You don’t want me here?”

“What? No! Of course I—Phil, don’t be a dumbass.” Technoblade scoots closer to him, bumping their knees together. “I love you and I’d keep you forever, but that’s—that’s not healthy for you, that’s not good. So it doesn’t matter what I want.”

“You’re my soulmate! Obviously it matters what you want,” Phil says, shoving his plate aside and scowling. “It’s not healthy for you to stay here alone forever, either.”

Technoblade laughs, and the sound is soft and miserable. “Yeah, but this is better than the alternative. I’m too dangerous to be in normal society, Phil.”

“I never said that.”

“You didn’t have to.” Technoblade looks out of the windows of their cabin, at the distant spirals of the northern lights. “You won’t even let me visit the village with you.”

“I just—Tech—”

“I don’t blame you. You’re right. Tachmahall was right. I can’t control myself the way I should be able to, anymore.” His ears droop, and he sighs. “It’s the same thing that happened to my sow. The spirits overpowered her, and Tachmahall had to drive her off, too, before she hurt anyone in our sounder. The madness runs in my blood, and after losin' you, I just—well. It is what it is. But you don’t deserve to be trapped here because of my mistakes."

“I’m not trapped, Techno, I choose to be with you ‘cause I love you.” Phil leans forward, knocking their heads together the way he’s seen piglin bondmates do. Technoblade snorts in surprise. “Besides, it’s not so bad here. We have a home, and we’re safe, and we own some really cute cows. That’s more than I thought I’d ever have, honestly.”

“You could have been General. You could have been King.”

“Yeah,” Phil says, smiling, “but this is more my style.”

“What, living like a caveman in the middle of nowhere?” Technoblade scoffs, but he presses their heads together. “You deserve more.”

“I don’t want more.”

“That’s not true and we both know it.”

“Don’t tell me how I feel.”

“I know exactly how you feel.” Technoblade headbutts him again, gently. “Birdbrain. I know you can sense her too.”

The presence of their third soulmate has been a quiet thing between the two of them. Phil honestly wasn’t even sure she was Technoblade’s soulmate. He’d assumed that their group would be a closed quin, but he never knew it for sure; the thought had crossed his mind that maybe he and Technoblade had different soulmates after all. It’s not unheard of. 

“She’s yours too, then?” Phil asks. 

“Mm,” Technoblade says, and closes his eyes. “But I’m—I don’t want to meet her. You’ll have to go alone.”

“Why?” 

“Because I’m—Phil, come on, you know why.”

“No, I don’t.” Phil snorts. “You can’t possibly think that you would hurt her. You’ve never hurt me, have you?”

“But I could,” Technoblade says, his distress spiking through their bond. “What if I just—I lose it, and I turn on you or her or any of them and I—Phil, you can’t stay here.”

“Yeah, and you can’t kick me out of my own house, so there.”

“Quit acting like a child.”

“Quit acting like a dumbass.” Phil draws himself up, scraping the leftover sushi into a box to be stored outside in the snow. “I’m not abandoning you.”

“So what? You’re just going to stay here and rot for the rest of forever while our other soulmates look for you? That’s not fair to you or them.”

“Me or them or you,” Phil points out. “You won’t hurt them. You’re not a monster, Technoblade.”

“Yeah, well you sure act like I am sometimes!”

Phil sets down the icebox a little harder than he needs to, his jaw clenching.

“I destroyed a whole goddamn nation, Phil, and I don’t even feel bad about it. I’ve killed generals and kings and I—I hurt Yimalla! I hurt my own sounder.” Technoblade hugs his knees to his chest, his tail coiling anxiously around his own leg. “If I can do that, I can hurt my soulmates, too. I can hurt you.”

“Yes, and I can hurt you,” Phil says tersely. “Get over it. That’s the risk we take when we love people, Techno.”

“Then maybe I don’t want to love people. Maybe I just want to be alone for the rest of forever. What about that, huh?”

“Oh, now who’s acting like a child?”

“I just want you to be safe!” Technoblade cries, surging to his feet. “I already lost you once. I can’t do it again, Phil. I can’t.”

“You aren’t going to lose me.”

“How do you know? How can you be sure?” Technoblade blinks furiously, his eyes feverishly bright. “Anything could happen. There’s no way you can be sure.”

“I can’t die, so how’s that?”

“What?”

“I don’t think I can die, Technoblade! I mean, I already tried once, but I’m still here. Don’t you think that means something?” Phil ruffles his feathers, frazzled. “I don’t know how. I don’t know why. I just don’t think I can die. Does that make you feel any better?”

“I mean.” Technoblade wipes his eyes. “A little.”

“Oh my gods, you’re pathetic. Come here.” Phil fluffs his feathers, and Technoblade obediently bends for a hug. “I know you’re scared, and I am, too. But we’re not running away from this. We’re not running away from each other. Whatever happens, we’re facing it together.”

“I’m sorry,” Technoblade mumbles into his shoulder, his voice cracking. “I ruined everything.”

“No, you didn’t.” Phil strokes the top of his soulmate’s head.

“If I had just followed your orders and ignored the stupid bombs—”

“Thousands of soldiers would have died.”

“Thousands of soldiers died anyway. I led them to their deaths.”

“Oh, Techno.” Phil’s hand trails down the length of Technoblade’s braid, then back up. “At least they died for something they believed in.”

Technoblade rocks them both on their feet, clinging tightly to Phil the way he’s wont to do when he’s afraid—which is more often than not, these days. Phil warbles softly, clinging to him in return. His wings come up, mantling protectively around his soulmate, and he leans into their bond. He isn’t afraid of the turmoil within; not anymore.

“Phil?”

“Mm?”

“I don’t really want you to leave.”

“I never will,” Phil swears, pressing his forehead to Technoblade’s collarbone. “Not as long as you’ll have me.”

“And I’ll have you forever?"

“Yeah, mate.” Phil laughs wetly, tears clinging to his eyelashes. “You’ll have me forever.”

“Techno!” Phil tosses a duffel bag at his sleeping soulmate, and Technoblade groans in protest. “Up and at ‘em, let’s go.”

“’s early.”

“It’s a long trip.”

“What?” Technoblade rolls over, blinking blearily at the ceiling. “We’re goin’?”

“Yeah, we’re goin’, if my lazy soulmate ever gets his ass out of the nest.”

Technoblade grunts and rolls out of the nest, dragging a caribou pelt with him. “Where?”

“The village.”

That, at least, gets Technoblade to sit up straight. “What.”

“We’re going to the village today. Get up and get dressed.”

“Phil, I don’t—”

“Come on, mate, it’s gonna be okay. Trust me. We’ve gotta start somewhere, right?”

Technoblade swallows, looking down at his hands and crumpling the pelt between them. “I—right, fuck, you’re right,” he breathes. "I might throw up."

“We'll bring a bucket. You can pick your favorite seedling potatoes at the market.”

“Seedling potatoes, right.” Bolstered by this thought, Technoblade climbs to his feet. “For the seedling potatoes.”

On the edge of the world, Phil builds a home.

It is small but sturdy, and warm. Lanterns hang beside the door, and the warm glow of firelight ebbs through the windows. Smoke curls high above the chimney, and a crow flits through the rafters of the nearby barn. A pair of shaggy brown bison chew on sweet hay from their manger, and a pack mule naps in her snowy paddock. An overabundance of potatoes grows under a black tarp, and a young piglin rakes mulch over the delicate rows of carrot seedlings within a lopsided greenhouse.

Phil looks at his little, sturdy home and decides it needs to be bigger.

“Techno,” he calls, and the piglin looks over. “What do you think about adding another floor?”

“Whatever you want, Phil.” Technoblade ambles over, turning to admire their cabin, too. “But we don’t really have the stuff to fill it.”

“Well, I was just thinking we’ll need more rooms for the others, when they get here.”

Technoblade looks down at him, eyebrows arched.

“Whatever I want,” Phil says, grinning mischievously. “Right?”

“Bruh. I’m being manipulated.”

“Come on, it’ll be fun. Let’s go! I’ll cut the wood!”

“I don’t think you could even lift my ax, old bird. It weighs near about as much as you.”

“Lies and slander.”

“Go get your tape measure,” Technoblade says, rolling his eyes. “I’ve got the wood handled.”

On the edge of the world, Phil builds a home, and he builds it with room to spare.

Chapter Text

Wilbur is born with music in the back of his mind, and even when everything else abandons him that music never does. He hums under his breath as he skips rocks by the shore, and sings softly to himself as he sweeps the barn. The horses never complain. They only whicker softly at him, swishing their tails and nibbling his hair when he comes too close. It’s the easiest work he’s found so far, being a stablehand—the warmest, too, since the barn is closed to the elements in winter.

Some of the songs he sings are his own, rearranged from snatches of tunes heard across distant streets. Some songs are borrowed from the girls who work at the pub next door and give him leftovers when he starts looking a little too skinny. Some songs are from his soulmates. There are three of them, Wilbur knows, although he’s never met a single one. One of them has been humming him lullabies for as long as he can remember; the second favors old classical, filling Wilbur’s mind with the swoops of violin and the ringing of piano keys; the third sounds like white noise, a low and constant hum to lean into. 

Wilbur sings back to them as often as he can, although he’s never quite sure whether they can hear him or not—but he feels like they can. Lullaby’s own humming grows more chipper whenever Wilbur sings, and Classical’s song choices become happy and energetic. White Noise is the only one who never changes: a steady, unfaltering rustle wrapped around him like a blanket against the chaos outside. 

Wilbur’s five years old when he gains his fourth and final soulmate, dubbed The Fucking Annoying One. The Fucking Annoying One doesn’t speak to Wilbur in music or rhythm, but in the inelegant squalls of an upset infant. Even when they get older they never learn to communicate musically, and instead accost Wilbur with noisy snatches of thoughts. They don’t even have the decency to make them lyrics!

Ow! Ow, sharp, The Fucking Annoying One thinks, and Wilbur groans. Blackberries sharp. 

No shit, Wilbur thinks in response, rubbing his temples. 

Hey, who’re you?

Wilbur.

Wilbur, The Fucking Annoying One thinks happily. Hi Wilbur. I’m Tommy.

You’re fucking annoying is what you are.

Wilbur does feel a little bad, after that. The Fucking Annoying One—Tommy—is just a little kid, so it's no wonder he’s stupid. Wilbur should probably be nicer to him. (But nobody was ever nice to Wilbur when he was a little stupid kid. Nobody ever told Wilbur which berries had thorns and which ones didn’t. Nobody ever talked to Wilbur when he was all alone.)

I mean, Wilbur grumbles, of course blackberries are sharp. They’ve got thorns.

Oh.

Blueberries are better.

Blueberries! Tommy thinks ecstatically. I’ll find some.

You do that.

When he isn’t working at the stables or busking for money, Wilbur goes looking for more music to share with his soulmates—even Tommy, though the brat doesn’t seem to appreciate it as much as the others do. He sits outside of the pub and listens to the bawdy drinking songs that burst through the windows. He sneaks into concert halls to hear the opera, more amazed by the tenor of those voices than he is even by the jewels and silks the patrons wear so casually. He’s driven off before the end, more often than not—a grubby beggar hardly belongs in a concert hall. 

Then, the old man on the corner teaches Wilbur how to play guitar.

The guitar is as filthy and cheap as Wilbur himself is: its copper finish flakes in several places, cracks mar its body, and tarnish creeps along the edges of its frets. The strings are thin and frayed beneath his fingers when he plucks them, and the tune is discordant. Wilbur fucking loves it. He spends hours with that old man, learning how to tune the guitar and coax the correct notes out of it. Together, their street performances draw quite the crowd. 

When the old man dies—cut down by an infection the freezing winter air did absolutely nothing to help—Wilbur takes the guitar. It’s not stealing, he doesn’t think. The old man’s never going to use it again. He’d want Wilbur to have it. Wilbur keeps playing music, after that, even though he’s not as good as the old man. But he learns.

He plays, and he learns.

He’s nine when he goes to find Tommy. He’s known forever that there was something odd about Tommy’s way of life, but he’s only now old enough to realize that he can do something about that. Nobody ever took care of Wilbur, but that doesn’t mean Wilbur can’t take care of Tommy. It’s obvious that Tommy needs somebody to take care of him, since he doesn’t know the difference between blueberries and blackberries, and never thinks about a mom or a dad. 

It’s hard to figure out where Tommy is, though. He’s still kind of stupid.

Tommy, where are you? I’ll come visit.

I’m at the town, Tommy thinks. 

Which town?

Whaddaya mean?

Which town are you in? What’s its name?

I dunno. It’s got a big white house at the front.

Wilbur pinches the bridge of his nose, groaning. This is going to be harder than he thought. A four year old isn’t exactly a wealth of reliable information. But Wilbur is, for once in his life, lucky—because that evening, as he’s sneaking into yet another concert hall, he glimpses a big white house and thinks, Oh.

Abandoning the concert, Wilbur slips farther up the street. Tommy? Hey, Toms?

Tommy must be asleep, however, because he doesn’t answer. Wilbur slinks along the streets, keeping to the shadows the way he’s learned to do, but he doesn’t see anything suspicious—no grimy children sleeping in the gutters or toddlers climbing into dumpsters. Sighing, he retreats to his shelter in the barn, and he strokes the horses’ necks until he can settle enough to sleep.

The next day, he goes to search again.

Tommy, he says. Go to the big white house and I’ll meet you there.

‘kay.

Holy fuck, Wilbur needs to get a hold of this kid before he’s kidnapped. Hasn’t he ever heard of stranger danger? Wilbur knows he’s not exactly a stranger, but gods above. Right now, however, Tommy’s naivety is Wilbur’s saving grace. He makes his way back to the white house and waits there, reclining in the shade, until he hears the rapid patter of feet coming his way and—

Oh, he thinks. It’s you. Where have you been all this time?

Tommy is small and scrawny, his cheeks smudged with dirt and his clothing smeared with gods-know-what. His hair is long and tangled and blond, Wilbur thinks, under all that filth. Most shocking of all are the little taupe wings on his back, fluttering clumsily with excitement. He breaks into a run, squealing when he sees Wilbur, and Wilbur sits up so quickly he scrapes the bout of his guitar against the cobblestone.

“Wilby!” Tommy cries, delighted, and slams into him like a tiny cannonball.

“Hey, Toms,” Wilbur laughs, hugging him close and cupping the back of his head with one hand. His arm brushes one of Tommy’s downy wings, and he flinches at the reminder that this is definitely not a human child. “What’s up?”

“You’re tall,” Tommy says accusingly, drawing back to eyeball him.

“Yeah, well, you’re short.”

“Am not!”

“Are too.”

“Am not!” Tommy pouts, jutting his lower lip out, but stubbornly hangs on as Wilbur stands up. Wilbur slides an arm underneath him, wobbling a little under his weight, and Tommy wraps arms and legs around him like a koala. Tiny claws dig into his shoulders. “Don’t drop me.”

“I’m not gonna drop you,” Wilbur says, rolling his eyes. “You wanna hang out with me today?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll show you the horses. You’ll really like ‘em.”

Tommy does really like ‘em. He reaches for their whiskery muzzles, exclaiming loudly over them, and yanks their manes a little too hard when he tries to pet. Wilbur scoops him up and carries him to the hayloft, flopping onto his makeshift pallet of horse blankets. Tommy crawls across the loft, peering curiously down the ladder and grabbing fistfuls of sweet-smelling, dusty hay. 

“Whatcha think?” Wilbur says, sprawling. “This is my crib.”

“It’s nice. You sleep here with the horses?”

“Uh-huh.” 

“Cool.” Tommy sticks a handful of hay into his mouth, and Wilbur scrambles to yank it back out. “Wilbur! I’m hungry!”

“That’s horse food, not huma—not Tommy food, okay? Here, I’ll get you something.” Wilbur rummages through his stockpile of food, carefully wrapped in an empty grain sack and squirreled away beneath another lump of hay. He pulls out a packet of dried fruit and shoves it towards Tommy. “Try that.”

Tommy digs into the leathery fruit strips, humming happily as he gulps them down with the stale water from Wilbur’s canteen. 

“Where are your parents?” Wilbur asks. 

“Dunno,” Tommy says, shrugging. “Where are yours?”

“Touche.”

“What’s that mean?”

“It means, uh—good point,” Wilbur says. “You make a good point.”

“Oh.” Tommy shoves another fruit strip into his mouth, chewing noisily. 

It’s odd, Wilbur thinks, that Tommy wouldn’t have any parents around—elytrians are notoriously protective of their young. They’re like the hens that roost in the tack room, Wilbur thinks, either stupid or stubborn enough to brood eggs that don’t have a chance in hell of hatching. Elytrians are rich bastards, too, and so it’s difficult to reconcile this dirty child with one of them. Did he fall out of the nest or something?

If that’s the case, his parents must be looking for him.

Maybe, if Wilbur can return him, he’ll be rewarded. 

“Where do you live at?” Wilbur asks, snatching a fruit strip of his own. It’s tough and hard to chew, but sweet on his tongue.

“By the big white house,” Tommy says. “There’s a tent.”

“Have you always lived there?”

“Nuh-uh. I was in the forest once.”

“With your parents?”

“Don’t ‘member,” Tommy says, shrugging again. “Can we play hide and seek in here?”

Wilbur sits back, sighing. That’s currently all the information he’s getting from Tommy’s limited attention span, it seems. “Yeah, we can play hide and seek,” he says, “but you have to stay out of the stalls or the horses will stomp you.”

Tommy takes off, wings fluttering in delight, and goes to hide.

Wilbur finds him every time.

Wilbur gives up on finding Tommy’s parents after the first month.

The kid never talks about them, and has no memories to point them in the right direction, so Wilbur resigns himself to being a single father. It can’t be that hard, right? He raised his own damn self, so why not Tommy, too? It’s a little harder to feed two mouths, but Wilbur’s getting better at guitar and singing both—he makes enough busking. The stable owner doesn’t complain about an extra live-in, either, so long as Wilbur makes sure his jobs get done on time.

If by the end of the day his hands are covered in blisters and his fingers in calluses, well, that’s nothing to complain about it—not if it means keeping Tommy safe and dry and well-fed.

Every other day, he scrubs Tommy off with water from the nearby well. Tommy wails his complaints about the cold and the wet both, and the first time Wilbur fears that his down feathers will never dry—but, gradually, they do. Tommy spends several hours that day buried in the hay, covered in all of Wilbur’s blankets and shivering. They take care not to get his down feathers wet after that.

Tommy’s hair is more or less a lost cause, full of lice and mats both. Wilbur trims it short with the shears he uses on the horses’ manes and tails, and watches it grow back out as fluffy as his feathers. There are even a few puffs of down scattered throughout it, speckles of light brown amidst dark blond. Looking more closely, Wilbur can see that some of Tommy’s darkest down even has a drab orange tint to it. He’s never seen that on an elytrian before.

Then again, Wilbur tries to avoid those smug pricks when he can.

There’s not much time for the pub or the opera anymore, but Wilbur contents himself by holding little concerts for himself and Tommy and the horses. Tommy isn’t a very good audience, and he’s an even worse singer; he’s cute when he tries, though. He can copy the birdsong outside perfectly, and his own idle humming is interspersed with happy warbles and chirps. Wilbur enjoys listening to him in the mornings, whistling along and grinning when Tommy giggles.

Tommy’s six the first time he asks about their other soulmates.

“Wil,” he says, swinging his legs over the side of the hayloft, “they’re askin’ where we are again.”

“What? Who?”

“The others,” Tommy says. “The other ones I can talk to.”

“What’d you tell them?”

“Nothin’. What do you want me to tell them?”

Wilbur pauses to think about it, chewing the inside of his cheek. He likes his soulmates, he does—as much as he can like anyone he’s never met. He likes their music preferences, anyway, and their constant presence when so much else has changed in his life. But he doesn’t know them, not in any way that really matters. He certainly doesn’t trust them.

Wilbur, at least, practices stranger danger.

“Don’t tell them anything,” Wilbur says. “Tell them we’re fine, if they ask.”

“Oh.” Tommy frowns for a moment, and then adds, “Phil says he’s still worried. He wants to come see us.”

Wilbur considers it. He considers a soulmate coming to find them—their soulmates are adults, he supposes, being that they were there before Wilbur was even born. He considers those adults taking Tommy from him. He considers them ripping him away from the home and the life he’s built here because they don’t think he’s clever or strong enough to take care of himself, or to take care of his own baby soulmate. He considers them abandoning him.

“Tell him we’re fine,” Wilbur insists, “and that we can take care of ourselves. We’ll come to him when we’re ready.”

We’ll come when I can stand up to him—when I can keep Tommy safe and here and mine.

Tommy tucks his knees to his chest, fluffing his down uncertainly. “He doesn’t like it. He says we’re too little to be alone.”

“How’s he know we’re little? How’s he know we’re alone?” Wilbur demands. “What the hell did you tell him, Toms?”

Tommy shrinks into himself, and Wilbur takes several deep breaths.

“I’m sorry,” he says, kneeling next to his soulmate. “I didn’t meant to shout. But we don’t know them. Do you remember what I told you about talking to people we don’t know?”

“But they’re our soulmates.”

“That doesn’t mean anything. They seem nice, and maybe they are, but there’s no way we can be sure. I’m not going to give you to someone I’ve never even met. Does that make sense?”

Tommy nods, and then hesitates. “But, Wil, we didn’t know each other either.”

“That’s different.”

“How come?”

“‘cause you’re my shithead little brother,” Wilbur says, ruffling his hair and grinning when Tommy squawks. “Duh.”

‘cause you’re a kid, Wilbur thinks to himself, and you couldn’t hurt me even if you wanted to.

Tommy drops it, and won’t bring it up again for several months—but the music in Wilbur’s head becomes discordant, the lullabies fretfully strung and the violins high with nerves. Based on the information he’s gathered from Tommy, Lullaby is Phil and Classical is Technoblade. White Noise remains nameless to the both of them.

“She’s never talked to me,” Tommy says, picking at his fraying trousers, “not even when I ask.”

As far as Wilbur is concerned, then, White Noise can go fuck herself.

Because Wilbur doesn’t need her, or Phil, or Technoblade—and neither does Tommy, ‘cause he’s got Wilbur looking after him, and Wilbur will skip a hundred meals before he lets his baby brother skip a single one. He’ll steal candies for Tommy to suck on and colored pencils for him to draw with. He’ll pick lullabies out on his old guitar and stand guard against the nightmares that make Tommy whine and chirp. He’ll make a nest of old grain sacks and saddle pads and fraying shirts, and he’ll pet Tommy’s rumpled down into some semblance of order every night.

So they don’t need anybody else—not even soulmates. Wilbur has this all under control.

Holy fucking shit Wilbur does not have this all under control.

The problem starts (as many do these days) with Tommy. A few days after his seventh birthday, he starts complaining about itchy wings. Wilbur looks through his down for fleas or lice, but he doesn’t find anything to suggest the presence of parasites. Despite this, Tommy still spends most of that night whining and scratching his wings.

It only gets worse from there.

By the second day, Tommy’s wings sport a host of small red scratches from his incessant itching. Wilbur scolds him up one wall and down the other, and threatens to trim his tiny talons if he keeps it up—so Tommy finds other ways to damage himself. He tosses and turns all night, rubbing his wings against the ground for some relief, and by morning clumps of tawny down feathers litter the hay.

“Tommy!” Wilbur says, looking aghast at the state of his brother’s wings. Bald pink patches creep across their undersides, and several small, stiff barbs are beginning to break through irritated red skin. Is he turning into a hedgehog? What is this? “What the fuck, dude?”

“It itches!” Tommy wails, and then warbles, and then chirps. He flutters his wings, and another tuft of down escapes. “Wil.”

“Okay, okay, okay, we’re gonna figure it out,” Wilbur says, gathering his distraught sibling into his arms. “It’s gonna be fine. Just give me a minute, okay? You’re probably just growing your adult feathers.”

Elytrians have to do that at some point, right? Their adult feathers are so much different than Tommy’s—long and elegant, like real bird feathers, and not the airy fluff that Tommy has. That’s baby stuff. It’s like the barn chickens when they start molting, Wilbur thinks. They’re itchy and ugly for several weeks, and then all at once everything is better.

“Molting,” Wilbur decides, with some relief. “Toms, you’re molting.”

Molting’s unpleasant, maybe, but it never killed anybody—and it’s not a result of Wilbur’s neglect or inexperience, either. He hasn’t fucked up. He hasn’t let Tommy get sick. 

Tommy sniffles, looking up at him. “What?”

“Molting,” Wilbur explains, running a hand over his hair. “You’re getting your grown-up feathers. It’s gonna be itchy for a while, but then it’ll be better and your wings will look so cool.”

“Oh.” Tommy rubs his eyes. “How long?”

“Um.”

Wilbur chews the inside of his cheek, his hand shifting from Tommy’s hair to his feathers. Tommy fluffs them instinctively, and Wilbur pets through the massacred down. Another clump comes off between his fingers, which is gross and horrible. It takes the chickens several weeks to exchange all of their down for feathers, but he’s not sure how long it takes an elytrian. 

“A month?” Wilbur guesses. “Or something like that.”

Tommy’s eyes well with tears again. “A fuckin’ month?!”

Well. That wasn’t the right thing to say. 

Wilbur rocks them back and forth in the hayloft, humming under his breath and hugging Tommy as he bawls and shrieks and kicks the blankets in frustration. The noises dig under Wilbur’s ribcage, carving up and into his heart. He hates it. He hates watching his baby brother suffer when he can’t do a damn thing about it. 

Gradually, Tommy calms—or wears himself out too much to fuss anymore, in any case, and slumps against Wilbur’s chest. Wilbur kisses his forehead and bundles him into the nest, covering him with blankets and holding his hands so he can’t scratch himself raw. Tommy lies quietly for several minutes, wiping snot off on his sleeve, with the distant look in his eyes that means he’s talking to their soulmates.

Wilbur’s not sure how he feels about that.

On one hand, he’s glad that Tommy can find some comfort and distraction in them.

On the other hand, he wishes he could be all that Tommy needed.

“Phil says,” Tommy says, breaking the silence, and Wilbur’s jaw clenches. “Phil says we can put damp towels on my wings so it’ll itch less. Can we try that?”

It rankles Wilbur that Phil knows more about this than he does, but he’s not going to let some petty jealousy get in the way of Tommy’s comfort. If Phil says it’s worth a shot, then it is. In any case, it can hardly hurt worse than doing nothing. Wilbur grabs one of their blankets and slides out of the hayloft to dunk it in the well before carrying it back up and draping it over Tommy’s wings. Immediately, Tommy sighs in relief.

“Oh,” he says, stretching his wings beneath the towel. “That is better.”

“Ask Phil what else we can do.”

Tommy’s quiet, a moment, before saying, “He says the water will make the pinfeather sheaths softer so we can break them open.”

“We’re supposed to do what?”

“Break ‘em.” Tommy sits up, shaking the towel off and reaching for a wing. “Like this.”

Wilbur watches as Tommy takes one of the short, thin barbs growing beneath his down—the pinfeather?—and rubs it between his fingers. White flakes break off of it, and a tiny red feather begins to unroll once it’s freed from the sheath. He repeats the process several times, clumsy and slow, before Wilbur feels confident enough to join in. They preen together for a couple of minutes—Tommy working on the undersides while Wilbur does the tops, where he can’t reach as easily—and Tommy’s down is gradually replaced with tufts of small red feathers. 

“Hey, Toms,” Wilbur says. “I think your wings are gonna be all red.”

“Oh, poggers,” Tommy says, fluffing up with excitement. 

“I’ve never seen an elytrian with red wings before.”

“Me neither.” Tommy wiggles, and Wilbur sighs as the movements jars a pinfeather from between his fingers. “It’s ‘cause I’m the biggest man ever, prolly.”

A smile flickers across Wilbur’s face. “Yeah, that’s probably it.”

And while Tommy’s wings are pretty, Wilbur thinks, they’re also a pretty big problem. It was easy enough for him to blend in with his dull down, but it’s going to be harder to go unnoticed if he’s walking around with bright red appendages on his back. They’re only going to get bigger, too. If anybody was missing Tommy, it’s going to be a helluva lot easier to find him now. Wilbur should be glad about that, he supposes.

He’s not.

Even worse, what if someone who isn’t related to Tommy at all claims him just because of his weird wings? Elytrians are all a bunch of magpies at heart, with a penchant for gems and rarities and shiny things. What if they try to take Tommy just because he’s an oddity? Wilbur wouldn’t have any legal recompense if they took him; he’s not technically Tommy’s family, nor old enough to be his guardian. If someone else wants Tommy, they’ll get him, and Wilbur can’t do a damn thing about it.

Wilbur’s jaw clenches as he moves onto the next pinfeather. He twists it, and—

“Ow!” Tommy yelps and flails, whacking Wilbur in the face with a wing. “Ow, Wilbur, what the fuck?”

“What? I was just breaking the sheath.”

“You did it wrong. That hurt.” Tommy pulls his wing around, scowling and poking at it. 

To Wilbur’s alarm, it seems like Tommy isn’t just being dramatic—there’s a spattering of brighter red amidst his down, and it’s growing rapidly. 

“Hey, come here, c’mere.” Wilbur grabs Tommy’s wing, stretching it out. Blood smears the top edge of his wing, spreading quickly. “Shit, dude. What happened?”

“You messed it up,” Tommy accuses. “Let go.”

“Let me see it.” Wilbur keeps a hold on Tommy’s wing and combs through the feathers until he finds the offending one: the pinfeather he’d tried to unsheathe is instead broken in half and bleeding profusely from its shaft. Wilbur snatches one of their old shirts and presses it over the feather to stop the bleeding. “Fuck. I’m sorry, Toms.”

“What’d you do?”

“I think I broke your feather. Let me hold this here until it stops bleeding.”

“Ugh, Wilbur.”

“I know, I know,” Wilbur says. “I said I’m sorry.”

“Phil says it was probably a bloodfeather,” Tommy grumbles. “You’re not s’ppsed to touch ‘em.”

Phil says, Wilbur thinks bitterly. Phil says, Phil says, Phil says.

As far as Wilbur’s concerned, Phil can just shut the fuck up. He’s not the one taking care of Tommy. He’s not the one making sure they have food and water and shelter. He’s not the one working his ass off to keep a seven year old safe on the streets. He’s not here, and he’s never been here, so he can just shut up.

A part of Wilbur knows that his anger is misdirected. Phil was the one who was able to ease Tommy’s itching. Phil was the one who taught him how to preen new feathers. Phil would be able to do this better than him. Phil wouldn’t have broken a bloodfeather—hell, he’s probably an elytrian himself, if he knows all this shit. He’s probably rich and perfect and a better parent than Wilbur could ever be.

“Is it done yet?” Tommy asks, scowling over his shoulder.

Wilbur pulls the towel back, and then immediately presses it back down. The bloodfeather still hasn’t stopped bleeding, and the wet red spot on Tommy’s wing has grown alarmingly in only a couple of minutes. “Not yet,” Wilbur says tersely. “Quit moving so much. You’re making it worse.”

“It hurts,” Tommy whines. “Why’d you have to do that?”

“It’s not like I meant to.” 

“I don’t want your help anymore. I’ll preen by myself.”

“Fine.” Wilbur’s jaw clenches. “Whatever, Toms.”

Wilbur eases the towel back after another minute, and—“Shit! Fuck’s sake, why isn’t it stopping?”

“It’s still bleeding?” Tommy asks, his wings stiffening with alarm. 

“Yes,” Wilbur says. Blood is slipping through the down to the edge of Tommy’s wing, now, and wobbling precariously before splattering against the floor. Wilbur knows that the down saturates quickly, and it looks worse than it is, but gods sake it looks bad. His fingers tremble. “Tell Phil.”

“Um. Um.” Tommy’s shoulders hunch, his voice going thready with fear. “He—he says we have to pull the feather so it stops bleeding. Wil, I don’t want to—”

Wilbur tosses the towel aside, pushing his fingers through Tommy’s bloody down. He finds the broken feather and grips the base of it, ignoring Tommy’s squalls and protests. His little brother starts to flail, spattering more blood onto the hay, and Wilbur seizes the shoulder of his wing tightly. Then, he yanks. 

Tommy shrieks and socks him in the jaw. 

Wilbur jerks backwards, cradling his own throbbing cheek. Tommy’s little, but he packs a damn punch—and he’s scooting away from Wilbur now, fat tears spilling down his face. Blood spatters the ground between them. Wilbur starts to move closer, again, but Tommy holds a hand out to stop him. 

“Stop it!” he cries. “Just go away!”

Wilbur flinches back again. “Your—Toms, your wing, is it—?”

“Go away!”

Wilbur snatches up the bloody towel and escapes the hayloft, his chest heaving. He goes to the well and he pulls a bucket of water up and he drowns the towel in it until the water stops coming away pink with his baby brother’s blood. Then he goes back to the hayloft. Tommy is curled up in their nest, his wings mantled up around himself. The down is still matted with blood, but he doesn’t seem to be actively bleeding anymore.

Wilbur sits down, and he loses some time.

When he blinks back into himself again, Tommy is in his lap. He’s crying—still, or again?—and his fingers are curled tightly into Wilbur’s shirt. Blood crusts his feathers. It’s going to be hell on earth getting that out, especially when the down takes so long to dry. He reaches absently for one wing, and Tommy startles.

“Wilbur?” Tommy looks up, wiping his face. “I’m sorry! Wilby, I’m sorry, I’m really sorry.”

“It’s alright,” Wilbur says, petting Tommy’s wing. 

“No it isn’t! You were—you, and I couldn’t—” Tommy gasps for breath, too fast, and oh—Wilbur knows what to do here, at least.

“Hey, hey, shh. Breathe slowly. With me, right, big man?” Wilbur takes an exaggerated breath, waiting until Tommy copies him, and then lets it out slowly. “Let’s do that a couple times.”

The two of them breathe together, clinging to each other, and the world around Wilbur gradually comes into focus. He can feel Tommy’s slight weight in his lap, and the itchy hay beneath him, and the horsehairs matted into their blankets. He can smell horses and soil and manure. He can see the afternoon sunshine leaking through the slats between the barn walls, and the bloody clumps of down littering their nest. He can hear pounding drums in his head.

“I’m sorry,” Wilbur says, and he feels it, this time—he feels the guilt like it’s about to choke him. “I hurt you.”

Tommy shakes his head, shoving his snotty face into the crook of Wilbur’s throat. “I don’t care,” he says, his voice cracking. “I don’t care anymore. It’s okay.”

“It’s not. I should have been more careful.”

“I yelled at you,” Tommy says, sniffling. “I’m sorry too.”

Wilbur hums and smooths a hand over Tommy’s head, over his shoulders and his wings. He rocks them both, back and forth, until Tommy’s tears dry and his hands relax their grip on Wilbur’s shirt. He stands, bringing Tommy up with him, and goes to their nest. Tommy tucks up against him, chirping softly, and Wilbur hugs him close.

“Does your wing still hurt?”

“Nuh-uh.”

“That’s good. We’ll wash the blood out tomorrow.”

Tommy makes a face, but he doesn’t argue. Instead, he says, “Does your face still hurt?”

“What, this?” Wilbur touches his jaw, where he can feel the soreness of a forming bruise. “Nah. My face is made of steel.”

Tommy doesn’t look entirely convinced, but he drops the subject and pillows his face on Wilbur’s arm. His blinks are getting slower and heavier, his eyes still puffy and red from his tears. There’s a smear of dried blood on his cheek. Wilbur licks his thumb and wipes it off, and Tommy wrinkles his nose. 

“Gross,” he mumbles. “Wil?”

“Hm?”

“I, um.” Tommy blinks, harder, and stirs. Wilbur slings a leg over his to settle him. “I’m really sorry. I told them where we are.”

Wilbur winces. “You told Phil?”

“Well, no.” Tommy plucks at his shirt sleeve, his eyes skittering away from Wilbur’s. “I told Techno. He was—he was really worried, ‘n he’s not as nice as Phil.”

“What do you mean?” The hairs on the back of Wilbur’s neck rise and he flexes his hands. “He’s mean to you?”

“No! No, he’s not mean, he’s just…” Tommy squirms uncomfortably. “I dunno, Wilby. I just told him. Him ‘n Phil were really scared.”

Wilbur can’t even be mad about that. Of course they were scared, if Tommy told them both everything. Wilbur had fucked up. Wilbur had fucked up and made him bleed and then couldn’t make him stop. Wilbur had hurt him. Wilbur had hurt his baby brother.

“That’s—okay,” Wilbur breathes, hooking his chin over Tommy’s head. “It’s fine. You were scared too, Toms. I hurt you.”

Tommy’s eyes flick up to meet his, and then dart away again. “I wasn’t scared about that,” he confesses. “I was scared when you wouldn’t talk to me.”

“When—?”

Ah. Wilbur had lost time again. Tommy must have frantic, trying to get him to respond, and Wilbur doesn’t even fucking remember it. Gods above. He really is the worst big brother ever. Tommy had just been hurt, and then Wilbur sat there and ignored him! He said he wouldn’t do that again after last time. Why is he such a fucking screw-up today?

“Hey, hey, Toms,” Wilbur says, squeezing Tommy close. “I’m so sorry. I swear I didn’t mean to ignore you.”

“I know,” Tommy whispers. “Phil says you can’t control it.”

“Well, Phil’s wrong,” Wilbur says fiercely. “I can control it perfectly well and it’s not going to happen again. I won’t leave you like that, Toms. If I ever do it again, just punch me in the face.”

“Wilbur!”

“What?” Wilbur grabs one of Tommy’s little fists, squeezing it gently. “You sure pack a wallop. It’s like being hit by a freight train. Where’d you learn to punch, kid? Whoever taught you must’ve been a real badass.”

Tommy giggles, and the sound is wet and wobbly but real. “Wilby,” he says. “You taught me.”

“Oh shit, for real? I did good.”

Tommy burrows in close, nudging his head beneath Wilbur’s chin again. “Did really good,” he agrees, curling his fingers loosely into the collar of Wilbur’s shirt. “I love you, Wil.”

“Yeah?” Wilbur says, dragging a blanket over the two of them. “I love you too. Get some sleep.”

Tommy falls asleep quickly, after that, exhausted from the day’s events—but Wilbur can’t sleep. He stays tucked around his baby brother, plagued with worries long into the night. Phil and Technoblade know where they are, and are undoubtedly coming for them. Wilbur could just stay here. Wilbur could just—he could stay.

It might be better, in the end. Phil knew about preening and bloodfeathers. He could help preen out the rest of Tommy’s wings so Wilbur couldn’t fuck it up again. Plus, if he’s an elytrian then he probably has a big house and lots of food and a better nest than one made out of horse blankets and old rags. Tommy would thrive there.

…or would he? 

Phil could be rich and smart and still be terrible and mean and selfish. He could keep Tommy and Wilbur locked away somewhere until they pissed him off, and then throw them back to the streets. Wilbur still remembers the misery he’d felt when his own parents did that, and he doesn’t ever want that for Tommy. It’s better to never have something than to have it and lose it. 

Technoblade, too, makes Wilbur wary. He’s ‘not as nice as Phil.’ What the hell does that mean? Sure, Tommy says he hasn’t been mean, but Tommy’s safe-people-radar has always been pretty loose. He’d walk right up to a stranger if he thought they’d give him something (hence why Wilbur has him in the first place). Wilbur’s been working with him on stranger fucking danger, but it’s a slow process. Everyone is Tommy’s friend, in his mind. 

So for Tommy to admit that Technoblade isn’t nice is pretty condemning for the guy.

Maybe Wilbur would be willing to risk Phil if it meant a safe home for Tommy, but he’s not willing to risk Technoblade. Things aren’t that bad yet. Wilbur can still fix this himself. He’s just—he’ll have to find them a new home, and learn more about elytrians, and practice preening on the stupid chickens so he doesn’t mess up again. He can do that. He can do this.

But fuck’s sake he is so tired.

The train rumbles at it moves, clattering noisily down the railway. Wilbur’s never been so close to a train before. His heart thunders in time with the chuff of its black exhaust, and his blood roars when he hears it whistle. It comes out of the railyard at a slow pace, the engine car laboring to pull its enormous metal body behind it. 

Tommy whimpers.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Wilbur says, hitching him closer. He’s got arms and legs wrapped around Wilbur, his wings hidden away beneath a loose brown cloak. “I’ve gotcha. This is gonna be easy, Toms, you’ll see.”

Wilbur’s been prowling the railyard for days, preparing for this. He’s seen several other people hop into the boxcars while the train takes off, and it doesn’t look that hard. It’s the quickest way for them to travel a significant distance in a short amount of time—and, since Wilbur doesn’t know how close Phil and Technoblade are, it’s a risk he’s willing to take. He’s been eyeing this particular train all night, and he knows exactly which car he wants.

“That one, see? The one with the door open?” Wilbur says, pointing it out to Tommy. “We’re gonna jump into that one. You’re gonna go first, and I’ll be right behind you.”

“Wil, I don’t like it.” Tommy presses harder against him. “Do we have to?”

“Yeah. C’mon, it’s gonna be fun. Have you ever been on a train before?”

Tommy shakes his head jerkily.

“You’re gonna love it.” Wilbur sets him down, ignoring the way he clings and chirps. “We’ve gotta start running now, Toms. Let’s go.”

For all Tommy’s protests, he’s not willing to be left behind when Wilbur takes off. He shouts and runs after Wilbur, his cloak trailing behind him like another set of wings, and together they fall into line with the train. It’s still moving slowly; Wilbur’s barely jogging. They’re going to be fine. (They have to be fine, or Wilbur will never forgive himself.)

“You’re up,” Wilbur says, gesturing for Tommy to go ahead of him. 

“Wil!”

“You’re up, Toms, come on! Go!”

Tommy shouts again, rage and terror and determination all, and lunges for the train. He lands halfway in the car, his legs dangling precariously over the track, and shrieks as he kicks and pulls himself farther in. Wilbur keeps pace with the car, and he slings their bags in after Tommy. Tommy grabs them and shoves them to the side, reaching for Wilbur.

“Wil, hurry up!” he shouts.

Wilbur jumps next, snagging the rusted handle of the boxcar door and hauling himself upwards. His feet catch on the doorway, and he lurches forward so quickly he trips over Tommy. The both of them sprawl across the boxcar floor, panting heavily, and for several seconds they only try to catch their breaths.

Then, Tommy says, “Holy shit you’re fucking crazy.”

Wilbur laughs, freer and happier than he’s felt in ages, and listens to the train whistle. He sits up and dusts Tommy off, tossing the cloak to the back of the car and looking his little brother over for injuries. There’s a scrape on his knee, but he’s otherwise unharmed. 

“How was that, huh?” Wilbur asks, still grinning. “Pretty cool.”

“You’re crazy,” Tommy repeats, but he’s grinning, too. “What the fuck, man?”

Wilbur laughs again, turning to look out of the train car’s open door. It’s picking up speed, now, and the city is falling away behind them. A brisk wind rushes through the car, and Tommy’s wings flutter in response. He presses himself against Wilbur’s side, looking wide-eyed at the outside world as it soars by them. 

“It’s like flying,” he says, opening his wings to feel the wind. “Woah.”

“Bet you could fly faster than this, though.”

“Bet I could too.”

“But you’ve gotta get all your feathers in, first, so go preen. We’ll be here most of the day.”

Grudgingly, Tommy retreats to the back of the car and begins to preen his wings. Wilbur’s not sure what they’re going to do once Tommy’s adult feathers are all— he certainly doesn’t know how to fly, so he can’t teach Tommy anything. Maybe they can learn from the birds or get tips from Phil. It can’t be that hard, right? Instinct, and all that. Don’t mama birds just kick their kids out of the nest and hope for the best?

Not that Wilbur is going to do that, ever, but it’s a thought.

Wilbur sits cross-legged in the doorway, plucking absently at his guitar while the world rolls by in front of him. Tommy hums along, fussing with his pinfeathers, and in the back of his mind Wilbur can hear music: the soft hum of an old lullaby accompanied by easy piano. Wherever Phil and Technoblade are, they’re calm. They haven’t realized that Wilbur and Tommy are moving, and Tommy is under strict orders not to tell them.

They’ll figure it out eventually, Wilbur is sure, but by then they’ll be a hundred miles apart.

Chapter Text

Finding another job is difficult. 

Wilbur’s not yet old enough to pass as an adult, and there aren’t many people willing to hire an illiterate twelve year old for any stable work. He resorts to begging and busking more often than not—and, on particularly bad days, stealing. 

Today is one of those days. 

Tommy had gotten sick shortly after they arrived in this new city, which Wilbur blamed on the stress of molting and moving both. He’s been curled up in their tent for three days already, sniffling and coughing and bitching, and all Wilbur can think of is the old man who taught him how to play guitar—the old man who died coughing just like that. So Wilbur never leaves Tommy’s side for too long, and their funds stretch thin as a result. But Tommy needs to eat. There is no other option. 

So Wilbur steals.

The farmer’s market is a bustling affair, this early in the morning, with craftsmen and farmers alike hawking their wares. Wilbur wears his least tattered clothing, so he won’t stand out, and surveys the stalls politely as he debates what they need most. Tommy has always loved sweets, so some fresh fruit would be nice—but it spoils so quickly that Wilbur can’t justify it. They need nonperishables. Some jerky, maybe, or some canned goods. Ideally, he’d like a little bread and cheese for sandwiches. 

One stall advertises tinctures of medication, and Wilbur eyes it longingly—but it’s too risky. Medicine is expensive, and the proprietor would surely notice a bottle missing. Tommy can afford to go without medication; he can’t afford to go without Wilbur if Wilbur is caught stealing. So Wilbur minds himself well, smiling at every passerby and making like he’s the son of a wealthy merchant out for a stroll.  When the baker looks away, speaking to another customer, Wilbur sneaks a loaf of bread into the deep pockets of his coat and walks away whistling. He repeats the process at the cheesemaker’s stall, and the butcher’s. His pockets begin to bulge with goods, and he knows he should call it a day. He has enough food to sate Tommy’s diminished appetite for at least a week.

Then his eyes fall on a jar of strawberry jam.

They could make sandwiches with that, too, Wilbur thinks, and they would be sweet. Tommy loves strawberries and sugar. He’d be so happy. Wilbur could butter some of the bread, and slather it with jam, and his little brother would eat more than he has in days. Wilbur’s fingers twitch in his pockets, and he begins to make his way towards the stand. He’s so focused on getting there, in fact, that he forgets to look where he’s going—and runs straight into a fucking monster.

“Oh,” the monster says.

Wilbur stumbles backwards, his heart hammering because what even is that. The monster towers above him—above everyone at the market, holy fuck—and watches him through a pair of golden spectacles perched precariously on its snout. Its hide is thick, covered in pink fur and riddled with ropy scars. Gleaming, gold-capped tusks curve up from its lower jaw. One of its folded ears is torn viciously in half; an emerald earring dangles from the other.

Rich and terrifying, Wilbur thinks. Fantastic.

“Um,” Wilbur says, his voice far squeakier than he wants it to be. But really, who can blame him? That is not a creature that should be strolling at a fucking farmer’s market on a Sunday morning—or strolling anywhere, actually. That is not a creature that should exist, full stop. The world simply doesn’t need that. “Sorry.”

“Hum,” the monster says, mercifully disinterested. “Never mind.”

Wilbur takes the escape he’s granted and bolts, strawberry jam forgotten in favor of getting the hell away. No amount of jam is worth that. He weaves his way through the crowd, panting, and clips a passing elytrian as he bursts back into the street. The elytrian squawks in surprise, its wings flaring, and whirls to watch him go.

Wilbur takes the long way home, just in case the monster has decided to follow him, and only crawls into their tent late that afternoon. Tommy is curled up under a mass of horse blankets, breathing noisily through his mouth. Wilbur sighs with relief upon seeing him, sliding a hand through his brother’s sweat-soaked hair. Tommy stirs, cracking one eye open to look at him.

“Wil?”

“Hey, sunshine,” Wilbur murmurs, tracing his nails along Tommy’s scalp. Tommy sighs and shuts his eyes again. “I brought lunch.”

“‘m not hungry.”

“I know, but you’ve gotta eat something. How else are you gonna grow up to be the biggest man ever?”

Tommy grunts and doesn’t dignify that with a response, curling up more tightly.

“I got cheese,” Wilbur says, his voice sing-song, and begins to pack his stolen goods into the tattered grain sack that functions as their mobile pantry. “We’ll make sandwiches.”

Wilbur tears four chunks of bread off of the loaf, trapping slices of hard orange cheese between them. He tears Tommy’s sandwich into bite-sized pieces to make it more palatable, and then sidles up next to his brother and hauls him upright. Tommy groans, his head coming to rest on Wilbur’s shoulder. He wrinkles his nose when Wilbur offers him the sandwich.

“Eat please,” Wilbur says with forced cheer.

Tommy shoves his gross snotty face into Wilbur’s neck instead.

“C’mon, don’t make me feed you like a baby bird. You know how gross that shit is? The mama eats the food and then she throws it back up—directly into their mouths. Don’t make me do that shit Tommy.”

“You’re fuckin’ gross. I’ll eat if you shut up.” 

“Deal.”

Tommy grabs a piece of sandwich, shoving it into his mouth and chewing dutifully. Wilbur keeps to his end of the bargain and shuts up, devouring his own sandwich quickly—he’s starving. The bread is still warm, albeit chewy, and the cheese is flavored sharply. Wilbur thinks it might be cheddar. What a classic.

“I saw the creepiest thing today,” Wilbur says, when Tommy’s chewing begins to slow. 

“What?”

“I’ll tell you if you eat more.”

“Bitch.” Tommy chews more aggressively, scowling. “What’d you see?”

“It was a monster,” Wilbur says, and hops up to demonstrate the monster’s size. His hands can’t reach as high as the monster’s head was, even when he stands on his toes and jumps. “This big!”

“Bullshit.”

“I’m serious, Toms. It was so tall, and it was pink, and it had these massive teeth.”

“Wait, like a piglin?”

“Like a what?”

“A piglin?” Tommy arches an eyebrow. “You’ve never heard of piglins?”

Wilbur bristles. He’s used to other people mocking him for his lack of education, but not Tommy—because Tommy is one of the few people with even less education than Wilbur, except for in this case, apparently. “Sorry I didn’t have time to study fuckin’ taxonomy,” he snaps. “I was a little busy keeping us alive.”

“Don’t get mad, bitchboy,” Tommy says. “I only know ‘cause Techno told me.”

“What?”

Tommy shrugs, picking at his bread. “He knows a lot about history ‘n stuff. He tells good stories. Some of them are about piglins.”

“Okay, so.” Wilbur scowls, sitting back down. “What are piglins?”

“Big pink monsters,” Tommy says. “They look like pigs.”

“Naming’s kind of on the nose, then, innit?”

“Right?” Tommy laughs, his voice hoarse. “But Techno says they’re not really as scary as people think they are. They get a bad rap ‘cause they fucked up a lot of people’s shit in the wars.”

“Oh.”

“Except piglins don’t live in the overworld anymore,” Tommy says. “Are you sure that was what you saw?”

“I mean, it wasn’t fucking human.”

“Weird.” Tommy pushes his sandwich away and slumps over, snuggling into Wilbur’s side. “I’m can’t eat anymore, Wil. I’ll throw up.”

“Okay. Thanks for trying.”

“Mm.”

Wilbur presses his cheek to the top of Tommy’s head, looking at the sunlight where it trickles through the thin canvas of their tent. Tommy takes his hand, and Wilbur laces their fingers together. His brother’s skin is feverishly hot and dry against his own, and his breath rattles in his chest whenever he breathes. He coughs weakly, turning his face into Wilbur’s neck again and sniffling. His wings hang limp behind him, still half-molted and wretched. 

Wilbur thinks about the medicine stand, and can’t stop thinking about it.

There is a shepherd at the medicine stand that evening, talking to the proprietor. Wilbur listens in, trying to discern between the different bottles and their effects. The last thing he wants is to steal the wrong medicine and make Tommy even worse. The blue potion, he gathers, is for better sleep; the red one is for calming; the green one is for nausea. 

The green one might be helpful, Wilbur thinks, but nausea is only a symptom. He needs something to treat the cough and the fever and the awful things growing in his brother’s lungs. He rakes his eyes over the bottles for a moment more before looking away, trying not to seem too interested. 

“Are there very many side effects?” the shepherd asks, turning the red potion over in her hands. The liquid inside sloshes, catching the light. 

“None at all,” the proprietor declares, which Wilbur thinks is bullshit.

The shepherd seems equally unconvinced, and arches an eyebrow. “Is that right? My friend takes potions for her anxiety, but those are prone to make her sleepy. If I could find something with fewer side effects, I’d be quite interested—but it’s a rare thing to have.”

Thus encouraged, the proprietor puffs up their chest and goes on a spiel about the benefits of this flawless perfect potion. Wilbur rolls his eyes. He creeps closer, utilizing the distraction the shepherd provides, and eyes a thin purple concoction. Now more than ever, he wishes he had learned to read. Surely the bottles would have instructions on them. 

“What about this one?” the shepherd asks suddenly, pointing towards a yellow potion.

“Oh, that’s only a flu remedy,” the proprietor says. “Good for fever and congestion.”

“And this one?”

“For fertility.”

“Ah, I don’t think I need that just now. How about this?”

“A cure for constipation.”

“Ha ha—you really have quite the variety.”

The shepherd asks about several more bottles, but Wilbur’s eyes are all for the yellow potion. That has to be the one. He inches forward, looking sideways at the proprietor, but they don’t notice him. They’re too busy rambling to the shepherd. Wilbur makes his move quickly, snatching the yellow potion and jamming it into his pocket before darting back several steps. As he does so, the shepherd’s eyes catch his.

Wilbur freezes.

Then the shepherd looks away again, stretching her arms casually as she points to another bottle. Wilbur backs through the crowd and almost makes it out unseen—almost. Then voices begin to rise behind him as the potion is noticed missing, and he can hear the proprietor’s furious voice rising over them all. He knows he should keep his head down and keep walking. He knows that running is only going to make him more suspicious. He knows, he knows, he knows.

But when the proprietor starts to shout behind him, his fear overcomes him and he bolts.

“Hey! Hey, thief!” the proprietor roars, and one of the nearby guards snatches at Wilbur. “Grab that kid!”

Wilbur sidesteps the guard’s grabbing hands, flinging his cloak off so it flies into their face and blocks their view. He uses the brief distraction to weave through the crowd, knocking over a stack of china dishes to dissuade pursuit. The dishes shatter across the street in a spray of porcelain, and the merchant cries out in despair. 

“Stop!” the guard roars, and Wilbur can hear their footsteps closing in on him. They’re so much bigger than him. They’re so much faster. Wilbur wishes he had wings to fly away or tusks to gore his enemies or goddamn anything but this stupid, flimsy human body. “Come back here!”

Yeah, like Wilbur’s going to do that.

Instead, he whips around another stall and slams his shoulder into a stack of slatted wooden crates. They wobble precariously before toppling over, spilling plums and peaches across the cobblestone. The guard’s footsteps fumble as they try to make their way through the spill, and Wilbur hears several unfortunate fruits squash beneath their weight. 

Bastard.

The fruit fiasco grants him a few seconds’ advantage, and he bursts out of the market and into the backstreets before the guard can catch up with him. Breath whistles in his lungs, and his heart lurches into his throat as he scrambles to decide which direction to run. He can’t lead them towards Tommy. He can’t. 

So Wilbur scrambles east, into the unknown depths of the city, and dives through a pub. The patrons all yelp as he shoves his way between them, crawling under their tables to evade the guard’s view until he bursts out on the other side of the street. His legs burn. He’s not going to be able to keep this up much longer; he has to find somewhere to hide until the guard loses interest.

Before he can do that, however, a heavy hand grips the back of his shirt collar.

“Hey, kid.” The pub's bartender scowls down at him from under a pair of bushy brows. “The hell do you think you’re doin’?”

“Let go!” Wilbur snaps, kicking her in the shin. “Get the fuck off of me!”

The bartender shakes him by the collar instead, and Wilbur’s teeth jar together. Blood bursts across his tongue and his head spins. He thrashes in the bartender’s grip, digging his nails into her forearm, but the city guard closes in before he can escape. They yank him away from the bartender and haul him into the air, dangling him by his shirt collar. It’s hard to breathe. Fuck, it’s hard to breathe. Wilbur claws at his shirt where it digs into the skin of his throat.

“You goddamn brat,” the guard says. “Where is it, huh?”

Wilbur snarls and kicks, landing a solid strike against the guard’s gut. The victory he feels after is short-lived; the pain is not. The guard slams him against the wall of the pub, and the back of Wilbur’s head cracks against the brick. He cries out. The guard’s hand is huge and heavy on his neck, pressing down and down and down and Wilbur can’t breathe.

“You don’t ever hit me, you understand that, you dumb fuck?” the guard hisses. “It’s yes sir, no sir after this or I’ll have you in jail.”

Wilbur can’t—Wilbur can’t go to jail, he has to take care of Tommy, he has to—

“I’m sorry,” Wilbur wheezes, lifting his chin to suck in a breath. The guard’s grip on him relaxes. “Shit. I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, you’d better be. Where’s the potion you stole?”

“I don’t—I—”

“Oh, fuck’s sake.” The guard pats him down with one hand, fishing the potion bottle out of his coat pocket. A thin crack crosses the glass, and a trickle of yellow fluid oozes out of it. “Now look what you’ve done. You broke it. This potion’s worth more than your life, you know that?”

“I’ll pay,” Wilbur gasps, digging his heels into the wall behind him. “I’ll—I can pay.”

“With what?” The guard snorts. “All the money you get from begging on street corners? Maybe in a few years you’d have enough to pay it back. Hell. Just forget it.”

Wilbur blinks. Just forget it? That’s—Wilbur’s luck doesn’t work like that. 

The guard drops him, wiping their hands on their pants like Wilbur’s something gross they’ve had to touch. He probably is. He’s sweaty and they haven’t had soap for the last week and gods know he can’t remember the last time he brushed his teeth. He drops to his knees, his eyes watering, and stares at the grout between the cobblestone. 

Then, the guard kicks him.

Their boot strikes solidly in his side, sending him sprawling into a puddle and knocking the air out of his lungs. He gasps, black spots dancing in his vision, and feels pain lance through his ribs. Shit. Shit, are they broken or bruised? It’s too soon to tell, but either way they hurt. He can’t expand them enough for a proper breath.

“Remember there’s no reward for a thief,” the guard says, rolling the potion bottle between their palms. “Let that be a life lesson for you, kid.”

The guard lifts the bottle and then throws it against the ground. Watching the bottle shatter is more painful than the hand on his throat or the boot in his ribs. Potion spills uselessly across the street, bright and shimmering and wasted. Why couldn’t Wilbur have had it? If they were going to trash it anyway, why couldn’t Wilbur have had it? Is he not even worth their garbage?

It’s not fair.

It’s not fucking fair.

Frustrated tears sting the corners of Wilbur’s eyes, and he pushes himself upright. Warm, brackish water seeps into his shirt and pants from the puddle. He stares into the murky ripples of his own reflection, refusing to let the guard see his tears. The guard looks down at him for only a second more before they turn away, evidently bored now that they’ve had their vindication. 

“Don’t let me see you around again,” they say, their voice cold. “It’ll be worse next time.”

Humiliation and shame burn hot in the empty bowl of Wilbur’s stomach, creeping up his throat like bile. His shoulders shake. He’s tired and he’s hungry and he hurts and all of it was for nothing. The potion that could ease Tommy’s suffering lies spilled across the cracked cobblestone, seeping into the gutters. 

Wilbur squeezes his eyes shut, taking another ragged breath. 

When he opens them again, a crow stands next to him.

It’s watching him, he realizes, its head cocked and its dark eyes focused. It hops closer, turning its head to see him more clearly, and warbles. Then it turns its gaze to the shattered glass of the potion bottle, pecking at the glittering pieces with interest. 

“It’s not food,” Wilbur mutters, scooting out of the puddle and wiping his eyes. “Idiot.”

The crow ignores him, hopping towards a larger chunk of glass and cawing.

“I told you, it’s not fucking—”

The crow darts its beak into the glass, and it comes up dripping gold from the tip. Wilbur’s eyes widen. That’s the bottom of the bottle, he realizes, still intact and cradling a small well of potion. 

“Get away from that! It’s mine!” Wilbur lunges, swatting at the crow, and it flutters backwards with a shrill noise of alarm. It stops several feet away, flicking its wings and cawing offense. “Oh, shut up.”

Wilbur cradles the broken glass in his palms, gingerly picking himself up. Tommy. He can still—he can still give this to Tommy. It’s not much, but it has to be better than nothing. He shakes the mud off of his shoes and swallows, looking around himself. He just has to go west, right? Then the streets will start looking familiar. He can do this. 

He can do this.

Wilbur trudges west as the sun begins to set, bracing his ribs with one arm. A deep ache spreads through them, and if he shifts too quickly pain lances up his side. He’s almost sure at least one rib is broken. But that pain is bearable, and the injury nonlethal—he’s grateful for that. It could have been so much worse. He could have been killed, or thrown into prison, or made to work off his debt without being allowed to see Tommy again. 

A broken rib is, by comparison, a mercy.

Still, by the time Wilbur gets home, he’s panting and exhausted. He wants to lay down and sleep for several hours—and he will, but first he’s going to medicate Tommy. He ducks into the tent, breathing shallowly as his side twinges, and changes out of his soiled clothes. Then he kneels next to his brother; Tommy’s sleeping, again, his fingers curled loosely around a piece of crumbling bread.

Gremlin, Wilbur thinks, overwhelmed with a sudden wave of fondness.

“Tommy,” Wilbur whispers, running a hand over his gremlin brother’s back. “Hey, wake up. I got some medicine. It’ll make you feel better.”

Tommy rolls over, pressing his face to Wilbur’s knee and mumbling incoherently. Wilbur pets one of his tattered wings before reaching for a cup, pouring the potion inside. It’s not nearly enough, but it’s something. He mixes it with water from their canteen to dilute the taste, and then helps Tommy to sit up.

“Here,” he murmurs. “Drink this.”

“Wil, what’s—?”

“It’s just medicine.” Wilbur presses the wooden rim of the cup to Tommy’s lips, tilting it up and watching his brother’s throat bob. It can’t taste too gross, because Tommy isn’t gagging or coughing or whacking the cup out of his hand. Small mercies. “There, good job. That’ll help your fever.”

Tommy licks his lips. “Tastes like lemons.”

“Well. There are worse things,” Wilbur says, pragmatically.

“Mm.” Tommy lies down again, lifting one wing in invitation. “Wilbur, come sleep. I made the nest again.”

It’s something Tommy does often—rearranging their little armada of blankets and pillows, and then announcing it an improvement. Wilbur’s not sure what practical difference it makes, and there are only so many ways blankets and pillows can be assorted. But the nesting makes Tommy happy, and it’s harmless, and Wilbur will be damned before he squanders anything that his brother can find joy in.

“It’s nice,” Wilbur says, laying down and allowing Tommy to drape a wing over him. He’s so little it barely covers Wilbur’s side, and the pinfeathers prickle uncomfortably against his skin. “Did you have a good day?”

“Mm-hm. Slept a lot.” Tommy rubs his eyes. “What’d you do?”

“Just got the food and medicine, and then busked a little bit,” Wilbur says. It’s a lie, but a small one. He hadn’t busked at all, and instead had squandered most of the evening trying to find his way back to familiar streets. But Tommy doesn’t need to know that. He would only worry. “I think we might go see the trains again, tomorrow.”

Tommy’s brow furrows. “What? Why?”

“I just think it would be safer,” Wilbur says. “We’ve been here a while.”

“It hasn’t even been a week.”

“I just want to go, Toms, okay?”

Tommy’s frown deepens, and he looks up at Wilbur’s face. “What happened today?”

Wilbur shakes his head, curling more tightly against his brother. “Just some stupid guards. It doesn’t matter.”

“Did they hurt you?”

“No,” Wilbur mutters. “Drop it, alright? Everything’ll be fine as soon as we’re out of this stupid city.”

There are entirely too many piglins and guards in this city, Wilbur thinks, and he’s not gonna put up with that shit. He’d rather wait to move until Tommy is feeling better, but at this point he’s not sure how safe it is for him to be seen around anymore—which is going to make getting supplies exceedingly more difficult. They’ll be better off in a fresh city. Maybe they can sneak into the railyard and climb on a train before it leaves, so they won’t have to run and jump. Wilbur’s not sure he could accomplish that much running right now, let alone Tommy. 

“Wil, if they hurt you—”

“They didn’t hurt me,” Wilbur snaps. It was so much easier when Tommy was little and naive and unquestioning. When had that changed? “I don’t give you the fifth degree every time I come home, do I?”

Tommy glares at him, a muscle in his jaw ticking. “You don’t have to be a jerk just because I give a shit about you.”

“If you gave a shit, you’d shut up and let me sleep. I’m tired.”

Tommy harrumphs and rolls over, pulling his wings around himself instead of Wilbur. “Whatever. Bitch.”

Wilbur rolls over, too, and they lay in tense silence for several minutes with their backs turned to each other. Then, Tommy begins to squirm. He kicks the blankets off and huffs. He coughs and sniffles. Wilbur’s irritation grows with every little noise. 

“What the hell is wrong with you now?” Wilbur grumbles.

“It’s too hot.” Tommy sits up, throwing his shadow over Wilbur. “The nest is wrong.”

“The nest is exactly the way you made it.”

“You messed it up.”

“I didn’t move anything!”

Tommy bristles his pinfeathers and shoves a few pillows around, jostling Wilbur. Pain jolts through his side, and he grits his teeth. He has to bite back the urge to snap at his brother. It takes a greater force of will than it usually does; has Tommy always been this annoying?

Then, Tommy stops moving entirely.

“Wil?”

“Gods above, what is it now, Tommy?”

“You’re bleeding.”

“What?” Wilbur sits up, cradling his sore side. “No I’m not.”

“Your head.”

Wilbur reaches up, touching the back of his head and wincing. His scalp is tender where it struck the pub wall earlier, and he can feel crusted blood in his hair. Great. Just fucking great. Now Tommy’s going to flip his shit. 

“They hurt you,” Tommy says, effectively beginning to flip his shit. “You lied.”

“I tripped.”

“You’re such a fucking liar!” Tommy jumps to his feet, swaying precariously and snapping his wings out to balance himself. He balls his fists up when Wilbur leans towards him, baring his teeth. “The guards hurt you. It was ‘cause of the medicine, wasn’t it? You stole it.”

“‘You’re welcome, Wil,’” Wilbur parrots, his irritation growing. “‘Thanks for trying to save my life, Wil. I really appreciate it, Wil.’”

“I never asked you to do that!”

“You didn’t have to!” Wilbur shouts. “You’re my brother!”

“And you’re mine!” Tommy snarls, stomping one foot and breathing hard. Every breath rattles his laboring lungs. “You can’t keep getting hurt ‘cause of me.”

“Well it’s not like I meant to,” Wilbur spits, tugging a blanket around his shoulders and turning his back on Tommy again. “What was I supposed to do, watch you cough yourself to death? Fuck off, Toms. You’re too little to understand.”

Tommy falls silent again for several furious seconds.

Then he says, “I want Phil.”

Terror is the first thing to snake up Wilbur’s spine at the words; anger chases quickly after it. 

Maybe Wilbur’s not the perfect parent, but he’s goddamn well tried— and that’s more than the two of them can say for their biological parents, or for fucking Phil. Phil wasn’t the one who looked for Tommy when he was alone. Phil wasn’t the one who found Tommy fleabitten and scrawny and living out of a tent. Phil wasn’t the one who cleaned him and clothed him and fed him.

So why does Tommy still want him, and not Wilbur?

(Why doesn’t anyone want Wilbur?)

“Then go find him!” Wilbur roars, lunging to his feet in a burst of white-hot fury. “If you want him so much, get the hell away from me and go bitch to him again. I’m sure it’ll be easy for him to find you, since you’ve been telling him everything else about us!”

“Wil!"

“And I’m sure he’ll be just delighted to have you,” Wilbur snarls, kicking off his blankets and storming away from the smothering goddamn nest. “You can piss him off instead of me, for a change. Let him sing you some stupid lullaby. Let Technoblade tell you stories. Enjoy your nice, cushy life away from me!”

“They want you too!” Tommy yells. “It’s not just me.”

“Well I don’t want them!”

“Why not?” Tommy cries, his wings fluttering in agitation. “They’re our soulmates. They’re nice and they love us and they want to take care of us. What’s so bad about that?”

“You don’t know them,” Wilbur hisses, “and they don’t know us. As soon as they find out we’re not whatever pretty, perfect picture you’ve painted in their heads they’ll leave, because that’s what people do. They get angry and bored and then they leave. It’s why your parents threw you away in the middle of a forest. It’s why my parents abandoned me in a fucking gutter. People don’t love kids like us!”

Tommy’s eyes well up with tears, his lower jaw trembling.

“Phil and Technoblade love me,” he says, his voice cracking. “They said they love me.”

“Yeah, well.” Wilbur looks poisonously at him. “They lied.”

Wilbur storms for the tent entrance, ducking under the canvas. He’s only made it a step outside before Tommy latches onto him, wrapping arms and wings around his middle and bawling noisily. The pressure on Wilbur’s sides jostles his ribs, and he rips himself away from Tommy with another snarl. 

“Get the hell off of me,” he hisses. “If you’re telling them where we are, I’m out of here.”

“I’m not!” Tommy wails, crying in great jagged gulps. He stands in the dim light before the tent, his shoulders and wings hitching. Tears gleam on his face, lit orange by the torchlight of the brothel two doors down. “I won’t tell them, I’m sorry Wil, I won’t! I never will. Just don’t go. Please don’t go away.”

Wilbur’s anger leaves him all at once, and in its place settles a hollow of exhaustion and black, tarry guilt. He made Tommy cry. He shouted and he snarled and he made his sick baby brother cry. Gods. He’s the fucking worst. Maybe Tommy would be better off with Phil and Technoblade—but Wilbur is selfish and horrible and he can’t give Tommy away, he just can’t.

(This. This is why no one wants Wilbur.)

“Tommy,” Wilbur says weakly. “I’m not leaving.”

“I’m sorry—so sorry, I’m—” Tommy gasps and coughs, wiping his face on his sleeve. There’s a high, thready whine on each exhale. “Wil I’m sorry. I don’t want Phil. I don’t want anybody else. Please don’t go.”

Wilbur steps back towards him, kneeling to meet the feverbright of his eyes. Tommy reaches for him immediately, and Wilbur carefully draws him into his arms. His side aches, deep and incessant, but it’s nothing compared to the heartache of leaving his brother alone and miserable and crying. He cradles the back of Tommy’s head with one hand, and Tommy tucks his face into Wilbur’s shoulder with another crackling cough.

“Wilbur,” he sobs, chirping plaintively. “Wilbur.”

“Shh. Shh, hey, it’s okay.” Wilbur sits down, tucking Tommy into his lap and rocking them both. His own eyes sting, and he swallows thickly. “I’m right here. I’m not leaving. I’d never leave you, Toms, you know that.”

“You said—you said—”

“I know.” Wilbur presses his mouth to the top of Tommy’s head, squeezing his eyes shut. “I shouldn’t have. I shouldn’t have yelled, either. I’m so sorry.”

It takes several long minutes to calm Tommy as he shakes himself apart in Wilbur’s arms. Phil and Technoblade are frantic, in the back of his mind, their music crescendoing into a catastrophe of jumbled noise. It’s overwhelming. Wilbur wants to press his hands over his ears to block it out but it is everywhere in him, and so he can only shove them away and away and—

Then, there’s silence.

The music is gone.

Wilbur can breathe.

So Wilbur breathes, deeply, and his sides shudder with the pain of it. He presses a kiss to Tommy’s grimy hair, rubbing soothing circles between his shoulders. His brother has gone limp against him, breathing raggedly, and so Wilbur scoops him up and carries him back to the nest. He wipes Tommy’s face with a washcloth, then bundles him up under the blankets and lays next to him. 

Tommy glues himself to Wilbur’s side, curling one hand into his shirt, and whispers, “Wilbur?”

“Mm?”

“Promise you won’t leave?”

“Promise.”

“And you’ll be here forever?”

“Forever and ever.”

“And you love me?”

Wilbur’s throat threatens to close, and he bumps their foreheads together. “Of course,” he whispers, his voice cracking. “Of course I love you, Tommy.”

Even when no one else in the world loves them, Wilbur thinks, they’ll love each other.

The next day: another train, another city, another start.

The silence is more noticeable than the music ever was.

It’s difficult to fall asleep without the hum of a lullaby, and strange to wake up without the excited croon of a violin. But it’s easier for Wilbur to think, too—easier to hear his own music without the crowding of another melody. He strums more tunes on his guitar to fill the empty spaces in his mind. He strums until his fingers feel raw and sore. He strums until they have enough money to last them a week.

Tommy, slowly, gets better.

The potion was well worth it, Wilbur thinks, as within a handful of days Tommy’s fever has broken and his coughing has eased. He’s livelier than he’s been in weeks, following Wilbur along on busking trips and offering to carry their supplies. He picks out his own songs on Wilbur’s guitar, his fingers careful on the fraying strings, and sits under his arm when they both tire of the music. He doesn’t talk about Phil and Technoblade anymore, and Wilbur doesn’t ask.

Things aren’t great, but they’re okay; they’re almost back to normal.

Then Wilbur starts to cough.

It wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t for his damned ribs—every cough jars them viciously enough to bring tears to his eyes. He keeps his breaths shallow and careful to avoid both the coughing and the pain. Any exertion leaves him weary and light-headed, unable to catch his breath properly, and he has to take breaks if they walk farther than a half-mile. He doesn’t miss the worried way Tommy looks at him, but neither of them talks about it. The last time they’d talked about it had been such a fucking train wreck that neither of them is keen to repeat the experience.

The cough only gets worse.

It grows wet and rattling, bringing up thick mucus that Wilbur grimaces to swallow. It tastes like blood going down, sharp and metallic. His energy wanes further every day. It’s a massive effort to peel himself out of the nest each morning, and his fingers fumble on the guitar strings more often than they have in years. His joints feel stiff and unwieldy. A gray fog hangs over his mind, and it’s difficult to think through. 

Tommy starts to make breakfast late, and to beg Wilbur to sleep in just a little longer. Wilbur is too tired to protest, even though it means they have less time to busk—and less time to busk means less money means less food. But they have enough to get by for a couple of weeks, now, so maybe Wilbur can just—can just rest, just for a few days.

Food tastes like ash on his tongue. Tommy must not be a very good cook. Wilbur will take over again, just as soon as he can sit up without his head spinning. He’s so tired, no matter how long he sleeps. His heart thrums quickly in his chest, and his breaths come fast and thin. His voice is ragged when he speaks, and his throat aches; he stops singing. 

“I got you sick,” Tommy says guiltily, carding his fingers through Wilbur’s hair.

“No,” Wilbur mumbles, even though he’s pretty sure Tommy is right. “‘s not your fault.”

It’s not, either—Tommy couldn’t help being sick anymore than he could help being stuck around Wilbur while he was. They share everything between them: food, drink, shelter, sickness. It’s okay. Wilbur is bigger and older and better able to fight off the illness. He’ll be fine in just a few more days. 

“Wil?” Tommy says, fiddling with one of Wilbur’s curls like he’s trying to preen a feather that isn’t there. “Where did you get the medicine from, last time?”

This, at least, gets Wilbur to wake up fully. 

“It doesn’t matter. I don’t want you going after any medicine,” he says, twisting to meet Tommy’s eyes. “It’s just a cold. I’ll be better soon, you’ll see.”

“How soon?”

“Gimme, like, three more days.”

“Promise?”

Wilbur holds a pinky up, and the two of them pinky promise.

It’s a pity, then, that Wilbur has to break it.

Three days later, he is impossibly worse. He barely stirs from the nest at all. He doesn’t eat or drink—it hurts his throat too much, and his stomach churns uncomfortably. A thin layer of sweat coats his skin. Despite this, he’s cold. He can’t stop shivering no matter how many blankets Tommy piles on him. He’s aware, distantly, that he must have a fever, and that he should be trying to cool himself down instead of warming himself up. It’s just too much effort to do so, and the blankets feel so nice when he burrows into them. 

The one time he actually vomits, his ribs hurt so much he sobs. 

“Wil? Wilbur?” Tommy flits fretfully around him, his hands brushing over Wilbur’s shoulders and back—light, uncertain, unwilling to press too hard anywhere. “What’s wrong? Wil?”

Wilbur spits out bile, dropping onto his knees and biting back another sob. He’s scaring Tommy. He can’t scare Tommy. He’s going to be just fine. He’s going to ride this out and feel better and be just fine, so Tommy doesn’t have to be scared.

“It’s okay,” Wilbur rasps, wadding up the soiled blanket so his brother doesn’t have to deal with it. “I’m okay. I’m just nauseous.”

“Crackers,” Tommy says, digging through their bag. “Do you want crackers?”

Crackers are the last thing Wilbur wants, but Tommy looks so helpless—at least, this way, Wilbur can make him feel a little useful. He accepts the cracker and chews on it. It’s dry and tasteless, leeching the saliva out of his mouth, and he has to force himself to swallow. It feels like eating a wad of paper. He shakes his head when Tommy offers another.

“No thanks,” he says, smiling weakly. “My stomach feels better already. I think I just need to sleep some more.”

Tommy doesn’t look entirely convinced, but he tucks the packet of crackers back into their bag. Wilbur lays down again, his stomach still roiling, and closes his eyes. He feels his brother burrow in next to him, draping a wing protectively over his side, and runs a hand absently over the prickling pinfeathers. He can already feel himself lapsing into sleep again. It’s so hard to move, and to breathe, and to be awake. 

It’s so much easier to sleep.

Wilbur’s rest that night is deep and dreamless and dark. In it, he can hear the distant rustle of White Noise, and he frowns. He thought he’d blocked her out alongside Phil and Technoblade. Is the wall he built between them fracturing already? He has to fix it. He has to make it stronger. He doesn’t need them in his head, or his home, or his heart. He doesn’t need anyone.

“Wilbur,” someone says, her voice soft. “What are you doing, honey?”

Wilbur doesn’t remember his mother’s voice; he was too young, when she abandoned him, to grasp any solid memories of her. But he knows now, without a single doubt, that this is his mother’s voice. This is what she sounds like. This is Mother. 

“Mum?” Wilbur tries to move, to see her—but the darkness is heavy and sticky on his limbs, and he’s still so tired. 

“You can’t come here,” Mother murmurs, and a cool hand touches his brow. 

Wilbur’s throat seizes, and his eyes heat with tears. Does she still not want him? Even after all this time, does she still want to be rid of him? He doesn’t understand what he did wrong. He doesn’t understand how he’s different from all of the other children whose parents did want them. If he could figure out how to make her want him—if he could only—

“Oh, Wil, shh,” Mother says, her fingers combing through his hair. “Shh-shh-shh, baby boy. It’s alright. I’m not angry. But you can’t come here yet. It’s not time.”

Wilbur is so tired, and so sore, and he wants to stay here with her gentle hands and gentler voice. He doesn’t want to go back to a world that hates him, a world that leaves him sick and dying on the side of the street, a world that leaves him jaded and abandoned. He doesn’t want to go back. He doesn’t want to wake up. 

Mother gathers him into her arms, and he feels the glide of dark feathers against his elbow. It reminds him of Tommy, and the tears welling in his eyes finally fall over his cheeks. He doesn’t want to wake up but he has to, because he’s all Tommy has. Wilbur will do a lot of things, but he won’t abandon his family. He won’t ever. 

“Oh, you’re so little,” Mother whispers, cradling him in her arms. Wasn’t he littler than this when she threw him away like trash? Wilbur knows he should be squirming, should be trying to get away, should be furious, but it’s—nice. It’s so nice to be held like he matters, even if it’s just a moment and just for a dream. “It’s going to be okay, Wilbur. Dad’s going to come find you. Just wait a little bit longer for him.”

“Dad?” Wilbur mumbles.

“That’s right, sweetheart. Dad’s coming.” Lips touch his temple, his forehead, and his eyes flutter shut again. “You have to wake up now.”

Wilbur whines, turning his face into her arm. 

“I know, I know,” Mother says, stroking his hair. “You’re being so brave, and you’re going to be just fine, you’ll see. You’re going to be amazing.”

Wilbur doesn’t want to be amazing. Wilbur just wants to be okay.

“You have to wake up, Wil,” Mother says now, more firmly. “You have to—”

“—wake up!” Tommy screams. Why is Tommy screaming? “Wilbur, wake up!”

Wilbur’s eyes snap open, and he instantly regrets it. A deep pain radiates from his side throughout his chest, and he cries out as it jars him from the peace of sleep. He curls up around himself, breathing rapidly through the agony, and feels Tommy’s small hands shaking his shoulder. Stop, he thinks. Stop, don’t touch me anymore, it hurts it hurts it hurts—!

When he opens his mouth to speak, only a sob comes out. 

“Wilbur?” Tommy says, his voice thick with tears. “Wilbur what the fuck?!”

Wilbur moans, bracing a hand against his side to no effect. Why does it hurt so much? Why is Tommy still touching him? Why is everything so terrible all the time? Tears clump his lashes, and he blinks hard to break them up. Tommy sits next to him, his own face streaked with tears and his chest heaving. It must be hard work beating the shit out of Wilbur while he’s sleeping.

“Wilbur?” Tommy leans down, looking tearfully at him. “Are you okay?”

Wilbur shakes his head, turning his face into the thin fleece of one blanket. It smells like sweat and horses and unending illness. He feels worse than he’s ever felt. He’s so cold and his stomach won’t stop churning and if he throws up he’s going to die because his chest already hurts so fucking much and if he moves he really won’t be able to handle it. 

Tommy’s hands are on him again, petting his shoulders and his back frantically. “It’s okay,” he says, his voice quavering. “It’s okay, it’s okay. Just wake up. Don’t go back to sleep.”

Wilbur would give anything to go back to sleep, but the pain lashing through his body refuses to let him. He shakes under the weight of it. Every fragile, gulping breath splinters agony through the whole of his chest and throat, and the roof of his mouth buzzes. Black spots dance before his eyes. He can’t get enough air. Maybe he’ll pass out. Wouldn’t that be nice?

Tommy does not seem to think it’s nice, however, and shakes Wilbur roughly when his eyes close again. “No! Wilbur, you gotta stay awake!” he shouts. “You can’t sleep.”

Wilbur cries out as the movement rakes him with pain, pushing feebly at Tommy’s hands. Why is Tommy being so awful tonight? Is this payback for Wilbur being a dick and making him cry the other day? Maybe Wilbur deserves it. That doesn’t mean he has to like it, though.

“I’m sorry,” Tommy says, blinking furiously through his tears. “I’m sorry but you can’t sleep, Wil. You have to stay awake for a few more minutes. Just a few more, okay?”

Wilbur breathes raspily into the blankets, a shiver wracking his frame. Tommy strips away the blankets as soon as Wilbur’s drawn his attention to them, and Wilbur whines as icy air strikes his skin. His shivering increases tenfold, and he feels his teeth begin to chatter. He tucks his hands under his armpits to warm them up, and looks miserably at the pile of blankets Tommy is shoving away.

“I’m sorry,” Tommy says again, his voice cracking. “You can’t have them right now. You’re too hot, Wil. You have to cool down.”

Oh, Wilbur thinks, hazily. The fever.

Knowing that it’s the fever making him feel so cold does nothing to dispel the cold, however, and he shudders helplessly. He tucks his chin down, nestling it into the fraying collar of his shirt, and grits his teeth. He squeezes his eyes shut, but the second he does that Tommy flips his shit again.

“Wilbur!” he shrieks, punching Wilbur’s shoulder. 

Wilbur groans, pushing at Tommy’s hand. He’s awake. Can’t Tommy see that he’s awake? He couldn’t sleep through all this goddamn racket even if he wanted to. He just wants to rest his eyes. They’re sore, and he’s sore, and looking at the torchlight makes his head throb. At least if he closes them he can pretend he’s back in the dark, safe space with Mother.

But Tommy refuses to let him pretend, pinching him when he stubbornly keeps his eyes shut. Wilbur forces them open again, glaring weakly, and tries to take a deeper breath. It sparks an itch in his chest, and he whimpers as he realizes he’s going to—

He coughs, and blood spatters the canvas below him.

That isn’t the most alarming part, though. The most alarming part is the agony that lances through his chest, and he sobs again as he slumps back into the barren nest. It hurts. It hurts so much—and Tommy still won’t let him sleep, yelling and pushing him whenever he so much as blinks for too long.

That night is a crawling, horrible thing. 

It is, quite possibly, the worst night of Wilbur’s life.

But dawn comes in all her inevitability, and Tommy allows him one thin blanket, and even lets Wilbur rest his head in his lap as the sun rises. The city comes to life outside. Wilbur hears the distant clatter of carriages, and the whistle of rolling trains. Tommy’s fingers card through his hair. He’s humming one of Phil’s lullabies, and Wilbur doesn’t even have the energy to feel pissed about that. Footsteps pass by their tent, unfaltering—a crowd of people going about their own days, unbothered by the worthless children cluttering their streets.

Then, someone stops. 

“Tommy?”

It isn’t a voice that Wilbur recognizes. It’s masculine but gentle, thick with an elytrian’s pompous accent. 

Phil, Wilbur thinks, without question. Phil’s here.

This day really couldn’t get any fucking worse.

Chapter Text

Immediately, Wilbur begins to stir. He has to get up. He has to put himself between Phil and Tommy. He has to make himself seem bigger, and healthier, and more threatening. He has to make it clear that Tommy is his, no matter what Phil thinks. Nobody can take Tommy from him. Wilbur will kill them first.

But Tommy rests a hand in his hair, pressing his head back down. “It’s okay,” he whispers, touching their temples. “Wilbur, it’s okay, promise.”

And then Tommy leaves.

He eases Wilbur’s head out of his lap, replacing himself with a lumpy pillow, and slips out of the tent. Wilbur scrambles onto his hands and knees, wobbling as his head spins. What the fuck? What the fuck? Tommy’s leaving him. Tommy’s left. Where did he go? Is he coming back? He has to come back. He wouldn’t leave Wilbur, would he?

Would he?

“Tommy?” Wilbur rasps, his sides hitching painfully. “Toms?”

Outside, he can hear the low murmur of voices—Tommy’s, and Phil’s, and someone else’s low unbothered baritone. Their shadows cast against the canvas, long and eerie. The tent entrance stirs again, and a person pokes their head inside. It isn’t Tommy.

Immediately, Wilbur recoils and presses himself to the back of the tent.

“Go away,” he hisses.

“Hey, mate,” Phil says, his voice easy but his eyes lined with worry. “Nice to meet you too.”

“Fuck off. Where’s Tommy?” 

“Here, Wil.” Tommy squirms past Phil, pushing him to the side with a confidence that speaks of long familiarity. He tucks himself against Wilbur’s uninjured side, and Wilbur wraps an arm protectively around his shoulders. “I’m right here. We’re gonna go with Phil.”

“You told him.”

It isn’t a question. How the hell else would Phil know where to find them? And after Wilbur explicitly told Tommy not to, after he agreed—!

“Yeah,” Tommy says, looking up at him. “I did.”

I hate you, Wilbur thinks, but the words won’t come. I fucking hate you. 

Then Phil shifts, and Wilbur’s eyes snap back to him. He’s not very big—about average, as far as adult elytrians go, with a pair of dark wings pressed tightly to his back. Wilbur could totally take him. He’s just gotta get by him, and then he can run and hide. He’s good at running and hiding. That’s, like, his speciality.

At least, when he’s not coughing blood it’s his speciality.

“I’m Phil,” Phil says.

“No shit,” Wilbur spits. 

“Right.” Phil offers him a small, tired smile. “I’m sorry we had to meet this way, sweetheart, but I promise it’s gonna be okay. We’re gonna get you some medicine to make you feel better. Tommy says you’re not doing so hot.”

“I’m fine.”

Phil eyes him, but doesn’t call his bluff. “Okay,” he says, instead. “I’d still like to get you looked at by a doctor. Will you come with me?”

“No,” Wilbur says, at the same time Tommy says, “Yes.”

They glare at each other.

“We’re going with him,” Tommy says, setting his jaw mulishly. “You’re sick and he has medicine and he’s gonna give it to us for free. Don’t be stupid.”

“Nothing’s free.” Wilbur turns a bitter eye on Phil. “What the hell do you want?”

“The both of you,” Phil replies, “safe and sound in my nest.”

Yeah, fuck that shit.

“Creep,” Wilbur says.

“It does sound creepy when you say it that way, bossman,” Tommy agrees sagely.

“Hrm.” Phil scratches his chin. “The both of you safe and sound at home?”

Tommy shakes his head. “Nuh-uh.”

“For you to not die?”

“That’s a lil better,” Tommy agrees. Then, he turns back to Wilbur. “Come on, Wil. I wouldn’t give you up to any wrong ‘uns.”

“You’re eight,” Wilbur snaps. “You wouldn’t know a wrong ‘un if it bit you in the face.”

“You’re a wrong ‘un.”

Wilbur elbows him. 

“Boys,” Phil says, and their eyes skitter back to him. “It’s okay if we need to talk this out later. But the thing of it is, you don’t really have a choice. I can’t very well leave you both here. Even if you don’t stay with me, you have to go somewhere safe.”

Wilbur’s heart drops to the pit of his stomach, and he digs his fingers into Tommy’s shoulder. There is it. There’s the ultimatum. They stay with Phil or they go to some fucking orphanage and get split up and beaten and neglected until they’re old enough to age out and go back to living on the streets. Why even bother? Wilbur’s just fine where he is, thank you very much.

“I’m not going anywhere with you, fucker,” Wilbur says, baring his teeth.

“Yes you are,” Tommy snaps. “We both are ‘cause otherwise you’re gonna die.”

“Oh, come on, Toms, I’m not going to die because of some stupid cold.”

“You weren’t breathing, Wilbur!” Tommy shouts, jumping to his feet and mantling his wings. There’s raw panic in his voice and a wildness around his eyes Wilbur hasn’t seen before.

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“You weren’t breathing last night!” Tommy’s breath hitches, his hands balling into little fists. “You wouldn’t wake up no matter what I did! I thought you were—I thought you—”

Tears shine in Tommy’s eyes again, and Wilbur is so sick of making his baby brother cry.

“Hey,” he says, soft and coaxing. “Hey, Toms, it’s okay. I’m okay.”

“No you’re not!” Tommy screams, his wings flaring. “No you’re not you stupid fucker! You’re gonna die and you don’t even care. You’d rather die than admit we need help. Fuck you!”

“Tommy,” Phil says, his voice just as soft as Wilbur’s. “Come here a minute, darling.”

Phil’s arms wrap around Tommy, drawing him away, and Wilbur sees red.

“Don’t fucking touch him!” Wilbur snarls, surging forward and digging his nails into the thin skin of Phil’s forearms. His ribs protest the sudden movement, but he’s blind to the pain. He’s blind to everything but Phil’s hands on his baby brother, dragging them apart. “Get off!”

Phil yelps and yanks back with red scratches drawn from his elbows to his wrists; Wilbur bares his teeth vindictively. He may not have claws or spikes or tusks or wings but that’s not gonna stop him. Let them try to take Tommy from him. Let them fucking try! He’ll kill them all! He’ll kill everyone!

Then, Wilbur hears a growl. 

The sound is bass-low and deep as drums, echoing into his bones. Every single one of Wilbur’s instincts recognizes it as the warning of a predator, and he freezes in place with his heart hammering. Tommy freezes, too, his feathers slicking down and his wings clamping tightly to his back in a paltry attempt to make himself smaller. Phil seizes his opportunity and grips Tommy around the waist, pulling him out of the tent before Wilbur can lunge again.

“It’s alright,” Phil soothes from outside—though who he’s speaking to Wilbur could hardly tell. Then, more sternly, he adds, “Be easy, Techno.”

The tent entrance parts again, and a monster shoulders its way inside. It’s the same monster Wilbur saw at the market weeks prior—the pink one with the torn ear, the one that Tommy called a piglin. Up close it’s even more terrifying. The scars that mar its snout are jagged and jarring. Its eyes are black, pupils lost within the lightless pools of its irises. It isn’t wearing the golden caps on its tusks, this time, and Wilbur can see the grooves and divots of hard damage across the bone. The points have been artificially sharpened and gleam in the low light of the tent. 

Comparing this monster to a pig, Wilbur thinks, is like comparing a dragon to a goddamn lizard.

Wilbur flattens himself against the back of the tent, his chest stuttering. He is suddenly very aware of his size (small) and his strength (non-existent) and his health (exceedingly questionable). Maybe he could have avoided Phil, if he’d gotten out of the tent in time, but there’s no way he can fight this— this. It will gore him as soon as he moves.

But if Wilbur’s going down, he’s sure as hell going to take someone else down with him.

“Don’t touch me,” he spits, digging his fingers into the canvas of the tent. “Get the fuck away.”

The piglin tilts its head, surveying him with those terrible lightless eyes. “No,” it says. “I don’t think I will.”

“I’ll kill you,” Wilbur hisses, hunching his shoulders as the piglin moves closer. It’s too big to fit properly inside the tent, and so it crouches half-in and half-out. It doesn’t look very comfortable. “I’ll slit your fucking throat.”

The piglin snorts. “I’d like to see you try."

“Techno,” Phil chides from outside. “Don’t instigate.”

“I’m not instigating,” the piglin says, pinning its ears. “He’s the one who hurt you.”

“It was barely a scratch, mate, and he’s frightened. If you’re not going to be nice, leave him be and I’ll get him.”

“No,” the piglin—Techno, Technoblade, holy shit— grumbles. “I’ve got him.”

Technoblade reaches forward, and Wilbur punches him in the snout.

That, at least, gets a proper reaction. Technoblade grunts and jerks backwards, clutching his nose. The back of his head bumps the tent, and he bares his teeth at the tattered canvas as though it’s personally offended him. 

“Right,” he says brusquely. “So that’s enough of that.”

Technoblade ducks out of the tent, and for a moment Wilbur wheezes with relief. He did it. He drove off Technoblade. It had been a wild guess, striking at his nose like that, but he figured that pigs use their noses so much it had to be sensitive. So, basically, Wilbur is a genius. Take that, Phil. Take that, Techno. 

Then, Technoblade tears the top of the tent open.

“You can’t do that!” Wilbur shrieks. “That’s my tent!”

“I’ll buy you a new one,” Technoblade grumbles, reaching down and coiling an arm around Wilbur’s chest when he tries to scramble away again. He scoops him up like a goddamn puppy, and Wilbur shouts as the pressure on his ribs jolts them. “Quit movin’ and it won’t hurt so much. Gods, you’re squirmy. Aren’t you supposed to be on death’s door or something?”

“Techno,” Phil says fretfully. “Be careful.”

“I’m careful, I’m careful.” Technoblade tucks Wilbur against his chest, cradling him like a fucking baby, and presses one hand against his shoulders to keep him from lurching up. “I’m not hurtin’ him.”

“Let go!” Wilbur snarls, pushing at Technoblade’s hand to absolutely no avail. It’s big enough to cover the whole of his chest, and utterly immoveable. Several golden rings stud his fingers, glinting wickedly in the dawnlight, and Wilbur can only imagine how much it would hurt to be struck by that fist. His chest heaves. Shit. He can’t catch his breath. “Lemme go!”

“Nah,” Technoblade says. “Not this time.”

“Let’s go,” Phil says, his voice distant and muffled through the sudden ringing in Wilbur’s ears. “Niki is waiting. The sooner we can get them checked out, the better.”

Technoblade grunts in agreement, and the world begins to sway as he strides after Phil. Wilbur tips his chin up, gasping for breath, and catches the gleam of Technoblade’s black eyes on him. There’s a worried glint to them that Wilbur doesn’t understand. Shouldn’t he be glad that Wilbur is weakening? Shouldn’t he be glad that Wilbur is about to pass the fuck out? It'll make life hella easier for him.

“Phil,” Technoblade rumbles. “We gotta hurry. Wilbur’s not breathin’ easy.”

“You go ahead. I’ll meet you there with Tommy.”

“Wilbur?” Tommy’s voice. That’s Tommy’s voice. Wilbur begins to move again, trying to sit up and see his brother. Where’s Phil taking him? Where are they going? “Wil?”

“Easy,” Technoblade says, pressing Wilbur back down with one implacable palm. Wilbur feels his gait change as he lengthens his stride, and Tommy’s voice begins to fade behind them. “Tommy’s fine. We’re bringing him, too. You’ll see him in just a little while.”

“Where—where are you—?”

“We’re taking you to a friend’s,” Technoblade says. “She’s a doctor. She’ll be able to help you.”

Wilbur slumps against Technoblade’s broad chest, unable to keep himself struggling as his adrenaline wanes. He breathes through his mouth—fast, shallow breaths that don’t hurt his ribs but don’t fill his lungs, either. Black begins to creep up in the corners of his vision. He’s so tired. He’s still so fucking tired, and without Tommy nearby his will to fight depletes almost immediately. What is there to fight for, if not Tommy?

“Just a few more minutes, runt,” Technoblade rumbles, smoothing a hand over Wilbur’s tangled hair. “Just a few more.”

Wilbur wakes up because someone is drowning him.

Icy water washes against the naked skin of his sides and back, sloshing up to the black bruise on his ribs. He flails, grasping instinctively for solid ground, and feels several hands press him back into the water. His teeth chatter viciously, and he can’t breathe. There’s water in his chest, in his ribs, in his fucking lungs. He coughs it up, gagging when it catches in his throat, and tastes the sour tang of old blood. 

“I know,” an unfamiliar woman’s voice says. “Everything’s alright. Puff, pass me that cup.”

Everything is most fucking not alright.

Cold water pours through his hair, sliding down the nape of his neck. He wails, clawing helplessly at the slick sides of the tub he’s in. Someone catches his hands in theirs, and Wilbur feels the hard press of rings against his skin. 

“Wilbur,” Technoblade says somewhere close by, his voice a drumbeat focus in the shattering symphony that Wilbur’s mind has become. “Hold still.”

Wilbur doesn’t have much of a choice, really, because Wilbur still can’t fucking breathe and that’s making conciousness a pretty difficult achievement. He sags back and feels a sturdy arm curl around his shoulders to keep his face above the water. He doesn’t know why they bother. He’s drowning anyway. He’s been drowning for a long time.

Wilbur wakes up because there is something absolutely foul in his mouth.

Immediately, he gags and coughs. A low murmur of noise surrounds him, and the world tilts as he’s moved. Liquid dribbles down his chin, and he brings a hand up to swipe it away—but his hand never quite makes it there, trapped within someone else’s firm grip. A washcloth touches his mouth, swiping away the spilled liquid, and Wilbur reluctantly swallows the bitter taste that lingers on his tongue. 

“Wilbur?” Phil’s voice, far too close to him—Wilbur flinches. “It’s okay. It’s just medicine. Can you drink some more for us?”

Not if it’s going to taste like rancid-ass cherries, Wilbur thinks, and recoils when he feels the press of a bottle against his lips. The back of his head strikes something warm and unyielding, and slim fingers brace his jaw. 

“Sorry, kiddo,” a new voice says, “but no’s not really an option at the moment. It’s this or watching you drown in your own lungs, and I’m not a big fan of watching kids drown.”

“Can’t we give him a minute, Puffy?” Phil asks, his own voice thoroughly miserable.

“It’s not going to taste any better in a minute.”

“He’s scared.”

“He’s dying.” Puffy’s cold hand touches Wilbur’s face, bracing him, and a hard plastic syringe wedges into the pocket of his cheek. Foul liquid bursts across his tongue again, and he makes a strangled noise of discontent. “Swallow, Wilbur.”

Wilbur balks, but only for a moment—Puffy’s fingers swiftly pinch his nose, cutting off his breath, and he gulps the liquid down just so he can open his mouth to gasp. 

“Alright,” Puffy says. “That’s good. He’s gonna start coughing that phlegm up pretty soon, so try to brace his ribs as much as you can. It’s not gonna feel good.”

She’s right about that, at least—Wilbur starts coughing, and then he can’t stop, and the pain in his ribs makes him want to scream. Phil’s arm is a tight band around his side and stomach, trying desperately to keep the broken bone ends from shifting, but it’s not enough. The agony overwhelms him, and Wilbur is gone again—drifting below the dark, soundless waves of sleep.

Wilbur wakes up because someone knees him in the side and it hurts like hell.

It doesn’t hurt as much as he thinks it should, though. It’s enough to startle him awake but not to make him cry, which is an improvement. His head feels thick and foggy, and when he tries to move his muscles are slow to respond so he stops trying. There’s something soft beneath him, and over him. The lights are dim. 

He takes a breath, and it fills his lungs.

“Wil?” Tommy’s harsh whisper comes from somewhere beside him.

“Be easy, nestling,” Phil says, his own voice distant and soft. “Try not to move him too much.”

“How come he won’t wake up?”

“The medicine Niki gave him makes him sleepy. He needs to rest a lot so he’ll feel better.”

“Oh.” The mattress dips below him, and Wilbur feels a small body nestle against his. Tommy, he thinks, and the world feels a little warmer and a lot safer. Tommy’s head bumps the bottom of his chin, and he feels the weight of one small wing drape over his side. “I’ll be quiet.”

Quiet and Tommy are antonyms, Wilbur knows, and yet Tommy doesn’t make another peep for several minutes. He stays pressed snugly to Wilbur’s belly, the both of them breathing softly together, and only shifts his weight when something else warm and fuzzy is drawn over them—a blanket? The floor creaks, and Wilbur hears Phil’s footsteps padding across carpet. 

“Sleep well, Toms. I’ll wake you for lunch.”

“Uh-huh,” Tommy says, his voice already blurred with sleep. “Bye Phil.”

A door clicks shut somewhere behind them, and Wilbur can finally relax. He ducks his chin, pressing his nose to Tommy’s soft curls, and lets his muscles loosen. The darkness is quick to swarm up for him again, but not before he hears Tommy’s tiny voice:

“Wilbur? I miss you. Get better soon, okay?”

Wilbur wakes up because something cold is touching him. 

He feels it through a layer of clouds and fog, and he can’t muster up the energy to twitch away. It’s not bad. Whatever it is, it’s soft and textured and damp. A washcloth? It drags down his shoulder to his hand, leaving a thin layer of cool water standing on his overheated skin. It chills him, but it isn’t like before. It isn’t like the tub, and the drowning. As soon as his arm has been rubbed down, it gets tucked beneath a blanket, and he sighs in relief. 

Someone is humming, nearby, and he recognizes the music from the concerts he used to visit. It’s old waltzing music, from before his time—from before the wars, even. The humming is ragged and off-tune, but Wilbur can well imagine the violin chorus it represents. He can hear it in the back of his mind, swooping and grand, and it makes him feel a little braver. He carries the tune with him, tucking it into his own mind like a stolen trinket, and feels a distant wall begin to crumble.

“Oh?” The humming stops, and Wilbur flickers a frown. “Sorry, runt. Didn’t know you were listenin’ in. Masterful composition, isn’t it? It’s Eugen Doga.”

Wilbur’s mind picks up the thread of the tune again, the song stuck incomplete, and the humming obligingly resumes. As it does, Wilbur’s other arm is snuck out of the blankets and wiped down with the same cool cloth. The water prickles against his skin, and he rolls over to bury his face against a pillow. It’s nice.

It’s nice, and it lulls Wilbur quickly back to sleep.

Wilbur wakes up because—

Huh. Wilbur’s actually not sure why he’s awake this time.

Soft birdsong filters in through the walls, and he sits up. Blood rushes to his head and the world sways, setting a dull throb through his temples. He pinches the bridge of his nose and breathes through the dizziness. A tight band sits around his ribs, compressing his chest, and it’s a struggle to take a full breath. When he looks down, he sees that the tightness is a swathe of white bandages bracing his torso. 

The fuck is that about?

Rubbing his eyes, Wilbur glances around in bemusement. The room looks like a bedroom, albeit a sparse one. The decorations are simple and green, while the walls are painted an unassuming beige. One large window spans the wall beside the bed, and through the glass Wilbur can see an ocean spilling away from its shore. Wooden docks hang out over the waves, and small sailboats bob cheerfully beside them. Farther out, he can see the looming figures of warships and transports with their flags snapping. 

Where is he? The last train had taken them away from the ocean, not closer to it. Technoblade and Phil must have brought him here, and Tommy—

Fuck, Tommy!

Wilbur nearly topples out of bed, scrambling to throw off the blankets and get to his feet. His toes sink into plush cream carpet, and he leans heavily against the wall to catch his balance and his breath both. The world won’t stop spinning. What the hell is wrong with him?

Tommy, he thinks desperately, reaching out to his littlest soulmate. Toms, where are you?

Holy shit, Wil?

Yes! Where are you? Are you okay? 

I’m fine, I’m—I’ll be right there! Don’t go anywhere!

Wilbur hears the thud of footsteps racing towards him, and the bedroom door swings open to reveal Tommy in all of his frantic, half-fledged glory. When he sees Wilbur standing he makes an indecipherable shrieking sound and lunges like the little beast he is, wrapping his arms around Wilbur’s waist and knocking him back against the bed. Wilbur huffs out a disbelieving laugh, his arms coming to rest around his brother’s shoulders.

“Wil!” Tommy shouts, shoving his pointy-ass nose into Wilbur’s chest. “Fucking finally!”

Wilbur sits down on the edge of the bed—it’s much easier than standing, especially with Tommy’s weight on him. Tommy scrambles into his lap, smashing his face into Wilbur’s neck instead of his chest. His hands are fluttering, unsure, like they don’t know where to land. They eventually settle on Wilbur’s shoulders, pushing him back so they can see each other properly.

“Hey,” Wilbur breathes, a smile breaking across his face. Sick and confused Wilbur may be, but his brother is here and safe and nothing can beat that relief. “What’s up, big man?”

“You’ve been sleeping forever,” Tommy says accusingly. “Are you really that tired?”

“Not anymore,” Wilbur says, although he’s not sure that’s completely true. Just standing up had been enough to wind him, and he’s grateful to be back in the bed for this conversation. He lifts a hand, tousling Tommy’s hair. “How long have I been asleep?”

“A week!”

“A week?” Wilbur winces. What could have happened to Tommy in that much time? What would have happened, if Phil and Technoblade hadn’t found them? Speaking of—“And you’re okay? Phil and Technoblade didn’t hurt you?”

“What? No,” Tommy says, wrinkling his nose like it’s a silly question. “They’re my friends, and Niki and Puffy too.”

“Niki and Puffy?”

“Uh-huh. Niki’s a doctor and Puffy’s a pirate captain!”

“An admiral, now, actually,” someone says, and Wilbur jumps. A short, stocky sheep hybrid leans against the doorframe with her arms folded. Dense curls of white wool spill down her shoulders and back, and her bangs are swept out of her face by a red bandana. An eyepatch covers one of her dark eyes. Her floppy pink ears flick forward when she sees him looking, and she offers him a crooked smile. “I put the piracy behind me a few years ago.”

“Once a pirate, always a pirate,” Tommy whispers conspiratorially to Wilbur.

“You’re Puffy,” Wilbur surmises, eyeing her warily. She’s short but she looks strong; her forearms flex with wiry muscle. He’d have trouble fighting his way past her if he had to, and she’s blocking the only exit. (Well. The only exit unless Wilbur wanted to jump out of the window, which he does not.)

“That’s right,” Puffy says. “Nice to properly meet you, kiddo. How are you feeling?”

“I’m fine.”

“Ribs doing okay? I think it might be time for another painkiller, if you want one.”

“I’m fine,” Wilbur repeats, pulling Tommy securely against him. It’s probably the painkillers making him so dizzy and tired all the time. If he can shake them off, he can start to feel like an actual human being again. “Where are we?”

“My home,” Puffy explains, “on Minatra Bay.”

“Why am I here?”

“You were sick. Your soulmates brought you here so my wife could help you. She’s a doctor, and she specializes in respiratory infections. You’re lucky they were able to get you here fast enough.” Puffy cocks her head. “A few hours later and you would have been dead, you know.”

Tommy muffles a high, distressed warble against Wilbur’s throat. 

“Sorry, Toms,” Puffy says, and has the decency to look apologetic. “You’re both okay now, yeah? A couple more weeks of recovery and you’ll be back on your feet, I’d imagine. Kids bounce back quick.”

A few more weeks, Wilbur thinks miserably. He hates staying here at all, under the thumbs of all these strangers, but he doesn’t think he has much of a choice at the moment. They’re not just going to let him go, and he’s too sick to run very far (or to take care of Tommy, if he even got away). So Wilbur sighs, resigning himself to his fate for at least a few weeks—but as soon as he’s better, they’re out of here.

“Right,” Wilbur mutters, setting his chin down on top of Tommy’s head. His little brother smells like soap, he realizes. The scent is foreign and disconcerting in his nostrils. They haven’t had soap in weeks, and certainly not this soap—rich and sharp and scented like bergamot. “Dude, you smell weird.”

“You smell weird,” Tommy huffs. “When’s the last time you took a bath?”

Before Wilbur can respond, there’s a sudden wail and a flurry of distressed chirping somewhere in the house—too high to be Phil’s, and too hoarse to remind him of Tommy’s. It makes Wilbur stiffen, and Tommy’s wings flick in responding anxiety. He buries a chirp of his own against Wilbur’s chin. Puffy only sighs.

“Aaand he’s awake,” she says, rubbing her face. “It wasn’t even five minutes.”

Despite the annoyance in her words, however, there’s a tired smile on her face. It only grows when she hears a low worried coo, and the patter of quick footsteps downstairs—that one’s almost definitely Phil, unless they have another fussy-ass elytrian hiding around here. 

“I gotta go,” she says. “I’ll send Niki up, okay? She’ll want to take a look at you now that you’re awake.”

Puffy steps out, shutting the door behind her, and Wilbur collapses back onto the mattress. Tommy comes with him, squealing, and sprawls out on his chest. It doesn’t hurt nearly as much as Wilbur knows it should. Tommy’s wings spread, shivering through a little stretch, and Wilbur sees that another handful of his adult feathers have fledged in. They’re all neatly aligned and glossy. Like this, the red is even brighter. 

“I missed you,” Tommy mumbles, rolling off of Wilbur’s chest to wedge up against his uninjured side instead. “You were asleep a long time.”

“Sorry, sunshine. I didn’t mean to leave you alone for so long. You’re sure you’re alright?”

“Uh-huh. Everyone’s really nice.” Tommy rests a hand over Wilbur’s chest and the quick beat of his heart. “There’s other kids to play with, too.”

“Really?”

“Well, one kid, I guess. Puffy and Niki have three, but one’s just a baby so he doesn’t count, and the other one's a grown-up so he's not here.”

Ah. That must have been the baby crying, earlier. It sounded like an elytrian, so does that mean Niki is an elytrian, too? Wilbur feels even more out of place than usual, surrounded as he is by all of these different species. Humans aren’t the strongest or smartest of breeds, but they’re the most populous, so it’s unusual to just—not have any around. 

“Where’s our stuff at?” Wilbur cranes his neck to look around the room, again, but it’s just as barren as it was before.

“The blankets and clothes got thrown away ‘cause they were gross, and a lot of the food was going bad so Phil got rid of it too. He said he’d get us new stuff.”

Wilbur bristles at the implication. Sure, maybe that stuff wasn’t worthwhile to Phil because he’s a rich and pretentious and perfect asshole, but it was—it was all Wilbur had, and he just threw it away like trash. (It’s the same thing he’ll do to them when he realizes they don’t fit into his picturesque fucking life, either.)

“Oh, but we kept your guitar! It’s under the bed.” Tommy scrambles over, kneeing him in the stomach, and reaches under the bed to haul the guitar out. “See?”

Wilbur sits up and scoots back against the headboard, cradling the guitar in his lap. He rests his fingers over the taut strings—just pressing, not playing. The weight and shape of it soothes something in him, and he exhales shakily. At least he has this. He has his guitar, and he has Tommy. Everything else is replaceable. 

A knock on the door startles him out of his reverie, and his head snaps around.

“Niki?” Tommy asks, sitting up.

“Yeah, it’s me. Can I come in?”

“Sure.” Tommy scoots to the edge of the bed, swinging his legs off of it. “Look! Wil’s awake.”

“I see that.” Another woman steps into the room, smiling warmly at them; her eyes crinkle at the edges. She isn’t an elytrian, like Wilbur thought, or at least if she is then she’s missing her wings. She looks wholly human to him, with plain brown hair and easy-going eyes. She’s wearing a massive pink sweater and the sleeves drip over her hands, hiding her fingers. “Hi, Wilbur.”

“Hey,” Wilbur says, pushing his guitar aside.

“It’s good to see you awake and talking. You’ve been pretty out of it these last few days.”

“That’s what Puffy said.”

“Is it okay if I sit with you for a minute?”

Tommy scoots over, eagerly patting the space next to him on the mattress. Niki sits, folding her legs up under her. She’s wearing mismatched socks that go up to her knees, and a dark skirt that falls just above them. One sock has kitten faces on it. Wilbur likes her just a little better after noticing that. 

“How are you feeling?” Niki asks.

“I’m—”

“You gotta tell the truth, Wil,” Tommy says, jabbing a finger at him. “She’s a doctor. Those’re the rules.”

Who taught him those rules Wilbur would like to know, because it certainly wasn’t him.

“My chest still hurts, but it’s not bad,” Wilbur admits, sighing. “These bandages are just making it hard to breathe.”

“That’s the problem with splinting bandages, unfortunately,” Niki agrees. “They keep your ribs from moving too much, but they also keep you from breathing deeply—which can lead to pneumonia. But you already had pneumonia, and you were in so much pain with the coughing that I thought they were worthwhile to try. You don’t have to wear them if you don’t want to. In fact, I’d like to take a look at your ribs without them.”

Wilbur fumbles to unwrap the bandages, but hesitates when he sees Tommy’s eyes lingering. 

“Toms?” Niki says, resting a slender hand on his back. “Why don’t you go downstairs and play? I’ll call you up when we’re done.”

“Wilbur, you’re okay?” Tommy asks, his eyes fretful.

“I’m okay,” Wilbur assures him. “Be done in just a minute.”

So Tommy slides off of the bed and out the door; Wilbur can hear his footsteps scurrying down a flight of stairs, and the sound of indistinct voices rising to greet him.

“Sorry,” Niki says. “We’ve tried to keep him from the worst of it. He’s been really worried about you, you know.”

Wilbur’s jaw clenches. He’s made his baby brother miserable this month. He can’t even begin to know how he’s going to make up for that, but at the very least Tommy still seems willing to give him a chance. Wilbur’s going to take that chance and run with it. For now, that means keeping Tommy happy and unworried for as long as he can.

“It’s okay,” Wilbur mutters, and unwinds the bandages around his chest. As soon as they loosen he can breathe more deeply, and so he does—then immediately realizes why he wasn’t doing that, shit. His chest aches with the breath, and his ribs shoot splinters of pain through his side. That painkiller actually sounds pretty good right about now.

“How is that?” Niki asks, cocking her head and peering at the widespread bruising on his side. It’s better than it was last time Wilbur saw it—the colors have faded to mottled purples and greens, now. “It still hurts to breathe too deeply, I imagine.”

Wilbur nods shortly, returning to comfortable, shallow breaths.

“I know it doesn’t feel good to take a deep breath,” Niki says, “but can you try just a few for me? It’s important to use all of your lungs. It will help clear up the pneumonia.”

Wilbur tries. He sets his jaw and braces himself, then sucks up a deep breath. It hurts to hold for very long, and he lets it out in a whoosh. He can hear a faint crackle in his lungs. He tries a few more times, coaxed along by Niki, before she decides it’s enough. 

“Now I want you to try coughing,” she says, because she is a sadist. “Here, brace this against your stomach.”

Wilbur reluctantly takes the pillow she offers him, holding it tight to his chest and belly. It still hurts to cough, no matter how shallow the movement, but the pillow helps a little. He doesn’t cough up nearly as much phlegm as he did before, and what he does cough up is thin and clear. Niki has him spit it into a napkin so she can look at it (which, gross) and seems happy. It’s better than coughing up blood, he guesses.

“Do you want the bandages back on?” Niki asks, pressing her palm to his forehead and clucking her tongue. “Still a little warm, aren’t you.”

“Bandages please,” Wilbur decides, and Niki helps him to fasten them around his chest again. It’s easier to move and breathe without the fear of jostling his ribs. “And can I have a shirt?”

“Oh, of course.” Niki scoots off of the bed and opens the closet on the far side of the room, pulling out an oversized brown sweater. “This is one of Foolish's old shirts. How about it?”

Wilbur nods, taking it into his hands and pulling it over his head. The fabric is wool, soft and warm against his skin, and he huddles happily into it. When he glances back up, Niki is smiling.

“What?”

“You look happy,” she says, and Wilbur shrugs. “I’m going to go get you some medicine, okay? I’ve got some for your fever, some for the infection, and some for your pain. Will you take it?”

“Is it going to taste like something died and fermented in my mouth?”

“I mean.” Niki scratches her chin. “Probably.”

Wilbur makes a face and flops back onto the bed. “Ugh. Fine.”

If they’re going to give him medicine, he’s going to milk it for all it’s worth even if it is disgusting. The sooner he’s better, the sooner he can get out of here and the sooner life can go back to normal. Besides, the breathing exercises and coughing had drawn the pain to the forefront of his mind, and maybe sleeping all day isn’t actually that terrible as long as Tommy's safe.

Niki leaves the room and returns with a tray of food and medicine both. She sets it down on the bedside table, handing him a glass of suspicious yellow liquid. When he eyes her warily, she laughs and holds her hands up. 

“It’s just apple juice, promise,” she says. “You can wash the meds down with it.”

Wilbur sniffs it, then sips. It tastes clear and cold and sweet, and he’s half-tempted to chug it all right there. But if the medicine tastes anything like before, he wants to save the juice for after. Grudgingly, he accepts the next glass that she passes him.

“I mixed all of the medications together,” she explains, “so you only have to drink one thing. Just plug your nose and chug.”

Wilbur grits his teeth, plugs his nose, and chugs.

It’s just as bad as he remembered.

As soon as he swallows the medication, he swishes his mouth with apple juice and then guzzles the sugary swill down. Niki trades him for a glass of water once he’s finished, and he guzzles that, too. Gods above, he’s thirsty. Hungry, too, now that he thinks about it. He looks hopefully at the tray, and Niki passes him a warm ceramic bowl.

“Eat slowly,” she warns. “You haven’t had much these past few days. You don’t want to upset your stomach.”

Wilbur spoons up a mouthful of the broth she’s given him—clear and salty and steaming. He thinks it’s probably chicken. When the first few bites don’t make him want to hurl, he presses the rim of the bowl to his lips and drinks. Niki makes a disgruntled noise but doesn’t stop him. The broth soothes his throat and warms his belly, and he sighs happily once it’s gone.

“I’ll get you some more water,” Niki says, collecting the empty dishes, “and I’ll send Tommy back up. Do you want to see Phil or Technoblade? I know your first meeting didn’t go very well, so it’s up to you. If you want them to wait, they will.”

“I just want Tommy.”

“Alright. Let us know if you need anything else, though. I’ll be back this evening with more medicine for you.”

Wilbur sprawls back out on the bed once she’s gone, humming. That could have been so much worse. He’s warm, and full, and the pain meds are already starting to kick in. He knows this won’t last—good things never do, where he’s concerned—but it’s nice right now. It gets even better when Tommy returns, crawling up into the bed to nap with him. 

Over the next few days, Wilbur meets the rest of the Niki-Puffy household. Puffy comes to bring him dinner once, and there’s tiny elytrian following her. It clings to her coattails with one chubby fist, its other hand pressed to its mouth so it can suck its thumb. Its wings are as small as the rest of it, covered in a thick layer of white down. It looks warily at him, unsmiling.

“This is Dream,” Puffy says, when she notices Wilbur’s curious gaze. “He’s our son. Do you want to hold him?”

Wilbur hunches his shoulders. “I don’t know how.”

“It’s easy. Come here, duckling.” Puffy scoops Dream up, and he clings to her. He flails when she tries to pass him off to Wilbur, and Wilbur flinches. “It’s alright, it’s alright. Put your arms out, Wil.”

Tentatively, Wilbur puts his arms out, and Puffy deposits the baby into them. He’s heavier than he looked in Puffy’s arms, alive and squirming. His face contorts like he’s about to cry, but then Puffy sticks her own face over him and coos. Dream reaches for her wool, tangling one little fist into it and babbling nonsensically. 

“How old is he?” Wilbur asks softly, afraid to break the tentative peace. 

“He’s two.” Tommy clambers up beside them, holding up two fingers. “Niki told me.”

“That’s right,” Puffy says. “He just turned two a couple of months ago.”

“He’s an elytrian,” Wilbur says, and the question lies unspoken between them.

“He’s adopted,” Puffy says, offering Dream a finger. He clings tightly to it. “We found him down by the shipyard when he was just an infant—Phil thinks he’s a duck, although he could be a swan or a seabird. We won’t know for sure until he fledges.”

“What kind are you?” Wilbur asks, glancing over at Tommy. He didn’t know there were kinds of elytrians. He sort of thought they were all the same, just with different colored wings. Gods above, he doesn’t know nearly enough to be raising an elytrian kid. “Did Phil say?”

“I’m a cardinal,” Tommy says brightly. “Phil says they’re really rare.”

“Honestly, I didn’t even know there were types,” Puffy says, laughing—and echoing Wilbur’s own thoughts perfectly. Something in him relaxes. Puffy seems like a good mom, and she didn’t know, either. Maybe it’s okay not to know everything.

Then Puffy adds, “Phil’s been a blessing. We’ve wanted him to come and meet Dream for forever, but he’s been so busy these past few years. I’m glad he could finally find time. It’s always good to have an elytrian around to teach a nestling; there are some things they just can’t learn from other species, you know? I want Dream to grow up knowing about his own kind.”

So maybe it’s not okay to not know everything, after all. 

Ugh.

“And I think Dream’s helped Phil, too,” Puffy says, laughing. “I don’t know that we would be able to keep him out of your room if the duckling wasn’t around to distract him. Gods, he’s so broody right now. You boys have him wrapped around your fingers.”

Wilbur doesn’t want anything wrapped around his fingers, let alone Phil.

Tactfully, however, he doesn’t mention that. He only hands Dream politely back to Puffy and then devours his dinner—beef broth, this time, with soda crackers and a glass of pulpy orange juice. Tommy sits alongside him, stealing crackers. Wilbur lets him have as many as he wants. It’s better than he eats his fill now, so he’s ready to go whenever Wilbur is.

Ready to go back to starving on the streets, Wilbur’s mind whispers traitorously, and he scowls.

Tommy never eats a full meal with him. He says that he eats downstairs, with the adults, at mealtimes that Wilbur has never been invited to. He knows, logically, that it’s only because he’s ill and they want him to rest; it feels like rejection anyway, and it smarts. It’s not that Wilbur wants to eat with a bunch of stuffy grown-ups, but to see Tommy fitting in so well where Wilbur isn’t even wanted—

It hurts.

The feeling only gets worse when Tommy introduces his new best friend, Tubbo.

“So he’s got a whole bunch of bees living in the cellar and they make honey,” Tommy exclaims, bouncing on his toes. “But you can’t tell, okay? Niki doesn’t like bugs. It’s a secret.”

“You keep illicit bees in your cellar?”

Tubbo stares up at him, round-eyed. He’s a sheep hybrid like Puffy, with dense brown curls and small, curving bronze horns. “Um,” he says, wringing his hands. “What’s illicit?”

Tubbo is also not the brightest.

That must be why he and Tommy get along so well, Wilbur thinks. The little ram is willing to go along with all of Tommy’s schemes—no matter how ill-conceived—and they’ve quickly become inseparable. They build towers out of wooden blocks on Wilbur’s bedroom floor, and they paste poorly scribbled pictures onto his walls. They trade clothes and knick-knacks and inside jokes. More often than not, they come to Wilbur smeared in honey or mud or spilled juice. 

Tommy laughs more, now, than he has in months.

A seething, insidious part of Wilbur wants to hate Tubbo for it—for making Tommy happier than Wilbur ever could. But it’s hard to hate that round face and those floppy ears and the big dark eyes that look up to Wilbur like he’s someone to be respected instead of reviled. It grows exponentially more difficult when Tubbo climbs into his lap alongside Tommy, pressing a thick book into Wilbur’s hands.

“What?” Wilbur asks, turning the book over and befuddlement. The title is written in proud red capitals, and there’s a picture of an explosion on the front. “No, seriously, what?”

“You can read it,” Tubbo says, nestling in against Wilbur’s chest. He’s smaller than Tommy but heavier, his weight a noticeable compression against the ache in Wilbur’s lungs.

I can’t, actually, Wilbur thinks, with a spark of panic. He doesn’t want Tubbo to think he’s stupid just because he can’t read. Worse, still—what if he told Phil or Technoblade? He can only imagine how cloying their pity would be. Irritably, Wilbur nudges Tubbo off of him. “No, I don’t want to right now. My head hurts.”

“Oh.” Tubbo snatches the book back, cracking it open across his knees. “I’ll do it. This is Critical Mass in Chain Reactions: A Review of Nuclear Devices in Modern Science.”

The words are too clear and smooth—Tubbo must have recited them more than once. He usually stumbles and hesitates, trying to read things for the first time, but this comes easy to him. It must be an old favorite. Which, actually, brings up far more questions than it answers. 

“Hey, Tubbo,” Wilbur says.

“Yeah?”

“What the actual fuck?”

Tubbo looks very solemnly at him and says, “I like bombs.”

And how is Wilbur supposed to not like the little madman after that?

The raucous cry of a seagull startles Wilbur awake, and he sits up to rub his eyes. The dawn outside is overcast and gray; there are droplets of rain on his window, chasing each other down foggy glass. By the docks, he can see the pink smudge of Technoblade’s hulking form bundled into a black turtleneck and speaking to Puffy. His head and shoulders stoop to bring him closer to her level, his ear-and-a-half pricked attentively as she gestures towards a nearby sailboat. 

Behind them, Wilbur can see Tommy and Tubbo.

The boys are chasing each other across the dock, their shrieks of joy faintly audible. Their cheeks are flushed red with exertion, their hair windswept and tangled. Wilbur winces when his little brother trips over a coil of rope—but Tommy only blinks, seeming more bemused than hurt by his fall, and bursts into laugher when Tubbo rushes over to headbutt him. Tommy pushes back, grinding their foreheads together, and then rolls away and takes off again. Tubbo’s wooly puffball of a tail flicks with delight, and he gives chase.

A moment later, Technoblade turns his head and says something—a question, a warning, a scolding? Whatever it is brings Tommy to his side, panting, and Technoblade picks him up like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Wilbur’s stomach curdles with anxiety. Technoblade is so big and Tommy is so small and Wilbur has never seen two species more incompatible. Piglins are Netherbeasts, born for the underground and for rock and for brute strength. Elytrians are Overworlders through and through, hollow-boned and lithe and flighty. 

Technoblade could crush Tommy with one hand, and Wilbur couldn’t do a damn thing to stop it.

But Technoblade only props Tommy on one hip like a toddler, letting him nestle close as he turns back to Puffy. Tommy rubs his eyes, kicking one leg absently when Tubbo approaches. Puffy crouches to speak with her son, the red coattails of her admiral’s uniform pooling around her heels. Tommy kicks his legs again, bored now that he’s been caught, and Technoblade rubs their temples together.

The scene is sickeningly domestic, and Wilbur tears his eyes away from it to glare at his bed.

This is stupid. Technoblade basically kidnapped them, and Tommy’s all fucking over him. Wilbur fought tooth and nail to keep his baby brother alive, and all Technoblade has to do is swoop in and play hero. Jealousy writhes like a dragon in Wilbur’s chest, hot and bitter.

Determined to ignore it, he rolls out of bed and digs his toes into the carpet. The world wobbles around him, but it’s easier to catch his balance this time. He braces himself against the wall and takes several deep, painful breaths before straightening his shoulders and padding across the room. He hasn’t been invited downstairs yet, but what are they gonna do about it? Kick him out? 

That’d be rich.

Wilbur opens the door quietly, poking his head into the hallway and glancing each way. There are two more doorways, adjacent from each other, on one end of the hall; on the other end, there’s a wooden staircase. Wilbur pauses at the top of the staircase, glancing down. Pale wooden floorboards spill out in either direction, and he can make out the arm of a blue couch. He descends the stairs slowly, trying not to creak the wood, and pauses again at the bottom.

Phil is on the couch.

The elytrian is tucked up on the middle cushion, his massive wings sprawled inelegantly to either side of him. His head is leaned back against the cushions, his mouth parted slightly around breaths that are slow and deep as he sleeps. His eyes are closed, and they do not open even as Wilbur sneaks closer. One of his arms rests along the back of the couch; the other is curled loosely, cradling a sleeping Dream to his stomach. 

Wilbur creeps past him, bare feet sticking to the cool floorboards, and enters what must be the kitchen. Smooth white counters reflect the dim sunshine outside, and a stack of wooden dishes occupy the drying rack beside the sink. The table in the middle of the room boasts a centerpiece made of sea thrift and asters. A candle burns in the midst of the flowers, weeping white wax. It still smells like breakfast: eggs and fried meat and hot, strong coffee. 

Wilbur licks his lips enviously, saliva pooling in his mouth. He hasn’t had real food in ages. Niki seems convinced that anything solid will make him vomit again, and so he’s been relegated to liquids and the occasional cracker. He’s half-tempted to rummage through their icebox and take something for himself, but he doesn’t want to piss them off that badly. 

Passing back through the living room, Wilbur enters a second hallway. He finds a large bathroom, another two bedrooms, and a room that must be Dream’s nursery. It’s a mess. A green blanket hangs over the side of a crib, and colorful toys litter the floor. A rug is bunched up near the doorway and sprinkled with tufts of white down. The rest of the house is clean and open, but this? 

This looks like somewhere a baby lives.

Carefully, Wilbur backs out of the nursery. He’s planning to skirt back through the living room and retreat upstairs until Niki or Puffy brings him breakfast, but before he can he hears a startled chirp; it’s too small to be Phil’s. He freezes, plastering himself against the hallway wall. Feathers rustle in the living room, and Phil croons low in his throat. Wilbur can see him, just barely, pulling his wings in and curving his body protectively over Dream’s. 

Just Wilbur’s luck, really—of course Phil would wake up and block the way back upstairs. There’s really no help for it, unless Wilbur wants to hide in the nursery until Phil leaves or someone else finds him. It’s really not appealing. His ribs ache, and he’s tired from even this brief of a walk, and he’s bored. 

So, resigned, Wilbur slinks into the living room. 

“Wil?” Phil’s head jerks up, eyes wide. His wings spread, his feathers fluffing up until he looks like a goddamn chinchilla. If he’s trying to look ominous, he’s failing spectacularly. “Oh. Hey. Hi.”

Wilbur glowers at him. 

Phil opens his mouth, but Dream chooses that moment to chirp again, and all that leaves Phil is another little croon. He’s still looking at Wilbur, though. He hasn’t looked away once, his eyes unearthly bright and his pupils blown wide. It’s unnerving as shit. Dream must be equally unnerved, because he bursts into a flurry of peeps that finally— finally— drag Phil’s eyes back to him with a worried warble. 

“Sorry, I’m sorry,” Phil says to the nestling, reaching out and letting Dream grip one of his fingers. “You’re alright, little ducky, hush. I’ve got you. Mama’s just stepped outside for a minute, okay? She’ll be right back.”

Wilbur seizes on Phil’s distraction, trotting to the stairs. He grips the handrail to balance himself, taking them two at a time despite the burn in his legs and the ache in his lungs. He’s almost halfway up when he hears Phil chirp—the sad, plaintive sort of sound that Tommy makes during nightmares. Wilbur hesitates.

“Wil?”

“What?” Wilbur spits, looking over his shoulder.

“Can we talk?” Phil asks, looking pleadingly after him. “Please?”

What would Phil even say, huh? That he’s sorry he fucked Wilbur over? That he’s sorry he tore them away from their home and their lives? That he’s sorry but he knows better, he knows best, he’s an adult so he knows everything. 

Fuck him. 

Phil took Wilbur and Tommy for himself. He threw away the stuff Wilbur worked tirelessly for. He brought them here even though they didn’t want to go, and now he expects Wilbur to respect him? He sure as hell didn’t respect Wilbur. When Wilbur looks at him, all he can see is the hands that took Tommy away and all he can feel are the arms that picked him up even though he screamed and shouted and fought for them not to. 

They didn’t talk to him. 

They didn’t even ask.

They always knew they’d have him, no matter what he wanted. He was born theirs to do whatever they want with—just like he was born to his parents, like he was a thing to dress up and train and play with until they got bored. Wilbur is so sick of people assuming they have a right to him. Maybe he’s a child, but he’s still a wholeass goddamn person. 

So Wilbur says, “No,” and he storms upstairs without a backwards glance.

Chapter Text

Wilbur likes the boats.

They’re not quite as cool as trains, but near enough. He dangles his legs over the edge of the dock, rubbing his fingers over whorls of sunbleached wood as Puffy points out each type of ship in the harbor. She had whisked him outside that afternoon, declaring him stir crazy, and plopped him down on the docks for some fresh air. Niki had sent them out with lemonade and cucumber sandwiches and the instructions to eat slowly or puke. 

So Wilbur eats slowly, crunching crisp cucumbers between his teeth, and looks at the boats.

“That one is a galleon, The Behemoth, ” Puffy explains, gesturing to a massive ship anchored far off of the shore. “She has three decks and three masts. Giant, lumbering thing. She’s slow but she’s efficient.”

“What’s that one?”

“That’s a sloop— The Wanderlust, if I’m remembering correctly. She’s much faster.”

“And that one?”

“One of our ships-of-the-line, The Leviathan. She’s got eighty guns on her. I’d hate to get in her way out on the water. Matter of fact, I think I did, once, when I was still a pirate. She destroyed my favorite cutter.”

“Why’d you stop being a pirate?”

“I met my soulmate.”

“So?”

“What d’you mean, so?”

“Who cares if you met your soulmate? They should have wanted you to be happy. If being a pirate made you happy, why’d they make you stop?”

“It’s not like that, kiddo. I chose to stop; Niki didn’t force me to do anything. But I wanted to be with her, and I wanted to have a family. That sort of thing’s not so easy when you’re a criminal.”

“I think I’d want to stay a pirate anyway,” Wilbur says, drawing his knees up to his chest and leaning over them. His side twinges, but it’s a faint thing, and easily ignorable. “You can go anywhere you want. You can do anything you want. Nobody could take anything from you or tell you what to do.”

“Freedom’s not all it’s cracked up to be, sometimes,” Puffy says wryly.

“But don’t you miss it?”

“Of course,” Puffy says, tilting her face into the cool breeze coming off of the waves. “But I wouldn’t change anything. I love my life here, with Niki and the kids.”

Wilbur rests his chin on his knees, frowning. He still thinks it’s dumb. If he could take Tommy and go be a pirate forever, with no rules and nobody to hold him back, he’d do it in a heartbeat. When Wilbur doesn’t respond, Puffy glances over at him and hums thoughtfully. 

“Look over there,” she says, gesturing, and Wilbur looks out at the fleet of ships again. “That’s The Boreas.” 

The ship she indicates is a brigantine, if Wilbur’s spontaneous ship identification lessons have taught him anything. She’s smaller than the galleon but larger than the cutter, with two masts. Her sails are neatly furled and her deck empty; she must have been at harbor for quite some time. She flies no flag, although her figurehead looks like a lunging polar bear. 

“She belongs to Phil and Technoblade,” Puffy explains. 

“Oh.” Wilbur hadn’t really considered how Phil and Technoblade got here, but now that it’s been brought to his attention…“Where did they come from?”

“The arctic. There’s an empire up there—but don’t let Technoblade hear you call it that, or he’ll get all huffy,” Puffy says, lowering her voice like they’re sharing an inside joke that Wilbur doesn’t understand. “He prefers to call it a free territory, but I’ve never seen a territory thousands of mile square with its own fleet of hundred gunners.”

So that sounds terrible.

If Phil and Technoblade managed to get Wilbur and Tommy to the arctic, they’d never escape. The bitter cold would be more effective than any cage. How the hell would Wilbur survive on his own surrounded by blizzards and polar bears and fucking moose? Wilbur decides then, quite confidently, that he will never ever ever be boarding The Boreas. 

Behind them, there’s a sudden warbling wail, and Puffy’s head snaps around.

Wilbur turns to look, too, and sees Technoblade marching towards them. He has Dream cradled in one arm and Tommy hanging stubbornly off of the other, while Tubbo runs gleefully behind them. Dream is crying, incessantly, the way he always does when he realizes he's been separated from Puffy for more than a few minutes. Even Phil’s fussing isn’t enough to settle him when that happens. 

“He’s imprinted,” Puffy explains sheepishly, when she glimpses Wilbur’s furrowed brow. “He hates it when I’m not around—but a mama just needs a break sometimes, you know?”

Wilbur’s mother certainly did.

Grimly, Wilbur watches as Technoblade hands Dream over to Puffy. The baby quiets as soon as he sees her face, his breath hitching as she wipes the snot away from his nose. She bounces him in her arms, a warm smile on her face, and he reaches up to grasp a fistful of her coat with a gentle coo. 

“Wilbur!” Tommy exclaims, dropping off of Technoblade to race over to him, instead. He drapes himself over Wilbur’s back, his arms dangling around Wilbur’s shoulders. “Suh, dude?”

Wilbur catches Tommy’s wrists, squeezing gently. “Nothing,” he says. “What’s up with you?”

“Me ‘n Tubbo were—” Tommy lowers his voice to a dramatic whisper, casting a secretive glance towards the adults. “We were playing with the bees.”

“You need to be careful. What if you get stung?”

“They’re tame.”

“You can’t tame bees.”

“Says you,” Tommy says, sticking out his tongue. “Bitchboy.”

Tubbo plops down next to Wilbur, burrowing shamelessly into his side. Tommy drapes a wing over him and he giggles, shoving it away. “Hi Wil,” he says. “Do you like the boats?”

“Yeah, they’re pretty cool.”

“Do you want to go swimming?”

“Yeah!” Tommy cheers. “I haven’t been swimming in forever.”

“Yes, because you can’t get dry when you swim. Down feathers, remember?” Wilbur sighs. 

“Wilbur can’t go swimming, anyway,” Technoblade says, sounding bored; when Wilbur looks over at him, he looks steadily back. “You’re still sick.”

Wilbur’s fingers tighten, and only loosen again when Tommy squirms in his grip. There they go again—bossing Wilbur around like they have any right to make choices for him. He’s not their pet, he’s not their little toy soldier, and he’s certainly not their kid. He’s tempted to say as much, but Tommy casts a worried look at him, and—

The fight’s not worth it.

“Whatever,” Wilbur mutters, looking away from Technoblade. “Come on, Toms. Let’s go do something else.”

The three of them climb to their feet, skirting around Puffy and Technoblade. 

“Stay nearby,” Puffy calls.

“Okay, Mama! C’mon, I’ll show you one of the boats,” Tubbo offers, grabbing their hands and tugging them along. “It’s really cool.”

They spend several minutes exploring one of the colorful sailboats tied to the dock, and Tubbo proudly demonstrates his naval knowledge by pointing out all the different parts. By the time they return to the docks, Wilbur is in a better mood. The fresh air and sunshine has refreshed him, and he’s already starting to feel hungry again. Maybe Puffy will let him have a snack. He's not nauseous at all, even after the solid food and the running around.

Tubbo runs ahead of them as they near the end of the dock, calling cheerfully to the adults, and Technoblade crouches to greet him. Tommy takes off, too, then skids to a stop and looks uncertainly at Wilbur. His wings twitch indecisively. 

“What?” Wilbur says, eyeing him.

Tommy comes to a decision and lunges forward, poking Wilbur in the arm. “Tag, you’re it!”

Wilbur blinks at him, baffled, and watches as he skitters several steps back. He pauses then, watching Wilbur expectantly, and Wilbur takes a step forward. His baby brother takes a step back. A wide grin spreads over Wilbur’s face (how long has it been since he’s played?) and he lurches forward. He’s slow and careful not to lose control of his breath—he’s not sure he’d be able to catch it again, if he did—but Tommy slows down, too, to make the game more equal.

Tommy circles around Technoblade, laughing wildly, and Wilbur lurches after him. Technoblade sits very still between them, his snout wrinkled, and doesn’t complain even when Tommy bumps into him or trips over his coattails. Wilbur himself takes care not to come too close to the piglin, so he’s a damned effective shield. 

“Cheater,” Wilbur complains.

"Coward," Tommy returns, and sticks his tongue out. 

What happens next is a spur of the moment decision. Wilbur catches sight of Technoblade’s long tail curled lazily behind his heels, the tufted tip flicking, and is reminded exactly how furious he is with the lackadaisical bastard. He whips around, on the pretense of making another lunge for Tommy, and smashes his foot into that stupid tail.

Technoblade squeals and jumps back to his feet, whipping his tail around and clutching the end defensively in his own hands. Wilbur leaps backwards, out of Technoblade’s striking range, and waits with his chest heaving. Technoblade looks towards him, but there’s no anger in his eyes—only an injured sort of confusion, like he can’t believe Wilbur actually hurt him, and for a moment Wilbur feels as though he’s kicked a kitten.

But this is Technoblade.

“Oops,” Wilbur says, and keeps his voice as flat as Technoblade’s has ever been.

Technoblade’s ears pin, his jaw tightening. Wilbur braces himself for the fallout—for the shouting and the screaming and the sharpened tusks coming his way. But it never comes. Technoblade only angles his head towards Puffy and mutters, “You can handle them for a little while, right? I think I’m going to go take Phil and run a few errands in town.”

“Of course,” Puffy says, her own voice carefully schooled into neutrality.

“Thanks.” 

Technoblade releases his tail, giving it an experimental flick, before heading off of the docks. He doesn’t spare Wilbur another glance. For one terrible moment Wilbur is tempted to lunge after him—to beat his fists against that broad back, to howl and shriek and force Technoblade to become the monster Wilbur knows he is. He wants them to be angry. He wants them to hate him. He wants them to send him away and never, ever come looking for him again.

They’re going to do it sooner or later, so why not do it on Wilbur’s terms?

But in the end, Wilbur’s courage fails him. He only hunches his shoulders and glowers at Technoblade’s retreating back, his teeth grinding. Tommy won’t look at him, and Tubbo’s gaze darts anxiously between the two of them. Puffy waits several minutes before gathering their picnic basket and leading them back inside, ushering them on ahead of her. Wilbur pelts up the stairs and into his room with Tommy behind him, slamming the door shut as soon as they’re both safely inside.

“Gods, I hate that guy,” he grumbles, flopping onto the bed and scowling at the ceiling. “Can you believe him? I don’t think he has facial expressions other than piss off and pissed off.”

Tommy doesn’t respond. There’s no argument or quip forthcoming. 

“Toms?”

Wilbur sits up again, looking towards his little brother. Tommy stands in front of the doorway, hugging one arm to his side and staring at the carpet. His wings are hunched and tense, the pinfeathers bristling beneath ragged down. 

“Wil, seriously,” he says, “you’re being a fucking prick.”

“Me?” Wilbur digs his fingers into the duvet. “He’s the one who kidnapped us.”

“He’s the one who saved your life!”

“I would have been fine.”

“You wouldn’t’ve—” Tommy brings his hands up, digging his fingers into his own hair and making a high-pitched, throttled noise of frustration. “Even if you had been fine, it’s better here, isn’t it? We get food and beds and we get to play on the boats.”

“Until they get tired of us and kick us out.”

“Okay, fine! Fine, suppose they do that,” Tommy says, swallowing audibly, “why can’t we just enjoy it while it lasts?”

“There’s no point in getting used to it. Besides, why would you want to stay with them? They could hurt us. Have you even seen Technoblade’s tusks? Imagine if you pissed him off one too many times.”

“Technoblade wouldn’t ever hurt us!”

“Yeah, and who told you that? Technoblade?” Wilbur rolls his eyes. “Don’t be naive. I know you think they’re your friends, but they’re not.”

“Yes they are.”

“No they’re not.”

“Yes they are.”

“No they’re—” Wilbur pinches the bridge of his nose, groaning. “I’m not doing this with you. You think they’re your friends because they’ve been manipulating you ever since you were born. I’m sure they’ve told you all kinds of great stuff. I’m sure they’ve told you that they love you and they want to take care of you; I’m sure my parents told me all the same shit before they got tired of me.”

“They aren’t your parents. It’s not fair of you to lump them together,” Tommy insists, his wings flicking like they want to flare. “And anyway I’d know if they were lying.”

Wilbur sighs, cocking his head. “And how would you know that? You’d feel it in your heart? Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Don’t patronize me, bitch.”

“Patron—where did you even learn that word?” Wilbur’s brow wrinkles, and he shakes his head dismissively before muttering, “Gods, I never should have let you talk to them in the first place.”

“Would you quit that?” Tommy’s wings do flare, this time, and Wilbur’s gaze snaps back to him. The display is lackluster, considering Tommy’s tiny wingspan, but the movement draws attention to the bright colors growing on his feathers: red and orange and white and dangerdangerdanger. “I’m not fucking stupid, Wilbur.”

“I never said you were.”

“You sure as hell act like it,” Tommy snaps. “I’m not four anymore. I don’t need you to tell me what to do and what to think and what to say. I can figure stuff out myself.”

“I know, Toms. You’re a very big man with very big thoughts. I’m not trying to belittle—”

“Well you’re doing it!”

“Ugh, Tommy.”

“I don’t want to leave,” Tommy says, setting his jaw. “Have you thought of that? I don’t want to leave and I don't have to. I’m going to stay with Phil and Technoblade.”

Ice sinks into Wilbur’s chest, curling its claws dagger-like around his heart. It’s suddenly hard to breathe. He fumbles to loosen the bandages around his ribs, but that doesn’t make it any easier. 

“What are you talking about?” he demands, breathless.

“They invited me to go with them back to their home,” Tommy says, “and I’m going.”

“No you aren’t.”

“Yes I am.”

“No you aren’t.” Wilbur lurches onto his feet. The world is crumbling into snow and soot around him. The sunlight pouring through the window will never be enough to thaw him, not if Tommy leaves, not if Tommy walks away, not if Tommy abandons him. “You can’t. You’re mine.”

“And you’re mine.” Tommy looks pleadingly at him. “But I can’t take care of you alone. You don’t understand how awful it was. I watched you get sicker and sicker and I couldn’t do fucking anything and then you started seizing and you stopped breathing and I just can’t do it again! I can’t watch you die again.”

“I won’t!”

“You will. It’s horrible out there. We’re always scared and hungry and alone and I don’t want to live like that anymore. I want to a house, and food, and my soulmates.” Tommy’s eyes shine with tears, and he scrubs them away. “I want Phil and Techno.”

They’ve had this conversation before, and they will have it again—because Tommy’s made his choice a hundred times, and Wilbur was too stupid to realize it before now. 

“You’re choosing them over me,” he says, his voice hollow.

“Never,” Tommy says fiercely. “I’m choosing them for you.”

“I’ll leave.”

“I’ll find you.”

“I hate you.”

“I know,” Tommy whispers, his voice cracking like the ice underfoot. “I know.”

“Get out.”

“Wilbur?”

“Get out!” Wilbur shouts, his hands balling into fists. “Get out, leave me alone! I don’t want to see you—I don’t want to see any of you anymore!”

He’s doing it again, he realizes in some frosted-off part of himself. He always does this. He gets scared and he backs into a corner and he hisses and spits like a trapped animal. His fear boils over into rage and it hurts everyone around him. But he can’t stop it and he can’t control it and he doesn’t fucking want to. He wants everyone to hurt the way he hurts.

Maybe that makes him a monster.

Maybe they’re all monsters, the five of them. 

Maybe that’s what ties their souls together.

Wilbur turns into a menace.

Scratch that, Wilbur fucking makes himself a menace.

He refuses to come out of the bedroom, even when he’s invited to walk down at the docks or eat a meal in the kitchen. He is indiscriminate in his fury: he bitches when Niki gives him medication; he complains about the juice and the food and the smell of their rich people soap; he tells Niki about Tubbo’s stupid bees and watches his eyes fill with tears as she tells them they’ll have to relocate. He doesn’t talk to Phil, or Technoblade, or Tommy.

For the first time, he builds a wall that bars all four of his soulmates from his mind—even his little brother. The silence is oppressive. It eats away at him as he lies in bed, staring at squares of watery sunshine as they shift across the walls. He loses time. He loses so much time, and it doesn’t even frighten him. He knows that it should—but it’s peaceful. It numbs everything out and lets him breathe. 

Downstairs, Technoblade and Phil are preparing.

Wilbur can hear them packing things into crates and bags. If he looks out his window he can sometimes see a longboat rowing out to The Boreas with luggage and supplies. A small crew flits over her deck and crawls across her netting, readying her for the sea and for the arctic. Once, he spots Phil flying up to the crow’s nest to survey the preparations. The elytrian stays there long into the evening—a lonely silhouette against a waning moon.

Wilbur hates everyone, but he hates Phil most.

A week after Tommy’s betrayal, Wilbur hears his oldest soulmates talking in one of the guest bedrooms down the hall. He presses his ear to his own door, listening in. Phil’s voice is softer, more difficult to make out, but Technoblade’s voice carries even when he’s trying to stay quiet.

“I’m not forcing him to go until he’s ready,” Phil says, his voice tight with stress. “He already hates us, Tech.”

“We can’t stay here forever,” Technoblade counters. “There’s business back home, and Puffy and Niki have their own things to do. We’ve imposed enough.”

“We could rent a cabin by the shore and stay there.”

“Did you hear when I said ‘business back home?’ Q’s already going to have my hide with us being gone this long, and no word sent. He prolly thinks we’re dead.”

“We’ll send him word, then, or you could go ahead without me.”

“I’m not leavin’ you alone, Phil.”

“I wouldn’t be alone. I’d have Tommy and Wilbur.”

“Children,” Technoblade scoffs. “Runty ones.”

“Be nice, you great lummox. Those are our runts you’re talking about.”

“Just so. I won’t leave them behind, either.”

“I could protect them.”

“You shouldn’t have to, ‘n anyway who would protect you?”

“Then maybe—”

“Angel.” Technoblade’s voice softens, here, until Wilbur can barely make it out. “I know you want this to be easy on him, but we can’t wait forever. He belongs with us. He’ll come to realize it eventually.”

“And if he doesn’t?”

“Then we’ll have him fostered by one of the village families. Hell, he can pick which one, if he wants. At least we can make sure he’s provided for that way.”

“He’ll hate it.”

“Then he hates it. I’m still not going to send him away or let him fend for himself—I won’t lose another bondmate.” A low, warning rumble echoes below Technoblade’s voice. “Not again. We already came far too close this time.”

“I know,” Phil soothes. “We aren’t losing anyone.”

“We have to take him back with us. We have to put him somewhere safe—somewhere we can keep an eye on him—and we have to do it soon. Now that he’s pissed at Tommy, there’s no tellin’ what he’ll do, and he’s well enough he could try to run off.”

As a matter of fact, Wilbur thinks, running off sounds like a very good idea.

Because there’s no way he’s letting these two ship him off to the arctic—and that seems like exactly what they’re planning to do, very soon. Panicked, he stumbles away from the bedroom door and ties the pillowcases (of which there are many) into a makeshift rope. He dangles it out the window, sliding down to the yard before can think too hard about it. He isn’t losing time yet, but he’s somewhere very close. His brain is buzzing with terror, like there are furious flying insects between his ears. The walls are closing in on him and he has to to get out out out—

Wilbur runs.

By the time he reaches the railyard, Wilbur’s flashpoint panic has faded and regret sinks in.

His ribs ache, and his lungs itch with every gulping breath. His legs shake beneath him, and he feels so much heavier than he ever did before. As he stumbles to a stop by the fence, he bursts into a coughing fit that sears his chest and leaves him breathless. He crouches to count the train cars, squinting to see in the dull evening light. It had taken him most of the afternoon to find the town’s railyard, and the rest to get there. He’s still not sure what streets he took.

More than anything, he wants his baby brother.

But he needs space to breathe and exist away from his cloying older soulmates—and Tommy’s made his stance on that very clear. Hell, if he knew Wilbur was planning to leave the house he’d probably tell Phil and Technoblade and they’d never let him out of sight again. Tommy’s always been stubborn, and Wilbur can’t drag him along without being a massive fucking hypocrite. Tommy can make his own choices. So can Wilbur. 

Hell, if Wilbur wanted to, he wouldn’t even have to go back to the house. The trains are right there— a familiar comfort, the promise of freedom parked mere feet away from him and rumbling pleasantly. All he’d have to do is walk forward, climb into a car, and settle in for the journey. He’d wake up in another city, another country, another life. Phil and Technoblade would have no way to find him, without Tommy’s help.

He’d be free—really, finally free. 

All he has to do is pick a train.

Wilbur sits down, hugs his knees to his chest, and shakes.

His skin is sticky with sweat, his side hurts, and he’s hungry. He wants another stupid cucumber sandwich. He wants Niki’s gross medications. He wants a hot bath. But he doesn’t want any of it more than he wants his own freedom—his own safety, his own space far from the people who could curl his heart between their claws and crush it. No amount of free shit is worth his own freedom; a gilded cage is still a fucking cage.

Despite that, he can’t make himself move towards the rails. 

Tommy, he thinks, his eyes burning. Tommy.

Hadn’t they been happy? Hadn’t they? They’d been hungry sometimes, it’s true, and cold and frightened—but they’d had each other. They were soulmates. They were brothers. They were two kids against the whole fucking world. With Tommy, Wilbur had been happier than he’d ever remembered being. He could bear any indignity as long as he had his baby brother.

But this indignity?

Could he bear this indignity, too?

Tommy had betrayed him. He’d gone against Wilbur’s explicit wishes and brought Phil and Technoblade into their lives. Maybe it had saved his life. Maybe it had ruined it. Maybe it had done both. Wilbur’s still not sure. But as furious as he is with Tommy, he still loves him, and—

And Wilbur doesn’t want to be like his parents.

And Wilbur doesn’t want to abandon Tommy.

And Wilbur is so fucking scared.

Fuck. Fuck.

Wilbur buries his fingers in his own hair, twisting until it stings. A tear drops off of his jaw and splatters against the dust below him. When had he started crying? His eyes feel sore. It must have been a while. Did he lose time again? But no—no, looking up, the sun is still hovering full and red over the horizon. 

Abandonment is what it is, isn’t it? Wilbur can dress it up as pretty as he likes, or ply it with excuses, but if he leaves now then he’s abandoning Tommy. And for what? For his own freedom or for his own safety? To be selfish or to be a coward? Either way, he’s just like his own worthless parents. He never wanted to be like them.

Wilbur’s breath hitches, and he scrubs angrily at his tears.

I don’t know what to do, he thinks helplessly, and the trains roll by unceasing. I just want to go home.

Wilbur thinks of a tent on a street. Wilbur thinks of a house by the sea. Wilbur thinks of Tommy.

Wilbur sobs, hugging his knees more tightly despite the persistent ache in his chest and back. Tommy is a chain around his leg and Wilbur hates him and Wilbur loves him so goddamn fucking much. He understands his mother a little more, now. Fear eats his heart and scrapes out his belly. He wants to drop everything and run away and never stop running. There’s too much weight on him and he’s suffocating under it more thoroughly than he ever did when his lungs were full of blood. 

If he were any more like Mother, Wilbur thinks, he really would leave.

But Tommy isn’t a baby. Tommy isn’t a helpless, unthinking thing to be easily discarded in a gutter. Tommy’s eight, and he’s a little spitfire, and he lights up when Wilbur smiles at him. He’s funny and fast-witted and brash. He’s soft-hearted despite his bluster, and he’s stubborn to a fault, and Wilbur loves him. Wilbur loves him, Wilbur loves him, Wilbur loves him. 

Wilbur can’t leave.

A sob wracks his shoulders, and he buries his face against his knees. A train whistles as it begins to leave the yard, its great engine rumbling and black smoke billowing into the sky. Wilbur doesn’t look up to watch it go, his hands shaking. He tugs his own hair again—grounding himself here, in the moment, in his fear. He doesn’t want to lose time. He knows what comes next, and he’s not ready to face it.

“Wilbur?”

Wilbur flinches, full-bodied, and shakes his head. 

“Oh, sweetheart.” Phil’s voice is soft, and his footsteps light as he crosses the railyard. He sits down several feet away. “Are you okay?”

No, Wilbur thinks, and curls more tightly into himself. He doesn’t want to be seen—not by anyone, but especially not by Phil. No. I’m not. I never will be again.

“Okay,” Phil whispers. “Okay.”

Phil doesn’t speak again—and slowly, slowly, Wilbur reins himself in. He swallows his sobs and sucks in several deep, aching breaths. His shaking eases off to a thin shiver that racks him every few seconds. He’s not able to settle more than that while Phil is so close, and so quiet, and so watchful. 

“I’m not—” Wilbur’s voice cracks, and he bites his tongue. “I’m not running away.”

“I know. There’s not a universe in which you could leave that boy behind.”

“You don’t know that.”

“It’s funny,” Phil says, “but I feel like I do. Do you ever get the feeling you’ve known someone for a long time, even when you’ve just met?”

Wilbur thinks of Tommy, again—thinks of golden curls and blue eyes and a beaming grin and oh, it’s you; where have you been all this time?

“I know Tommy,” Wilbur says, wiping his eyes.

“You do,” Phil says, warm approval in his voice. “And I know you.”

It feels like something more than just I know of you. It feels like Phil has glimpsed his soul and recognized it and found a part of himself there. Maybe that’s what soulmate means. Maybe, somewhere in the great nothing before this world, whatever infinite stardust made them had been a part of the same sun. Maybe gravity had always conspired to bring them back together. Maybe Wilbur’s freedom was only ever a precious illusion.

“I’m sorry, Wilbur.”

“What?”

“I’m sorry. I know I hurt you. I panicked, and I treated you rashly because of it,” Phil says. “When Tommy told us how sick you were, I couldn’t think of anything but getting you somewhere safe. I didn’t stop to think of how it would make you feel to be taken by people you barely know—especially when you’d already expressed that you wanted us to give you space. I should have spent more time explaining things to you first.”

“It wouldn’t have changed anything.” Wilbur sniffles, rubbing his nose on his sleeve. “You were going to take us no matter what I said.”

“That’s true. I couldn’t let you continue the way you’d been living. It wasn’t healthy, or safe.”

“I never let Tommy get hurt.” Wilbur’s jaw clenches. What must Phil think of him? Perfect fucking Phil. “I always made sure he had food. I took care of him.”

“I know. You’re a wonderful big brother and you did your best for him. He’s very well cared for. You think I didn’t notice?” A small smile flickers across Phil’s face. “He’s a healthy weight. He doesn’t have fleas or lice, he’s not injured, and his feathers are preened. You did good, kid. You did fucking awesome.”

Something in Wilbur’s chest relaxes a little, hearing that. 

Wilbur may not have had a shit ton of food, or endless money, or a whole fucking empire in the arctic—but he always took care of his little brother, and Phil knows it. Phil sees it. He exhales shakily, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes. Tommy’s okay. Tommy’s good. Wilbur didn’t fuck up that much.

“But you never should have had to sacrifice so much,” Phil continues, more softly. “You’re a kid, too. You should have someone to take care of you. You should have food, and a home, and a family. I want to give that to you.”

“I don’t want it.”

“Why not?”

Wilbur glances over, but Phil isn’t looking at him anymore—he’s looking out at the great metal bodies of the trains. 

“I want things the way they used to be,” Wilbur mutters. "I was happy. You messed everything up."

Phil inclines his head. “Change is hard.”

“And I want Tommy, but you guys keep manipulating him.”

“Oh?” Phil arches an eyebrow. “How so?”

“You keep telling him nice things,” Wilbur spits. “But you don’t really love him. You don’t even know him. He’s annoying and loud and rude and you’re gonna get sick of him eventually. It’s not fair to make him rely on you when you’re just gonna leave.”

“I’m not leaving,” Phil says. “I won’t leave either one of you unless you tell me to.”

“I’ve been telling you to!”

Phil has the decency to look abashed, at least. “Ah, fair point. Alright. If you still want me to leave once we get to the arctic, you can pick another family to stay with. You won’t see or hear from us again.”

“I don’t want another family. I don’t want a family at all! What don’t you get about that?”

“I get it,” Phil says, “but it’s dumb.”

“You’re dumb!”

“Rude.”

Wilbur wants to punch his smug stupid face.

“See, the thing is, I can’t let you go back to living alone on the streets,” Phil says, “and not just because I’m your soulmate. You’re twelve. You’re not old enough to be on your own. No responsible adult could just leave you like that.”

“My parents did.”

“Irresponsible assholes,” Phil says, scowling.

“Yeah, well, I’d rather deal with irresponsible assholes than overbearing ones.”

“Tough,” Phil says, meeting Wilbur’s eyes for the first time since he’s sat down. His irises are bleached by the fading sunlight, unearthly blue and piercing. “I’m not abandoning you, no matter how hard you try to get me to. If I ever give you up, it will only be to someone who can care for you properly. You’re not ever going back to the streets, mate.”

You’re not ever going to be free again.

Wilbur surges to his feet, his heart thundering a cacophony of fear and anger both. “Fuck you,” he hisses. “You think you know everything. You think you can just show up and tell me how to live. You think you can take my stuff and my money and my brother.”

“Your stuff was filthy, your money is safe on The Boreas, and Tommy is happy. I’ll apologize as many times as you like for the way we did it, but I won’t apologize for what we did. If we had left you that night you would have died. You’re lucky we were even nearby.”

Wilbur doesn’t feel very lucky. 

Wilbur feels like he wants to kill a man—one man, specifically.

“I hate you.”

“I know,” Phil says. “And you can feel that way as long as you like, but it doesn’t change my decision. I’m going to keep you safe.”

Wilbur whirls to face him, putting his back to the trains and baring his teeth. Phil looks up at him, his wings relaxed but his jaw set mulishly. It reminds him of Tommy. They’re both so fucking stubborn. It makes Wilbur want to throttle him.

“If you take me with you, I’ll fuck everything up,” Wilbur threatens. “I’ll cut your sails. I’ll throw all your food overboard. I’ll tear up the rigging.”

“You won’t. That would endanger Tommy, and you’d never do anything to hurt him. Try again.”

“I’ll scream.”

“Annoying, but tolerable.”

“I’ll jump overboard.”

“I’ll fish you back out.”

“Ugh! Why do you have to have an answer for everything?”

Phil chuckles, tipping his dumb hat back as he looks up at Wilbur. “I’m old, Wil,” he says, with a wry smile. “I’ve lived far longer than I rightly should’ve. I used to wonder what I was waiting for, but I think I know, now.”

Wilbur draws himself up, balling his hands into fists. He’s clearly getting nowhere with this tactic, so—“Why are you even here if you knew I’d come back? Fuck off and leave me alone.”

“Not happening, kiddo.” Phil stands, stretching his wings, and Wilbur stumbles away from the looming figure he makes. Phil’s eyes sharpen on him, and he reaches forward. “Wil, hey, stop.”

“Don’t touch me,” Wilbur spits, skittering backwards.

“Wilbur!”

Phil suddenly lunges forward, digging his fingers into Wilbur’s elbow and yanking. Wilbur stumbles forward with a shriek—more terror than pain, in all honesty—but the sound is drowned out by the sudden wail of a train. Metal shrieks against metal as it brakes, sparks flying off of the rails and its garish yellow headlight spilling over them. The breeze tears at Wilbur’s hair as it plunges past mere feet behind him. 

Wilbur goes limp in shock, and Phil wraps him in powerful arms and wings both. He lifts Wilbur off of his feet, carrying him away, and Wilbur does the only logical thing: he bites. It doesn’t do much good. Phil’s haori is thick and dusty, dry against his tongue. Phil doesn’t even flinch.

“Gods above,” Phil says, setting Wilbur down once they’ve gone several large steps. He pushes Wilbur back, holding him at a distance as he looks over him. “You need to be more careful, mate. Are you alright?”

Wilbur looks behind him.

The train is still going past, tearing through the railyard. Its wheels clunk over the tracks, and it whistles again as it begins to slow. The train cars blur by in flashes of fragmented color and rust. Wilbur can’t seem to make himself focus on it. He had been backing towards the rails, hadn’t he? If he had taken even another step back…

“Oh,” Wilbur says.

“I’m sorry,” Phil says, releasing his shoulders and stepping back. “I didn’t want to grab you, but I don’t want you getting close to the rails, either. It’s not safe. Now come on. We can walk and talk, and—Wil? Hey, what’s wrong?”

Wilbur couldn’t answer if he wanted to. His throat is closing, his eyes watering. He can’t catch his breath and he doesn't think it’s because of his ribs, this time. His heart stutters in his chest. Blood roars through his ears and his skin is hot and itchy and holy fuck he almost died. He’s starting to shake again. Phil is talking but his words are as blurry as the rest of the world.

Wilbur almost died.

Wilbur almost died, and Phil saved him. If Tommy is to be believed, this isn’t the first time, either. Wilbur wants to hate him for it, but he’s so scared. His stomach cramps and he crouches, winding his fingers into his hair again. He gasps for breath and hears it whistle in his throat. He tugs his hair, grounding himself with prickles of pain across his scalp. There’s not enough air. There’s not enough air and he’s going to die, he’s really going to die this time—

Slender, steady hands grasp his own and untangle his fingers. Wilbur squeezes Phil’s hands, instead, digging his nails in. Phil doesn’t complain.

“Wilbur, it’s alright,” he soothes. “It’s an anxiety attack. It’ll be over in just a few minutes. You’re going to be okay. Can you take a deep breath for me?”

Wilbur tries, but his throat feels too tight and his ribs hurt and his lungs ache and he can’t. “I can’t,” he sobs. “I can’t, I can’t.”

“Yes you can,” Phil says, rubbing his thumbs firmly over Wilbur’s palms. “Deep breaths, Wilbur, with me. We’re gonna inhale for three.”

Phil counts three seconds, and Wilbur tries desperately to suck air into his shriveled lungs. He falters only a couple of seconds in, coughing the breath back out so hard he gags. Phil only squeezes his hands and starts again from one, coaxing him into steadier breaths. 

When Wilbur can finally take a full three second breath, Phil says, “Good, that’s really good, Wil. I know it’s scary but you’re doing great. How about we try for four seconds, this time?”

Slowly, gradually, the raw panic nestled behind Wilbur’s sternum begins to wane. The breaths come easier. He’s worked his way up to five second inhales by the time his stomach unclenches and the humming in his ears falls silent. He realizes that he’s still gripping Phil’s hands. His own are clammy, sticky with sweat, and he unlocks stiff joints to pull away from Phil.

“Better?” Phil asks quietly.

Wilbur nods, wiping his hands off on his shirt. “I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I didn’t mean to.”

“It’s okay. You were scared. I shouldn’t have grabbed you.”

“It’s not—that, I just—” Wilbur wipes his eyes again, his breath shuddering, but there are no more tears left to come. “Why are you still being so nice to me?”

Phil falters. “I mean I—try to be nice to people in general, and you’re people, so—”

“But it’s not fair.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s not fair that you can just ruin everything and then act like nothing happened. It’s not fair that you can just—just show up and change everything and act like I shouldn’t be mad at you and like we should all be happy and—” Wilbur sucks in a breath, clutching his side. “I’m not yours! I’m not your kid! Just because we’re soulmates doesn’t make me yours.”

“Of course not,” Phil says, his eyes widening. “Little one, of course not. You’re not mine unless you want to be.”

“Then why are you still being so nice?"

“You’re people, Wilbur,” Phil repeats. “You’re a kid and you deserve somebody to take care of you, whether that somebody is me or not. I’m not being nice because I want something from you. I’m not being nice because I expect you to suddenly like me. This isn’t me trying to manipulate you, I just—I’d like to think I’m a decent person, you know? Even if sometimes I do shitty stuff like whisk kids off in the middle of the night without properly explaining myself.”

“Idiot,” Wilbur agrees wetly.

“Hey,” Phil says, his voice all mock offense and his nose wrinkling. “I’ll have you know I’m only an idiot five percent of the time.”

Wilbur sits back on his heels and looks up. The sun has fully set, now, and the hard chips of stars hang high above their heads. Phil’s wings are murky silhouettes behind him, chinchilla-fluffed, and Wilbur might not be a proper nestling but he still wants to know what it would feel like to touch those feathers. Phil catches his eyes again and smiles—a little, uncertain thing that shows dimples and dull teeth. 

Wilbur wipes his nose, again, and says, “I don’t want to be yours.”

Phil’s smile drops, but he doesn’t look away. “Okay,” he says. “That’s your choice. When we reach the arctic, you can chose another family.”

“Tommy goes with me.”

“If that’s his choice.”

“And you guys leave us alone after that.”

“Deal.” Phil stretches out his hand. “Shake on it.”

Wilbur tentatively slides his hand into Phil’s. There are callouses on his palm and the tips of his fingers. His nails are duller than Tommy’s—not like baby bird claws—and painted black. He shakes Wilbur’s hand firmly, like Wilbur is an adult and not some stupid snotty kid throwing a tantrum.

“But Wilbur,” Phil says, after he’s released Wilbur’s hand, “until we get to the arctic, can we at least be friends?”

Wilbur considers it.

Phil hasn’t hurt him, even if he did frighten him and get rid of all Wilbur’s stuff. He’s still got their money, apparently, and Tommy likes him well enough. He soothed Wilbur through an anxiety attack and didn’t even make fun of him for it. He hadn’t snapped and shouted when Wilbur refused him as a parent and a soulmate both, so that’s—

That’s sure something.

Phil’s maybe not actually the worst person ever.

“Acquaintances,” Wilbur decides. “We can be acquaintances.”

Phil smiles again, a flash of teeth there and gone. “That sounds good, Wil. So what do you say we head back home before Tommy and Techno freak out?”

“Okay.” Wilbur stands up, glancing at the railyard one last time, before leading the way out. “Which way’s the house?”

“I got you, mate. Just follow me.”

Wilbur falls into step behind him, his legs wobbly and his eyes sore but—but he feels better than he has in a long time. He’s still exhausted, though. He loses short snatches of time, his eyes glazed over as he stumbles in Phil’s footsteps. He’s pretty sure Phil is slowing down for him, but he couldn’t say for sure. Maybe he’s just got old man bones. 

In this manner, with stumbling step and aching heart, Wilbur finally leaves the trains behind.

Chapter Text

“Avast, matey!” Tommy shouts, waving his wooden sword threateningly in Wilbur’s direction. “I’ll have you walk the plank.”

“Ugh, do I have to walk the plank again?” Wilbur whines.

“Yeah,” Tommy declares, poking Wilbur none-too-gently in the stomach with his sword. “‘cause you’re a picaroon.”

“A pica—dude, seriously, where are you learning these words?”

“That’d be my fault, lad,” the boatswain, Annie, says apologetically as she hoists Tommy up and sets him on her broad shoulders. Tommy squeals in delight and kicks his heels against her sides. “Toms, you behave for your big brother, now.”

“Or you’ll throw me overboard?” Tommy asks eagerly.

“Or I’ll throw you overboard, scallywag,” Annie teases, staggering dramatically so Tommy clings to her box braids and giggles. “Where do you get all this energy, anyway?”

“I’m pretty sure Techno gave him coffee,” Wilbur mutters. 

“It was just one sip,” Tommy says, “and it was gross anyway. Who likes that stuff? Blegh. Bilgewater.” 

“Fucking bilgewater? Annie, you’re turning him into a pirate with this vocabulary.”

“There are worse things,” Annie laughs, crouching so Tommy can scramble back to the deck. “Now come on, you two. Lunch’s on.”

Wilbur follows her to the mess, griping when Tommy pokes him with that stupid sword again. Who’s idea was it to give him a sword, anyway? Wilbur suspects it was Willy’s, since he’d been babysitting Tommy at the last port, but Tommy refuses to confirm or deny it. He slides the sword into his belt when they reach the doorway, and the both of them slip into the cool interior of the mess. Long tables line the hall, and half of the crew is already there. A loud buzz of conversation fills the room, and if it had been any less familiar Wilbur might have been overwhelmed—as it is, however, he’s been eating every meal here for the better part of a month.

“Hey there, if isn’t the little princes,” Willy calls, waving them over to the serving line. He’s not the only one fond of referring to Wilbur and Tommy as princes, which makes Wilbur incredibly suspicious as to Phil and Technoblade’s roles in the arctic. No one calls them kings or emperors, but there’s an air of defined respect from the crew whenever they’re around. “You two doing alright today?”

“I made Wilbur walk the plank three times,” Tommy says proudly, snatching a plate and offering it to the steward. “Food please.”

“Yeah, I bet you worked up an appetite picking on your poor brother,” Willy says, chuckling, as he piles Tommy’s plate with curry, cubed melon, and bread rolls. “You finish all that and I’ll give you dessert.”

Tommy cheers, trotting to a table with his plate clutched tightly.

“Bet he tired you out,” Willy says to Wilbur, trading a grin with him. “Maybe he’ll nap this afternoon.”

“One can dream,” Wilbur sighs, graciously accepting the plate Willy offers him. “Thanks.”

Wilbur weaves his way through the crowd to Tommy’s side, settling in next to him and digging into his own curry. It’s spicy, but not extremely so—Willy had wisely served them the mildest kind. Tommy eats voraciously next to him, talking to another one of the sailors through mouthfuls of half-chewed melon like the gross gremlin he is. Wilbur is content to keep quiet, listening to the idle conversations around him as he butters his bread roll and then Tommy’s. 

There’s so much food here that it had startled Wilbur, at first—and all of it is free. Phil had given him his money back once they’d boarded The Boreas, but Wilbur hasn’t had a damn thing to spend it on. All of his needs are met aboard the ship, and the sailors spoil them at port. Wilbur knows he’s running on limited time (about two more months, if the coxswain’s estimates are to be believed) and so he takes everything while he can. Who knows what life in the arctic will be like in comparison? 

Much colder, Wilbur supposes. Annie tells him they’re sailing off of the coast of the Butterfly Desert, right now, and by the stifling air Wilbur believes her. He hasn’t seen rain in some weeks, and in the hottest part of the day even the sailors are sprawled out on deck and resting. Tommy usually joins them for an afternoon nap, tucked up against Wilbur’s side or Annie’s or—on the rare occasions they’re not busy—Phil and Technoblade’s. 

But Phil and Technoblade are the ship’s captains and possibly-kings-slash-emperors, so Wilbur rarely sees them during the days. They always stop by in the mornings and evenings, but other than that Tommy and Wilbur are left to the crew’s care. It’s a relief in some ways. Wilbur doesn’t have to deal with the awkwardness of being around his soulmates-but-not, nor does he have to put up with their smothering. He appreciates the space and the independence they’re offering him. It’s exactly what he wanted.

So Wilbur’s not really sure why he feels so sour about it, sometimes.

“Right, Wil?”

“What?” Wilbur startles, glancing over at Tommy. “Sorry, zoned out. What’d you say?”

“We’re gonna go to port this week, right?”

“That’s what Bart says, anyway, if there aren’t any storms.” Which, given the arid atmosphere, Wilbur doubts there will be. “Why? You need something?”

“I want candy.”

“You still have candy from the last port.”

“More candy,” Tommy insists, then hops to his feet. “I’m gonna get dessert. Want some?”

“Nah.” Wilbur pokes unenthusiastically at his melon. He’s still not used to this much food all the time, and if he eats too much at once he starts to feel ill. The seasickness he’s prone to certainly doesn’t help matters; the first week onboard had been really hellish. “Here, take my plate back with you.”

Tommy snatches both of their plates and trots back to the serving line, calling cheerfully to Willy. He returns a moment later with two chocolate cookies clutched in hand, his eyes bright. He breaks off a small piece of one and offers it to Wilbur, and Wilbur chews it slowly. It’s warm and soft and sweet on his tongue. 

“Good?” Tommy asks hopefully.

“Good,” Wilbur agrees, wrapping the second cookie in a napkin and sliding it into his pocket. “C’mon. I wanna go see the sheep.”

Puffy and Niki had sent them off with a menagerie of livestock—chickens for eggs, goats for milk, and sheep for mutton. Wilbur likes to visit them when he can. It reminds him of the stables he used to work at, and he still enjoys helping the stablehands with their chores. Tommy lounges in the hayloft while Wilbur feeds the sheep their grain and strokes their velvety noses. There’s one that he’s particularly fond of—a little lamb with soft, gray-blue wool and black legs. Wilbur knows that he’s meant for meat and not wool, that he’s a meal, but he’s very friend-shaped.

At least he’s small enough that they can’t eat him yet.

“Hey, friend,” he says, rubbing the lamb’s floppy dark ears when he totters over. “What’s up?”

Friend bleats at him, his tail flicking. His mom bleats, too, lifting her head from her bucket of grain. Wilbur waves at her. His attention brought back to his mother, Friend wobbles over to her and thrusts his head below her belly to nurse. When he draws back, there’s milk in his nostrils, and he snorts. Wilbur laughs.

By the time Wilbur has finished feeding and petting the small herd, Tommy is asleep in a pile of hay. There’s something nostalgic about it, but Wilbur doesn’t have the heart to leave him there anymore. He picks Tommy up—it’s getting harder to do, these days, as his little brother grows lanky and long—and Tommy wraps arms and legs around him, mumbling incoherently as he nestles closer. His wings flick before settling loosely against his back. 

“Just me, sunshine,” Wilbur murmurs, hitching him a little higher and heading back upstairs.

Their quarters reside alongside the captains’ quarters and are, as far as Wilbur’s concerned, about as fucking fancy as you can get on a ship. There’s a broad bay window on one side, and an enormous bunk bed draped with thick linens and fleece on the other. Wilbur tucks Tommy into the bottom bed, drawing a blanket over him and plucking a stray piece of straw from his hair. 

Near the back of the cabin there are two massive chests of drawers, and Wilbur picks a shirt from one of them. He has his own shirts now—multiple shirts, in multiple colors, all properly fitted and with no holes. He exchanges his furry, dusty tunic for a clean yellow one that doesn’t smell like animals. The chocolate cookie from earlier finds its way into another drawer, hidden carefully beneath a layer of trousers along with the rest of Wilbur’s snack stache.

Then he crawls into bed next to Tommy, tugs a blanket over himself, and relaxes.

The gentle rocking of the ship lulls him, as does the distant noise of the sailors and the sea. He doesn’t sleep but he dozes, warm and content, until Tommy wakes up some time later. It isn’t a peaceful wake up. He jerks, his eyes snapping open with a hitch of breath, and looks frantically for Wilbur. Wilbur snuggles closer to him, dropping his chin over his brother’s head.

“I’m here,” he says, and Tommy grips his shirt in one small fist. “Shh. I’m right here.”

“I dreamt you were gone again,” Tommy whispers, and—

Wilbur hates himself. That’s nothing new, really, but there’s an extra level to it now because he—however momentarily—had abandoned his little brother. He’d left him alone and gone to the trains and thought about going further. He’d shouted and he’d told Tommy he hated him and he’d ignored him. While Tommy’s forgiven him for it, the injury lingers—and so does the guilt.

“I’m sorry,” Wilbur says, carding his fingers through Tommy’s hair. “I’m right here and I’m not leaving. You got me forever, sunshine.”

Tommy presses his face to Wilbur’s throat, breathing shakily, until his bristling feathers can lay flat again. Then Wilbur bundles him out of bed and back onto the deck so they can breath the warm wind and watch the waves. A handful of the sailors are fishing with great nets, and Tommy leans over the side of the ship to watch as they haul up piles of writhing silver fish. Wilbur keeps one hand latched onto the back of his brother’s shirt, just in case.

“Captain aloft!”

Wilbur glances up to see the lookout waving, and a second later Phil arcs past her in a blur of black feathers. He surges into the sky with powerful thrusts of his wings, only pausing when he’s a mere speck to Wilbur’s eyesight. Tommy—always the more sharp-eyed of them, thanks to his elytrian genes—scrambles up the rigging to look further out, his own wings flaring with excitement. 

“Phil!” he cries, delighted. “Do the thing!”

Wilbur doubts that Phil can hear him from so far away, but Phil does the thing anyway—he always does the thing when he goes aloft and Tommy is on deck. He pulls his wings in, folding them tightly, and dives towards the waves. He snaps his wings out seconds before he hits the water, skimming just above the surface with his hands plunged into the current. He draws back up with several quick flaps, clutching a red snapper. 

Show-off.

Tommy shrieks with delight, bouncing on his toes and making grabby hands. Phil laughs—he’s close enough for Wilbur to hear, now—and banks back around. He glides right above the ship, killing the snapper with a savage blow to its head before dropping it onto the deck for Tommy. Tommy jumps out of the rigging and grabs it, trying bravely to lift it by its tail. Phil lets his momentum carry him forward, gliding off of the other side of the ship before flapping his wings and lifting away again. 

“Well, that’ll make a nice dinner for you lads,” Willy calls. “Bring it on over here. What do you want? Stew or sushi?”

“Stew,” Tommy decides, dragging the snapper across the deck and passing it off to Willy.

Tommy’s never been the biggest fan of sushi, although the taste has grown on Wilbur since boarding The Boreas. He’s not going to complain about stew, though—hell, he’s not going to complain about any free food. He knows too well what it’s like to be hungry. Once the fish is handed off, Tommy returns to Wilbur’s side and clutches his hand.

“I want to fly,” he whines, the way he always does when he sees Phil fly. “Why can’t I?”

“Too small,” Wilbur says, and then pokes one half-fledged wing. “Too scraggly.”

“Hey! Take that back, bitch!”

“Make me.”

“I’m gonna make you walk the plank.” Tommy draws his wooden sword again. “Argh!”

Wilbur walks the plank another two times that afternoon, balancing precariously on the wooden board they’ve lain between two crates (their makeshift plank) before collapsing dramatically on deck. Annie rushes over to “save” him each time, and Tommy chases her in squealing joy. By the time they’re called for dinner, Wilbur is thoroughly exhausted and more than willing to scarf down the fish stew Willy gives him. 

Back in their quarters, one of the shiphands has already left two basins of boiled water and a bar of soap for them to wash with. Wilbur soaks a washcloth and scrubs Tommy down first, incredulous as to how his little brother could get so filthy in only a day’s time. Once Tommy is finished, he settles in the desk chair and preens his wings while Wilbur scrubs himself off. They dress in the soft silk nightclothes provided for them, and Wilbur kicks Tommy out of the chair so he can sit and read—

Or, well, try to.

As it turns out, teaching himself to read is difficult and time-consuming work. He’s written down all the different shapes he can see in words—twenty-six of them, the letters—but it’s hard to get any farther without knowing what sounds each letter makes. If he could figure out their sounds, he’s sure, he could sound out the words and know what they meant. But he doesn’t know the letters, and like hell is he going to ask anyone. He’ll figure it out. Somehow.

Probably not by staring aimlessly at a book, though.

Frustrated, Wilbur sets the book aside and shoves it to the corner of the desk. Tommy glances over from the bed, arching an eyebrow, and Wilbur scowls at him. 

“Can a man not look at his brother without harassment?” Tommy asks, sticking his tongue out.

“Bitch,” Wilbur says. “I’ll shank you.”

“Do it.”

Wilbur hits him with a pillow, instead. The two of them devolve into a laughing, shrieking pillow fight. Wilbur gains higher ground by climbing into his own bed, the upper bunk, and whaling on Tommy from above. Tommy howls his offense, swearing like a sailor, as he tries to scale the ladder to no avail. Wilbur beats him in the face with a pillow every time he gets too close, cackling madly.

Their battle only draws to a close when a knock sounds at the door. Wilbur flattens himself to the bed, watching the door warily as Tommy throws himself towards it. He flings it open, arms already spread for a hug, and Technoblade obliges him. Tommy latches onto the piglin, allowing himself to be cradled close to Technoblade’s chest and warbling happily. 

“You saved me,” he declares. “Wilbur was beating me up.”

“Oh?”

Technoblade glances over, arching a single eyebrow at Wilbur.

“He deserved it,” Wilbur says. “I’ll beat you up too.”

“Valid.”

“No it’s not,” Tommy protests, squirming in Technoblade’s grip. Technoblade sets him down, and he dives into the shelter of his own bed. “Where’s Phil?”

“Scouting,” Technoblade says, but there’s a worried wrinkle to his brow that Wilbur doesn’t miss. Phil hasn’t missed an evening or morning with them since they first boarded the ship, and it’s extremely unusual for him to be gone so long. He’s a powerful flier, but eight hours on the wing would tax even him. 

“Is he okay?” Wilbur asks.

Technoblade looks back up at him, his eyes softening. “Yeah, he’s okay.”

“How do you know?” Tommy demands, sitting up and hugging a pillow to his chest.

“I can feel him.” Technoblade taps his own chest. “We share emotions. Right now he’s tired, but he’s not scared. He probably flew too far and had to stop and rest.”

Rest where? Wilbur wonders. We’re in the middle of the fucking ocean.

Tommy must be wondering the same thing, because he says, “I’ll ask him.”

Wilbur and Technoblade are both quiet as Tommy reaches out to Phil, his brow furrowing in concentration and his fingers kneading the pillow. Then his shoulders relax, and he nods to himself in satisfaction. 

“He says he’s okay,” Tommy says. “He saw another ship and followed it to make sure it wasn’t coming after us, but they were friendly. He stopped to rest with them and he’s coming back now. He’s bringing candy.”

Technoblade’s ears relax, his face smoothing out. “Thank you,” he says, softly, to Tommy. “I was worried.”

“Yeah, bossman,” Tommy says. “We could tell.”

“Phil is good at findin’ danger,” Technoblade says vaguely, sitting down in their desk chair. “He’s not so good at gettin’ out of it.”

“Bad combo,” Wilbur comments.

“Tell me about it.” Technoblade snorts in amusement. “Anyway, how are you kids? Still doin’ alright?”

“Yeah. Phil gave us a fish and Willy made stew, and we took a bath and played pillowfight and saw the sheep and I made Wilbur walk the plank five times.”

“Sounds like a busy day,” Technoblade says, reaching for the book abandoned on the corner of the desk. “Have you been reading this? Pretty ambitious.”

Wilbur grips a pillow between his hands, looking at the embroidery on the case instead of at Technoblade. Tommy is quiet for a moment before sliding off of his bed and climbing into Technoblade’s lap. Technoblade obligingly sets the book aside to hold him. 

“I was trying to,” Tommy lies, “but I don’t know how to read.”

“That’s okay. We can teach you. We’ll send you to school in the arctic, or get you a tutor—whatever you need.” Technoblade smooths a hand over Tommy’s hair before dropping it to his wings, expertly beginning to preen them. “In the meantime, I can teach you the letters. Everything after that is just putting puzzle pieces together.”

“Yes please,” Tommy says eagerly, leaning over the book.

Wilbur pretends very hard not to pay attention, but he listens intently as Technoblade explains each letter and the sounds they make—as well as the sounds they can make in combination with each other. He wishes he could write everything down, but that would require, well, letters. So he commits himself to memorizing each of Technoblade’s words instead, mouthing every pronunciation silently to himself.

Then, Technoblade sits back and taps the top of Tommy’s head. “Want me to read to you? This was one of my favorites when I was younger.”

“No thanks, but—”

“Yeah.” Wilbur sits up, scooting to the edge of his bed. “You can read a little.”

Tommy’s already bored—as well he should be, listening to Technoblade’s droning lessons despite having no real interest in reading himself—and he scoots off of Technoblade’s legs and back onto the floor. He begins to play with his set of wooden building blocks as Technoblade cracks the book open, thumbing the pages affectionately. 

“Come down and you can see the pictures,” he offers, and Wilbur—

Wilbur, hesitantly, does so.

He sits on the desk, swinging his legs, as Technoblade begins to read. His voice is low and monotonous, and he doesn’t do character voices the way Wilbur would if he was making up stories for Tommy. But his words are clear and precise, and his eyes are bright with interest as they scan the page. 

“‘ Squire Trelawney, Dr. Livesey, and the rest of these gentlemen having asked me to write down the whole particulars about Treasure Island, from the beginning to the end, keeping nothing back but the bearings of the island—and that only because there is still treasure not yet lifted—I take up my pen in the year of grace seventeen,’” Technoblade reads, “‘and go back to the time when my father kept the Admiral Benbow inn and the brown old seaman with the sabre cut first took up his lodging under our roof.’”

Here Technoblade pauses to show Wilbur the page, and a monochrome illustration of a swaggering pirate captain. Wilbur leans forward, intrigued, and barely notices the gleam of light on Technoblade’s curving tusks as he turns the page with a soft rustle. He reads for several long minutes, and on occasion even Tommy turns to listen. 

Then they hear the rasp of light footfalls outside their quarters, and all three of them sit upright.

“Phil?” Technoblade calls, his ears pricking and his nostrils flaring.

Knuckles rap against their door, and Tommy springs over to answer it. Phil stands in the doorway, his wings slumped with exhaustion but a smile on his face. Tommy wraps his arms around Phil’s waist, squeezing hard, and Phil ruffles his hair. 

“Hey there, big man,” he says. “Miss me?”

“You were gone forever,” Tommy complains against Phil’s stomach. “I thought you were dead.”

“Seconded,” Technoblade rumbles.

“Drama queens, the both of you,” Phil says, shuffling over to Technoblade and patting him on the head like a goddamn puppy. Technoblade nuzzles up into his palm, whuffling happily. “I wasn’t even gone all day.”

“Too long,” Tommy and Technoblade announce together, then smirk at each other. 

Phil rolls his eyes, turning to Wilbur, instead. He reaches out like he’s going to touch Wilbur’s hair, then seems to think better of it and drops his hand. “Hey, Wil,” he says. “You keep these rascals in line for me?”

“Duh.”

“Good.” Phil smiles again, his pale eyes crinkling into crow’s feet at the edges. He settles in behind Technoblade, leaning against the other side of the desk and tugging his soulmate’s braid gently. “What are we reading?”

“Treasure Island,” Technoblade says. “The runts wanted it.”

“I am a big man,” Tommy protests, the way he always does when Technoblade comments on his size. “I am the biggest and also only man ever.”

Technoblade adjusts his spectacles, squinting down at Tommy. “No,” he decides. “Runty.”

“I’ll fight you.”

“I’ll win.”

“Nuh-uh.”

“I’ll squash you like a bug.”

“Nuh -uh.”

“Tiny little runty baby bug.”

“Nuh-uh.”

“Children,” Phil says, but he’s smiling. “It’s late. Why don’t we finish this chapter and then get to bed?”

“What? But it was just getting good,” Tommy protests.

“Yeah. Two more chapters.” Wilbur leans forward, peeking around Technoblade to meet Phil’s gaze again. “It won’t take that long. They’re little chapters.”

Phil clucks his tongue. “You drive a hard bargain.”

“Technoblade the bargainer,” Technoblade drawls.

“Oi, shut up.” Phil braces his elbows on Technoblade’s shoulders, tucking his face into a maneful of pink hair. “I’m gonna sleep here.”

“M’kay.” Technoblade clears his throat, flipping the page. “Where were we? Ah, that’s right. ‘All the crew respected and even obeyed him. He had a way of talking to each and doing everybody some particular service. To me he was unweariedly kind, and always glad to see me in the galley, which he kept as clean as a new pin, the dishes hanging up burnished and his parrot in a cage in one corner.’”

By the time Technoblade has finished another two chapters, Phil is genuinely asleep on his feet. His arms have come to hang around Technoblade’s shoulders, and he leans against the chair so he can support exactly none of his own weight. His wings slump until the feathers drag against the floor, and he breathes nasally into Technoblade’s hair. Technoblade sets the book aside and rumbles fondly, reaching up to squeeze one of Phil’s wrists.

“Angel,” he says. “Wake up. You can’t sleep here.”

Phil groans, curling closer to Technoblade. “Sleeping.”

“No, yeah, I see that. How about you go sleep in the nest? The nice warm nest? I’ll tuck the runts in and be right there.”

Phil grunts his approval and straightens up, stumbling away from Technoblade. He pats Tommy’s head, and then Wilbur’s. Wilbur blinks. Phil doesn’t touch him, not so casually, and it’s startling but it’s not—bad. He doesn’t flinch. He only holds very still until Phil’s hand leaves him. Technoblade ushers them both into bed after one last trip to the bathroom, tucking Tommy in and rapping his knuckles affectionately against Wilbur’s bed frame. 

“G’night, you two,” he says. “Be seeing you in the mornin’.”

Wilbur burrows under the blankets as Technoblade extinguishes the sconces on either side of the room, then leaves and shuts the door behind him. For almost a whole minute, Tommy is quiet. Then he rolls over, creaking the bedsprings.

“Psst, Wil?”

“What?”

“Are you awake?”

“No, I’m sleep-talking.”

“I remember the letters. Do you want me to show you them?”

“Fuck yes.”

Wilbur doesn’t sleep for several more hours, that night.

Shortly before they reach port in the Butterfly Desert, a monster attacks The Boreas.

Tommy brings this to Wilbur’s attention by absolutely screaming his fool head off. He scrambles into the rigging, pointing madly, and flaps his wings to draw Wilbur’s eye. An alarm call leaves his throat, high and warbling and inhuman. “Wil! Wil look! What the hell is that?”

Wilbur looks over the side of the ship and—

Yeah, no, what the hell is that?

The water is clear, this close to shore, and Wilbur can make out a horrifically enormous shadow swimming alongside them. It’s half the ship’s length, at least, and keeping pace easily. From above it appears sinuous and long, and shark-like fins jut from its narrow spine. 

“That,” Wilbur says, “is such a fucking problem.”

Phil bursts onto the deck a second later, his wings spread and his feathers bristling terrifically. “Tommy? Wilbur?”

Tommy alarm calls again, and Phil storms towards them with a hand on his sword. Wilbur hauls Tommy off of the rigging—a feat easier said than done, with Tommy’s spindly stubborn fingers and little claws—and ushers him away from the side of the ship, into Phil’s reach. Phil snatches him, drawing him into the shelter of his mantling wings, and then does the same to Wilbur.

“What is it?” he demands, but he’s not speaking to the two of them anymore. He’s speaking to the lookout, Wilbur thinks, although it’s difficult to see anything from behind the wall of wings Phil has created. He hasn’t been this close to Phil since—well, since ever, actually, unless you count the time he coughed his lungs out and Phil held him. Wilbur doesn’t count it. “Annie, make ready the guns.”

Wilbur hears the mad scatter of footsteps on the deck and the raise of voices all around him. The ship’s war drums begin to thud, and Wilbur’s heart hammers in time with it. He presses himself closer to Phil’s chest, and Phil’s arms grasp them more tightly. Tommy chirps again, high and nervous, and Phil finally looks down at them.

“Are you alright, nestlings?” he asks fretfully, raking his eyes across them. “Are you hurt?”

Tommy shakes his head, wrapping his arms around Phil’s waist. “There’s a monster,” he says, his wings twitching anxiously. “A really big one.”

“Finch!” Phil shouts, his gaze snapping back towards the lookout. “What the hell is it?”

“Not sure, sir,” Finch shouts back, her voice tremulous. “The fucker dove below our keel. I can’t properly make ‘im out.”

“Phil?” Technoblade’s voice rises over the cacophony and the drums and the shouting. Wilbur glimpses him between the gaps of Phil’s feathers, and he’s—terrifying. He wears armor that Wilbur has never seen before, ebony iron laced with gold, and carries an ax that must weigh more than Wilbur does. His tusks are uncapped, again, his teeth bared. 

“Here, Techno,” Phil calls, waving Technoblade over. “I have the kids.”

Technoblade jogs over, snuffling first at Phil and then shoving his head through Phil’s wing-wall to snuffle at Tommy and Wilbur. “Good,” he says. “You’re all alright, then?”

“We’re alright, but there’s something under the keel,” Phil says. “The guns are ready whenever it shows itself again.”

Technoblade draws up to his full and freakish height, lashing his tail. “Fuck that,” he says. “I’m ready whenever it shows itself again. Take them belowdecks, won’t you? I’ll deal with this.”

“Be careful,” Phil stresses. “Call for me if you need me.”

Technoblade grunts and nods, hauling his ax off of his shoulder and prowling towards the stern. Phil shepherds Wilbur and Tommy downstairs before Wilbur can see anymore, hiding them away in their quarters and plying them with blankets—like that’s going to help if the giant sea monster sinks the ship. 

“What are we gonna do?” Tommy asks, trembling where he sits tucked against Wilbur. “Is Techno gonna be okay?”

“Techno has killed much bigger,” Phil assures them, which is—not that comforting, actually, but whatever. “It’s probably just a wild sea serpent. They’re skittish, so he’ll only have to land a few blows to send it running.”

The ship rocks, suddenly, and Phil hunches over them with an angry hiss. Tommy shrieks and clings to him, and even Wilbur edges a little closer. Through the window, the waves rise and fall drastically. Oh. Oh, jeez. Wilbur really hopes he doesn’t get seasick right now. That would just—that would suck so much, to spend the last few minutes of his life vomiting.

“It’s alright, babies,” Phil says, petting through their hair, and—oh, Tommy’s hyperventilating. “It’s alright. Breathe slowly now. We won’t let anything happen to you.”

“Foolish!” Technoblade roars, suddenly, his voice loud enough to be heard even from the upper deck. “You fucking dick!”

Phil jerks to attention, his eyes whipping towards the door. Technoblade’s voice drops, some; Wilbur can still make out the low angry rumble of it, but not the words. The guns aren’t firing, and the ship has stopped rocking though it lilts dramatically to one side. Phil’s fingers slow, rubbing circles against their scalps. 

“It’s okay,” Wilbur whispers to Tommy. “It’s okay, it’s okay, shh. Can you breathe a little slower? Can you breathe for three seconds?”

Tommy gulps in one breath, then another, and curls himself into Wilbur’s chest. Wilbur pets his shoulders and back, wrapping himself around his baby brother. If the monster gets through Technoblade and Phil both, Wilbur knows he has no chance against it—but that doesn’t mean he can’t try. He’ll be damned if he lets his brother go without a fight.

“Four seconds,” Wilbur coaxes, and tries to breathe just as slowly. “Good job, Toms.”

“Yes, that’s good,” Phil murmurs absently, his hands finally stilling. “Little ones, wait here. I’ll be right back.”

“Where are you going?” Tommy asks, gripping Phil’s haori in two fists. “Don’t go.”

“Shh, it’s alright.” Phil presses a kiss to the top of Tommy’s head, and for once that easy show of affection doesn’t piss Wilbur off. Seeing the way it relaxes Tommy helps. “Everything’s alright. I’m just going to go talk to Technoblade; I’ll be right back.”

Wilbur takes Tommy’s hands into his own, the both of them gripping each other tightly as Phil slips out of the room and locks the door behind him. His footsteps vanish down the hallway and up the stairs, and the world falls silent with baited breath. Several minutes later, Phil returns and slips back into their quarters.

“Hey,” he says softly. “Everything’s okay.”

Tommy reaches for him, and Phil sinks onto the bed alongside them. “What was it?” Tommy asks, climbing into his lap. “Was it a monster?”

“Sort of,” Phil says, rubbing Tommy’s back in slow circles. “It’s Foolish. He’s a sea monster, but he’s one of our friends, too. He didn’t realize we had you onboard, or he never would have tried to scare us that way. He was only playing, and says to tell you that he’s very sorry.”

“Playing?” Wilbur demands. “He could have gotten shot.”

“Wouldn’t have been the first time,” Phil says wryly. “But he’s no danger to us or ours, nestlings, so rest easy. You can come up and meet him, if you like.”

“I never met a sea monster before,” Tommy says, curiosity quickly beginning to replace his fear. “Is he big?”

“Very big.”

“Is he mean?”

“No, he’s a total pushover.”

“Does he eat people?”

“Only grouchy ones.”

“Ha. Maybe he’ll eat Wil,” Tommy says, kicking Wilbur playfully.

“He will not eat Wil,” Phil says, tugging a lock of Tommy’s hair gently. “He will not eat anyone on this ship. I, on the other hand, am getting kind of hungry.”

Tommy squeals as Phil blows a raspberry against his cheek, then bundles him into a cocoon of blankets and stands up. He cradles Tommy in his arms like a very large, very well swaddled burrito, and looks expectantly at Wilbur.

“So, what do you say?” he asks. “Want to meet a sea monster?”

Foolish looks smaller when they reach the deck, although Wilbur knows it’s only the angle. He’s propped his torso on the deck, his elbows braced against the wood and his chin in his hands. The rest of his long body trails off of the bow and into the sea, hidden beneath the waves. He’s a little like a mermaid, Wilbur thinks, if only because his upper half is vaguely human while the rest of him is…just really absolutely not. Golden scales scatter the bronze skin of his cheeks and neck before running in a line down his back and covering the whole of his tail. A similarly golden shark fin juts from his spine, and more fins line his arms and tail both. The wet red slits of gills cross both sides of his throat and flanks, and he fans out a pair of webbed earfins as they approach.

“The babies!” he exclaims, before making a sharp whistling noise that reminds Wilbur a little of dolphins. “These are your soulmates, really? I thought you’d never find them.”

“They are,” Phil agrees, resting a hand on Wilbur’s shoulder. “This is Wilbur, and this is Tommy.”

“You almost got shot,” Tommy huffs, worming in his makeshift burrito until Phil sets him down and untangles him. “You shouldn't sneak up on boats like that.”

“I’m sorry,” Foolish says, his earfins flattening in a way that makes him look vaguely guilty. “I didn’t know the captains had babies.”

“It’s okay,” Tommy decides. “You’re really a sea monster?”

“Yep.”

“How big are you?”

“Sixty feet and still growing.”

“Do you have teeth?”

“Lots.” Foolish opens his mouth, displaying three ungodly rows of fangs.

“Cool,” Tommy breathes, but makes absolutely no move to go any closer. “Phil, I want more teeth.”

“I’ll…buy you some, I guess?”

“Wait,” Wilbur says, “you’re Foolish?”

“That’s right,” Foolish says, tilting his head. Blond hair spills over his shoulders. “I mean, technically my name’s Noah, but everybody calls me Foolish. Not, like, in a mean way—I mean sometimes in a mean way, I guess, but—it’s a nickname. I like it.”

“Are Puffy and Niki your parents?”

Foolish swishes his tail in delight, swaying the boat. “Yes! You know them?”

“We stayed with them for weeks,” Wilbur says. I wore your old clothes, he does not say. “Holy shit, dude. Nobody said anything about you being a literal sea monster.”

Foolish grins, all triangle teeth and crinkling green eyes. “Cool, right?”

“Fuckin’ awesome,” Tommy declares, and finally takes a step closer. “Can I swim with you?”

“No,” Wilbur, Phil, and Technoblade all say.

Tommy groans and flings himself to the deck.

“Sorry, little man,” Foolish laughs. “Maybe once your feathers are all in and waterproof, yeah? If you drowned on my watch, I think Technoblade would harpoon me.”

“Harpoon you and eat you in a soup,” Technoblade agrees blandly. “Jerk.”

“I said sorry,” Foolish says, pouting. “Grudges are bad for you.”

“You know what else is bad for you?”

“What?”

“Harpoons.”

“Phil, he’s threatening me.”

“How old are you two, again?” Phil sighs.

“Nineteen,” Foolish says.

“Seventy two,” Technoblade says, which—

“What?” Wilbur squawks. “You are not.”

“Hum?” Technoblade looks down at him, smirking. “Sure am.”

Wilbur had always assumed Phil was the oldest, based on Technoblade’s consistent deference to him, but if Technoblade is an actual grandpa then—

“How old are you?” Tommy demands, before Wilbur can.

“Seventy eight,” Phil says, grinning the most shit-faced of grins. “Seventy nine next month.”

“You are so fucking not,” Wilbur says. He’s thirty years old at most. Wilbur may not be able to argue about the biology of piglin aging, but he knows enough about elytrians to say that they age at roughly the same rate humans do. There’s no way Phil is that old. 

“It’s true,” Foolish pipes up. “My mama met Phil and Technoblade when she was just a kid. They don’t age right.”

“It’s pretty weird,” Phil agrees. “As best I can tell, I stopped aging after—well, after I turned twenty five.”

Sea monsters? Weird magic aging shit? The world is bigger than Wilbur ever knew, and stupider.

“That’s ridiculous,” Wilbur says.

“Yeah.” Phil laughs, ruffling his own hair. “Yeah, tell me about it.”

“It’s because Phil is the Angel of Death,” Foolish offers. 

“Oh, don’t start with that again,” Phil groans, rubbing his face. 

“It’s true,” Foolish insists. “Death favors him and everybody knows it. That’s why he never dies. Even when he gets hurt in battle, he’ll pop right back up. Freaking awesome.”

“Not the word I’d use, personally,” Technoblade growls, leaning towards Foolish’s face, “if I wanted to stay un-harpooned.”

“Phil!” Foolish splashes his tail, distraught.

“Techno, stop threatening Foolish.”

“Tell Foolish to stop saying stupid shit.”

“Foolish, stop saying stupid shit.”

“Battle?” Tommy pipes up. “Phil, you fought in a battle?”

“A battle?” Foolish exclaims gleefully. “Try a thousand of them.”

“No way,” Tommy breathes.

“What, you didn’t know? They’re, like, two of the most famous soldiers ever. They tore apart the First Elytrian Empire fifty years ago,” Foolish says enthusiastically. “That was when they really rose to fame, but nobody saw them for almost a decade after that.”

“Foolish,” Phil says lowly.

Foolish carries on, either deaf or heedless to the warning, and says, “A lot of people thought they were learning dark magic during that decade. Everyone was already convinced that they were necromancers or something, since Phil came back to life after King Cecil hung—”

“Foolish!” Phil snaps, and Foolish’s eyes whip towards him. “Be quiet.”

Technoblade is growling, again, the sound a low and deadly constant that makes Wilbur want to curl into a ball and not move again for quite some time. Wilbur does not curl up and instead looks warily at the piglin; his lips are curled away from his tusks and his tail lashes low at his heels, the golden cuffs wrapped around it winking in the sunlight. His ax still rests at his side and his grip on it is unfaltering, his knuckles blanched pale. His ears twitch like he’s listening intently to something before pinning flat against his head. 

“Oh,” Foolish says, sliding back a few feet. The boat lists as his weight leaves it. “Sorry.”

Phil steps to Technoblade, reaching up and cradling his face. Technoblade snorts and tries to shake his head, but Phil’s grip is firm. He’s speaking too quietly for Wilbur to hear, his voice soft and urgent, and Technoblade’s eyes finally move to his face. He relaxes slightly, his ears pricking forward and his nostrils flaring. 

“Take a walk,” Phil says at last, sweeping a thumb over his cheek. “Give us a minute.”

Technoblade shoots one last glare at Foolish, then hefts his ax over his shoulder and stalks back towards the captains’ quarters. The crew gives him a wide berth, watching nervously as he passes, and Phil pinches the bridge of his nose with a deep sigh. 

“Foolish,” he says, “you know better.”

“Sorry,” Foolish mumbles, dropping his chin to rest on the ship’s railing. 

“It’s alright. Just give him some time. You’d probably better go.”

“Oh.” Foolish lifts his head again with an inhuman click of noise, his earfins flaring. “Actually, I have an idea. I’ve got to go get something. I’ll be back tonight.”

The ship rocks as Foolish pushes off of it, diving back into the ocean. Wilbur leans over the rails to watch him go, his tail arcing water off of it in a spray of shining droplets. Tommy leans next to him, his mouth open. 

“Woah,” he says. 

“Oh boy,” Phil mutters. “I can only hope this is one of his good ideas.”

“Is it true?” Wilbur glances over at him, digging his fingers into the sun-warmed wood of the rails. “You and Technoblade were soldiers?”

Phil dips his chin. “A long time ago, yes. We’re retired now.”

“And you’re really that old?” Tommy demands. “And you died?”

“What Foolish said, it’s not—” Phil sighs again, looking away from them. “It’s complicated. I don’t stay dead if I’m killed, and I never get any older, but I don’t know why. I don’t know whether Death really has taken some strange interest in me, or whether it’s some kind of magic, or—anything. It’s just something I’ve learned to live with.”

“Techno, too?” Tommy asks.

“Techno’s not getting any older, but I don’t know whether or not he can die,” Phil admits. “It’s not something I really want to test, you know what I mean? With him or with you two.”

“With us?” Wilbur’s brow furrows.

“Mm. If it is some sort of necromancy magic stemming from me, then it seems to have affected Technoblade,” Phil says, chewing his thumbnail. “It stands to reason that it might affect you two, too, since you’re also my soulmates. But you seem to be aging normally, so maybe the effects only appear with physical proximity to me. Then again, after what happened to you, Wil, I’m not entirely sure.”

“What happened to me?”

“Yes, when you were sick.” Phil drops his hand, looking down at Wilbur. “You should have died, but you didn’t. Whether that was dumb luck or some sort of magical interefence, I don’t know, but I’m leaning towards the latter. It’s just too much of coincidence.”

“What about our other soulmate?” Tommy asks. “Does she get older?”

“I don’t know,” Phil says, with a wry smile. “I’ve never met her. I get the feeling that when I do, I’ll understand a whole lot more.”

Wilbur frowns. “But she’s older than us. How come you haven’t found her yet?”

“Well, it’s not for lack of trying,” Phil says, “but she’s not exactly forthcoming.”

“Oh, I get that.” Tommy nods sagely. “She doesn’t talk to me either.”

“She just sounds like white noise to me,” Wilbur says, lifting one shoulder in half a shrug.

“What do I sound like?” Phil asks. “If you don’t mind me asking.”

Wilbur shrugs again, tracing the whorls of salted wood beneath his nails. “Like a lullaby. Technoblade sounds like an orchestra. Tommy just yammers all the time.”

“Hey!” 

“What? It’s true.” Wilbur reaches over, ruffling his brother’s hair roughly. “Chatterbox. What do I sound like to you?”

“You sound like guitar.” Phil smiles, looking out over the waves. “It’s relaxing. Like a little life soundtrack.” 

“Oh.”

Wilbur’s fingers itch, suddenly, for the strings of his own guitar. He hasn’t played much on The Boreas, but maybe it’s time to change that. He’s sure the crew wouldn’t mind, even if they prefer sea shanties and bawdy drinking songs. He misses, suddenly and completely, the sound of his soulmates in his mind. He’s torn down the wall between himself and Tommy, but he hasn’t let any of the other three back in.

Maybe it’s time to change that, too.

It’s not like it means anything. It’s just a little life soundtrack. 

When Phil’s lullaby, soft and sweet, filters into his mind again—Wilbur smiles.

Later that evening, Foolish returns with a whole goddamn treasure chest. 

“Technoblade! Techno!” Foolish drops the chest onto the deck, hauling himself halfway onboard and lilting the ship. Wilbur goes stumbling. Oh gods. “I have a present.”

Technoblade materializes shortly, eyeing Foolish with deep suspicion. “What.”

“A present,” Foolish repeats, pushing the treasure chest closer. “An apology. Sorry I scared the babies and talked about, uh, things I shouldn’t have.”

Technoblade kneels next to the chest, heaving it open and surveying it critically. He plunges a hand in and comes back up, his fingers tangled in more gold than Wilbur has ever seen in his life. A chunky sapphire falls out of the pile and clinks across the floor, rolling to a stop beside Wilbur’s boot. He feels like he’s tarnished it, probably.

“Alright,” Technoblade sighs. “Apology accepted then.”

“Greedy hoarding creature,” Phil calls from the crow’s nest, laughing. “Bring me some!”

So Wilbur guesses that’s really all it takes, then, and makes a mental note to find a surplus of gold for the next time he pisses Technoblade off.

The Butterfly Desert is fucking blistering. 

Wilbur steps into the longboat amidst a heatwave, and from this distance he can see the air shimmering above the port city of Tribecta. Tommy hops into the boat behind him, fanning the collar of his shirt and complaining noisily. They sprawl in the back of the boat as the other sailors file in and Technoblade takes his place at the head, looking out at the docks. 

Shortly, the boat is being rowed towards those docks. Wilbur hangs a hand over the side, trailing his fingers through the cool water. Logically, he knows Foolish is too large to comfortably come this close to shore—but he keeps an eye out anyway, his gaze catching on the shadowy darting of smaller fish and sharks. A humid breeze stirs his hair, and he grumbles when Tommy leans against him. 

“Too hot,” he mutters. “Personal space.”

Tommy whines, because this is clearly the worst thing to have ever happened to him, and splashes his own hands in the water when Wilbur shoves him off. As soon as the boat has been tied to the docks, Tommy scrambles off of it with Technoblade’s help, and Wilbur follows after. He ignores the piglin’s outstretched hand and jumps up by himself, only wobbling a little as he tries to get his landlegs back under him. He still feels like he’s swaying.

Above them, Phil glides in lazy circles as he watches over the proceedings. 

“Here,” Technoblade rumbles, holding out a hand. “Fun money. Go nuts.”

Tommy eagerly accepts his allotment of coins. Wilbur does, too, albeit more uncertainly. He no longer thinks that Phil and Technoblade will make him pay them back, but it still rubs him the wrong way to accept their charity when he’s only going to leave them. If this is some sort of bribery to get him to want to stay with them, it’s not working.

“Wilbur,” Technoblade says. “I’m going to see a concert this evening. You’re free to come with.”

It’s not working! It’s not!!

Wilbur skitters off with Tommy and Annie, and the three of them make their way to the shops. Tommy buys candy because of course he does, but Wilbur peruses a musician’s stand for a new set of bronze-plated guitar strings. He also eyes a strange new instrument that looks a little like a miniature guitar. The musician introduces it as ukulele, and even plucks out a little tune on it. But it’s out of Wilbur’s price range if he’s going to buy the guitar strings, so—

“It’s on me,” Annie says, winking, and hands the ukulele to him. “You can pay me back by helpin’ to holystone the deck tomorrow.”

Fuck yes.

Wilbur sits on the side of the street and plays with his new ukulele while Tommy runs from toy shop to toy shop. The ukulele is simpler than the guitar, with fewer strings and a higher pitch. It still draws a crowd, and before long Wilbur feels like he’s busking again—cracking jokes and singing ditties and grinning when someone tosses him a coin. With that little bit of extra money, Wilbur decides on one last purchase.

“Hey, Annie?”

“Yeah, kiddo?” Annie asks, hoisting Tommy onto her shoulders. He’s got a pinwheel clutched in one hand and a yo-yo in the other, his cheeks stuffed full of saltwater taffy.

“Do they have bookshops here?”

“Sure do. Come on, I’ll take you.”

Wilbur trots after her, holding his ukulele close to his chest. They enter an ornate sandstone building, and the shade brings instant relief from the heat. Wilbur sighs happily, pushing his sweaty hair off of his forehead and soaking in the cool air. Several other people lounge on the bookshop’s steps, clearly enjoying a break from the afternoon sun, and Annie skirts her way around them. She sets Tommy down when he wiggles, and he takes off for a shelf full of colorful hardback books. 

“Are you looking for anything in particular?” Annie asks.

“Yeah, actually.” Wilbur looks at all of the shelves, a little overwhelmed. “Um. I want to teach Tommy to read, but all the books we have are pretty, uh—well, they’re Techno’s.”

“Ha! A little above my skill level, and Tommy’s, too, I’d bet,” Annie says. “You know he studied communication arts in university? And he speaks, like, four languages.”

“Who, Techno?”

“Mm-hm. So I’m not surprised his books would be a little tough for you two. Let’s see if we can find something easier.”

Annie selects a pair of books for him—one with big, colorful pictures of letters and another with short words. It makes Wilbur feels a little stupid, buying such obvious little kid books, but at least if he pretends they’re for Tommy it’s better. He tucks the books under his arm, and the three of them retreat to The Boreas to deposit their goods. 

Evening rolls around, and with it so does Technoblade.

“So?” the terrible grumpy piglin asks, standing expectantly in Wilbur’s doorway and arching an eyebrow. “You comin’ or what?”

Well.

Well.

Wilbur slides his ukulele under the bunks, pats Tommy on the head, and trots after Technoblade. It’s for the music, he thinks, and not for fucking bonding time. He’s not even gonna talk to Technoblade at all. They’re gonna get to the concert hall, sit down, and not look at each other. It’s going to be fine.

Wilbur sticks close to Technoblade’s heels as they move through the city, noting the way the crowds part for him. It would be hard not to, he thinks: Technoblade is massive, decked in gold and a heavy red cape. Piglins being a rare sight in the Overworld makes him a spectacle, too, but not one that any person is brave enough to gawk at for too long. Everyone’s eyes skim over Wilbur, hidden in his shadow, which is a relief. 

When they reach the concert hall, Technoblade immediately makes his way up a set of carpeted black stairs. Wilbur stumbles along behind him, his eyes catching on crystal chandeliers and ornate marble statues. He fails to notice when Technoblade pauses, and trips over the white-furred hem of his cloak. Technoblade raises an eyebrow at him.

“What,” Wilbur spits, bristling. “Why’d you stop?”

“Thought you might want to look before we got to the box.” Technoblade gestures out, over the great expanse of the concert hall. “Welcome to The Emerald.”

Wilbur steps up beside Technoblade, bracing his hands against the glossy pinewood railing. They’re on the hall’s second floor, looking out over the expanse of it. The main floor is packed with green cushioned seats, already crammed full of patrons in stuffy suits and glittering dresses. More crystal chandeliers hang high above them, and the stage is draped with a dark velvet curtain. Over the noise of the crowd, Wilbur can hear the squeak of metal chairs and the rasp of footsteps as the instrumentalists prepare. 

More incredible, still, is the variety of plants that layer every surface of the hall. Trailing ivies climb up the walls, entwining with bright morning glories, and flowering shrubs grow in planters placed along the outskirts of the auditorium. Enormous pink hibiscus frame the stage, and a carpet of wildflowers spills out for several feet in front of it. More vining flowers hang from the ceiling, curling around the chandeliers and the balustrades of the boxes. 

There are butterflies.

Real, actual living butterflies flit from plant to plant, fanning their wings lazily as the crowd trickles into their seats. There are a variety of sizes and colors—massive ones with iridescent blue blotches on their wings, tiny ones with chalky red spots, and black ones dusted in a gaudy green shimmer. One of these last perches on the railing in front of Wilbur, and he makes a noise of disbelief. There’s no way this is real. 

“Emerald Swallowtail,” Technoblade says, stretching a hand out and allowing the green butterfly to climb onto his finger. “They’re the hall’s most famous attraction—what it’s named for, actually. They breed and raise all of the butterflies in the lepidopterarium next door.”

“Holy shit.”

“Yeah, it’s pretty neat.”

“Holy shit.”

“Here.” Technoblade reaches out, the butterfly balanced carefully on a finger, and lets it crawl into Wilbur’s hair. “Yours now.”

Wilbur moves very, very carefully when Technoblade starts to walk again. He can’t feel the butterfly, or see it, but he doesn’t want to disturb it if it’s still there. He’s concentrating so hard, in fact, that he falls several paces behind Technoblade. When Technoblade looks back, he catches a glimpse of Wilbur and snorts. There’s a smile in his eyes even if it doesn’t quite reach his face.

Together, they make their way into a private viewing box near the middle of the hall. Technoblade sweeps aside the curtain barring it from the hallway, and Wilbur ducks inside only to come to a sudden stop. Another person already occupies in the box, reclining in a cushioned chair with  their feet kicked up on the railing. They glance over when Wilbur enters, an eyebrow arched, and—

“Foolish?!”

The man grins, emerald eyes glittering mirthfully. “Yo, Wil,” he says. “What’s up?”

“How are you—how did you—what—?”

Foolish looks nothing like he had at sea. He’s not sixty feet long, for starters, and is instead a much more reasonable six feet. His skin is bronzed, but not golden, and he has legs instead of a massive shark’s tail. His gills are gone, as are his dark stripes, and he wears a heavy golden sharkskin over his shoulders.

“Magic,” he explains, winking. “Don’t worry too much about it. Come on, grab a seat. This is gonna be awesome!”

Wilbur, at a loss, takes a seat next to the sea-monster-but-not.

This is his life now, he guesses.

“Have you ever been to The Emerald?” Foolish asks. “I mean, probably not, I guess, since you lived on the mainland before. But it’s really cool. Technoblade told me you loved music, so I got us some banger tickets. Consider it an apology for, uh, freaking you out on the ship earlier. You know me and Phil helped design this place a few years ago?”

“You did?”

“Yeah.” Foolish beams, and his teeth are still disturbingly shark-like if Wilbur looks for too long. “I helped him build an ocean monument, and he helped me build this. Neat, right?”

“It’s pretty cool,” Wilbur says, which is the understatement of the century.

Technoblade slides into a seat next to Wilbur—one that is, Wilbur notes, significantly larger than the others, and probably designed specifically with his size in mind. He picks up a pair of opera glasses balanced on the box’s banister, offering them to Wilbur. Wilbur takes them, turning them over in his own hands before setting them aside.

“No thanks,” Wilbur says, burrowing back into the cushion of his seat. “I just want to listen.”

Then his eye catches on the hem of Technoblade’s cape, and he sees one of its feathers hanging loose and dirtied—undoubtedly damaged by his own boot, when he’d tripped over it earlier. He wants to feel maliciously glad about that, but the feeling just won’t come. He frowns, reaching down and plucking the feather up. It was pristinely white, once, blended perfectly into the plush fur that lines the cape. 

“Oh? What’s that?” Technoblade leans over, snuffling curiously.

“One of your cape feathers,” Wilbur says, handing it over to him. “I think I stepped on it.”

Technoblade, to Wilbur’s surprise, only smirks. He rolls the shaft of the white feather between his fingers, watching it twirl in the crystal light. Beside him, Foolish grimaces.

 “Cool,” Technoblade says. “This thing’s trash anyway.”

Technoblade tosses the feather, and Wilbur watches as it drifts into the crowd below—to be trampled under a hundred other uncaring shoes. The lights around the concert hall suddenly dim, and Foolish looks forward as the stage curtains sweep open. An orchestra of all sizes and species fills the chairs, but Wilbur is more interested in the instruments: violins and cellos, flutes and clarinets, trumpets and trombones, timpani drums and a fantastic grand piano. Wilbur takes a deep breath of anticipation, and—

The symphony begins.

Wilbur crawls into bed late that night, practically vibrating with excitement. There’s a feeling in his chest he doesn’t know how to explain—somewhere between giddiness and joy and nostalgia. He already wants to go back to The Emerald. He can’t get the orchestra music out of his head, and he’s not even sure how much of it is from Technoblade’s corner of his brain and how much of it is from memory. He rolls around in his blankets, hugging a pillow tightly to his chest and resisting the urge to wake Tommy up just to tell him how fucking awesome the concert was.

Then, there’s a soft knock at his door.

Wilbur scrambles out of bed, trotting over and swinging it open. He half expects it to be Technoblade, but he’s not totally surprised to see Phil, either. The elytrian smiles at him, holding a stack of manilla folders to his chest.

“Hey, Wil,” he whispers, mindful of Tommy sleeping only a few feet away. “Can you come out here a second?”

Wilbur slips out of his quarters, shutting the door quietly behind him. He follows Phil away from the door, so their voices won’t wake Tommy, and then looks expectantly at him.

“How was the concert?” Phil asks. “Techno said you guys had a lot of fun.”

“It was awesome,” Wilbur says, because Phil may not be as good as Tommy but at least he’s somebody to talk to. “They played so many songs! I hadn’t even heard most of them before, and the musicians were so good. Foolish says they’ve only been playing together for a few years but most of them played in other orchestras before, so they had a lot of practice, and they were fucking amazing. And the piano player! Oh my gods! I have got to learn piano now. I—what? Why are you looking at me that way?”

It’s because he was rambling, Wilbur realizes suddenly. No one likes to listen to him ramble. Even Tommy only puts up with it because he has to. Now he’s gone and annoyed Phil—which, who cares!—but it makes him irritable anyway. If Phil didn’t want to listen he shouldn’t have asked. (And Wilbur should have known better than to answer, anyway.)

“I’m just—happy to see you happy,” Phil says, but that can’t be true because his mouth is tight and his wings are pulled flat to his back. “I, um. I have something for you.”

“What?” Wilbur asks, warily.

“Here.” Phil hands over the stack of manilla folders. “You don’t have to look at them tonight, or decide right away. Take your time. It’s a big decision. But we’ll be reaching the arctic in the next couple of months, so you should start preparing.”

Wilbur flips open the first folder, frowning down at it. It’s a biography, he thinks. There’s a picture at the top, and a name, and then several lines of information. When he turns the page, there’s another name and another face. There are diagrams of houses and yards. The pattern continues for several more pages. Wilbur realizes, with a sinking feeling, that he knows exactly what this is even if he can’t read it.

“These are all of our available foster families,” Phil explains. “They’ve all been screened by our security, so they’ll be safe for you no matter which you choose.”

“I don’t want a family.”

“I know,” Phil says, tiredly. “But you’re getting one, so choose your favorite.”

Wilbur retreats to his quarters with the folders, scowling, and shoves them into his dresser drawer. He knows he’ll have to pick at some point, before they get to the arctic, unless he wants to stay with Phil and Technoblade—which he doesn’t. But he’s got months left. He doesn’t need to worry about that stupid shit now.

Wilbur hesitates, for a moment, and then crawls into Tommy’s bed instead of his own. Tommy mumbles and stretches out a wing, tucking Wilbur beneath it, and Wilbur drapes an arm over his baby brother’s side before closing his eyes. This is all he needs, he thinks. This is all the family he needs right here.

Chapter Text

“Not this one,” Wilbur says, tossing a folder onto the breakfast table in front of Phil. One corner brushes against his plate. Oops. “They’re dumb.”

“Right.” Phil picks up the folder by one edge, holding it gingerly. It drips syrup. “Any particular reason why?”

Wilbur taps the diagram of their house and property. “They don’t have a yard. Tommy needs somewhere to run around.”

Phil nods, dabbing the syrup off with a napkin before setting the folder aside. “Alright. Well, let me know if you find a better option.”

“What’s that?” Tommy trots over, his own plate jammed full of blueberry pancakes.

“Nothing,” Wilbur says abruptly. 

Phil arches an eyebrow at him.

“Nothing,” Wilbur repeats, more firmly, and Phil doesn’t question him. Good. Tommy is Wilbur’s, not Phil’s. “Toms, do you really need that much syrup?”

Tommy sets his plate down, and the pool of maple syrup on it quivers. “Uh, duh. Real men don't eat pancakes without syrup.”

“That’s more syrup than pancake.”

“Exactly.” Tommy points a spoon at him, then digs into his syrup. He’s going to make a mess of his clothes. At least, Wilbur thinks, he owns more than two shirts now. “Is Foolish coming today?”

“I don’t think so,” Phil says. “The waters this far north get pretty cold for him.”

“Oh.”

“But maybe he’ll stop by for a few minutes to say goodbye,” Phil suggests. “We can put the signal out for him.”

“Yes please.” Tommy swings his legs, syrup dripping from his spoon to the collar of his jacket.

Foolish comes to say goodbye, later that day, leaning his great body against The Boreas and letting Tommy traipse across his back and shoulders. He’s slower than he has been these previous weeks, his tail swaying lazily in the current and his jaw cracking around a fearsome yawn. 

“It’s the cold,” he explains, when Wilbur asks. “I don’t usually come this far north. The ocean monument is as far as I’ve ever been, and even there I wasn’t in the water most of the time; I’ll probably go south again after this. But isn’t that exciting! It means you’re almost home, babies. The arctic isn’t too much farther now.”

Somehow, this isn’t the comfort that Foolish thinks it is.

“These are even dumber than the last ones were,” Wilbur says, handing Phil a folder when he comes for their evening visit. Tommy is brushing his teeth in the adjoined bathroom, and thus mercifully unaware of the exchange. “Their house is so ugly.”

Phil squints at a diagram of the house, his weirdass bird pupils visibly pinning. “I think it looks okay.”

“The architecture is abysmal. Have you ever built anything in your life?”

“I build lots of stuff,” Phil says plaintively. “I love building.”

“We’ll be coming up on the ocean monument today,” Technoblade adds, leaning against the bunk bed. “Phil built that. Work of art.”

“It’s pretty cool,” Phil admits, and—

Well. They’re not wrong.

The ocean monument is a massive structure made of glass and sand and colored coral. Water rushes over the edge of a thick glass wall and then just fucking disappears, leaving a pit in the middle of the ocean. The center of the pit is enormous, home to both a pale blue temple and a lush jungle. Who builds a jungle in the middle of the goddamn arctic ocean? Phil fucking Za, Wilbur guesses.

The crew furls the sails and drops anchor, and The Boreas slows her forward plunge to linger near the monument for a day and a night. Phil flies from her deck to the temple early that morning and is gone most of the afternoon—though doing what, Wilbur has no idea. As sunlight fades from the sky, two glittering white beacons stream up from the temple courtyard. 

“Well?” Technoblade asks, his tail swishing lazily behind him. “Want to go see?”

The temple is even more incredible up close. The crew moves reverently through its wide halls, their footsteps the only sound aside from the call of the parrots outside. Lanterns line the walls, throwing eerie shadows, and Tommy snatches Technoblade’s sleeve as they move further in. Wilbur feels heavier, here. His footsteps carry more weight.  As they pass through a large archway, he begins to hear the trickle of water. A thin stream flows along either side of the hall and widens quickly as they go farther. He can see movement within the current—small darting fish and larger, murkier shapes. He swallows, and nearly jumps out of his skin when Technoblade touches his shoulder.

“What?” Technoblade asks, looking impassively at him. “Scared?”

Wilbur bares his teeth, storms forward, and then—then goes right back to Technoblade’s side when something large splashes ahead. Technoblade rumbles with laughter. One of his hands ruffles Wilbur’s hair, and he takes the lead again. Wilbur doesn’t protest. If something’s going to jump out at them, it can eat pork first. 

The streams on either side of the hall eventually converge into an ornate pool in front of them. A fountain bubbles cheerfully in the middle of that pool, and the tile at the bottom displays a mosaic: shapes and colors telling a story Wilbur doesn’t understand. He sees dark feathers and flocking crows, swords and armor, a hangman’s noose and an emerald necklace. Wilbur kneels next to the pool, leaning forward to see better, and Tommy tucks up against his side.

“Woah,” he breathes. “That’s so fucking awesome.”

“Hm,” Wilbur says. “It would look better without all the coral.”

Then, within the pool, something ancient and terrible moves.

Wilbur skitters backwards with a yelp, dragging Tommy along, and rams his shoulders into Technoblade’s legs. Technoblade chuffs softly at him, crouching alongside them.

“It’s alright,” he says. “They aren’t aggressive.”

The fuck they aren’t! A massive creature circles within the pool, the dim orange light reflecting off of its silver scales. It’s a guardian fish, Wilbur realizes—he’s heard stories and seen pictures, but he never thought he’d see one alive. It could kill any of them easily, and yet none of the sailors seem the least bit frightened. They’re apprehensive, maybe, but they’re not screaming or running or drawing their weapons.

Technoblade doesn’t even have a weapon, Wilbur realizes with a jolt of terror. 

“Respect, little one,” Technoblade says, petting his hair, and Wilbur is too stiff to brush him off. “If you respect them, they’ll respect you. Only move slowly and kindly.”

“It’s a guardian,” Tommy whispers, “right?”

“Mm. They were here first. This one is an elder; see how pale its scales are? They lighten with age,” Technoblade explains. “The pool has exits to the ocean, so they can chose to come and go, or to travel through the rest of the monument as they will. The rest of its shoal is probably in the altar room. That’s where Phil feeds them.”

“Can I touch it?”

“No,” Wilbur hisses at the same time Technoblade says, “Gently.”

Tommy looks between them, torn, before settling back against Wilbur’s side. Wilbur clutches him protectively, glowering at Technoblade, who only shrugs at him. 

“Techno?” Phil calls, his voice echoing down the hall. The guardian vanishes in a ripple of water. “Tommy? Wilbur?”

“We’re here,” Technoblade calls back, straightening up. “C’mon, runts. Phil’s waiting.”

They slip down a hallway to the side of the room and enter what Wilbur assumes is the altar room, if the massive white altar and the pool of guardian fish is anything to go by. This pool is even larger than the last, and decked with gold and jewels both. Technoblade makes an appreciative sound, admiring the glittering gilt between the floor tiles as a shoal of guardian fish blows bubbles at him. Phil himself is sitting on the altar, leaning back on his hands and looking up, where—

“Oh, wow!” Tommy exclaims, following Phil’s gaze to the ceiling. “Another picture.”

Wilbur tips his own chin back. There’s another mosaic above them, but this one is simple and abstract. The bulk of it is a dark, silhouetted shape—a human woman, Wilbur thinks, wearing a long black dress and a veil. Her arms are outstretched benevolently, and a flock of crows surrounds her. Most of the crows have polished ebony for eyes, but the four closest have gemstones: ruby, emerald, sapphire, and topaz. 

“Yooo,” Technoblade drawls, “you changed it.”

“Just some updates,” Phil says cheerfully. “D’you like it?”

“Of course.”

“Who’s that?” Wilbur asks, pointing at the woman.

“Death,” Phil says, “or my interpretation of her, anyway. Near death experiences do things to a guy! I don’t really remember it, but I get this impression.”

“Was it near death if you actually died before?” Tommy wonders.

“If we could not talk about it,” Technoblade says stiffly, “that would be really great.”

“Sorry, big guy.” Phil hops off of the altar and pats Technoblade’s shoulder, leaning in to say something more quietly to him. Technoblade nods, and Phil crosses over to Wilbur and Tommy. “So, what do you boys think? Pretty cool, am I right?”

“It’s awesome,” Tommy says, bouncing on his toes. “Can I pet the fish?”

“Tommy,” Wilbur hisses.

“They’re friendly,” Phil assures him. “They only hurt you if you hurt them. So, if you pet them gently, you’ll be okay.”

“Pleeeeease, Wil?” Tommy begs, clasping his hands together. “Please please please please?”

“If it bites your hand off I am not being held responsible,” Wilbur gripes.

“Yes!” Tommy pumps a fist in the air and rushes to the side of the pool, dropping to his knees. Technoblade joins him, and the two of them dip their fingers into the water. Wilbur watches sullenly from the sidelines as a turquoise guardian bumps up against their hands, its spikes carefully withdrawn. “Woah. That’s so cool. Ha ha, it’s all slimy! Wil, try it!”

Grudgingly, Wilbur kneels beside his brother and pokes a finger into the water. A small, dark green guardian nudges up against him, and he recoils with a shudder. Creepy. Totally creepy. The fish watches him with a single red eye, and Wilbur grimaces. This is not an experience he’s keen to repeat anytime soon. 

“I want one,” Tommy says suddenly. “Can we take one with us?”

“No,” Technoblade says absently, running a finger across a guardian’s dorsal fin. 

“Aw, why not?”

“This is their home. They belong here. It wouldn’t be nice to take them away.”

“Funny you feel that way now,” Wilbur mutters. 

“It would be different,” Technoblade says, looking evenly at him, “if their environment were inappropriate and they were in danger. If they didn’t have food, or the water made them ill, or the territory was very dirty—then, it would be different and we would take them until we could repair their home or find a better one.”

“A real environmentalist, you.”

They don’t stay in the temple for much longer. It’s already late, and once the excitement wears off Tommy begins to yawn. Wilbur piggybacks him out of the altar room with a final glance up at the mosaic. He can’t help but think, distantly, that Death looks very familiar.

“Four stories is too many,” Wilbur says, tossing Phil a folder. “It’s pretentious.”

Phil catches the folder, barely. “Have you considered, maybe,” he says carefully, “picking a family based off of something other than their property?”

Well, Wilbur would do that if he could fucking read.

As it is, pictures are the only thing he can go off of, right now—pictures of houses and yards and faces. It’s not much. But he can’t very well ask Phil to read the files to him, or Technoblade, or even any of the crew. As nice as the sailors are, they’re all loyal to their captains; they’d tell Phil and Technoblade as soon as they found out Wilbur couldn’t read.

“It’s my family,” Wilbur says, frowning, “not yours.”

Phil holds his hands up, palms out in surrender. “You’re right,” he says. “I’m sorry. You pick however you think is best, mate.”

A low roll of thunder crawls through the sky above them, and they both glance up. A thin layer of clouds skuds the sky directly above, and a much thicker bank of clouds gathers to the east. Phil spreads his wings, testing the wind with his feathers and clucking his tongue. 

“Looks like we’re in for a storm,” he says, and Wilbur wrinkles his nose in distaste. Storms mean being wet and cold and miserable—but at least, this time, he has a room to curl up in. “Best stay inside with Tommy this afternoon.”

Even worse—Tommy is difficult to keep entertained at the best of times, and he doesn’t take well to being cooped up in their quarters all day. So Wilbur brings his little brother onto the deck and lets him run around while the storm is still some distance away, creeping slowly across the eastern horizon. Tommy springs into the rigging to watch its approach, his own wings spread for the wind. 

“It looks awesome,” he says, his eyes wide.

“It looks like a shipwrecker,” Annie says, scooping him out of the ropes. “Best be careful, lad. A man overboard’s a man dead.”

Tommy wiggles in her arms, and she sets him down. He turns expectantly to her, but she’s already moving across the deck and calling orders to her sailors. They’re bringing the ship around, sailing with the waves instead of against them. The sails are being furled, chained tightly to the masts, and the master gunner moves between the cannons to ascertain that they’re stowed and roped securely to the deck. 

“Batten down the hatches,” Annie calls, her voice carrying over another roll of thunder. “Stow flame! Willy, it’ll be a cold sup, tonight.”

“Aye, Ann,” Willy says, tipping his hat.

Wilbur peeks over the side of the bow, looking down at the waves. They’re already becoming larger and choppier, taking on an ominous green sheen as the clouds gather. The sky is bruising, darkening to deep blacks and purples as the wind picks up. It smells like petrichor and ozone and salt, brisk and cold. Tommy fluffs his feathers against the breeze, shivering.

“Ready to go inside?” Wilbur asks, glancing down at him.

“Yeah,” Tommy says, although he doesn’t look thrilled about it. “I guess.”

The two of them retreat to their quarters, and Tommy sits on the desk so he can watch the waves through the window. Wilbur tucks up in his own bed, cracking open one of the picture books he’d bought in Tribecta. He’s memorized all the letters, now, and he’s practicing their sounds. He can even put together a few of the simple words in the second book, like dog and flower and sun.  But squinting at the letters seems to be giving a headache, which is unusual, as is the way his stomach churns. Then he realizes—ah. He’s getting seasick again. He’s good as long as the ship is steady, these days, but the storm waves are rolling it more frequently and more strongly. He grimaces and sets the books aside, making his way back to the floor. 

“Seasick?” Tommy asks sympathetically. 

“Blergh,” Wilbur agrees, and goes to make a home in their bathroom. He doesn’t vomit, but it’s a near thing, and the waves are only getting larger. 

There’s a knock at the door, and Wilbur only twitches as Tommy goes to answer it. He hears the low murmur of Phil’s voice, and then the bathroom door creaks open. The great shadows of Phil’s wings fall across him. Wilbur sighs but turns to face him, rubbing his eyes.  

“Hey, Wil,” Phil says, kneeling beside him. “Toms told me you weren’t feeling well. I brought some ginger tea and crackers.”

It’s the same remedy they had used during Wilbur’s first miserable week at sea, and he reaches grudgingly for the mug. It’s warm between his palms, steaming, and sweetened with too much honey. He drinks it slowly, and munches a single cracker when his stomach settles. Phil smiles at him, eyes hopeful.

“Better?” he asks.

“Mm,” Wilbur says. 

“Do you want to try the pressure point?”

Wilbur extends his hand, allowing Phil to grasp his wrist. The elytrian’s fingers are slim and careful, seeking out the pressure point between the tendons of his wrist and pressing firmly. It eases the nausea, and Wilbur slumps against the cool wood of the bathroom wall. Phil coos, soft and dovelike; in the bedroom, Tommy chirps a response.  Phil settles in against the wall beside Wilbur, his wings tightly folded and cramped against the corner of the room. Wilbur shuffles aside, just a little, to give him more space. He switches his grip to Wilbur’s other wrist when Wilbur offers it, massaging the pressure point there and lulling Wilbur into a quiet daze. Rain begins to drum against the bedroom window, accompanied by another swell of thunder, and Wilbur lets his eyes shut. 

When he opens his eyes again, some time later, it’s only because there are feathers tickling him. He twitches away from Tommy, rubbing his arm, only to realize that—well, shit, that’s not Tommy. It’s Phil beside him on the bathroom floor, one dark wing curled behind Wilbur and cradling him close. He can feel the gentle rise and fall of Phil’s chest, the press of his ribs, the rustle of each sleek feather.

For once, Wilbur doesn’t want to pull away.

But he has to, doesn’t he? He doesn’t want Phil getting ideas. Wilbur’s only staying here because it’s warm and comfortable and he doesn’t feel sick as long as he’s still. It’s not because he likes Phil. It’s not because Phil makes him feel safe. It’s not because Phil makes him feel loved. It’s fucking not.

Wilbur shuts his eyes again, resolute, because no one can shame him if he’s asleep.

“Phil?” Tommy whispers, from somewhere very nearby.

“Hm?”

“Is Wil okay?”

“Yeah, he’s okay, sweetheart,” Phil says, his voice a pleasant rumble. “He’s just sleeping.”

“Can I go see Techno?”

“Why don’t you stay here a little longer?” Phil suggests, instead, before Wilbur can force himself up to wrangle his fool brother. “Techno’s on deck, and it’s still pretty stormy out there.”

“How come Techno isn’t in here, then?”

“He likes storms.”

“I like storms too.”

“You’re so little this one would probably blow you away. Techno’s just a bit sturdier.”

“Hey!” Tommy’s wings rustle in offense. “I’m not that little. Why don’t you teach me to fly?”

“Soon,” Phil promises. “As soon as all your feathers are in.”

“You’ve been saying that foreeever.”

“You’ve been growing feathers foreeever.”

“Jerk.”

“Child.”

“Asshole.”

“Brat.” Phil laughs, and Wilbur feels his weight shift. “C’mere already.”

Tommy tucks up on Wilbur’s other side, scrawny arms coming to wrap around his waist. Wilbur stirs, slightly, and Phil shushes him. Presumptuous. Stupid. Wilbur shushes obediently anyway, too warm and content to protest. When two sets of wings curl around him, soft and sturdy, it feels like home.

Isn’t that just fucking terrifying?

“These ones have too many kids,” Wilbur protests, sliding two folders across the ornate desk in Phil’s quarters. “I don’t want any more siblings.”

“Noted,” Phil says, slipping the folder into a drawer. “But you’re gonna have to find one you like soon, mate. It’s only a few more weeks until the arctic.”

“Well it’s not like I have to have them picked the second we reach land,” Wilbur scoffs, leaning against the desk and studying his nails. Tommy had stolen Phil’s nail polish and painted them messily, in shades of streaky blue and gold. “What, are you gonna throw us out as soon as the ship anchors?”

“Of course not. I only figured you wouldn’t want to stay with us any longer than you had to.”

“I don’t, but like, this is a big decision,” Wilbur says. “I can’t rush it.”

“That’s smart.”

“So are you going to kick me out if I don’t decide by the time we reach the arctic?”

“Absolutely not. You can stay with us as long as you need.”

“Cool.” Wilbur pushes off of the desk, waving as he heads towards the door. “Don’t forget we’re playing cribbage tonight. I wanna kick your ass again.”

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Phil says, and has the nerve to sound like he means it.

Prick.

It’s some consolation that Wilbur does kick his ass in cribbage that evening, several times, and wins himself a handful of chocolate coins for his gambling efforts. Technoblade chuffs with delight every time he wins a round, thumping him on the back. 

“That’s a boy,” he crows. “We’ll make a gambler out of you yet."

“You’re going to give him bad habits,” Phil grumbles, shuffling the cards.

“If that’s the only bad habit he picks up from me, we’re doin’ great,” Technoblade says, winking at Wilbur. When he grins, Wilbur can see the glint of a golden molar near the back of mouth. “Gamblin’ is the least of my worries. Say, Phil, why don’t we play with real coin?”

“Techno!”

“Just a little, c’mon,” Technoblade wheedles. Then, with a sly tone, he adds, “I mean, unless you’re afraid you’ll lose again.”

“You are a manipulative weasel and I hate you.”

Technoblade bursts into laughter, and spills out handfuls of golden coin between them.

Wilbur earns more gold than he’s ever seen, that night, and isn’t even surprised when Technoblade and Phil let him keep all of it. He hoards most of the coin in his bottommost drawer, with his snacks, but spends some on a new set of picture books when they make port. Technoblade spots the books on his desk, later that day, and reads them to Tommy (who, mercifully, sits through the droning stories without a fuss). Wilbur memorizes the words as Technoblade says them and reads them back to himself later, thumbing over the letters on the page.

“I hate dogs,” Wilbur says, which is a blatant lie but Phil doesn’t know that and so he carefully tucks the folder away when Wilbur hands it off to him. “All of these families are stupid.”

“They are responsible and safe,” Phil says patiently, “which are the qualities I was looking for when I selected them. What are you looking for?”

“I want to go back to my home.”

“You don’t have a home,” Phil says, still patient and still driving a knife through Wilbur’s fucking heart. “That’s why we’re doing this.”

“I had a home,” Wilbur spits, “until you ruined it.”

“A tent on the side of the street is not a home, it’s a hazard.”

“How come you get to decide that, huh?” 

“Because I’m seventy-nine and you’re twelve.”

“Smartass.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Dick.”

“Yep.”

“I hate you.”

“Did something happen today?” Phil wonders. “You haven’t been this angry for a while.”

Wilbur storms towards the door and doesn’t think about the last two folders in his dresser and the last two chances he has for a family and the last two weeks before the arctic and—“Go die.”

“Wilbur.”

Wilbur whips around, glowering at him. 

“Do you want to see something cool?”

“Fuck you,” Wilbur spits. “Yes.”

Phil leads him onto the deck and spreads his wings. The setting sun gleams off of his feathers in iridescent blues and purples, and one of the sailors whistles appreciatively—Bart, Wilbur thinks. Phil flashes him a grin and then looks at Wilbur again, raising an eyebrow.

“Two options,” he says, holding up two fingers. “We can climb up to the crow’s nest, or I can fly you up. Your choice.”

Wilbur’s kneejerk reaction is to climb, because no way does he want Phil that close to him, but—the crow’s nest is a long way up, and the ropes are precarious, and Wilbur doesn’t want to fall and splat on the deck. Besides, the air is cold and Phil is warm and that’s just good sense. Neither option is particularly appealing, but for once Phil is the better of the two. 

“We can fly,” he says, “but if you drop me I’ll knife you in your sleep.”

“Deal.”

Phil scoops Wilbur up, and Wilbur starfishes onto him. They haven’t even left the ground yet, and his stomach is already swooping. If Phil drops him he’ll die. If Phil drops him Phil will die, because Wilbur will come back as a ghost and haunt him to death—Ghostbur the Vengeful. He tucks his face into Phil’s shoulder, squeezing his eyes shut, and swallows a whimper when he hears Phil’s wings shift.

“Hold on,” Phil says. “I've got you, Wil.”

Wilbur curls his arms around Phil’s neck and clings as the elytrian launches himself upward with several powerful flaps of his wings. His fingers brush against gold chain, and he thinks of a hangman’s noose. Unconsciously, he loosens his grip, and Phil’s own arms tighten around his back in response. The flight only takes a few seconds; Phil lands neatly, depositing Wilbur in the crow’s nest and touseling his hair affectionately. 

“See?” he says. “Not so bad.”

Wilbur peeks over the side of the nest, and—oh, dear, oh, wow, now is a bad time to learn that he’s afraid of heights. The deck of The Boreas seems so very far away, and the sailors so very small. He inches back towards Phil, and Phil brings his wings up to mantle around Wilbur. It feels like being cocooned, and that’s—it’s easier.

“Wil? Are you alright?”

“Yep,” Wilbur says to the inky feathers on Phil’s wing. “Peachy.”

“Right,” Phil says, amused. “Of course. My mistake.”

“Why are we up here?”

“Look.” Phil draws one wing back, pointing up. “Look up, not down. Look north.”

Wilbur looks up, and north, and the sky moves. 

It moves in ribbons of light—green and blue and all the shades in between rippling smoothly together over the stars. Wilbur’s mouth drops open. That’s not normal. That is just simply—Wilbur might not have traveled many places before, but that is definitely not something someone sees every day, except Phil is—smiling, knowingly, the lights reflecting in his eyes. 

“What is that?” Wilbur breathes.

“The aurora borealis,” Phil says. “The northern lights. When the energy from the sun strikes the magnetic fields this far north, it makes colors in the atmosphere. Ah—Technoblade can explain it better, it’s more complicated than that, but—”

“That’s so fucking cool.”

“Right?” Phil grins, his eyes creasing at the edges. He draws back his other wing, and Wilbur is too focused on the sky and the stars and the dancing lights to worry about how far he has to fall. “It’s amazing. When you fly up there, it’s—gods, it’s the most incredible thing.”

“So go fly.”

“What?”

“Go fly,” Wilbur says, jerking his chin up at the lights. “I’m not stopping you.”

“That’s okay. I’d rather spend time with you.”

Wilbur snorts in disbelief. Hadn’t he just said flying through the northern lights was the most incredible thing ever? Spending time with Wilbur could hardly compare, because Wilbur is dramatic and a bitch and a jerk and—

“Why are you still being nice?” Wilbur asks.

It reminds him of the trains, and the railyard, and the day Phil came for him.

“Because I love you,” Phil says, simply.

“I’m a jerk to you.”

“You are.”

“I’m a jerk to your soulmate.”

“Also true.”

“So why don’t you get angry?”

“I do,” Phil says, glancing down at him. “Everyone gets angry sometimes. It’s what you chose to do about the anger that matters.”

“Why don’t you yell? Why don’t you hurt us?”

“I would never. You don’t deserve that. You’re so little, Wilbur. You’re only mean because you feel like you have to be—because I’ve torn you away from everything you ever knew. Hell, I’d be pissed if I was in your position.”

“So why’d you do it?”

“You were in danger,” Phil says. “I know you know that. You're a smart boy. Isn’t this better, Wil? You have food and shelter and safety.”

It is better. Wilbur’s not stupid enough to pretend that it’s not. Life on The Boreas has been a million times better than life on the streets ever was. He gets three meals a day, and a bed to sleep in, and books to practice reading with. He gets sailors to swear with and soulmates to gamble with. He gets to listen to orchestras at The Emerald and meet sea monsters and play pirate every day without worrying about their next meal, their next pair of shoes, their next bath.

Most of the time, he doesn’t even think about how trapped he is.

The golden cage is wide.

“Of course it’s better,” Wilbur mutters. “I’m not an idiot.”

“Then why are you still so unhappy? If you tell me, if I can fix it for you—”

“I don’t know,” Wilbur says, curling his arms around himself in the chilly air. “I don’t know.”

Phil sighs, his breath clouding in front of him, and draws closer. He fluffs his wings to shield Wilbur from the breeze, and Wilbur hates how warm that makes him feel. He hates this. He hates Phil. He hates Phil because Phil makes it so fucking hard to hate him.

“That’s okay,” Phil murmurs. “We’ll figure it out together, yeah?”

Wilbur leans back, tentative, and lets Phil’s wings surround him. He tips his head up to see the northern lights spiraling above them and tries to forget, for a moment, that he is condemning himself to a pain he never wanted to repeat. Phil will get tired of his bitchiness. Phil will get tired of his complaining. Phil will get tired of him and he’ll leave and Wilbur will be alone in a gutter.

This golden cage will be Wilbur’s coffin.

Wilbur thinks he might love his soulmates.

Wilbur thinks he might be fucking screwed.

Wilbur wakes up in the middle of the night to pee, and as he scales the ladder back into his bunk he realizes that Tommy is gone. It’s hard to tell, sometimes, with the nest arranged the way it is: stuffed full of blankets and pillows and toy animals from several different ports. But the telltale red of Tommy’s wings is gone, as is the tuft of his yellow hair. 

Wilbur, quite rationally, panics.

He tears through the nest, but there’s no Tommy hidden anywhere. He looks under the beds, and behind the dressers, and at the desk. There’s no Tommy—but there is a folded piece of paper on the desk, scribbled on in a familiar hand. It’s the same writing that makes up most of Phil’s stupid folders. Wilbur grasps it, fingers trembling, and the letters swim in front of his eyes.

Fuck. Fuck. What if they took Tommy? What if they made port in the arctic while Wilbur was sleeping and they took Tommy and the whole ship is empty and he’s all alone and he’ll never ever get his brother back and he’ll freeze to death and—

Wilbur can’t breathe.

Wilbur scrambles out of his quarters and to the captains’ quarters, shoving the heavy door open with a grating screech of noise. A low snarl greets him, and the dim hall light flashes red off of Technoblade’s eyes. Wilbur flinches back on instinct, a low keen leaving him. Tommy’s gone and everyone left and now Technoblade is going to murder him—

“What’s—Tech, what—” Phil flails. Phil is there. Phil is in the nest, shadowy feathers bristling in alarm as he sits up. “Shit, Wilbur?”

Technoblade’s nostrils flare, and he gives himself a rough shake. 

“Where’s Tommy?” Wilbur gasps. “Where is he?”

Phil drags a wing back, revealing Tommy curled beneath it. He’s awake now, too, his face pale and his eyes wide. He scrambles up as soon as Phil lets him, launching himself into Wilbur’s arms. Wilbur drops to his knees, crushing his baby brother against himself and sobbing into his hair. It’s an overwhelming overreaction and he knows it but he just can’t—if Tommy had been gone—if they’d taken him—if Wilbur had been alone again—

“Wil?” Tommy asks, little hands fluttering frantically against his shoulders and face and hair. “Wilbur? What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

Phil approaches slowly, crouching in front of them both with his hands out, palms up. “Hey, sweethearts,” he says, a birdlike croon below his words. “You’re okay. We’re okay. No danger here.”

Wilbur clings to Tommy more tightly, digging his fingers into golden curls. Tommy winds his arms around Wilbur’s neck, burrowing into him. He’s sleep-warm, his hair tousled but his feathers slicked down with fear. His wings start to mantle when Phil reaches for them, but Phil coos low in his throat and they slump.

“Wilbur?” Tommy says again, his voice hitching. “Wilby? What’s wrong?”

“You're okay, you're both okay,” Phil says, resting a hand between Tommy’s shoulders. “It looks like an anxiety attack. Is that it, Wilbur?”

Wilbur nods frantically against Tommy, reaching for Phil because Phil knows what it is—Phil knows how to fix it, he—last time, he—

“Okay, baby,” Phil says softly, taking Wilbur’s hand. “I know. I hear you. It’s gonna be okay. Technoblade? In the nest, please.”

Technoblade rises, and Wilbur muffles another terrified keen against Tommy. He’s so big. He’s so big and his tusks are so sharp and he snarled— but Technoblade only kneels next to them, lowering himself to their level, and wraps them in strong arms. He carries them to the wide, flat mattress that makes up the base of the nest and sets them on it before moving back again. 

Phil joins them only a second later, mantling his wings around them and brushing his fingers through their hair. He’s cooing low in his throat, soft birdsong that means nothing to Wilbur but soothes him nevertheless because it’s Phil. He’s here, and Tommy’s here, and Technoblade’s here, and he’s—not alone, not left behind, not abandoned—

“Can we try breathing for three seconds, little one?” Phil asks, squeezing Wilbur’s hands. “Three seconds, with me.”

Wilbur stutters his way through inhales for three seconds, and then four, and then five. The crashing of his heart eases, as does the thundering in his ears and the whistle in his throat. Tommy sags against him, wings wrapping around him like a second set of arms. Wilbur is surrounded by warmth and feathers and family. It makes him sob again, because he knows he can’t keep this. He never could. 

If there’s one thing Wilbur Soot is good at doing, it’s driving away the people he cares about.

“There you go,” Phil whispers, brushing a thumb across the side of Wilbur’s face, where there are—tears, he realizes, tacky and drying on his skin. “You’re okay, baby boy, you’re alright. I’m here. I’ve got you.”

The thing Wilbur remembers most about Death is her feathers, her wings—or, more aptly, the wings of her crows. They are the same wings that her angel bears. They are the same wings mantled lovingly around Wilbur. They are the same wings that brushed his elbow when she whispered to him.

  Dad’s going to come find you. Just wait a little bit longer for him.

Wilbur cries and crams himself against Phil’s chest, against his heartbeat, against his wings.

“Yeah, I’ve got you,” Phil says, pressing his mouth to Wilbur’s hair. “I’ve got you, kiddo.”

“You can’t read,” Phil realizes quietly, the next morning, “can you?”

Wilbur curls more tightly beneath the blankets, sheltered between Phil and Technoblade with Tommy pressed to his stomach. In the warm sleepiness of morning, the question is almost a little less humiliating—almost. His mouth still turns down.

“So what?”

“It’s okay,” Phil says, stretching a wing over them again. Technoblade snuffles as the feathers brush him, curling closer and flopping his tail over Wilbur’s ankle. “I just—I left you a note, last night, on the desk. I knew if you woke up and Tommy was gone, you’d be worried. I’ll wake you and tell you the next time.”

“Why’d you take him?” Wilbur asks, but there’s no real heat behind the question. 

“He had a bad dream,” Phil says, preening absently through Tommy’s wings. “He came to us.”

Why didn’t he come to me? Wilbur wonders. He always comes to me.

Even the jealousy is slow to appear, this morning.

“He probably wanted to let you rest,” Phil says, like he’s read Wilbur’s mind. Isn’t that supposed to be Tommy’s thing? “We can take care of him too, you know. We’re glad to. You don’t have to do it by yourself.”

“I’ve always done it by myself.”

“That doesn’t mean it’s the best thing.”

“Hm.”

“Did I ever tell you,” Phil says, pillowing his cheek on his arm, “about the time I said fuck all to my lieutenant and dismantled my platoons?”

Wilbur shakes his head. Phil doesn’t talk about his time as a soldier. Whether that’s for Phil’s benefit or Wilbur’s remains to be seen, but Wilbur has his suspicions. You don’t earn the name Angel of Death for anything fun and nontraumatic. 

“When I was younger, I was made captain of three piglin platoons. They were such fucking bullshit. Not because of the piglins, but because of the way they were organized. A platoon is a pretty big group, so we had several sounders in each one. I don’t know how much you know about piglins—”

“Pretty much nothing.”

“Yeah, I was in the same boat back then,” Phil says, chuckling. “But sounders are family groups, and they don’t get along with other sounders in close quarters. They’re pretty territorial. They were fucking each other up for weeks. Finally, one of their elders shook some sense into me, and we dismantled the platoons. My lieutenant was pissed until she figured out that it actually improved morale—maybe it wasn’t the most traditional thing, but it was worked for the piglins. That’s how I ended up meeting Technoblade. Pretty sure Tachmahall gave him to me to keep me in line.”

“It didn’t work.”

“No. No it did not.”

Phil and Wilbur trade tired grins, and Wilbur slings an arm over Tommy’s side. 

“Anyway,” Phil says, “moral of the story is that tradition isn’t always the best thing. Just because you’ve done something one way for forever doesn’t mean you shouldn’t keep doing it that way. Maybe, if you try something different, you’ll like it more.”

“That’s some grandpa advice right there. Real ancient stuff.”

“Oh, piss off.” Phil laughs, his feathers fluffing joyfully. “Brat.”

“Are we a sounder?” Wilbur wonders.

“Yes,” Technoblade grunts. “Mine.”

“Oh, good morning,” Phil says. “Look who’s up early.”

“Unwillingly.” Technoblade rolls onto his stomach, huffing.

“Sorry, mate, are we disturbing you?” Phil reaches over, tugging playfully at Technoblade’s unscarred ear. It flicks, and Technoblade grumbles deep in his throat. Phil chitters in delight at the reaction, his wings flicking, and he tugs on Technoblade’s emerald earring next. It reminds Wilbur of the city crows, darting after any shiny thing that caught their attention and harrying it to no end. He stifles a laugh against the crook of his elbow.

“No rest for the wicked,” Technoblade groans into his pillow. “Wilbur, make him stop.”

“Phil stop.” Wilbur reaches up, grabbing Phil’s arm, and Phil blinks down at him. Then something stupid and sappy and warm crosses his face, and Wilbur wrinkles his nose. “Dumbass.”

“Wil?”

“Oh, look, you woke the baby,” Technoblade mumbles.

“Hey, good morning, Toms.” Wilbur curls closer to his baby brother, nuzzling his temple. “What’s up?”

“What are you doing?” Tommy yawns widely, fanning his wings in a stretch that sets them shivering. Phil coos in delight. “What time’s it?”

“Too early,” Technoblade says. “Go back to sleep.”

“But we have so much to do,” Phil whispers intently. “Technoblade.”

Technoblade stands up abruptly, stalks around to the other side of the nest, and proceeds to throw the whole of his weight down onto Phil—or, well, probably not the whole of his weight because that would literally be murder, but it sure looks like a significant portion of his weight. Phil wheezes promptly and happily. 

Technoblade sprawls out on top of him and reaches to preen one limp black wing. “Sleep more,” he rumbles. “All of you.”

Reluctant to be similarly squashed, Wilbur quickly closes his eyes and sleeps more.

The arctic is cold. 

Wilbur knew it would be, logically, but feeling it for himself is something else. He’s layered in at least three different shirts, two pairs of wool socks, and a massive down coat that Phil had pulled from some hidden corner of the ship. He still feels the cold. It creeps along his eyelashes and down his throat, curling in his nostrils when he breathes. 

It’s beautiful.

The Boreas docks in a smooth bay alongside several similar ships, the black ocean waves lapping against her flanks as she settles in for a well-deserved rest. Snow and ice gleam in every direction, the sun glaring off of it in brilliant rays that Wilbur has to squint against. He braces his hands against the ship’s rails, breathing deeply. 

Really, he’s not sure what he expected—a castle, a fortress, a kingdom? Whatever it was, it wasn’t this tiny village on the coast of an endless continent. There are several sturdy houses scattered along the bay’s shores, and a few docks overhanging the water. Farther back there are fields of sheep, and caribou, and heavy brown bison interspersed with great evergreens.

Where is the militia? Wilbur wonders. Where is the empire?

“Welcome home,” Phil says, smiling down at him. “Pretty, isn’t it?”

Wilbur nods, chewing his bottom lip. It’s already chapped from the cold. Tommy huddles next to him, their hands laced together in the pocket of Wilbur’s jacket. He can’t feel Tommy’s skin through the gloves, but it’s enough to have the pressure of their fingers interwoven. The sailors are alight with excited conversation around them, and there’s a crowd gathered on shore to welcome them home, too. 

“Hey, Toms,” Technoblade calls; he’s standing next to the ramp that will lead them to shore, a barrel balanced on one arm and a bleating blue-wooled lamb tucked under the other. “Come help me pack, runt.”

“Okay.” Tommy squeezes Wilbur’s hand, shooting him a knowing look. “I’ll be back.”

Tommy runs after Technoblade, grinning giddily, his cheeks red and windswept as they descend the ramp. He’s still talking, his voice animated as he looks up at Technoblade. Technoblade says something back, his own voice a familiar monotone rumble, and Tommy laughs brightly. They’re both smiling. 

“So,” Phil says, glancing down at him. “Have you decided on a family, Wil?”

Wilbur jams his hands further into his pockets, his shoulders hunched.

“If you need more time, that’s okay,” Phil adds. “Whatever your decision, I’ll support it. You know what Technoblade and I want, but this is your life.”

Wilbur is out of folders. There wasn’t a single family he wanted, no matter how perfect they seemed on paper. Even when Phil read a few of the biographies to him, it had left a sour taste in his mouth. None of them had been right. Wilbur’s not sure any family ever will be. Something is damaged in him—something no family will ever be able to fix.

Wilbur’s made his peace with that.

But he’s here, in the artic, and he has to go somewhere until he’s an adult. He’s not going to drag Tommy out into this desolate wilderness. He’s not going to let his baby brother starve or freeze to death. He’s going to swallow his pride and his fear and he’s going to do what’s best for them.

“Can I stay with you?” Wilbur asks, quietly, not meeting Phil’s eyes. “Just for a little while.”

Just until you get tired of me. Just until you get fed up. Just until you leave.

Phil’s wings spread, feathers fluffing, and Wilbur leans into his side. A hand comes to rest on his shoulder, squeezing gently. “Yeah, mate,” Phil says, his voice equally quiet. “Yeah, you stay as long as you like.”

“Wilbur!” Tommy shouts, waving madly from the shore. “Wil, come on, let’s go home—Technoblade has dogs!”

Phil glances down at him. “You think you’re ready?”

“No,” Wilbur says, and doesn’t think he’ll ever be. “Let’s go.”

Chapter Text

The soil is rich and dark, imported directly from the southern continent, and it smells like warmth and life and small growing things. Technoblade is tempted to shove his whole snout into the crate and wallow. He won’t, obviously, because he is a big mature piglin. He’ll just—take a little handful of it, and rub it between his fingers. 

Eat it.

oh man i bet it tastes like worms

Guys please don’t tell Techno to eat worms

EXTRA PROTEIN??

That’s insects, not worms, dumbass.

okay but im pretty sure worms have protein too right

What even are worms honestly?

wiggly guts

F in the chat for worms

F

F

F

Technoblade very decisively does not eat dirt, or worms, and instead stands up to dust his hands off on his pants. He settles the lid back onto the crate of soil, then turns to look over his newly planted seedlings. Each row is carefully labeled, neatly organized, and freshly fertilized. Their neighbors had done their best to keep the crops and livestock tended in his absence, but they could hardly be blamed for lacking Technoblade’s potato prowess. It’s what he’s known for, after all.

So he’d had to start from seedling, in this greenhouse, but he’s rather more content with his variety this time around anyway: russet, red, yellow, fingerling, and sweet potatoes abound. He’d bought several new cultivars on their journey south, and he’s excited to try them. He picks up his watering can and hums under his breath—one of Wilbur’s tunes, he thinks—as he waters the seedlings. Once the soil is soaked through, he covers the rows with a tarp to keep them warm.

Satisfied that his potatoes are properly tended, he steps out of the greenhouse and stretches. The sun hangs high in the sky, prickling warmly on his skin despite the frigid air. He burrows a little more snugly into his sweater and plods through the snow to the stables, crunching a well-packed path under his boots. The stable doors creak open, and warm air sinks over him. The animals snort and stamp their greetings, and he waves lazily at them.

OHMYGOD CARL

CARL!!!

Holy shit I love him.

carlcarlcarlcarlcarl

Carl tosses his head as Technoblade approaches, his ears swiveling forward. Technoblade cups his muzzle, feeling the tickle of his whiskers and the warm puffs of his breath. Carl whickers softly to him, lipping his palm. 

“Hey, old boy,” Technoblade says, reaching up to stroke his neck. “How are you?”

Carl, predictably, does not respond. He only strains his neck over the stall door, snuffling noisily at Technoblade’s pockets. Greedy thing. Technoblade chuckles and leans back, pulling a carrot out of his jacket and offering it to his spoiled bastard of a horse. The root crunches crisply between the flats of Carl’s teeth. 

Technoblade gathers his grooming supplies and puts Carl in the crossties. He gives the gelding a quick once-over with the curry comb and the hard brush, then checks his hooves and combs through his mane and tail. Only once that’s done does he turn Carl out to pasture, letting him go with a fond pat on the shoulder. Phil’s mare receives the same treatment, and she runs whinnying after Carl as soon as he lets her. Once they’re out of the way, Technoblade mucks their stalls and refills their hay nets and water troughs.

The chickens are next, and then the bison, and then the sheep—and if Technoblade spends a little longer than necessary petting one particular blue-wooled lamb, well, no one’s around to judge him. Friend doesn’t seem to mind, in any case, bleating robustly as he butts his head into Technoblade’s legs. He’s grown large enough to eat, now, but Technoblade is under no delusions that they’ll actually butcher him. Friend is a pet and make no mistake.

The dogs bay as Technoblade makes his way towards their kennels, next. He sits down with them and strokes their thick fur, letting them climb into his lap and lick his face. They’re warm, and solid, and overall just very good dogs. The tags of their collars chime brightly as they move, playbowing and wagging their tails at him. He feeds and waters them, too, and then cleans their runs while they devour the kibble in their bowls. 

Technoblade’s attention is arrested, then, by a very familiar voice. 

phil?

IT’S PHIL!!!

EEEEEEE

yo phil za !!!! the man the myth the legend

Okay but what is he…doing???

rip tommy

UM WHY IS HE THAT HIGH UP

Tommy is perched, very precariously, on the roof of their two-story cabin. Phil stands below him, arms and wings both spread. He’s calling something to Tommy, but the spirits in Technoblade’s ears are crescendoing over each other too loudly for him to make out his bondmates’ words. He walks towards them rather more quickly than he usually does, and huffs his disapproval at Phil. 

“Oh, hey, Tech,” Phil says, blinking innocently at him. “What’s up?”

“Techno! Watch this!”

Tommy jumps off of the fucking roof, and Technoblade yelps in alarm and lunges for him. The nestling manages to slow himself with some frantic flapping, but it’s not nearly enough. He slams into Technoblade’s chest, and Technoblade wheezes in relief. Oh gods. Oh gods. He does not take enough anxiety medication for this.

holy shit he could have died!!!!

CRACKED HIS SKULL OPEN BROKE HIS WINGS SNAPPED HIS NECK

piglets need to be inside in the bastion IN THE BASTION

Not safe that’s not safe oh boy that’s sure not safe!

“What,” Technoblade says, very carefully keeping his voice calm, “the fuck.”

“Well, how else is he gonna learn?” Phil laughs, scooping Tommy out of his arms and cooing. “You did so good, big man. That was at least a second slower than last time.”

Technoblade breathes deeply and tries to settle the shrieking in his head. They’re elytrians. This is what they do. They jump off of high shit and give Technoblade heart attacks and laugh about it. Besides that, Tommy is fully fledged now. If Phil didn’t teach him, he’d try to teach himself—and that would be so much worse.

Technoblade exhales, long and slow, and pinches the bridge of his snout. “You two are gonna kill me one of these days,” he says.

“Technoblade never dies,” Phil says, hip-checking him.

“But he might get a few more gray hairs,” Technoblade grouses.

Tommy giggles, reaching out for Technoblade, and Technoblade steals him back from Phil. He snuffles through the nestling’s hair, scenting him for comfort; he smells reassuringly alive, bloodwarm and sweaty and vibrant. He doesn’t sit still for long—he never does—and when he starts to squirm, Technoblade sets him down. His boots squeak on the snow, and he runs back towards the house.

“I’m gonna go again,” he says, and Phil offers him two thumbs up. 

again?! what no—

If he messes up, he’ll die. He’ll die and it’ll be your fault because you didn’t stop him.

BROKEN WINGS BROKEN NECK BROKEN BROKEN BROKEN

get him grab him keep him inside keep him safe keep—

Technoblade?

wait is that him?

TOMMY?

Hey, that’s Tommy.

everybody shut up, shut up, tommy’s talking!! i can’t hear him!!

Runt, Technoblade thinks back to his bondmate, watching as Tommy bursts back out onto the roof. His wings are bright against the white backdrop of the arctic, their down finally replaced by a spread of feathers in elegant crimson. Be careful.

You worry too much.

Hum.

C’mon, it’s fun, Big T. Watch me!

Tommy jumps again, and manages to catch an updraft for almost two seconds. He shrieks in delight, and Phil springs forward to catch him when he gets too close to the ground. The both of them chirp at each other, blatant bird delight, and fluff their feathers. 

ooooh my god that’s cute

THEY’RE SO FUCKING FLUFFY I WANT TO HUG THEM FOREVER

Aw, they’re happy.

i'm,,melting,,

“Yeah, okay,” Technoblade says, reaching out to ruffle his bondmates’ hair. They both grin up at him, blue eyes bright. “That’s pretty cool. You’re doin’ good, Toms.”

“A few more weeks and he’ll be flying loops around me,” Phil says, setting Tommy down so he can run his ridiculous energy off. “But, hey, you know what else is important for flying?”

“What?” Tommy asks, crouching and packing snow into a lumpy ball. 

Technoblade makes a small but tactical retreat, shielding himself behind Phil.

“Lunch,” Phil says, and then shrieks when a snowball hits him in the mouth.

One breathless snowball fight later (Phil won, but only because of aerial advantage), the three of them trudge back into the cabin. They stomp the snow off of their boots and shake it out of their coats, still laughing. Phil has lunch ready and keeping warm over the fireplace—beef stew, with meat from their own bison and vegetables from their own garden.

“Why don’t you go grab Wil?” Phil suggests, setting bowls out on the kitchen table.

Technoblade obediently marches up the stairs and to the boys’ bedroom, rapping his knuckles against the door. “Wilbur?”

“Come in.”

Technoblade shoulders the door open, ducking inside. Wilbur hunches over the desk near the corner of the room, tracing letters in one of the workbooks his tutor had given him last week. A pile of similar books—already finished, Technoblade is sure—occupies the corner of the desk. The human doesn’t even look up as Technoblade enters, far too focused on completing the delicate curve of a letter. The room smells like stale air and disquiet. 

“Have you been workin' on those all morning?” Technoblade asks, arching his eyebrows.

“Yeah.” Wilbur finally turns, scowling at him. “What? Am I not allowed or something?”

Technoblade raises his hands in surrender. “‘course you’re allowed, just—come on, take a break. It’s lunchtime.”

“I’ll be down in a minute.”

“Food’ll get cold.”

“I said I’ll be there, okay?”

Technoblade grunts and retreats, closing the door behind himself.

It’s—hard, with Wilbur. It’s hard with Tommy, too, but with Wilbur especially. At least Tommy is friendly, and easy to make to happy, and unlike to step on Technoblade’s tail if he’s pissed. Wilbur is—hum. It’s not that Technoblade doesn’t like him, exactly, but it had been easier before. It had been easier when it was only Technoblade-and-Phil, and not Technoblade-and-Phil-and-Tommy-and-Wilbur. Technoblade knows where he stands with Phil. He knows who he is with Phil.

With Tommy, and with Wilbur especial, he’s not so certain.

Technoblade likes to think that he’s a man with simple desires—books, potatoes, and global anarchy, not necessarily in that order—and so to have his world turned on its head like this is—hard. He wants it, of course. He couldn’t imagine a world in which he’d left his baby bondmates to fend for themselves, without bastion or sounder. It’s unthinkable. He wants them here, under his roof, under his eye, where he can keep watch and ascertain their safety. He wants them to want that, too.

I can’t believe he still hates us. Can’t he see we’re trying?

cut him some slack, guys. this is all brand new for him.

LIKE ANYBODY COULD TRUST A BANISHED BRUTE

Technoblade sighs, reaching up to touch his scarred ear. The skin is rough, indented in the shape of his own grandsow’s fangs. Well-earned scar, that—one of his most well-earned, barring only the paltry cut across his hip that Phil’s murderer had struck. Technoblade had returned that scar tenfold and then some. He still remembers the crunch of hollow birdbone between his teeth, and the royal blood pooling hot in his mouth. 

Bite.

BITE BITE BITE BITE.

guys there’s nothing to bite chill out

BITECRUNCHCRACKKILL

Technoblade trudges back downstairs, sliding into his seat at the table. If he bites into his stew a little more aggressively than usual, well—no one mentions it. Unfortunately, Phil is too good of a cook. The meat is tender, as are the vegetables, and there’s little to work his jaw against.

“Where’s Wil?” Phil asks, his brow furrowing.

“He’s comin’ down in a minute,” Technoblade says. “He’s just finishin’ his workbook.”

“He’s been working on those all morning.” Phil frowns, setting his hands on his hips.

“And they’re so boooring,” Tommy whines, draping himself across the table.

Phil points a wooden ladle at him, eyebrow arched. “Have you finished yours, mister?” 

Tommy seems to realize his appetite, very suddenly, because he stuffs his mouth full of stew and doesn’t respond. Phil sighs fondly, setting the ladle aside and ruffling their littlest bondmate’s hair. Tommy leans into the touch, kicking his feet happily beneath the table.

“I’ll give Wil a few more minutes,” Phil says, halfway to himself, as he cards fingers through Tommy’s hair. “But he has to eat something.”

Technoblade picks his bowl up, tipping the rest of it into his mouth before grabbing seconds. He knows Phil doesn’t mean it as a slight to him—he knows, Phil would never— but it still stings. Wilbur’s taken to Phil more quickly than he’s taken to Technoblade, and Phil succeeds so often with him where Technoblade fails. It’s only fair, he supposes. Phil is kind, and gentle, and unfailingly patient, and Technoblade is—

Well. 

“Hey.” Phil touches his shoulder, and Technoblade glances at him. “You good?”

Undoubtedly, Phil can sense Technoblade’s turmoil—so Technoblade takes a deep, grounding breath and nods.

“Really?” Phil arches an eyebrow.

“Really,” Technoblade says. “I’m okay, Phil.”

“Alright. Well, I’m gonna go grab Wil. You boys eat as much as you like.”

“Can we have dessert?”

“Finish your stew first, Toms.”

“Mm, okay.” Tommy digs back into his stew, looking towards Technoblade when Phil disappears upstairs. “Techno, can I go play with the dogs after lunch?”

“Are your workbooks finished? Macy is coming back tomorrow. She’ll want to see you’ve done them over the weekend.”

Tommy frowns, stirring his stew. “I’ll finish them.”

“Do you want me to help you?”

“I guess.” Tommy shrugs. “They’re just boring. I don’t want to sit and trace letters.”

“Hum.” Technoblade pauses, and then he stands up. “I have an idea.”

“What?”

“Finish your stew and meet me outside with your workbook.”

“Wha—okay!” Tommy tips his own bowl back, slurping quickly. 

Technoblade, meanwhile, shucks back into his coat and boots. He breathes deeply as he steps outside, the cold air sinking into his lungs—it’s fresh and bright and nothing at all like the world he was born in. The sky above is pale and cloudless; the north wind that brushes his face smells clean and cold. Floof barks at him from her kennel, and he waves to her.

Tommy joins him barely a minute later, eyes wide. “What are we doing?”

“We,” Technoblade says, “are making a snowman army.”

Tommy bounces on his toes, wings fluttering with excitement. “What do you want me to do?”

Technoblade takes Tommy’s workbook, sitting down and tucking his tail into his lap so it doesn’t brush the snow underfoot. He turns to the last unfinished section, tapping his hand on the untraced letters there. Maybe this won’t tune Tommy’s fine motor skills, but it will keep him engaged and memorizing the shapes—which, Technoblade thinks, is just fine for now. 

“Roll a snowball, but roll in the shape of an A. You remember what A looks like?”

“Uuuuh.”

“Here, like this.” 

Together, Tommy and Technoblade roll out a small but noble snowman army. Tommy rolls each snowball in the shapes of letters, slowly packing more snow onto it. Once the snowballs are large enough, Technoblade helps him to stack them up. By the time they’ve finished the workbook, they have five dashing snowman soldiers.

“Now they need names,” Technoblade decides. “Whatcha think, kid?”

“Sam,” Tommy says, pointing at the first snowman.

“Great. Write it on him.”

“Oh.” Tommy’s brow furrows, and he stops in front of Sam the Snowman. “Hrm.”

“That’s S-A-M.”

Tommy mutters the letters under his breath as he traces them into Sam’s snowy chest with one gloved finger. The letters are clumsy and crooked, but legible. “Like that?”

“Like that,” Technoblade says, chuffing in approval. “What about this one?”

“Uh—Max.”

“You know how to spell that?”

“Yeah! It’s M-A-X.”

“Very good.” Technoblade chuffs again, his tail swaying happily behind him. His bondmates are the most clever bondmates. “Can we name the next one Barbara?”

“Barbara, seriously?”

“C’mon, sound it out.”

“I’ll sound you out, bitch.”

Technoblade snorts in amusement, flopping back in the snow. It isn’t as good as dirt for wallowing (or, gods above, actual real mud), but it’s satisfactory. He rolls around in it while he waits for Tommy to spell the name out; snowflakes work their way between his gloves and the sleeves of his coat, melting against his wrists. 

COLD ICK

I like how the sky looks from down here. I feel small.

i miss dirt

“There,” Tommy says, as soon as he’s finished. “B-A-R-B-U-R-A.”

“I mean,” Technoblade says, scratching his chin. “Could be. Usually it’s B-A-R- B-A-R-A.”

“Eh. Close enough.”

“I figure so.”

“What are you two doing out here?” Phil asks, surveying their snowman militia from the porch. He climbs up to perch on the rails, his wings hanging behind him like great sails. “New decor, huh? I like it.”

“Hells yeah,” Tommy says, flopping into the snow beside Technoblade to make a snow angel. This activity involves copious amounts of squirming, flapping, and just generally covering Technoblade in more snow than he would prefer. “I finished my workbook.”

“Oh, good job.” Phil chirps his own approval. “Tech, you’re not too cold?”

Technoblade sits up, shaking snow out of his hair and off of his shoulders. His hide is made to protect him from fire and tusk and blade—not cold. His wrists are now thoroughly wet, and his fingers stiff even through his gloves. “Getting there.”

“Come inside, come inside. Tommy, mate, didn’t you want dessert?”

Technoblade happily devours the vanilla cake Phil serves them once they’re back inside. Wilbur is at the table, finally, making his way through a bowl of stew while Tommy talks excitedly about their snowmen. Phil stands behind him, a small smile on his face as he brushes the snow off of those little red feathers and neatens their rows. Tommy fluffs up, inviting further preening, and Phil obliges. 

“So, I’ve been thinking,” Phil says, sifting through Tommy’s coverts, “Wil’s birthday is coming up in a couple of months. Do we want to do something to celebrate?”

Wilbur shrugs, like it doesn’t matter to him—and, honestly, Technoblade thinks it might not—but Tommy lights up, spinning around in his seat. Phil looks sadly after one half-preened wing as it’s yanked from his grip. “Yes!” Tommy says immediately. “Holy shit yes. Can we—we could—an orchestra? You’d like that, right, Wil?”

“I don’t care,” Wilbur says. “We don’t have to do anything.”

“Do you want to do something?” Phil asks gently. “We don’t have to, if it makes you uncomfortable, but I’d like to.”

Wilbur shrugs again, fingers tightening on his spoon. “I—we could do something, I mean—an orchestra sounds fun.”

Technoblade sits up straight. That’s something he can do. He knows all the best orchestras, and he can have at least three brought here by ship before Wilbur’s birthday next month. He’s got enough gold that convincing them to come shouldn’t be a problem, and if it is—well, he’s got tusks, too. 

“Thirteen is a big year for humans, right?” Technoblade asks, pricking his ears. “You’ll be a teenager.”

“Wil you’re so old,” Tommy exclaims gleefully, climbing into his brother’s lap. “Have you started a retirement fund yet?”

“Oh, fuck off.”

“I know what my present’s gonna be, then,” Tommy says, cackling.

“We could have fireworks,” Technoblade suggests, thinking of the war parties he had attended when he was a juvenile, “and a feast. We could invite your friends from the ship. Maybe Puffy and Niki and the kids, too. If I sent the invitation now, they could sail over on The Wanderer. She’s a fair bit faster than The Boreas is.”

“Tubbo!” Tommy shrieks, grabbing Wilbur’s shoulders. “Big Man Tubbo!”

“Well,” Wilbur says, “I guess that decides that.”

“So it’s a yes?” Phil looks hopefully at him.

Wilbur hesitates, looks at Tommy, and then nods. “Yeah,” he says. “Sure. Sounds fun.”

Technoblade swings his ax, and wood splinters beneath it with a satisfying crack. The log splits evenly down the middle, and he tosses both pieces into his amassing pile.  He grasps another log, braces it on the tree stump that serves as his working table, and splits it down the middle crack. The smell of sap and fresh juniper tickles his nose. 

What if it was a head??

head goes crack

CRACK CRACK CRACK

Crack their skulls split their bones suck the marrow out

MAKE THEM PAY

Technoblade sucks his teeth, places another log, and brings the ax down. A warm, pleasant burn runs through his shoulders and down his back. He breathes through it and focuses on the weight of the ax, the bite of the cold, the scent of wood. 

“Technoblade!”

Technoblade flinches, and hides it with a quick turn of his head. He pricks his ears, snuffling the air—cinnamon and clove and human. “Margaret,” he says. “Hullo.”

Margaret waves to him from the road, nearly tripping over the cat that winds around her ankles as she approaches. “Hey there. How are you and Phil today?”

Kill her.

take the ax and put it through her brain

ON OUR TERRITORY NEAR OUR SOUNDER THIS FUCKING BITCH—

holy shit kill her before she kills us !!!

Technoblade puts the ax down.

“We’re good,” he says. “What can I do for you?”

“Actually, I wanted to see if I could buy some of this wood off of you,” Margaret says, stopping in front of him and nodding towards the logs. “That is, if you have enough to spare. I’m expanding our fences and saw you chopping and thought—well, now, there’s an opportunity.”

“I could sell,” Technoblade says, considering. They’ve more than enough firewood to last them the month, and enough to repair their own buildings if they need to. Besides, he’ll need the gold to prepare for Wilbur’s birthday party, and—well, when has Technoblade ever said no to gold? “How much do you want? I’m plannin' to go logging again tomorrow.”

“A couple cord ought to do it,” Margaret says. 

“I can have them bundled for you tomorrow,” Technoblade says, “if you want to stop by then.”

what? no!

OUR TERRITORY IT’S OURS IT’S OURS IT’S OURS GET OUT!!!!

She’ll kill your piglets she’ll kill your bonded she’ll kill them all

TAKE THE AX AND FUCKING USE IT

“Tomorrow sounds good,” Magaret says cheerfully. “I’ll see you then, okay? Tell Phil I said hi.”

“Will do,” Technoblade says, lifting his hand in a wave as she makes her way back towards her own property. The cat follows, mrrowing needily in her footsteps. “Have a nice day.”

Technoblade waits until she’s well out of sight before picking up the ax again.

“Did you have a good day?” Phil murmurs.

“I did,” Technoblade says, sorting gently through the dark coverts on Phil’s wing. He swipes a thumb over the preening gland near the join of the wing, then drags oil over the feathers. “We should be set on wood for the month, and I started new potatoes.”

“Mm, that’s good.” Phil peeks back at him from where his face is pillowed on his arms; he’s sprawled belly-down in his nest, wings splayed and fluffed for Technoblade’s attentions. A tiny, pleased warble catches in his throat when Technoblade pulls a loose feather. “The boys are doing good on their reading, aren’t they?”

“Tommy finds it boring.”

“That was creative, today, with the snowmen. You’re a good teacher.”

Technoblade grunts noncommittally, shifting his fingers to the secondary feathers on the trailing edge of Phil’s wing. “Macy needs to give them less homework,” he says. “Wilbur works too much on it, and Tommy gets stressed because he feels like he’s not workin' enough.”

“Wilbur asks her for more,” Phil sighs, burying his face against his arms again. “I talked to him today, before lunch. He’s—worried. I think he thinks that, in the event we do kick him out, he’ll need to know how to read to get a job.”

“Mm. That’s logical.”

“But it’s not. We’re not gonna kick him out, Techno.”

“I know that, and you know that, but he doesn’t,” Technoblade says, shrugging. “It’s logical for him to prepare for the worst. How d’you think he stayed alive for so long? Kid’s smart.”

“I wish he didn’t feel like he had to do that.”

“It’s not your fault, Phil.” Technoblade tucks a primary feather into alignment, then runs the nail of his thumb down the vane to straighten the barbs. “He’ll learn. It’s just gonna take time, and we got plenty of that if nothin’ else.”

A soft knock on the door interrupts them, and Technoblade pauses to call an invitation. Tommy slips into the room shortly after, trotting over and inserting himself into Phil’s nest. Phil chirps a greeting, lifting one wing for Tommy to nestle beneath. 

soft

OH SOFT

it’s dadza

Dadzaaaaa!

he’s dadding™

“Hello, little one,” Phil says. “Couldn’t sleep?”

Tommy burrows up under Phil’s wing, his own folded tightly to fit. “Nuh-uh.”

“Did you tell Wilbur where you were going?”

“Yeah,” Tommy says, and sighs. “He’s still studying his stupid schoolwork.”

“Still?” Phil frowns. 

“He’s got the light on and I can’t sleep with it,” Tommy grumbles.

“I’ll go talk to him,” Phil says, bracing his hands beneath himself to push up. 

Technoblade stops him with one hand between his shoulders, pressing back down; Phil is small and not very strong by piglin standards, so it’s easy. “Wait ‘till I’m finished,” he grunts.

“Techno,” Phil sighs.

“I’m almost done.” Technoblade preens a little more quickly and diligently, smoothing out his eldest bondmate’s feathers. “You can’t be takin’ care of everybody else if you’re not takin’ care of yourself, old man.”

Phil relents, smashing his face into a pillow with a tiny exhale. 

“Me next?” Tommy asks hopefully. 

“You next,” Technoblade agrees. It’s easier, now he has his adult feathers. Technoblade was never very good at preening the chickdown, though he did his best. He finishes Phil’s wings, then leans back to allow him up. “Alright. Go grab your nestling, then.”

Phil sits up, warbling his gratitude, and Technoblade ruffles his hair.

sleepy warm good bird

Wait why is he leaving??

STAY HERE STAY SAFE STAY

don’t leave me

“Be right back,” Phil says, sliding out of the nest. 

Technoblade grunts his acknowledgement, then turns his attention to Tommy’s wings. They’re already nice and neat—Phil always preens them before bedtime—but Technoblade understands that it’s a comfort thing, even though he doesn’t understand quite how. Elytrians are a strange breed. He supposes piglins must seem equally strange to them. How odd, that they should be bonded. Spirits’ will. 

Humming softly, he cards his fingers through little red feathers. Tommy’s wings are an oddity even among elytrians—Technoblade’s lived a long time (and several of those years surrounded by the birdfolk) but he’s rarely seen wings so bright. They’re a color reserved for special families, for royalty and regency. 

Technoblade thinks about Tommy’s family, and he wonders.

“Hey, runt,” he says, scratching gently at the down close to the joint of Tommy’s wing.

“Hrm?”

“You really don’t remember anything about your parents?”

Tommy turns his head, looking sleepily at him. “Nuh-uh. Jus’ Wil.”

Phil’s of a mind that Tommy had imprinted on Wilbur, and Technoblade could hardly argue. He doesn’t know the first thing about imprinting, save what Phil’s told him. But according to Tommy and Wilbur, they’ve been inseparable since they met—when Tommy was four, and still young enough to imprint. Addin’ that to the fact Tommy doesn’t recall a parent of any kind, and—

Well, Wilbur’s the nearest thing he’s got.

Doesn’t exactly help with the whole finding his family thing, though. Technoblade really doesn’t think it’s necessary (wouldn’t they have been looking for Tommy, if they cared enough to deserve him?) but Phil worries about it. Phil worries about a lot of stuff. It’s bad for his health. Matter of fact, Technoblade can feel him worryin’ away right now—probably at Wilbur.

Anxious, fragile things are Technoblade’s bondmates.

“What about you?” Tommy mumbles, his eyes closing. “Do you have parents?”

“Mm.” Technoblade folds one wing gently, nestling it along Tommy’s side before reaching for the other. “I did. They’re dead, now.”

“Oh.”

“I’m old,” Technoblade says wryly, “even for a piglin.”

“Do you remember them?”

“My sow, I do,” Technoblade says, though he does his best not to remember most days. “Can’t say as I ever met my sire.”

Tommy hums softly, noncommittally, and lets the subject drop.

A moment later, the bedroom door creaks open again, and two sets of footsteps trail in. Wilbur flops down next to Tommy without fanfare, and Tommy chirps happily at him. Phil settles in on Technoblade’s other side, curling up and yawning widely. Technoblade scents the air for his bondmates’ moods—there’s a lingering trace of sour anxiety, but it isn’t overwhelming. Mostly they just smell tired. 

“Go to sleep,” Technoblade says, reaching out to run a hand over Phil’s hair. “All of you.”

Technoblade dreams of war.

He dreams of clotted mud beneath heavy boots and new blisters on his palms. He dreams of marching songs and war drums. He dreams of bloodsmell and rotting corpses still in their armor and a pair of wings overhead, vast and dark and more terrible than the End. 

It is not a nightmare.

Technoblade swings his ax, and the wood splinters. 

“Technoblade!” Margaret calls cheerfully, plucking her way over from the road. Her cat winds around her legs again, its tail high and proud. She’s holding a small wooden box. It smells like something sweet and baked. “Hey, good morning.”

KILL HER

rip her throat out drive your tusks in warm to the teeth

The ax, Technoblade. Use the ax.

Technoblade sets the ax aside.

“Good morning,” he says, his own tail held low and twitching. The cat eyes him warily. “Your cords are up next to the house. You can pick them up whenever you like; only leave the gold with Phil. I told him to expect you.”

“Oh, awesome.” Margaret smiles. “Thanks a million. Can I leave the muffins with him, then?”

“If you like,” Technoblade says, his shoulders loosening some. “Thanks, Marg.”

“Hey, whatever are neighbors for, big guy? Let me know if you need anything.”

Love is war, and Technoblade has made a grave tactical error.

“‘cause it’s stupid,” Tommy shouts, flinging a handful of colorful candies down on the kitchen floor. “Ugh, Wilbur!”

“It’s not stupid; you’re stupid,” Wilbur snarls back, clutching his own handful of candy tightly. 

“I—am— not!” Tommy shrieks.

“Boys,” Technoblade rumbles, pressing his ears back in worry. Where is Phil? Technoblade can smell him all over the house, but the scent isn’t fresh. He must be outside, which is the worst place for him to be because Technoblade needs him. “Let’s talk about this.”

“Well you’re acting stupid,” Wilbur shoots back, heedless of Technoblade’s comment. “If you eat all of this shit you’ll get sick. We’re saving it for later.”

“I’m not gonna eat all of it! I only wanted a few bites and you’re being a selfish prick.”

“It’s not selfish, it’s smart. Maybe you’ll learn the difference one of these days.”

“We don’t need to be smart anymore, smartass.”

Wilbur jams his own candy into his pockets. “Easy for you to say,” he mutters, kneeling to scoop the rest of the candy off of the floor. “You’re a baby. You rely on everyone else for everything.”

Technoblade hears Tommy’s tiny milkteeth grind in his jaw. He scents the air again, desperate for a snatch of Phil’s comforting scent, but he can only smell the runts—the sticky-sweet of their candy and the sharp spice of their anger. Technoblade has faced soldiers down with less fear.

“Runts,” he tries again, stepping forward. “It’s alright. We can talk this out.”

That’s what Phil would do, right? He would sit down with them, and pet their hair, and talk.

“If it wasn’t for me you’d be dead,” Tommy spits, and Wilbur goes still. “If it wasn’t for Phil and Technoblade we’d both be dead. So, yeah, I rely on people, ‘cause I’m not stupid enough to think I can do everything by myself and then die because of it.”

“You know what? Forget it,” Wilbur mutters, his scent souring. He turns his pockets inside out and spills all of the candy across the floor again. “Eat it all. Make yourself sick. See if I give a shit.”

Wilbur storms towards the stairs, and Tommy makes a throttled furious noise. 

“Toms,” Technoblade says, reaching for Tommy—

“Fuck off, Technoblade,” Tommy snaps, his wings flaring and bristling up in a pale imitation of an elytrian threat display. “Leave me alone.”

Technoblade draws his hand back, tucking it to his chest. Oh. Oh he really needs Phil. Technoblade is good at many things but rearing runts is not one of them. Then Tommy stalks towards the front door, in only pants and a sweater and no coat, and—Technoblade growls a warning. It’s soft and short, a warning growl only, but it still brings Tommy to a stumbling stop.

“Stay inside,” Technoblade says shortly. 

Tommy makes another wordless noise of fury, but redirects himself to the living room. 

Technoblade sighs heavily, his ears and tail both drooping. He kneels to scrape the candy off of the floor, depositing it all in the wastebasket. In his chest, he can feel Phil’s worry rising in response to his own. He nudges forward a wash of confusion, hoping that Phil will see it for the plea it is, and kneels to scrub the sticky mess off of the floorboards. That’s where he is when Phil returns several minutes later—elbows-deep in a sudsy bucket and clutching a sponge. 

“Techno?” Phil asks, his brow furrowed.

“Mm,” Technoblade says, and then sits back on his heels with another deep sigh.

“Is something wrong?” Phil comes forward to kneel beside him, wings spread for balance. “You’re upset.”

“It’s the kids,” Technoblade says, wiping his hands off on his pants. “I gave them candy.”

“Oh. Sugar rush?”

“No. They fought over it.”

Phil scratches his chin. “They’re usually so good at sharing. What was different this time?”

“Wilbur wanted to keep it, and Tommy wanted to eat it right away,” Technoblade says, shrugging. “They couldn’t agree. They said some mean things, and now they’re both pissed at each other.”

“What did you say?”

Technoblade looks aside. “Nothin' useful,” he mutters.

“Hey, it’s okay, mate.” Phil claps him on the shoulder, then straightens up. “I’ll talk to them.”

useless

NO WONDER THE RUNTS HATE YOU

You’re just like your sow, Technoblade.

why can’t you do anything right?

Phil trusts you with them.

AND YOU ALWAYS GOTTA FUCK IT UP.

“Right,” Technoblade says, staring at his reflection in the murky water. “Thanks, Phil.”

It’s not that Technoblade doesn’t want kids, it’s just that—

Technoblade is a strategist, and he knows a losing battle when he sees one.

Tommy crawls into their nest late that evening, a half-eaten seedcake clutched in one hand, and Technoblade curls protectively around him. He swipes his tongue over the runt’s golden hair, smoothing out the tangles, and inhales the warm safe piglet scent of him. It soothes the anxious thing in his chest that constantly cries for his sounder’s presence, their safety, their scent. 

“Little one?” he murmurs, snuffling at Tommy’s small white throat. “What is it?”

“Nothin’,” Tommy mumbles, and tightens his grip on Technoblade. “I missed you.”

Ah, Technoblade thinks. Apology accepted, then.

“I missed you too,” Technoblade rumbles, rubbing his cheek against the top of Tommy’s head—covering him in sounderscent, saying to anyone with a clever nose that this is mine and be warned a brute claims this piglet and he is of sounder-family-sire so watch where you step.

“About the candy, I—” Tommy whispers, and the words stick in his throat. His scent sharpens with distress, and that just won’t do. 

“Mm. Don’t worry about it.” Technoblade nuzzles him again, tail flopping in lazy pacification.

“It’s just—Wilbur is so—” Tommy makes a frustrated sound, his wings tensing. 

Technoblade chuffs, low and warm, and Tommy might not be a proper piglin by any sense of the word but he still settles against Technoblade’s chest. Technoblade has never been the best at words, or gentling, or emotions, but—he pets his runt’s hair, purring a comfortsong low in his throat the way Tachmahall used to for him when he was young and frightened.

“Never mind it,” Technoblade insists gently. “Wilbur is doing his best, too, littlest one.”

“I know. I just wish he’d—” Tommy sighs. Then, in a soft undertone, he adds, “I want him to feel safe and I don’t know how to—I just—he’s so scared all the time, Techno. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.”

“What? No. No, it isn’t you,” Technoblade says, drawing back in surprise. “Never think it.”

“I just want him to feel better.” Tommy blinks furiously, and to Technoblade’s horror there are tears in his eyes. He smells like frightened upset baby and oh gods Technoblade is fucking this up again and where is Phil— he pushes his desperation through their bond, yearning for his eldest bondmate’s advice.

“It will take time,” Technoblade soothes in the meanwhile, purring comfortsong a little louder around the words. “This is a big change for him—for both of you. Only give it time.”

“I’m so tired of waiting,” Tommy says, his breath hitching. “It’s my fault he’s here. It’s my fault he’s so angry. If I had just—”

“You saved his life.”

“I know.” Tommy’s voice cracks, splintering into shards. “I wish it was easier.”

Technoblade curls tightly around him, his tail coiling posessively around the runt’s ankle. He doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t know how to fix this. If only there were an enemy to fight, or a bastion to defend, or a warcry to shout. This is so much safer. This is so much harder. 

“Techno?” The bedroom door creaks open, and Phil peeks inside. “Are you—oh, Toms, baby. Come here—the both of you, come here.”

Phil kneels beside them in the nest, gathering them close, and Technoblade gratefully relinquishes his piglet. Phil croons and coos over Tommy, preening his feathers with deft hands and kissing his forehead. Tommy sobs into his chest, drawing his wings in to be held more closely, and Technoblade kneels up over both of them. He drags them into his lap, soothing them with sounderscent and soft chuffs.

It is so much simpler to win a war, Technoblade thinks, than to win a heart.

“Hey, T?”

“Hm?”

“I’ve been thinking,” Phil says, sitting on the kitchen counter and swinging his legs while Technoblade chops tomatoes. 

“Well, that’s dangerous.”

“Rude.”

“Your mom.”

“What does that even mean?”

“I dunno. Tommy says it a lot.”

“I think you have to—it’s a joke that requires a proper set-up, Tech, you can’t just drop a ‘your mom’ out of nowhere.”

“Watch me.”

“Tsk, no respect these days. What happened to ‘yes, Colonel, no, Colonel,’ huh?” Phil scolds. “Remember that? Good things never last.”

It’s a joke. Technoblade knows it’s a joke. He can feel the anticipation and amusement ebbing from Phil, and his scent is happy sweet, and the words are light, and—it’s a joke, but for some reason it digs claws between Technoblade’s ribs and squeezes. He breathes through it and does his best not to let the feelings filter through their bond. Phil doesn’t need to worry about that when he has nestlings to fuss over.

“So,” Technoblade says, “what were you thinkin' about?”

“Oh! I want to go to Midral,” Phil says, sneaking a bite of tomato from the bowl. “There are some things I need to get for Wilbur’s birthday.”

“Things you have to go all the way to Midral for? That’s a week’s trip.”

“I want fireworks,” Phil whispers conspiratorially, glancing around to make sure the runts aren’t listening in. “Midral makes the best fireworks.”

Technoblade huffs in amusement. “Alright, alright. But can’t we wait a little longer? The kids are only just settling in. I don’t want to go dragging them across the country already. They need to—ah, how do you say—”

Technoblade waves a hand, searching for the proper word in the elytrian language. In his own, there’s a term for it—for the bonding of a piglin to its territory, for the settling in, for the claiming. It is a word that means scenting the bastion, and carving tuskmarks into blackstone, and patrolling the boundaries. It is a word that means making home feel like home.

“They need to feel comfortable here,” Technoblade finishes lamely.

“I agree,” Phil says, “which is why I’m leaving them here with you.”

Technoblade flattens his ears.

“No,” he says immediately.

“What?” Phil glances over at him, clearly taken aback by the sharp response.

“I said no,” Technoblade repeats. “I can’t—Phil, they need to bond with you, too.”

There is a word for this, too. There is a word for the bonding of a piglet to its sounder, to its fellow shoats and elders and brutes. It is the initial bonding that decides loyalty for decades to come. It is the bonding that says this is mine and you are mine and I love you I love you I love you.

(There is a word, too, for the brute that breaks his bonding and turns on his sounder.)

“They have bonded with me,” Phil says, his confusion filtering through their bond. He cocks his head, endearingly birdlike. “We’ve been with them almost six months now. If I left them for a week it wouldn’t be the end of the world.”

This is not true.

“They could spend time with you,” Phil coaxes. “You could take them out to the greenhouses, and help them with their schoolwork when Macy comes. Tommy already likes playing with the dogs, and Wilbur has Friend to play with. Oh! Maybe you could teach them to ride the horses? They’d love that. You guys would have fun.”

fun? is he crazy?

THE PIGLETS ARE OURS. WE COULD PROTECT THEM.

What if we accidentally ate them?

hey guys just to clarify: what the fuck

Tastes like chicken?

DO NOT EAT THE PIGLETS

holy shit didn't think i'd ever hear that but here we are

“No,” Technoblade repeats, frustration seeping into his tone. He lashes his tail and does his best to ignore the spirits' nonsensical clamoring. Blasphemy it may very well be to ignore them, but Technoblade has learned that blasphemy is better than murder. Mostly. “I don’t want you to leave.”

He sounds like a petulant child. Hells, he feels like a petulant child, but—he doesn’t want Phil to leave. He doesn’t want to be left alone with the runts. Doesn’t Phil know that? Doesn’t Phil understand what Technoblade is? Even after all this time, he still thinks Technoblade is some—some soft-bellied sire to be trusted with the care of their sounder’s most vulnerable.

Maybe—maybe, if Technoblade were a very good brute, he could—

But he isn’t.

He is banished. He is spirits-damned. He is dangerous.

“Techno?” Phil asks, his eyes narrowing with concern.

“I’m—going to get more tomatoes,” Technoblade says abruptly, turning for the front door. “You ate too many.”

Phil squawks. “I didn’t! I only ate a few.”

Technoblade shuts the door of the cabin behind himself, sighing to the stars. His breath fogs in front of his snout, curling in dragonish wisps. Oh, he is so very fucked. Phil is going to want to talk about this, because Phil is kind and good and wise and—

Technoblade doesn’t want to talk about it.

Technoblade would rather die, actually, but Phil has never allowed that and Technoblade doubts he’ll start now.

...maybe if he started a war, Phil would forget about it? Hum. Something to think about.

Chapter Text

The world is larger than Technoblade remembers—or, maybe, he’s smaller.

Carefully, he sits up on his cot. The blackstone of the bastion is warm beneath his bare feet, and he quietly tugs on his boots. Around him, he can hear the bubbling of distant lava and the soft, rustling breaths of the other shoats. The air is full of sounderscent, steady and comforting: here at the heart of the bastion, he is as safe as he’s ever been. 

There’s only one thing missing.

where is she?

THEY TOOK HER FROM US

i can’t sleep without her

The monsters will get us if she’s not here.

The spirits are right, Technoblade thinks, as he creeps towards the entrance of the shoat’s den. The spirits are a source of ancient wisdom—isn’t that what Tachmahall says? So, Technoblade thinks, he would be remiss not to take their advice. If the spirits want his sow, Technoblade will do his best to get her for them. He knows from experience that they won’t rest until he does.

Besides, Technoblade has never slept without his sow before. 

It’s colder, without her soft belly and strong arms to nestle against. Even in the harsh heat of the Nether, Technoblade can feel the chill of her absence. He wants her deep rumbling voice to speak to him. He wants her purring comfortsong to him after nightmares. He wants her raspy tongue swiping across his hide, clearing away the lingering remnants of ash and dirt. 

Tachmahall says he’s old enough, now, to be weaned—to not need his sow anymore—but Technoblade is suspicious of this. The other fresh-weaned shoats are all much bigger and older. They stayed with their sows longer than Technoblade was permitted to. He doesn’t think it’s fair. He’d never say that to Tachmahall, of course. He respects her more than that. 

But the thing is—Technoblade didn’t even get a warning. Tachmahall only scooped him out of the farrowing den one afternoon, rumbling aimless comfort to him, and took him to den with the other shoats. His sow hadn’t even said goodbye. She hasn’t come to visit him, either, the way the sows of the other shoats do. She hasn’t brought him a snack, or stopped by to groom him, or claimed him with her scent. 

Technoblade may only be a season old, but even he can tell that this is strange.

So he’ll find his sow, and he’ll ask her, and then maybe she will come and take him back to their farrowing den. Maybe she won’t let him nurse anymore, but she will feed him scraps of fresh meat from her latest kill and she will nibble the fluffs of pale fur behind his ears until he’s sleepy. She’ll scentmark him so everyone in the sounder knows who he belongs to. It will be good. 

Inspired by this imagining, Technoblade trots to the doorway of the shoat’s den. The guards lean against the wall, their swords sheathed at their side. The gold hilts gleam attractively in the low light, and Technoblade pauses a moment to admire the metal. Then he peeks up, at the guards’ faces. Neither looks particularly sleepy. Their tails do not drag, and their ears prick alertly. If there’s one thing a brute takes seriously, it’s the guarding of the sounder—and the young especial. 

Technoblade’s certainly not escaping this way.

Quickly, he retreats to the other side of the den and flares his nostrils. He can smell fresh air trickling in from a corner of the den, and he finds a ventilation grate low on the wall there. He wedges his fingers through the bars and tugs the grate back, then squirms through the opening. That is one nice thing about being smaller than the other shoats, he supposes. 

Once free of the den, Technoblade makes his way towards the outskirts of the bastion. He lifts his snout and scents the way—he can smell every piglin for at least a mile around, and his sow’s scent is easily definable to him. He follows it down halls and winding staircases, scraping his tiny tusks at each turn so he can find his way back. 

It’s a little scary, even Technoblade will admit. He’s never been so far from a den, or so alone. His sounder cherishes him, and always he is tended and protected. This is his first time without someone to guide him. But there will be someone to guide him, once he finds his sow, and this idea renews his determination enough for him to press on. He keeps his ears pricked and his nose alert for any enemy scent, but the bastion is thoroughly defended. 

The farther down he goes, the stronger his sow’s scent becomes. It leads him to an underground portion of the bastion, where the air is cooler and damper. Small rooms fronted with heavy iron bars line the hall. The only light comes from the ominous flickering of torches. Technoblade hesitates, wringing his hands and coiling his tail around his own leg. 

Nervously, he makes a small piglet cry for his sow, and—

She answers.

“Technoblade?” Her voice is confused and worried both. “Is that you?”

Technoblade scurries down the hall, eager to see her after so long alone in this strange part of the bastion, and finds her in one of the small barred rooms. He presses up on his tiptoes, squeaking insistently for her, and she lowers her great bulk to kneel before him. Her gold is gone, and her jewels, but the warmth of her face is unchanged.

“Oh, little love,” she whispers, curling her fingers around the bars and pressing her snout through them. Technoblade touches his snout to hers, tail whipping happily. “What are you doing here?”

Technoblade snuffles a response, basking in her scent, and reaches up. But she does not scoop him into her arms the way she usually does—she can’t, he realizes, with the bars in the way. He pins back his ears in displeasure. He is small enough to fit through, he thinks, if he squeezes. He squirms forward, wedging one shoulder through the bars, and—

“Technoblade, no,” his sow says, growling a stern warning at him.

Technoblade leaps back, whining apologetically. 

“Oh, love.” His sow’s ears droop, and she chuffs. “I’m not mad. But it isn’t safe here. However did you get out of the den?”

Reassured by his sow’s gentle voice, Technoblade presses his snout to the bars again. They’re a bitter chill against his skin, but it’s worth it to be so close to her. He reaches through, and she grasps his hand in one of her own. Her scars and calloused palms are familiar, and he purrs. It’s a thready, rattling noise—but it makes his sow smile nonetheless.

“You’re too clever by half,” his sow says, and squeezes his hand. “Tachmahall will have to keep a closer eye on you.”

Technoblade makes another piglet cry for her, demanding, and starts to wedge his shoulder through the bars again. This time his sow only sighs, scooting back to let him through with a defeated look. He squeaks victoriously as he pops through the bars on the other side. Another battle won!

“You’re too stubborn, too,” she says wryly, smoothing a hand over his head as he crawls into her lap. “Afraid you get that from me.”

Technoblade curls close to her belly, snuffling his adoration as she begins to unbraid his hair and comb her fingers through it. She rocks him, gently, and purrs her own familiar comfortsong to fill the quiet. Already, Technoblade’s eyes are beginning to droop. He kneads his fingers into the well-worn leather of her shirt, twining his tail around hers. Maybe he was tired after all.

“Littlest,” she says softly, “oh, littlest, how I love you.”

She leans down, rubbing her face against him and layering him with sowscent—warm and milky and possessive. Her face is damp, and the salty smell of tears touches Technoblade’s nose. He doesn’t understand why. He glances up at her, worried, but she only smiles down at him with wet streaks on her face.

“It’s okay,” she whispers, cradling his face in her palms and swiping thumbs across his cheeks. “It’s okay, my love. I’m only happy to see you. I missed you so much.”

Technoblade missed her, too—so so so much—only he lacks the words to say it, and so he simply whines at her until she tucks him close again. She stands up, and the world shrinks away beneath her towering height. She cradles him to her powerful chest, swaying with him and singing a lullaby. Her hand covers his back, petting, and Technoblade is home.

Then, he hears footsteps.

“Tassaron?” one of their soundermates calls, their voice echoing eerily down the empty hall. “Are you alright? I heard noise.”

Technoblade’s sow clutches him more tightly, and he squeaks to remind her that he is very little and also still in her arms so if she could loosen her grip that would be good probably. She does not loosen her grip, and in fact shows him a sliver of teeth. He does not squeak again. 

“I’m fine,” his sow says, her voice leeched of all previous kindness. “It was only a nightmare.”

Boots rasp against blackstone, and their soundermate says, “I heard a piglet.”

Technoblade’s sow backs away from the bars at the front of the room, flattening her ears and peeling her lips away from her teeth. Technoblade falls still in her arms, silencing himself. To be still and quiet is the only requirement for a piglet in dangerous situations—and that, Technoblade is very good at. He burrows more closely against his sow, holding his breath.

“Is that—Technoblade?” Their soundermate’s voice hitches. “Why do you have him?”

“He came to me.”

“He can’t be down here. It isn’t safe.”

“It isn’t safe for a piglet to be separated from his sow so early, either,” his sow snaps, her teeth clacking loudly above his head, “and yet here we are.”

“You know why—”

“No, as a matter of fact, I don’t. Technoblade is mine.” 

“I know he is,” their soundermate says cautiously. “I know it well. But he isn’t safe here.”

“It was only a little while.” His sow’s hand smooths over his head, again. “Only a moment.”

“That’s—good. Can I see him now, please? I’ll make sure he gets back to the den safely.”

“Rubedo, how I’ve missed him. Don’t take him yet.”

Technoblade peeks out of his sow’s shoulder, looking back at their soundermate—Rubedo, he now recognizes, by their russet fur and scarred snout and applish smell. They stand on the other side of the iron bars, their tail twitching low and uncertain. Technoblade squeaks at them, and their eyes drag to his own. He squeaks again.

“Hello,” Rubedo whispers. “Are you alright, Technoblade?”

Technoblade nods, then tucks his face back into his sow’s shoulder. 

“He can’t stay here,” Rubedo repeats, next. “The longer he stays here, the more dangerous it is.”

“I love him. I wouldn’t ever—” His sow falters, her ears flicking aimlessly. “I won’t hurt him.”

“I know. You’re a good sow. But I need to take him, now. The other shoats will be waking up for breakfast, soon, and he’ll be hungry.”

“I’ll feed him. He isn’t properly weaned.”

“He ate well yesterday. He liked the mushroom.”

Technoblade’s sow makes a considering noise, petting him again. 

Slowly, Rubedo inches forward and pushes their arm through the bars. “Here,” they say, coaxing. “Just hand him to me. I’ll get him settled in, and then I’ll come back and we can talk about—visitation.”

Technoblade’s sow takes a step forward, and then another, and then—

Then, she lunges forward and crushes Rubedo’s arm backwards against the bars. Arms are not supposed to bend that way, Technoblade knows, and it cracks nastily. Rubedo shrieks, thrashing against her grip, but Technoblade’s sow is very big and very strong even by their sounder’s standards. Bloodsmell floods the air as bone fragments jut from the hide of Rubedo’s arm. 

“You will not take him from me,” his sow hisses, thrusting her tusks between the bars; they miss Rubedo’s face by only inches. “He is my son.”

Technoblade cries out in fear—he has not seen blood before, not from another piglin—and claws at his sow’s shirt, desperate for her comfort. She draws away from Rubedo, rumbling softly to him and stroking his head with one bloodied hand. 

“It’s alright,” she says. “It’s alright, my love, I’m here. I have you.”

Technoblade settles against her chest, gasping, as Rubedo stumbles away from the bars. Their shrieking has drawn a clamor of footsteps, and several more of their soundermates spill into the hallway with cries of horror. The smell of their fear is sour and curdling in the air, tainted with a metallic tang, and Technoblade’s instincts have him trembling in terror. This is a dangerous smell. This is a dangerous place.

But he has his sow, and his sow will protect him.

“Get away from us,” his sow snarls, her tail lashing behind her as several brutes pace on the other side of the bars. They are talking all over one another, shouting and snorting and tossing their tusks in agitation. “Get away from him.”

“Tassaron?” Tachmahall’s voice rises over the clamor, and she shoulders her way through the piglins. Her eyes widen when they fall on Technoblade and his sow, her hackles raising stiffly along her neck and shoulders. “What have you done?”

“You will not take him,” Technoblade’s sow repeats lowly, baring her teeth. 

“You will not have him,” Tachmahall counters, flattening her ears. “You know it isn’t safe. You agreed!”

“I was wrong.” His sow rasps her tongue over his head, clearing away the black streaks of blood she had left behind. “He misses me. He came to me. He needs me.”

“You’ll kill him.” 

Her tongue swipes again, warm and rough on Technoblade’s fur. She does not respond. 

“Tassa, please, please.” Tachmahall wraps her fingers around the iron bars, her voice sharp with desperation. “Just let me have him.”

Teeth touch Technoblade’s skin, nibbling gently through the fur. It is ordinarily a calming gesture, but—how can Technoblade be calm, when all his sounder is so afraid? His heart thunders in his chest, and he squirms. His sow’s arms tighten painfully around him. It’s getting hard to breathe.

“What are they saying?” Tachmahall asks, suddenly. “You must not listen to them. Listen to me. Tassaron!”

Technoblade’s sow bites, again, her teeth firm on his skin. It stings. Technoblade wants to squeak, or squeal, or cry, but—he has to be quiet, and still, and good, or he will die. He is utterly certain of it. He is as still as can be but he cannot stop the shaking, or the way his tail tucks between his legs. 

“You’re frightening him. Please, just give him to me. I’ll take care of him. He’ll be safe, I promise. I won’t ever let anything hurt him. Please, Tassa.” It is the closest Technoblade has ever heard Tachmahall come to begging. “Darling, just give him to me.”

Technoblade’s sow bites a third time, and her teeth break skin. Technoblade jolts at the sudden flare of pain, then shudders himself into stillness again. Blood drips down the back of his neck and she licks it away, snuffling softly and soothingly. He wants to cry, but—he is being quiet. He is being quiet and still and good.

“Open the door,” one of the other brutes orders. “Quickly! Before she kills him!”

“No! No, you can’t—” Tachmahall lunges forward, but it’s too late.

The iron bars creak, and roll away from the room. Technoblade’s sow stiffens. Suddenly, there is nothing between them and the rest of the sounder. Suddenly, the world is a vast and terrifying thing. Suddenly—

Suddenly, Technoblade’s sow drives her teeth into his back and tears.

…

…

…?

Technoblade?

techno?

WAKE UP

you have to get up

Everyone is waiting for you.

TECHNOBLADE NEVER DIES

yeah, come on! technoblade never dies!

Death wouldn’t take you yet anyways.

Technoblade opens his eyes.

“You look like her, you know,” Yimalla says. She’s sitting next to him on the healer’s cot, swinging her legs and fiddling with the tip of her tail. “I always thought so.”

“Do I?” Technoblade wonders, his gaze glued to the ceiling. 

“Yeah. You have the same banishment mark.” Yimalla tugs her own ear, then shrugs. “Tachmahall had a sense of irony, didn’t she?”

Technoblade makes a noncommittal noise, then flicks his eyes to her. He wrenches them away seconds after. She’s—smaller, than she should be. She’s the same size she was when they were shoats growing up together. But her hide is littered with deep cuts, oozing black blood, and Technoblade knows exactly where—who—they came from.

“I’m sorry,” Technoblade says, the way he has almost every night for a century. 

“Oh, Techno.” Yimalla glances fondly at him. “Sorry doesn’t do shit.”

Techno?

tech, wake up.

GET OUT OF HERE

This isn’t real. 

just breathe and—

—WAKE THE FUCK UP!

Technoblade wakes up with a jolt. A cold sweat covers his hide, and his heart pounds violently against his ribs. He sits up slowly, checking that the wall between himself and Phil is still secure—they’d found out, early on, that leaving the bond open at night was a sure recipe for duel nightmares. But the wall holds, and Phil slumbers on beside him.

Gingerly, Technoblade eases himself out of the nest and the bedroom both. He pads to the kitchen and then to the porch and he leans against the wall of their home, gasping for breath. The cold air sinks into his skin and drags him back to reality. He shivers violently, wrapping his arms around himself. The nightmare fades quickly under the sharp eyes of the stars, but the tarry feeling of it lingers in the back of his throat.

To his horror, he feels his eyes sting.

Technoblade scrubs his face angrily, taking a deep purposeful breath. He thought he was over this. Hell, he was over this. He hasn’t had a nightmare about his sow since he was still living in the Nether. That injury is old and tired and well-scarred. Why should he be worried about it now? 

Ugh.

Technoblade knows exactly why. 

“Techno?” 

Aaand that’s exactly why.

“Hey.” Technoblade turns to look warily at Wilbur, tucking his hands into his pockets. “What are you doin' up so late?”

“Hypocrite.”

“Huh. I guess.”

“I heard noise downstairs and wanted to know if we were being robbed or murdered,” Wilbur says, flinging the door open. “But nope. It’s just a piglin standing outside getting hypothermia. Come on already.”

Technoblade ducks back inside, then slumps into a seat at the kitchen table.

“Sorry I woke you,” he rumbles, rubbing his ears until he can feel them again. He’s colder than he thought. “Bad dream.”

“I kinda guessed.” Wilbur tugs open their icebox, pulling out a jug of milk. “Tommy gets those all the time, so—it’s whatever. I’m used to it.”

Technoblade grunts, then bends to rest his head on the table. It kind of sucks that a kid as young as Wilbur should be so used to nightmares—for himself or anyone else—but Technoblade can’t say that without sounding stupid. Obviously it sucks. Obviously Wilbur knows that. There’s nothing to be done about it now.

The smell of milk fills the room, and Technoblade glances up to see Wilbur pouring it into the iron pot that hangs over their fireplace. The scent strengthens as it warms, and it—reminds Technoblade of his sow, which is not great, but—whatever makes Wilbur happy. Wilbur snags a bottle of honey, next, and drizzles it into the heating milk.

“Phil makes this whenever Toms has a nightmare,” Wilbur explains.

“Wilbur, you don’t have to—”

“Yeah, it’s a little late for that,” Wilbur says wryly. “It’s already basically done. Do you want some or not?”

Technoblade huffs in amusement, lifting his head. “I’ll have some.”

Wilbur ladles out two mugs of milk, pushing one across the table to Technoblade. Technoblade cradles it between his palms, and it leeches warmth back into his fingers. He snuffles it, tries not to think of his sow, and drinks deeply. 

“Thank you,” he says, licking milk off of his snout. “Really.”

Wilbur shrugs, sipping his own milk.

“So, ah.” Technoblade scratches behind one ear. “Did you finish your schoolwork?”

“It’s two in the morning, Tech. We don’t have to smalltalk.”

“Right.”

They lapse into silence again, and it’s—not as uncomfortable as it could be. They both watch the fireplace, their eyes half-lidded as the flames crackle, and drink their milk. The wind whistles outside, and in the distance one of the dogs barks. Technoblade’s tail relaxes enough to flick lazily beneath the chair, and he props his chin in one hand. It’s warm. It’s nice.

i love him

I want to hug him.

HUG HIM.

guys, chill. too much.

SCENT HIM GROOM HIM KEEP HIM SAFE

he’s a baby

He’s our baby.

“I’m going back to bed.” Wilbur stands, setting his mug next to the sink. “Night.”

“Good night, Wilbur.”

Technoblade lingers in the kitchen a few minutes longer, then returns to the nest. He looks down at Phil and smooths a hand over his bondmate’s golden hair. Phil mumbles something incoherent, and Technoblade chuffs in response. That seems to be enough. Phil relaxes again, burrowing into his own wings, and Technoblade steps away from the nest.

He returns to his own bedroom—more a formality, than anything, since most nights see him curled up in Phil’s nest—and flops onto his cot. His tail dangles over the mattress, brushing the floor in short sweeps. Dust tickles his whiskers. There’s no point in disturbing Phil if he has another nightmare, so he’ll just stay here. It’s only a few hours until sunrise, and chores, and all the mundane activities of a life that Technoblade never thought he’d live.

“Hey, Techno?” Phil pokes his head around the corner of the barn, wings fluffed against the cold.

“Hm?”

“Do you have a minute?”

Technoblade looks at Carl, and then at his hands, and then back at Carl. “Not right now.”

“Oh.” Phil hesitates, sidling into the barn. He still smells like breakfast—scrambled eggs and browned gravy and the chocolate muffins Margaret brought them. The smell of the runts, too, clings to him like a second skin. “Do you need help?”

“Nuh-uh.” Technoblade rubs the curry comb over Carl’s withers in small circles, knocking the dirt off of his fur. “I got it.”

Phil’s displeasure seeps through their bond, and Technoblade’s guilt surges in response.

“Phil,” he starts, but Phil shakes his head.

“It’s okay,” he says, even though it feels very much not okay. “Just—when you do have a minute, could we talk?”

“If this is about Midral—”

“It’s not. I mean, it is, kind of, but—I’m not going to Midral if you’re not comfortable with it.”

Because Technoblade can’t be trusted alone. Because Technoblade is a giant anxious baby. Because Technoblade is pair of pinioned wings and a golden cage and a fucking noose.

“You can go,” Technoblade says, despite everything that screams at him to keep Phil close and safe and protected. “Only take the runts with you.”

“I’m not going, mate.”

“Phil.”

“When you have a minute,” Phil repeats, “we’ll talk.”

Is war still an option? Technoblade wonders.

Grudgingly, he finishes Carl’s groom and turns him out to pasture. If his other chores take significantly longer than usual—well, he’s just being thorough. He takes shelter in his greenhouse, last, and buries his hands in the crated soil. He’s checking the quality. That’s all. That’s it. He is not a stupid piglet who would rather play in dirt than acknowledge his feelings.

Then, he realizes that the potatoes smell strange.

Warily, he peels back the tarp that covers his delicate seedlings. He inhales deeply, drawing the scent into his nose and mouth. It tastes like soil and starch and wet leaf and—disease, he realizes, his stomach plummeting. He digs out one of the seedling potatoes, snuffling it. The scent of sickness is subtle but present in the spindly roots. 

Technoblade’s potatoes have fucking blight.

“It must have been the soil,” Technoblade says, pacing irritably in the living room. “My crops have always been healthy. The only thing that changed is the soil. If the farmers sold me blighted soil, I’ll—”

KILL THEM

rip their guts out through their noses

Break their ribs one at a time.

“—I’ll have some strong words for them.”

“We can buy new soil,” Phil soothes. “We can buy new potatoes.”

“I don’t want new potatoes,” Technoblade says, surly. “I want the ones I had. I shipped them all the way here.”

“What’s the big deal?” Tommy asks, tossing a small beanbag into the air before catching it as it comes down. He’s laying on the back of the couch, one leg crooked over the edge and swinging. His wings sprawl. “It’s just a bunch of potatoes.”

“They’re my potatoes,” Technoblade says pointedly.

“Technoblade has been raising potatoes for—jeez, for almost twenty years, now,” Phil explains. “He’s better at it than anybody else.”

“Biased,” Wilbur says, and snatches the beanbag out of the air when Tommy throws it again.

Tommy squawks his offense. “Hey!”

“But you still have some seedling potatoes from last season, right, T? You could just plant those,” Phil suggests.

“Those were supposed to be reserved for next season. I won’t have enough for a full greenhouse later if I use them all now.” Technoblade grinds his teeth. He had this all planned out. It was going to be perfect. “This is why you should never try anything new ever.”

“Tech,” Phil says fondly. “Come on now.”

“Don’t,” Technoblade spits, with far more vitriol than he had intended. He knows Phil doesn’t mean to patronize him, or make light of his frustration, but—gods, that’s what it feels like they’re all doing. Stupid Technoblade and his stupid anxiety and his stupid worrying about nothing. “Don’t—I’m—shit. I’m going outside. I have to figure this out.”

Technoblade shuts the door behind him, slouching back into the cold.

RUINED

gone to shit

Nothing ever works the way it’s supposed to.

BURN THE GREENHOUSE DOWN

See if the fucking blight survives that.

we should just die

Technoblade scowls up at his greenhouse, curling his hands into fists. His nails press crescent moons of pain into his palms. So stupid. So fucking stupid. Everything was perfect. Why did he have to bring back that soil? The old soil was perfectly fine. It would have lasted him another three seasons. What is he going to do now? The seedlings won’t grow, which means they won’t produce crop, which means they won’t make any seedling potatoes for next year. This one mistake has effectively halved this season’s production, and next season’s.

A low, angry breath rushes between Technoblade’s tusks. He crouches and drives the heels of his hands into his eyes, using the pressure to ground himself. Bright lights dance behind his eyelids. He hates it. He wants it to be dark and quiet and still. Right now there’s too much noise, and too much color, and too much smell. His clothes itch against his skin. His tail lashes. 

Technoblade slams the walls up around his bonds, effectively cutting out Phil’s worry and Wilbur’s anxious strumming and Tommy’s nervous chatter. It’s a relief, however small, to be alone in his head. He digs his hands in, further, until his eyes ache. 

tear them out

RIP YOUR EYES OUT

Dig your fingers in and pull until they pop.

Technoblade rips his hands away from his eyes, gasping, and wraps his arms around himself instead. Shit. Shit. Is he—? He’s having an anxiety attack. He’s having an anxiety attack over fucking potatoes. This is ridiculous. 

worthless

YOU STUPID FUCKING COWARD

Pull your eyes out. Pull them out.

Technoblade digs his fingers into his ribs, squeezing his eyes shut. This is fine. This is totally fine. He can get through this—he’s gotten through this a hundred thousand times before. 

break your fingers

BITE YOUR TAIL

Scream until it stops scaring you.

throw the crate through the window

SMASH THE WALLS

Scream, Technoblade.

Technoblade does not do any of these things. 

Technoblade cannot do any of these things, because he is a massive terrible piglin and any reaction is an overreaction. He has to be good. He has to be still and quiet and good, or everyone will know what a monster he really is. Phil will get tired of him. The runts will fear him. Their neighbors won’t dare to come near anymore. 

So Technoblade has to be good.

So Technoblade has to be perfect.

the perfect little piggy

FUCKING WEAK IS WHAT YOU ARE

You just roll over and show everybody your belly, now?

you’re better than this

SHOW THEM WHAT YOU REALLY ARE

They should grovel.

Technoblade is—counting, breathing, in for four and hold for seven and out for eight. 

Technoblade is opening his eyes and seeing five objects (soil, snow, crate, tarp, tail) and hearing four sounds (wind, breathing, heartbeat, crows) and smelling three scents (potatoes, fertilizer, blight) and feeling two sensations (clothes, cold) and tasting one flavor (saliva). Technoblade is doing that a second time now. Technoblade is doing that a third time.

Technoblade is stiffening when he hears footsteps.

“Tech? It’s just me.” Phil ducks into the greenhouse, looking sympathetically at him. “Hey. I have your meds here if you need them.”

Technoblade nods, reaching for his bondmate.

Phil comes to kneel next to him, handing over a small red capsule. Technoblade swallows it dry, and then he bows his head and presses his snout to Phil’s shoulder with a shuddering breath. Phil hums, his arms coming up to wrap around Technoblade’s shoulders and his wings mantling protectively around them. It is like a cave—like a den, dark and warm and safe. 

…phil

PHIL

Phil.

“It’s okay,” Phil says, rubbing Technoblade’s back. “It’s okay, it’s okay. I gotcha.”

Technoblade groans wordlessly, rooting his snout into his bondmate’s shoulder. He smells like a living thing, like blood and like soap and like the soft wax scent of preening oil. His hand runs over Technoblade’s hair and shoulders, and he croons birdlike in his throat. Technoblade’s ears flick towards him. It is easier to listen to him than to listen to the spirits. It has always been.

Gradually, the panic tightening Technoblade’s chest eases, and he takes a deep breath. He sits down, curling his tail into his lap, and Phil plops down across from him. With Phil so close, the smell of blight is almost forgotten. It is harder to ignore the tarp thrown haphazardly off of the seedlings, or the dark patches of soil where he dug out sickness. 

“I’m sorry,” Phil says, first.

“Don’t be. I overreacted,” Technoblade says, sighing. “They’re just potatoes.”

“They’re your potatoes, and you’ve put a lot of work into them. I’m sorry they’re sick.”

Technoblade shrugs.

“Whatever you want to do, I’ll help you,” Phil promises. “If you want to shut down the greenhouse for this season, I’ll help you scrape out the soil. If you want to buy new potatoes from the village, I’ll go with you. If you want to use your own stock seedlings, I’ll help you plant them.”

“Thank you.” Technoblade doesn’t quite manage a smile, but he does chuff softly at Phil. 

Phil smiles, scooting over to lean against his side. “I thought maybe,” he adds, “if you wanted, we might send along some money with Wilbur’s birthday invites to Puffy. Then she could bring more potatoes from the south.”

Technoblade’s ears prick. “That’s a good idea.”

“I have those sometimes, believe it or not.”

“Hush.” Technoblade nudges him playfully. “Brat.”

Phil cuddles up under his arm, humming, and Technoblade leans over to lick his hair affectionately. His tongue catches and drags on the fine strands, tugging one curl up into a messy cowlick. Phil grumbles half-heartedly and pats it back down. Things are not perfect, but they are better, and that is how it usually goes. 

Technoblade drags his knife from breastbone to tail, and slakes the spirits’ bloodthirst with the scent of a fresh kill. They clamor excitedly in the back of his head, exclaiming over their hunt and their victory; the crows, too, are cawing in vicious delight. The iron tang of hot blood floods his nose, exhilarating and familiar. He wipes the blade of the knife off in the snow, then pulls open the abdomen of his prey—an enormous bull moose, like to feed his small sounder for at least a couple of months. 

Carefully, Technoblade breaks the bones of the moose’s pelvis and sternum. He tugs its organs out, laying them aside in the snow and tying off the intestines so the contents don’t taint the meat. He skins and quarters the bulk of the body, laying each quarter in the snow so the flesh will cool rapidly. He folds the hide and tucks it into a sack, to be tanned and used in the dogs’ kennels as bedding; the organs he wraps in cheesecloth for the dogs’ dinner.

Once this is done, Technoblade whistles sharply for Carl. His horse whinnies in reply, from some distance through the trees, and Technoblade plods towards him. Carl is tied to a scrubby pine, and he snorts in alarm when he smells the blood on Technoblade’s hands and clothes—but it is not altogether unfamiliar to him, and he settles quickly as Technoblade speaks to him. He gathers up his horse’s lead, and follows his own footprints back to the kill.

The sled that Carl drags behind him rasps as it scrapes over the snow, but Carl is well-used to this, too, and doesn’t so much as flinch at the noise. He stands obediently as Technoblade loads the kill onto that sled, tying it down with several lengths of rope before leading Carl out of the forest. He pauses at the treeline, surveying their property—the last thing he wants is to bring his kill in where the runts can see it. 

They’re frightened enough of him, he thinks, without see him all over with blood. 

But the yard is empty, by some good fortune, and Technoblade makes it to the cellar in only a few moments. He hangs the meat to dry, and the hide alongside it, and delivers the dogs their grisly dinner. They bark and howl in excitement, and Floof licks the blood from his hands. She gets a section of the liver, which she is very pleased about if her wagging tail is any indication. The crows line up on the fence, watching intently for a chance to steal from the dogs. Technoblade will have to put out more seed for them later.

Technoblade stables Carl, after a thorough groom, and then sneaks into the house. He moves quickly and quietly to his own bedroom, scrubbing the blood off of his skin and changing into clothes that look a little less like a murder scene. Upstairs, he can hear stomping footsteps and Tommy’s excited chattering as he and Wilbur play. 

Tommy’s chattering crescendos as soon as Technoblade steps out of his bedroom, making significantly less effort to quieten his steps now that he is unbloodied. “Techno’s back!” Tommy shouts, and his footsteps storm down the stairs. He flings himself at Technoblade, and Technoblade catches him up in his arms. “You were gone all day.”

“Sorry, runt,” Technoblade rumbles, nuzzling his hair. “I’m back now.”

“Hey.” Wilbur looks down at him from the top of the stairs. “Did you get something?”

“A moose,” Technoblade says, with a satisfied twitch of his tail. “We’ll be good on meat for at least a couple of weeks.”

WE’RE THE FUCKING BEST

our sounder will eat well

Fresh meat and hot blood for the growing.

WE’RE THE BEST BRUTE EVER

maybe they’ll be less runty if they eat more??

“That’s good,” Wilbur says, and then vanishes into his bedroom again. 

“Oh, a moose?” Phil asks, poking his head around the corner of the kitchen. “We haven’t had that for a while. Is it in the cellar?”

“No,” Technoblade deadpans. “I left it in the dogs’ kennels.”

“I don’t need that sort of sass from you.” Phil snaps a pair of tongs threateningly at him.

Technoblade chuckles, ruffling Tommy’s hair. Tommy chirps, climbing his way up Technoblade’s arm to perch on his shoulders. His tiny claws dig into Technoblade’s hide. He stays there for several minutes as Technoblade moves around the cabin, putting away his boots and coat and gloves. When he does climb off of Technoblade’s shoulders, it’s only to join Phil in the kitchen. 

Wilbur comes downstairs, eventually, and slumps down at the kitchen table. He watches Tommy carefully—the runt is dicing onions, talking Phil’s ear off, and bouncing on his toes. Wilbur should be happy, Technoblade thinks, to see his little brother so secure and content in their territory. But Wilbur does not smell happy. Wilbur smells dull, with spiced stinging snaps of annoyance that set Technoblade’s teeth on edge. The music in his mind is plucked low and dangerous.

It is so hard to understand him.

Technoblade goes outside to get potatoes from the cellar, and when he comes back Wilbur is shouting and snarling at Phil. This is not as unusual as Technoblade wishes it were. Phil’s voice, by contrast, is calm and measured. He never shouts. He never threatens. He is the perfect sire. Technoblade never met his own sire, but he would like to think that he was a good one, too. Tachmahall said he was—she said he was kind, and gentle, and very attentive to his litters.

Technoblade wonders why he couldn’t have inherited that, instead of his sow’s madness. 

A door slams inside, and Technoblade steps in. 

“I’ll talk to him,” Tommy says, his wings held low and his bottom lip wobbling. “I’m sorry.”

Phil reaches out, gathering Tommy into his arms and rocking him. “It isn’t your fault, baby,” he says, kissing Tommy’s temple. “You have nothing to be sorry for. Let’s give him a few minutes to calm down, okay? Then you can go talk to him.”

Tommy sags into Phil’s arms, and Technoblade spots one of their vases shattered across the kitchen floor. Wordlessly, he reaches for the broom and begins to sweep it up before either of his bondmates can tread on it. He does not need to ask what happened. It is the same thing that happens at least once a week—Wilbur grows angry, and he lashes out, and everyone else gets hurt in the fallout.

Technoblade can’t do anything to fix that, maybe, but he can do at least a little to make their home feel safer. He throws away the broken glass, and scrapes his tusks on the doorway and corners to mark the house as his, and he scents his bondmates—the two of them that will allow it, in any case, though his instincts rankle at leaving Wilbur alone and unclaimed. (Somehow, he doesn’t think Wilbur would take very kindly to Technoblade snuffling all over him at the moment.)

Tommy sleeps in their nest, that night, tucked to Technoblade’s belly like a newborn. Phil sleeps sprawled on his own stomach, drooling into the pillows. Technoblade doesn’t sleep at all. He stares at the ceiling, his nerves fraught and his thoughts a gnarled mess. The bonds to his bondmates are all closed for the night, and little enough comfort in the dark.

the blight is spreading to your other crops

You should have destroyed the greenhouse.

WHERE IS WILBUR

the potatoes will never grow again

Puffy won’t bring you more potatoes. She hates you.

I WANT WILBUR

your crops will fail and your piglets will starve

We need to hunt more.

WHY ISN’T WILBUR HERE

one moose won’t feed jack shit

Your piglets are starving.

WILBUR!

Technoblade rolls out of the nest, slipping silently into the living room. He stands there for several seconds, slowing his breathing, and then heads upstairs. He’s not going to bother Wilbur—he’s not. He’s just going to look, and see, and make sure his piglet is still alive. He might be worthless as far as caretaking goes, but at least he can protect his sounder. 

Quietly, Technoblade nudges Wilbur’s bedroom door open, and—oh.

The smell of tears reaches him before the muffled noise of crying does. Wilbur is only a lump under the blankets, each sob bitten off and pressed into fabric. Technoblade stares. His piglet—his bondmate—his runt—is crying, alone, desperately, in an empty dark room. Everything about it is wrong.

Technoblade should—he should go and get Phil.

Technoblade takes a step back, and because he is the most luckless bastard to have ever existed a floorboard squeaks under his heel. He freezes. So does Wilbur. The blankets unravel quickly, and Wilbur’s head pops up. His eyes are puffy, his face damp with tears and pale with fear. Their gazes meet. Technoblade swallows.

“Techno?”

“I—” Technoblade falters. “I’m sorry.”

“What the fuck, man? Are you watching me sleep?”

“No!”

“You’re seriously so creepy.”

“I wasn’t! You’re—you’re crying.” Technoblade’s shoulders slump. “Why are you crying?”

“Fuck you.” Wilbur rolls over, dragging the blankets back over his head.

“I don’t like it when you cry.”

“Sorry to have woken you,” Wilbur spits. “I’ll be quieter next time.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Then what the hell did you mean?”

“I—don’t like it when you’re sad,” Technoblade says. “I want to make you happy.”

It isn’t what Phil would say. It is too blunt—a fact, and not a comfort. 

“Yeah, well,” Wilbur says bitterly, “you don’t.”

“I know.”

“Go away.”

“Will you come downstairs with me?”

“No.”

“Okay.”

Technoblade goes downstairs, and he pours milk into the iron pot over the fire, and he sweetens it with too much honey. He pours it into two mugs and goes back upstairs and stops in the doorway. Wilbur sniffles angrily. 

“What,” he says.

“I have milk.”

“Congratulations.”

“Can I sit with you?”

“Whatever.”

It isn’t a no, so Technoblade sits cautiously at the foot of Wilbur’s bed. He sets the mugs down in the windowsill to cool. Steam curls above their tops in sweet spirals, condensing against the glass of the window. After a moment, Wilbur sits up and glares at him. His hair is tousled. Technoblade wants to lick it down. He does not.

“Why are you sad?” Technoblade asks.

“‘cause some bitches kidnapped me and now I’m stuck in this shithole.”

“Mm. That’s fair.”

Wilbur grabs his mug and drinks angrily. It is amazing how many mundane actions he can make angry. Impressive, really. Technoblade reaches for his own mug and sips. He would like tea better, but this is not bad. Milk is good for growing runts, isn’t it?

“You don’t get it,” Wilbur says tersely. “Don’t act like you get it.”

“My sow tried to kill me when I was a baby,” Technoblade says.

Wilbur sputters. Milk comes out of his nose.

“Here.” Technoblade hands him a sheet; they can wash them tomorrow.

“What the fuck, dude,” Wilbur says.

“You can wipe your nose with it,” Technoblade explains. “I’ll wash it.”

“That’s not—oh, my god.” Wilbur wipes his face with the sheet, then muffles a shaky laugh into it. “You are really bad at this.”

Technoblade thinks he should be offended, maybe, but laughing is better than crying so—he wins, probably. 

“Yes,” Technoblade says, “I know.”

“Why did your mom try to kill you?”

“She went mad. The spirits were too loud for her.”

“I have so many questions.”

“Ask them.”

“It’s not that easy.”

“Why not? I’m here. I’ll answer them.”

“I—” Wilbur is the one to falter, this time, staring into his mug.

After a moment of silence, Technoblade adds, “I don’t mean to say that I understand what you’re going through. I know that I don’t. But I do know what it’s like to have your world taken apart, and to have to lead a life you never thought you would. It’s hard. It’s upsetting.”

Another pause drags between them.

“Is that—” Technoblade hesitates. “Is that why you’re sad?”

“No.” Wilbur shrugs, dragging his knees up to his chest and hugging them. “Yes. I don’t know. Everything is confusing.”

This, at least, Technoblade can agree with wholeheartedly.

“I want to go back home, but—I know it’s stupid, because I don’t even have a home, and it wouldn’t be as good as this one, and—ugh. It’s so frustrating. I want everything the way it was but it was—terrible! We were sick and hungry and miserable but I still miss it. I know you think it’s dumb. Hell, I think it’s dumb, but I just—ugh.”

“I don’t think it’s dumb. I feel that way, too, sometimes. I miss the way things were,” Technoblade admits softly. “I miss the way things were before you and Tommy. I miss the way things were before the wars. I miss the way things were before Phil, and Yimalla, and Tachmahall. I miss my sow. I miss a lot of things, but I don’t want to go back to them. You can miss things without regret.”

“Do you regret?”

“What?”

“Me and Tommy,” Wilbur whispers.

Technoblade thinks about it. He does not like how hard things have been lately. He does not like it when Wilbur screams and breaks things, or when Tommy cries and panics. He does not like how much of Phil’s attention is taken up by these new bondmates. He does not like how inadequate he feels around them. 

But—

But Technoblade likes waking up to a full table for breakfast. He likes Wilbur’s singing, and his theatrics, and his love of the classics. He likes Tommy’s optimism and outgoing nature and beaming smiles. He likes how happy Phil gets when he sees his nestlings. He likes how happy he feels. They are his family. They always have been, and always will be. 

“No,” Technoblade says. “I don’t regret it.”

“I don’t either,” Wilbur confesses, slumping into Technoblade’s side. “I don’t regret coming here, but it’s still—I still hate it, sometimes.”

“How come?”

“My mom abandoned me in a gutter,” Wilbur says, which is not an answer and also rather alarming. Technoblade’s ears pin. “That’s the first thing I remember—waking up in a gutter, wet and cold and fucking gross. I don’t remember how old I was. Old enough, I guess. I lived.”

“That’s terrible.”

“Yeah, no shit.”

“Not that you lived, but that—”

“I get it, Tech.”

“Hum.”

“You guys are gonna do the same thing,” Wilbur says, and will not meet Technoblade’s eyes when he looks over, “you know? Eventually I’m going to be too much. Eventually you’re going to get sick of me. Eventually you’re gonna regret it. I’ll make you.”

It sounds a little like a threat, but it’s spoken with such defeat that Technoblade’s heart aches. 

But it is still a challenge, and Technoblade has never been one to shy from a thrown gauntlet. He is a pacifist now but no pushover. He is pride and power both. He is a general, a warmonger, a god. He is ancient and immortal. He is beloved of the Angel of Death. He is the Blood God. He—

He’s been a coward, hasn’t he?

“You can try,” Technoblade says, setting his jaw, “but I won’t regret it.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Hm.”

“What?”

“You need therapy.”

Wilbur elbows him. “Shut up. Drink your milk.”

Technoblade shuts up and drinks his milk. It is not a loss, but a—truce, maybe. 

“Do you want to come to the nest?” Technoblade asks, once his mug is empty.

“No. I’m not tired.”

Technoblade glances at the clock on the wall—it’s past midnight, now, but he knows better than most how hard it is to sleep when your mind is so full. He’d be a hypocrite if he made Wilbur try to sleep now. So, instead, he stands and stretches. 

“What do you want to do instead?” he asks.

Wilbur pulls the blankets a little tighter around him and stands, too, his socked feet quiet on the hardwood floors. “Can we listen to the jukebox?” he asks quietly. “I’ll keep the volume down.”

Technoblade’s eyes brighten. That actually sounds like a marvelous idea.

“Sure,” he says. “I have some discs by The Emerald Orchestra, if you like.”

Wilbur does very much like, as it turns out, and they spend several hours listening to Technoblade’s collection of music discs. Technoblade isn’t quite sure when he falls asleep, but when he wakes up he is sprawled on the living room floor and Wilbur is sleeping cradled on his belly. The last music disc has long since finished, and a blanket lays over them. Sunlight patches the floor.

Technoblade rolls over, curls himself snugly around Wilbur, and smiles.

“Hey, Tech?” Phil says cheerfully. “Wanna help me make cookies? I’m practicing for you-know-who’s birthday.”

Technoblade heaves himself off of the couch and ambles into the kitchen, accepting the mixing bowl that Phil shoves at him. There is already a batter inside. It smells good, like melted butter and brown sugar and chocolate. He resists the urge to sneak a bite and begins to stir. 

“I’ve been trying to figure out what Wil’s favorite kind of cake is, too, but he’s so cagey about it,” Phil says, and sighs fondly. “Maybe you could do some asking around?”

“Tommy might know.”

“Tommy says he doesn’t, actually. He says they’ve never celebrated a birthday with a real cake before.” Phil sighs again. This time the sound is sad. “Ah, well. We’re going to have the biggest celebration ever and it’s going to be perfect. I’m making a cake with a million tiers.”

“Naturally.”

“You are a horrible enabler, mate, you know that?”

Technoblade swishes his tail happily. “Yes.”

Phil hip-checks him, then dollops a teaspoon of vanilla extract into the batter. “Don’t overmix.”

“I’m not, I’m not. Where are the kids, anyway? I don’t hear them.”

“They’re playing with the dogs,” Phil says. “Do you have a minute, by the way? I want to try baking some snickerdoodles too.”

“Sure.”

“Great! In that case, you also have a minute to talk,” Phil says, far too chipperly.

“Talk?”

“Yes. You know, about the things that have been bothering you and giving you nightmares and anxiety attacks and keeping you up at night. Those things. Ring a bell?”

Technoblade has been tricked!—swindled!—duped!

“Bruh,” he says, plainly, and stops stirring. “This is cheating.”

Phil beams at him. It is very threatening. 

“Stir, Techno,” the Angel of Death says, all cheer, “and start talking.”

Chapter Text

There was a time when the world feared Technoblade.

Even to edges of the earth, the stories came: that Technoblade was a kingslayer, a war god, a beast that stood a hundred feet tall and breathed fire and grew knives for teeth. The tales of his exploits were greatly exaggerated and oft-repeated. Even the nearby villagers eyed him warily—although, he supposes, this may have had more to do with his actual stature as he loomed grimly behind Phil during their grocery shopping; in all fairness he would have killed the villagers for the smallest slight back then. They, at least, had reason to be afraid.

But for the most part the stories were silly, and such widespread fear of him unnecessary. He was hardly genocidal—homicidal, maybe, but not genocidal. Anyway he was so far from true civilization that he couldn't have slaughtered whole nations even if he wanted to. That had been the point of their traveling so far away, he knows, though Phil doesn’t like to admit it. But if Phil wants him here, away from all population, then here he will stay—because Phil is colonel, and companion, and bondmate, and sounder. Phil is all he has left. Phil is everything. 

Phil is the one the world should fear.

Because Technoblade is strong, it’s true, and very clever and experienced of war—but Phil is the hands that pull the strings and he is final judgment and he is deathless immortal. If there is a god, Technoblade thinks, it is Phil. But the world looks at him and thinks him weak for his size, and his softness, and his kindness. 

That is their mistake.

So maybe Technoblade feeds into it—maybe he stands in front of Phil, and bares his teeth when the villagers approach, and makes as though Phil is a trinket to be guarded. Phil indulges him in this. Phil indulges him in most everything these days. It sates Technoblade’s most brutish instincts to be provider and protector.

But Technoblade isn’t stupid enough to think that Phil needs him.

That is never more clear than when the Butcher Army comes.

The rumors come before the army itself does—whispers in the village of a gathering force, a mass of soldiers still loyal to the Elytrian Empire who want Technoblade dead for his crimes. They want him dead so badly, in fact, that they are willing to amass a fleet of warships to carry their troops all the way to the arctic. Technoblade is strong, but not so strong that he can face down an army with only a log cabin and a cow. 

So Phil builds an empire.

It is an easy thing for him to recruits the villagers. He has a way with words, and a passion for justice that inspires even the most tepid of souls. It helps that he is elytrian, and somewhat of a spectacle in the artic—a better sort of spectacle than Technoblade, who most of the villagers view as livestock or monster or, usually, both. Phil is an angel in contrast, to his benefit and irritation both. Technoblade thinks it only appropriate. 

Once the village militia has been armed, and has started their training under the tutelage of a retired continental soldier Phil had befriended, Phil flies to the east and west. It is the first time Technoblade has been left alone for so long since the war, and it is a horrible thing. He spends most of his days and nights pacing, and patrolling the territory obsessively, and fretting despite Phil’s reassurances through their bond. 

This is when he gets his first dog. She is a spontaneous decision and a means of distraction, to which she proves very successful. As long as he is worrying about housetraining and grooming and keeping her from chewing his boots, he is not worrying about Phil. She becomes a constant companion in Phil’s absence, and sleeps alongside him in the nest. He names her Truearrow.

Technoblade gets other dogs, after her, with the idea to make them a military force all on their own. But these are his wardogs—they are not pets; they are not Truearrow. Two thirds of the wardogs he gives out to the soldiers. The rest of them he trains himself. They are massive, brutal beasts who want only three things: belly rubs, treats, and squeaky toys.

Technoblade supplies all to them gladly.

Over the ensuing months, Phil builds a standing army of some five thousand. It is a paltry number compared to the armies they are used to commanding, but against the Butcher Army’s estimated seven thousand it will do nicely. It will have to. They are running out of time, and Phil is needed more as commander than recruiter. 

Then, several months after the first whispers of war, a spy is captured in their camp.

She is one of the Butcher Army’s most loyal, and spits only vitriol when Phil tries to question her. He is patient. He is always patient. But he is wearing thin as the days press on, and he paces long into the night. Each time he goes to visit her, Technoblade leans outside the cell and listens. He will not leave his bondmate alone with an enemy—never mind that the enemy is shackled and under a constant guard. 

“If you tell us how many ships there are,” Phil bargains once, “I will let you return to them.”

A risky bargain.

The spy spits in his face.

Technoblade’s hackles raise, his lips curling from his tusks, but Phil holds a hand up to halt him.

“Okay,” Phil says, and wipes the spit off of his cheek. “So how about this?”

There is nothing in their bond, Technoblade realizes. It is not closed but where Phil is there is—

Nothing.

“If you don’t talk,” Phil says, “I will pull out your nails with a pair of pliers. I will do it one at a time and I will brand you with a fire poker. Then I will carve my name into the soles of your feet and I will watch you walk across hot coals. If that doesn’t work, I will drown you and I will bring you back and I will drown you again. Is your loyalty worth that?”

The spy bares her teeth, and mantles her wings, and hisses, “Worth more than yours, traitor.”

Phil draws himself up, looking down at her. “Technoblade,” he says quietly. “Go upstairs.”

“What?”

“Go upstairs.”

“No.”

Phil looks around at him, incredulous. It is not often that Technoblade disobeys a direct order from his bondmate. In fact, Technoblade thinks he may never have done it before. Phil is just as stunned by Technoblade’s recalcitrance as Technoblade himself is. 

“What?”

“I said no,” Technoblade repeats, more meekly but no less stubbornly. “I’m staying.”

At once, abruptly, Phil’s surprise splinters into rage. He flares his wings, his pupils shrinking to wicked pinpoints. “Get the fuck upstairs, Techno.”

“I won’t.” Technoblade puts back his ears and licks his snout and turns his tusks away because he is not trying to challenge, but he cannot fathom leaving when Phil is acting so cruel and strange. “I won’t.”

Phil’s feathers bristle, and every one of Technoblade’s appeasement gestures is swiftly ignored. “It wasn’t a request,” Phil spits, “was it?”

Technoblade is not going to argue because Phil is not listening—because Phil is not there.

There is an emptiness where he should be and it is not listening.

“Incredible,” the spy says lowly. “Your own soldiers don’t even respect you.”

Phil whips around and backhands her. The chair she’s strapped into tips, and it hits the floor with a heavy clang. She winces, licking blood off of her split lip, and then startles when Phil brings a boot down on her splayed wing. He carries his weight in his back leg—he isn’t putting pressure on her, not yet, but by the icy glint in his eyes he’s about to.

“How do you feel,” he asks, slowly, “about pinioning?”

“Phil,” Technoblade says.

“Fuck,” the spy says, “you.”

Phil’s eyes blaze. He brings his foot down, and Technoblade hears fragile birdbone crack. The spy shrieks and thrashes, beating her wings helplessly against the floor. Phil’s own wings raise aggressively. The furious scent of him stings Technoblade’s nose—it is foul and unfamiliar and sharp. Phil lifts his foot again, moving it to the third joint of the spy’s wing, and Technoblade—

Technoblade lunges, and grabs him up, and carries him struggling out of the cell. He is shrieking wordless now—enranged clicks and hisses that Technoblade does not understand but that have his stomach tightening anyway. His wings flap violently, battering the air around them and striking the walls as much as they strike Technoblade himself. Technoblade fights to get a hold of the wings, pinning them against Phil’s sides so he won’t damage himself. 

Phil screams and aims a very clever stomp at Technoblade’s instep. Technoblade is just glad he’s wearing boots. It hurts anyway. He sits down, dragging Phil down with him, and holds his bondmate close to his chest. He rumbles comfortsong but cannot even hear himself over Phil’s struggling. He sounds less angry, now, and more fearful—the emptiness in their bond has replaced itself with raw horror.

“It’s okay,” Technoblade says, cupping a hand over Phil’s eyes. He remembers this, at least. He remembers this. Sight is an elytrian’s sharpest sense, and cutting it off calms the mind. “Phil, please, please. It’s okay.”

Phil breathes in bursts, his nails digging into Technoblade’s forearms. He bares his teeth, his wings straining uselessly against the hold Technoblade has on them. Technoblade can feel his heart thundering—so fast, too fast. Fear curdles the air between them like sour milk. Their bond is alight with terror and confusion and regret.

“Shh,” Technoblade whispers, pressing his snout to Phil’s sweaty hair. “Shh. It’s alright. You’re going to be alright. I won’t let go.”

Phil chirps helplessly at him. His eyelashes flicker against Technoblade’s palm, damp with tears. His wings twitch, once, before slumping in exhaustion. He is too busy trying to breathe to fight, any longer. His sides heave, ribs straining against thin skin as his lungs billow. Technoblade begins to rock him, resting his chin on top of his bondmate’s head.

“Take her to the medics,” he says, gruffly, to the spy’s guard. “Leave us.”

The spy having been removed, Phil falls limp with a keening cry. Technoblade does not let go of him yet. He knows better. 

“She’s gone,” Technoblade rumbles, taking a deep breath of his own. Maybe, maybe, Phil will match it. “No enemies here. No more, Phil.”

Phil tenses, again, but this time he is tugging Technoblade’s arms closer instead of pushing them away. Technoblade obligingly tightens his grip, squeezing his bondmate. His tail curls tightly around Phil’s leg, and he presses fingers between feathers. It is not enough to hurt, but enough to reassure Phil that he is not going anywhere anytime soon.

“I’m—sorry,” Phil says, his voice staggering around rapid breaths. “I’m so sorry.”

“Shh. Don’t talk. Catch your breath first. You know the drill.”

Phil gulps in a breath, holds it, and exhales sharply. Technoblade chuffs approval.

“Good,” he says. “Good job. Just focus on that for a few minutes. I’ll tell you when we can talk.”

It is several minutes before Phil can breathe properly, and several more after that before Technoblade entertains the idea of talking. He doesn’t want his bondmate to work himself up again, but at the same time—he has questions, and Phil’s guilt churns like a river between them. 

“What was that about?” Technoblade asks, finally, gruffly. 

“I’m sorry,” Phil says. “I’m so sorry.”

“That doesn’t answer the question.”

“I was—I wanted—” Phil’s breath hitches again, and Technoblade tightens his grip.

“Breathe,” he orders.

Phil sucks in another breath, and then lets it out on a miserable wail. “They’re going to kill you!”

Technoblade blinks.

“They’re—gonna come here, and hurt you, and kill you, and I—can’t, I won’t let them, I will do— anything, Tech—” Phil sucks in another breath before Technoblade can remind him. “You’re mine. They can’t take you from me. I’ll fucking—I’ll—”

“I’m not goin’ anywhere,” Technoblade says.

“This place was supposed to be—ours, it was supposed to safe and now they’re—” Phil’s wings tense, straining against Technoblade’s grip again. “Fuck!”

“Easy, Phil.”

“It’s not fair! We came all this way and they still—” Phil hisses under his breath, hooking his fingers like talons into his own jacket. “They think they can take my home. They think they can take you. I just wanted them to leave us alone!”

“Phil,” Technoblade says, uneasy. “Do you want me to let go?”

Usually Phil does not want to be let go—usually Phil likes to be held tight and soothed through the panic—but this is not usual.

“No,” Phil says, his fear surging. “No, no, please don’t.”

“Okay. I’m not lettin’ go.”

“I’m sorry. I’m really sorry, Tech, I—shouted, I shouldn’t have shouted—”

“Shh, it’s okay. It doesn’t matter.”

“I didn’t mean to do that,” Phil says—pleads—begs. “I didn’t mean to hurt her like that.”

“I wouldn’t care if you did.” Technoblade smooths a hand through Phil’s hair, keeping the other hand over his eyes. “You could flay somebody alive and I wouldn’t give a goddamn shit. I only stopped you because you were hurtin’ more than she was, Phil.”

“I was—” Phil stops and swallows thickly, wringing his fingers into the heavy, dark fabric of his jacket. “I’m not—like that. I’m not.”

“It’s okay if you are.”

“I’m not!”

“Shh.” Technoblade nuzzles against his bondmate’s temple, rumbling gently. 

“I’m not,” Phil repeats, his voice cracking. “I’m not.”

Technoblade rocks them both gently, rasping his tongue over Phil’s hair. Their bond seethes dark and insidious and trembling. Phil’s breath shudders once, and again, and he brings his hands up to muffle a sob against them. Technoblade makes a low, wounded noise and presses his snout to the nape of Phil’s neck. 

“All that stuff you said,” Technoblade whispers, because if he is digging out infection he might as well get all of it. “It was—real specific, Phil, wasn’t it.”

Phil shakes in his arms, squirming himself around so he can mash his face to Technoblade’s chest. It can’t be comfortable. Technoblade’s wearing his armor, still—he’s fresh off the training field—but Phil doesn’t yield a single inch. 

“There was a man,” Phil says brokenly, digging his fingers into the grooves of Technoblade’s breastplate. “His name was Yancy.”

Phil doesn’t say any more about it, even when Technoblade asks; it hurts so much between them Technoblade stops asking. There are some things Phil’s never told him about. There are some things that Technoblade supposes he never will. Things exist worse than death, and they’ve both lived through them.

For Technoblade, it was Phil’s dying. 

For Phil, it was Yancy.

Technoblade takes Phil back upstairs, out of the dungeon and into the castle keep. Their military base is built some hundred miles away from their cabin—Phil hadn’t wanted to taint home with the taste of gunpowder, and Technoblade can’t blame him. But he wishes home were closer now. He wishes he could take Phil back to the cabin, and the nest, and the cows. 

Phil throws himself back into planning with a fervor, the next day, and does not go to see the spy again. Technoblade, on the other hand, pays her a visit—and he has a very good time doing it. If he returns to Phil a little bloodier than usual, that night, well. Phil doesn’t question it too much. He doesn’t question the new estimates Technoblade provides for the Butcher Army’s fleet size, either.

When war comes, at last, to their door—Technoblade is ready.

So it’s a damn fucking shame that the first day he’s loosed on the battlefield, he breaks an arm.

It isn’t even a cool story, either! He’d been loading logs onto the horses’ sleds to build up the barricades, and one of the horses had spooked. The sled had jolted, the logs had toppled, and Technoblade had the misfortune of getting an arm caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. Phil—after he’d finished up his fretting and fussing—had laughed his ass off. 

“It’s just so funny,” he giggles, and sketches a silly smiling face on Technoblade’s cast. “The Blood God bested by a dead tree! You didn’t even get to fight anybody.”

“Well aware,” Technoblade says glumly.

“They came all this way to fight you and—a tree, Technoblade!”

“You don’t have to sound so happy.” 

“I’m not, I’m not,” Phil says, very unconvincingly. “Come on, I’m sure we can find you something to do. I wouldn’t want you to be bored.”

A bored Technoblade is, after all, a destructive Technoblade.

“I’ll give orders,” Technoblade offers, ears pricking. He does like planning, very much.

“Sure,” Phil says indulgently. “From the castle keep, you can. You’re not going to the battlefield while you’re injured.”

“How am I supposed to keep an eye on things from the castle? ‘s too far away,” Technoblade grumbles.

“I’ll be your eyes.”

“You can’t be goin’ out there alone.”

“I won’t be alone.” Phil steps back towards the window, grinning and spreading his arms. “We’ve got an empire fighting for us, Techno.”

“Phil.”

“Stay here. Behave yourself.”

“Phil.”

“I’ll see you a minute.”

Phil jumps out the window because of course he does, and Technoblade leans out after him with an irritated bellow. Why is his sounder so troublesome? He has one whole soundermate to keep alive, and it is the most difficult thing he’s ever done. Nobody listens to him! Is he not a big scary brute? Is he not ferocious and intimidating?

Huffing, Technoblade crosses his arms and glowers at Phil’s disappearing form. 

His sour attitude can’t last long, however, in the wash of breathless excitement he feels from his bondmate. Technoblade keeps an eye on the movements of the armies as best he can from the castle, but Phil is no fool—his commands fall true, and the Butcher Army doesn’t stand a chance. Everyone accredited their victory to Technoblade, and Phil didn’t correct them. 

Only Technoblade knows better.

Technoblade destroys empires, but Phil?

Phil creates them.

Point bein’, Phil’s pretty damn convincing when he wants to be—and downright cunning if that doesn’t get him his way. Technoblade never really stood a chance.

Snickerdoodles are not a declaration of war, but—they feel like one, just a little.

“What do you want to talk about,” Technoblade says, and scowls at his cookie batter.

“What’s bothering you?”

“You’re gonna have to be more specific than that.”

“Okay.” Phil hops onto the counter, swinging his legs. His wings dip into the basin of the sink; he’s only lucky that it’s empty. “Why don’t you want me to go to Midral?”

“I don’t like it when you leave.”

“I know,” Phil says patiently, “but I thought you were getting more comfortable with it. I’ve gone on trips without you before. What’s different this time?”

“We have Tommy and Wilbur now,” Technoblade says, and tastes a bite of the batter. He is being very emotionally competent. He deserves it. “Needs more sugar.”

Phil sprinkles in another generous teaspoon. “And you said—you’d prefer it if I took Tommy and Wilbur with me to Midral?”

I would prefer you didn’t go at all, Technoblade thinks, and says, “I guess so.”

“Why?”

Technoblade shrugs.

“Believe it or not, I’m not a mindreader,” Phil says. “Er, well—discounting Tommy, I’m not a mindreader. I need you to tell me what’s bothering you about the trip to Midral.”

“I don’t want you to leave,” Technoblade says. “If all three of you left I would feel—bad. You’re my sounder. We’re supposed to be together. And, I want the kids close to me so I can make sure they don’t get hurt. They’re—very small.”

“Oh,” Phil says.

“It’s just piglin shit.”

“It’s instincts, Tech. They matter. Of course I’m not going to take Tommy and Wilbur away from you if you don’t want me to, but if it makes you so uncomfortable—why would you ask me to?”

“It would be even worse,” Technoblade says, “if you left me alone with them.”

“Okay,” Phil says, and blinks. “I don’t get it.”

“If you left me alone—” Technoblade cuts himself off, frustrated. “I could hurt them.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“How do you know?”

“You’ve never hurt me.”

“That’s not the same. At least if I tried to hurt you, you could fight back. Tommy and Wilbur—it would be so easy to kill them, Phil,” Technoblade says, pleading. “They are so small.”

“Very small,” Phil agrees. 

“I don’t want to hurt them.”

“You wouldn’t,” Phil repeats. “We’ve had this conversation before, haven’t we? You aren’t dangerous, Tech—at least not to us. We’re your bondmates. I trust you.”

“I trusted my sow.”

“That’s not—” Phil huffs out a breath, sprinkling salt into the cookie batter as Technoblade stirs. “Mate, it’s not the same.”

“Yes it is.”

“No it isn’t.”

“Yes it is.”

“No it—Tech.”

“Maybe it isn’t exactly the same,” Technoblade allows, “but the similarities are there. I am supposed to take care of Wilbur and Tommy. They’re—my piglets, in a sense. I love them as my sow loved me, but love does not keep a piglet safe when the spirits are loud. I’m proof enough of that.”

“And are they?”

“What?”

“Are the spirits loud around the boys? Do they tell you to hurt them?”

“No,” Technoblade says grudgingly, “not yet.”

“Then I fail to see the problem.”

“You underestimate me.”

Phil snorts. “Hardly. I’ve seen firsthand what you can do. It makes no difference to me. You could no sooner hurt those children than you could cut off your own hand.”

cutting off our own hand would be easier

Maybe we should?

PROVE IT

cut it off

Start with the fingers.

“Don’t,” Phil says, pointing sternly at him. “Don’t think about it.”

“Hm.”

“You’re thinking about it.”

“You brought it up.”

“I shouldn’t have. I’m sorry.”

Technoblade flicks his tail dismissively. “Never mind. The point is, if ever the spirits did decide to turn on Wilbur or Tommy—who’s to say I could control myself? My sow couldn’t. I couldn’t, when it was Yimalla. I am not perfect, Phil.”

“I know,” Phil says, simply. “I don’t need you to be perfect, and neither do the nestlings. We only need you to try. If ever there’s a time when the spirits start to threaten them, let me know and we’ll deal with it. But the spirits have never threatened me, have they? We have no reason to think that they would turn on Wilbur or Tommy, either.”

“But they could.”

“And they could not.”

Technoblade growls, sticking the mixing spoon into his mouth. 

“Oh, big scary piglin,” Phil says, affectionately. “Very intimidating.”

“I could kill you,” Technoblade mutters around the spoon.

“I’m not too worried about it.”

“You should be.”

“Nah. If you were going to kill me, why would you have waited this long?” Phil grins at him, and then changes expression abruptly. “Hey, do not put that gross drooly spoon back in the batter, you—give, give give.”

Technoblade begrudgingly hands over the spoon.  

“You say,” Technoblade says, “that I can just tell you if the voices begin to feel unsafe around the boys, but I can’t do that if you leave me alone with them. You couldn’t stop me if I tried to hurt them, if you went all the way to Midral.”

“Okay,” Phil says, and hands him a clean spoon. “I see your point. So, we’ll work up to it. I’ll just go on day trips for now, and then, when you and the spirits feel more comfortable being alone with them, I’ll leave for longer.”

It’s the same way they had adjusted Technoblade to Phil’s absence, after the first war—Phil had left him for minutes, and then hours, and then days. Technoblade still isn’t thrilled when he’s gone for that long, but it doesn’t put him in any acute distress the way it used to.

“Stubborn,” Technoblade mutters.

“Yes,” Phil says sweetly, “you are.”

Together, they roll out balls of dough and set them on a greased cookie sheet. Phil sprinkles them with cinnamon and sugar, then slides them into the oven. They wash their hands, and Technoblade scrubs the dishes while Phil dries them and puts them away. The smell of baking cookies fills the kitchen within minutes—warm, sweet, spiced with cinnamon. Technoblade’s mouth waters.

“For what it’s worth,” Phil says, leaning against him, “I think you’re really great with the boys. They love you—and so do I, you know, just in case you forgot.”

“Phil stooop. You’re gonna make me cry.”

Phil laughs, bumping him with a wing. He slides on a pair of oven mittens and pulls the cookies out, then looks dejectedly at them. They don’t look—horrible, Technoblade thinks, but they’re strangely flat and crumbling at the edges. 

“Oh, Techno,” Phil says. “Oh, mate, these are way overmixed.”

It’s true what they say—humans really will pack bond with just about anything. 

Technoblade sprawls on his belly in the straw, propping his face in one hand. Wilbur sits cross-legged in front of him, petting his blue-wooled sheep and talking quietly to it. The music that hums between them is calm and relaxing, and Technoblade closes his eyes to listen. He opens them again when a slight weight settles against his side, and glances down to find a lamb bedding against his flank.

“I think somebody likes you,” Wilbur says, snorting. “Mama Techno.”

Technoblade reaches over, stroking the lamb’s velvety ears. Its actual mother ambles over a second later, leaning down to sniff her offspring before folding her own legs beneath herself and laying down. Technoblade hums. This is nice. It is like having living wool blankets. He folds his arms and pillows his cheek on them, closing his eyes again.

“Don’t fall asleep,” Wilbur warns, kissing his sheep on the nose. “There’s no way I’m hauling your fat ass back into the house.”

“You are very small,” Technoblade agrees placidly. “Very squishable.”

“Hey!” Wilbur tosses a handful of straw at him, and it tickles in Technoblade’s hair.

Technoblade grunts, shaking the straw off. “Brat.”

UGH WHY IS HE SO CUTE

throw him in the straw pile

Strawbur?

LOOK AT HIS LITTLE SMIRK

throw him throw him throw him

Technoblade gets up, scoops Wilbur into his arms, and throws him into the straw pile.

“What the fuck, Techno!” Wilbur shouts, but he’s laughing. He flops his way out of the pile, batting straw out of his hair and off his clothes. “You’re such a dick.”

“Must be where you get it from.”

Wilbur growls under his breath—it’s a silly little human growl, high-pitched and all from the throat. Technoblade growls back, amused, and feels it thrum in the pit of his chest. 

“Show-off,” Wilbur says, and launches himself at Technoblade. 

The runt’s shoulder strikes Technoblade in the hip, and he shoves to absolutely no avail. He is very small and weak and adorable. But such determination deserves some sort of victory, so Technoblade allows himself to be toppled back into the straw pile. It is itchy and uncomfortable but worth it for the way Wilbur cheers.

“Yeah, take that, asshole,” he says. “That’s what you get for picking on kids.”

“Ah,” Phil says, from the barn doorway, and Technoblade grunts a greeting. “I was wondering why chores were taking so long this morning.”

“Technoblade threw me in the straw,” Wilbur whines.

“Tattle tale,” Technoblade mutters.

“Looks like you got him back,” Phil says, grinning. “Oh, how the mighty have fallen.”

Technoblade heaves himself back to his feet and stretches, cracking his back. Then he reaches down and scoops Wilbur up, flinging him over his shoulder like he would a particularly squirmy sack of potatoes. “C’mon, you,” he says. “Lunch.”

“This is humiliating,” Wilbur decides, and makes absolutely no attempt to free himself. “This is cruel and unusual punishment.”

“Lil’ dramatic there, aren’t you, runt,” Technoblade says.

“Phil,” Wilbur complains, “I’m being bullied.”

“Technoblade, quit bullying Wil.”

Technoblade huffs and leads the way back to the cabin with Phil on his heels and Wilbur over his shoulder. He deposits Wilbur in the kitchen, and the three of them shed their coats and boots. Tommy is already at the kitchen table, halfway through a grilled cheese sandwich, and he waves as they take their seats. 

“Wilbur,” Tommy says, and then chokes a little, and coughs, and tries again, “Wil, what’s up?”

“Don’t talk with your mouth full.”

“Don’t dad me.”

“Don’t tell me what to do.”

“Don’t tell me not to tell you what to do.”

“Don’t tell me not to tell you not to tell me what to—”

“Oh, my head.” Phil rubs his temples. “I already lost track.”

“Heathen.” Wilbur reaches across the table, poking Tommy’s bulging cheeks. “Boop.”

“Who’s the bully now?” Technoblade asks, taking a bite of his own sandwich. 

“Piss off.” Wilbur kicks him under the table.

“Don’t kick me,” Technoblade says, miffed, and takes another bite. 

Wilbur kicks him again. 

“Right, then.” Technoblade stands and scoops Wilbur up again, ignoring Wilbur’s protests; the runt still smells happy-sweet, and the guitar in the back of his mind is plucked high with delight. He nudges the front door open and quite promptly deposits Wilbur into a snow drift. 

“Techno!” Phil scolds. “Really, without a jacket?”

“Yeah, I could die,” Wilbur exclaims, his head popping out of the snow. 

“Like you’d go that easy,” Technoblade snorts. “Gonna kick me again?”

Wilbur packs a snowball, instead, and flings it into his snout. Raising children is hard.

Since Wilbur is sans a coat, the snowball fight does not last very long. Technoblade gathers him back inside and dusts the snow off of him before plopping him down in front of the fireplace. He rubs Wilbur’s hands between his own, chafing warmth back into them, and Wilbur only bitches about it for a couple of hours after.

“Do you regret it yet?” Wilbur asks, kicking Technoblade’s ankle lightly where they sit on the couch together, bundled in wool blankets. “Do you?”

“Nice try,” Techonblade says, “but no.”

“Regret what?” Phil asks.

“Nothing,” Technoblade and Wilbur say together, and trade a grin. 

“Well,” Phil says, “that’s ominous.”

Technoblade shuffles blearily into the kitchen, pouring himself a bowl of cereal. It’s the gross healthy kind Phil likes, so he adds a spoonful of sugar and then drowns it in milk. He slumps down at the kitchen table, resting his head on his arms as he waits for his cereal to reach the perfect level of crunch. Once it’s ready, he takes a bite, and—

—and spits it out immediately, spluttering. 

Upstairs, he hears Wilbur cackle.

“Is that salt?” Technoblade cries. “Did you put salt in my sugar?”

“Do you regret it?” Wilbur shouts.

“Fuck you, no! I’m gonna eat this whole bowl.”

“Oh shit wait, I wanna watch—”

Wilbur’s footsteps drum down the stairs, and Technoblade wrestles him into a noogie. 

Technoblade is polishing his jewelry when Wilbur materializes in his doorway, dangling a familiar emerald necklace. His first instinct is to pin his ears because that’s Phil’s necklace, but—this is Wilbur, trying to get a rise out of him. It is a challenge that Technoblade is not going to lose. So he simply raises an eyebrow, and Wilbur grins. 

“Hey,” he says. “Look what I found.”

“How you got away with that I should like to know,” Technoblade says. 

“Phil’s napping,” Wilbur says, and wraps the chain around his fingers. “I thought I might, I dunno, sell it. We could always use more birthday money, right?”

Technoblade rankles at even the idea, but—

“Hm,” he says. “Or, you could trade with me.”

“Trade?”

“Mm-hm. Piglins are traders,” Technoblade says, polishing one of his golden bangles. “We can’t farm in the Nether, so to make money we trade with other sounders and travelers from the Overworld.”

“So what would you trade for this?”

“Let’s see.”

Technoblade swivels in his chair, rubbing his chin. The truth of it is that the necklace isn’t even that valuable—the gold is an alloy, and the emerald is light in color and roughly cut. It was one of the first things Technoblade earned in battle, and it shows. The real value is in the sentiment, and Wilbur knows little enough about that. Technoblade can lowball him. 

“Obsidian,” Technoblade says, and rummages through his chest for a sturdy obsidian chunk. He selects a polished, shiny one—attractive to inexperienced eyes, and otherwise worthless to him.

“What?” Wilbur says, scowling. “A rock?”

Hmph.

“Okay, what about this?” Technoblade pulls out a bottle of glowstone dust, bright and eye-catching. “Glowstone. You can only get this stuff in the Nether.”

“A shiny rock.” Wilbur rolls his eyes. “What else do you have?”

“Hrm.” Technoblade snags a quartz crystal and an Ender pearl, offering both. “The crystal’s only found in the Nether, too, and this is a pearl from an Enderman.”

Wilbur rubs his thumb over the emerald in the necklace, humming. “That’s it?”

“C’mon, runt, there’s gotta be something you want,” Technoblade says, pawing through his stache of TNT and weapons. Phil would kill him if he gave those to the kids. Then his eye catches on—“Aha. How about a fire charge?”

Technoblade hefts the smooth, silver ball in his palm. 

“What’s that?” Wilbur asks, inching closer.

“It’s like a grenade,” Technoblade says, which is a little bit of an exaggeration, but—well, Wilbur doesn’t need to know that. “You throw it and it explodes. I will let you have it if you give me the necklace, and let me watch you throw the charge.”

Then, he adds the sweetest part of the deal:

“Bet Tommy would like it, huh?”

“Huh,” Wilbur says. “Yeah, he would. Okay. I’ll give you the necklace if you give me the fire charge and the glowstone.” 

“Deal.”

Technoblade gathers the fire charge and glowstone, handing them over and gladly accepting the necklace in return. At least Wilbur hadn’t lost or damaged it—that, Technoblade would have been really annoyed about. He tucks the necklace into his pocket, then stands. 

“So?” he says. “Wanna go get Tommy?”

Wilbur races upstairs, and then meets Technoblade outside in the snow. Tommy has the fire charge in hand, now, rolling it between his mittens with a gleeful expression. He is a tiny devil and Technoblade loves that for him. As soon as Technoblade arrives and allows for it, Tommy flings the fire charge away from the house and shrieks as it disappears in a whoosh of flame. 

“More,” he demands immediately. “More bombs, Big T! More!”

“Bombs?” Phil pokes his head out of the second-story window, looking suspiciously at them. “What are we doing with bombs, boys?”

Technoblade grabs Tommy, clamping a hand over his mouth. “Toms,” he says. “We said Toms, not bombs. Maybe you should get your hearing checked, old man.”

Phil flips him off, but ducks back inside with a wash of amusement through their bond.

Tommy bites him.

“Unhand me, villain!” he cries, as Technoblade shakes the sting out of his hand. “Did you see that? That was the coolest thing ever!”

“If you tell Phil, we’ll all be grounded,” Technoblade grumbles.

“Oh, I love going behind Phil’s back,” Wilbur says, and doesn’t even have the decency to sound sarcastic about it. “So, Tech, do you regret—”

“Shut up, no.”

Technoblade holds three nails between his teeth, and drives another into a plank of evergreen wood. He plucks a second nail from his mouth and drives it in beside the first. His project is starting to look like a real swingset, now, and not a conglomeration of pieces and parts. That’s encouraging. Technoblade is not good at building things—that’s Phil’s forte, and Technoblade has always been content to supply him with the equipment he needs and then watch him work. 

Phil built them an empire, a home, a family. 

Technoblade wants to try building something of his own, now.

So he starts with a swingset, and drops the third nail from his mouth to his palm. He licks the iron taste from his tusks and stands back, stuffing his hands into his pockets. It’s a simple thing, the swingset—two Vs for legs, a support beam, and coils of sturdy rope to connect the seats. It has still taken him most of the afternoon, but it doesn’t fall apart when he puts weight on one of the seats, so that’s—good, probably. 

“Woah,” Tommy says.

Technoblade glances back to find his runt on the porch, perched on the railings with his feathers puffed. “Hey,” he says.

“Hey.” Tommy’s eyes flick over the swingset, pupils dilating with interest. “Is that for us?”

“Well, I don’t think I’d fit.”

Tommy laughs and jumps off of the railing, fluttering his wings to slow his landing. He’s getting better at gliding—his wings are growing stronger and his feathers sleeker under Phil’s consistent care and training. He scales the swingset with equal ease, perching on top of it with a delighted warble. Technoblade’s tail swishes happily. 

“This is so cool,” Tommy says. “Are you gonna paint it? Can I help?”

“What color?”

“Red, duh. Red is the best color.”

“Yeah,” Technoblade says, looking at little crimson wings. “It’s a pretty cool color.”

Together, he and Tommy paint the swingset in the brightest shade of red Technoblade can find. By the time they’re finished, they’re both flushed with cold and their fingers are splattered with flakes of drying paint.

BLOOD??

Blood for the Blood God?

seriously, guys? it’s paint

PROVE IT

 Technoblade licks one splash of paint on his palm curiously, then wrinkles his nose.

…

Tastes like paint.

YUCK

Tommy licks a streak of paint off of his palm, too, and Technoblade snorts in alarm. 

“Oh, shit, that’s nasty.” Tommy makes a face, scraping the paint off of his tongue with one sweater sleeve. “Why would you do that?”

“Why would you do that?” Technoblade demands.

“‘cause you did.”

“That is not a good reason to do anything ever, runt.”

“Why not?”

“I am not a good role model.”

“If I could be a giant warrior piglin with a huge empire I would be,” Tommy says. “If that means eating paint, so be it.”

“It does not mean eating paint. Please don’t eat paint.”

Tommy wraps his arms around Technoblade, burrowing into his stomach. “Dumb.”

Technoblade rests a hand on top of Tommy’s head, sighing fondly. He’s not a role model. He knows that. If anyone is, it’s Phil—and Technoblade is alright with that. But it makes him feel—nice, that Tommy thinks he could be one, even if he definitely shouldn’t be. 

“Can we add glowstone?” Tommy asks, peeking up at him. 

“Sure. Better do it before the paint dries.”

Tommy runs upstairs to get their jar of glowstone dust, and he sprinkles it into the paint while Technoblade watches. They only have enough to cover the support beam of the swingset, but it still glitters nicely against the darkening sky. It almost looks like gold—doesn’t smell like gold, but looks like it near enough to have Technoblade humming with delight.

“Do you have more?” Tommy asks.

Technoblade treks upstairs and rummages through his chests for more glowstone, but he’s out—Tommy’s face falls when he says this, which is just unacceptable. Technoblade tries to cheer him with a small golden bracelet, to no avail. Tommy only twists the bracelet aimlessly around his wrist. 

“Can we buy some more?” he asks. “It looks weird with only glowstone on the top.”

“Maybe,” Technoblade says, hesitantly. It would be a difficult thing to find anyone selling glowstone this far north. The villagers these days are a quiet, unadventurous lot and unlike to see the Nether in their whole lifetimes—let alone for only a glowstone mining trip. Technoblade would have to have it shipped here.

“Or we could get more ourselves?” Tommy suggests. “Wilbur says you got it from the Nether, and Phil told me there’s a portal in the woods. Can we just go get some?”

Technoblade flattens his ears. 

“Ooor not,” Tommy says, his wings drawing up tight. 

“No, it’s not—you, little one,” Technoblade sighs, sitting down beside his desk. Tommy crawls into his lap, cuddling close. “I haven’t been to the Nether in years.”

“Don’t piglins live in the Nether?”

“Mm, they do, but I—” Technoblade twists his tail in his own hands, looking away. “I don’t go there anymore.”

“Why not?”

“I am banished.”

“From the whole Nether?”

“Well, no, just from—” Technoblade swallows. Just from my home. Just from my sounder. “Just from certain territories.”

“Oh.” Tommy looks down, frowning. “Why?”

“I did something very bad.”

“What did you do?”

“I hurt someone I was supposed to protect,” Technoblade admits, quietly, and waits for Tommy to hate him. “I hurt my own family.”

“So they sent you away?”

“Mm.”

Tommy frowns, harder, and then says, “But that’s not fair.”

“What?”

“It’s not fair. Everybody hurts their family sometimes. I hurt Wilbur by bringing him here. Wilbur hurt me by pulling my bloodfeather one time. I hurt you by yelling at you, and Wilbur yells at you guys a lot. He even stepped on your tail. It doesn’t mean we’re gonna send each other away.” Tommy hesitates. “Right?”

“Of course not,” Technoblade says at once, appalled by even the thought. “But that’s different.”

“How come?”

“I was dangerous, little one. There are—I hear—” Technoblade fumbles, his ears heating with shame. It sounds so pathetic, to say it aloud. “There are—spirits, that some piglins can hear, and they tell us to do things. Mine told me to do—bad things, a lot. I started listening. I attacked one of my soundermates. I hurt her very badly.”

Tommy doesn’t pull away from him, or flinch, or look at him with any hesitancy. He just says, “Oh,” and then falls silent.

Then, he asks, “Did you say sorry?”

“No. I left that day. I never saw her again.”

“Were you sorry?”

“Sorrier than you know,” Technoblade whispers, and ancient grief wells between his ribs. His breath shudders. “I am so sorry.”

Tommy leans closer, rubbing his cheek against Technoblade’s chest and closing his eyes. 

Do the spirits hear me? he thinks, his voice ringing in Technoblade’s mind, and—

YES

Oh, yes.

all the time, littlest love

They do, Technoblade thinks back. Do you hear them?

Technoblade hopes not. Technoblade prays not.

No, Tommy admits. Do they like me?

I LOVE YOU

If I lost you I would burn this world down. 

you are cherished and beloved you are adored always

They love you, Technoblade says, curling himself around Tommy. We love you.

Tommy smiles, nuzzling against his chest. I love you guys too.

OH

Oh.

oh.

The spirits fall silent, for the briefest of moments, in their surprise. Then they burst into a clamor of excitement and joy and love, love, love. Technoblade grins, a purr rattling up in his chest; Tommy giggles and splays a hand over his sternum to feel the noise. 

The Nether is beautiful.

Frail red netherrack stretches as far as he can see, yielding only to pools and falls of simmering lava. It scrapes under his boots, dust catching on the dark pink furs of his tailtip. There is no breeze, but the air carries scents of ash and stone and gold. Heatwaves shimmer over the obsidian pathways Phil had built, long ago, when he’d first created this portal.

Technoblade had not set foot through it until now.

He’d been too afraid.

But this is home— Technoblade feels belonging in the pit of his chest. The Nether is birthplace and birthright both. This land belongs to him more certainly than the Overworld ever has; he inhales deeply, and the familiar scents soothe some long-neglected part of him. It is like his sow, he thinks. It is danger and home both. Technoblade is greedy for it.

“Oh my god,” Tommy says, fanning his shirt collar. “I’m melting.”

Technoblade chuckles, scooping him up and setting him on his shoulders. Wilbur follows behind, clinging to Technoblade’s tail like a nervous piglet. Phil brings up the rear of their tiny procession, pickax over his shoulder. His wings are spread to let off the heat, and already there is sweat on his brow. 

“Which way, Phil?” Technoblade asks. His bondmate knows this area better than he does. “I want glowstone. I want so much glowstone.”

“I dunno, mate. It’s been years since I’ve been here. Sniff it out.”

Technoblade obliges, sniffing the arid air. He smells hoglin distantly down the right path, and so he chooses the left. He leads the way forward, his eyesight—ordinarily so short and blurred in the Overworld—being most well-suited to the dim red glow of the Nether. The scents here are almost overwhelming in the memories they bring up, and a lump lodges into Technoblade’s throat. He hastily swallows it down. He is not going to cry. He is not.

“Techno, look! Is that it?” Tommy asks, pointing up.

Above them, some distance over a lava pool, there is a collection of glowstone hanging from the ceiling. Technoblade’s tail wags as best it can, caught in Wilbur’s hand.

“Yes, that’s it,” he says. “Well-spotted, runt.”

Technoblade picks his way down the path, ears and nose both alert for danger. The Nether is not as dangerous as many Overworlders seem to think it is, but it is not a mild place, either—the terrain itself is vicious, and the flora and fauna both can kill. Even now, he can smell warped fungus, and it makes his lip curl. 

They stop in a small clearing beside the lava pool, and Wilbur releases his tail.

“Stay nearby,” Technoblade says, grunting a warning. “Lava burns.”

“Yeah, no shit.” Wilbur kneels next to the pool, staring down at it, and Technoblade narrowly resists the urge to grab him by the scruff of the neck and toss him away from it. He is not a baby. He is smart. He knows better than to touch the lava. “You grew up here?”

“Mm,” Technoblade says. 

“No wonder you’re such a hardass.”

Technoblade huffs, and this time does grab Wilbur by the back of the shirt and tug him away from the lava. “Stay,” he says, and grunts shortly to emphasize his point. Wilbur sighs and sits, leaning back on his hands. Tommy sprawls out next to him. “Phil, would you?”

Phil hops into the air, coasting easily on the thermals that rise above the lava, and angles over the pool. He is dark at this distance—like a bat, Technoblade thinks, as he brings the pickax down against the glowstone. It shatters with a shimmering noise, and Phil catches as much of it as he can in a large canvas bag. The rest lands on his wings and shines.

“Ooh,” Tommy says, sitting up. “Can I—?”

“No,” Wilbur says, laying back and folding his arm over his eyes. 

“Ugh, you don’t even know what I was going so say.”

“You cannot fly over the pool of literal lava,” Wilbur says dryly. “You cannot fly period.”

“Well maybe I could if people let me try.”

“Phil lets you try all the time at home where you won’t burn to death if you fall.”

“Spoilsport.”

“Yeah, it’s called keeping you from being fried chicken.”

TASTES LIKE CHICKEN?

No.

no stop

Phil lands back in the clearing, glowstone dust falling from his feathers. He chirps his victory at them, and sprinkles some of the dust into the boys’ hair. Technoblade, selfishly, bends for his own sprinkling of dust. Phil kisses the top of his head and then obliges. Technoblade sneezes and smiles, his tailtip poofing with delight as he takes the bag of glowstone dust.

“I think we have enough for the swingset, now,” he tells Tommy. “What do you think?”

“I think we need some gold, too,” Tommy says, rubbing his hands together, “and some more obsidian, and some of those mushrooms over there.”

Technoblade takes the boys to gathers mushrooms while Phil mines gold. He tells them about each type of fungi—the succulent brown morels, the spicy redcaps, and the foul warped fungus. They taste of the morels and the redcaps. Wilbur likes them well enough, but Tommy makes a face at the taste and, having been sufficiently offended by it, goes to join Phil in mining. 

Wilbur spills the basket of mushrooms into lava, once, and arches an eyebrow expectantly at Technoblade.

“Nope,” Technoblade says, and it is easy to be nonplussed when he is warm and here in the home of his species. Besides, there are plenty more mushrooms. There is only one Wilbur. “Still don’t regret it.”

“Damn,” Wilbur says. “You’re stubborn.”

“Yes.” Technoblade leans down, pressing his snout affectionately to Wilbur’s forehead. “I am.”

“Ugh,” Phil says, and leans heavily against Technoblade’s side. The castle courtyard stretches out in front of them, littered with bodies and blades. Phil’s feathers are blood-sticky, and he smells of war. “Glad that’s over.”

Technoblade grunts, his broken arm slung protectively over his bondmate’s shoulders. He’s tired, too—the battle had come entirely too close to the castle, and Technoblade had been forced to fight in spite of his injury, much to Phil’s displeasure. He had made that displeasure known quickly and violently. The remains of his ire are scattered about the courtyard in heaps of broken bone and strewn intestine.

“You did good,” Technoblade says. “You deserve gold. I’m gonna get you so much gold.”

Phil leans his head against Technoblade’s shoulder, laughing breathlessly. “I’ll look forward to it, mate.”

“Do you feel better now?”

“Yeah. I feel better.”

Now that they’ve destroyed the Butcher Army, a message has been sent: this desolate place is theirs, and they will fight to keep it. Let anyone who wants to destroy what is theirs come and die at their feet. Technoblade will meet them with delight and an ax. They will cower before him and they will not know what danger lurks behind until it springs with icechip eyes and bristling shadowed feathers. 

It is Death that Technoblade guards, and her Angel. 

One of the wardogs limps to them, and lays stretched alongside Phil’s thigh. He buries a hand in the ruff of its fur, and it sighs softly. It, too, is smeared with blood and exhaustion. It closes its eyes as Phil strokes it, and Technoblade nudges his bondmate’s shoulder jealously. Phil reaches up to pet his hair, too, and Technoblade subsides.

“I want to take this one home,” Phil say absently. “It’s cute.”

“Whatever you want, Phil,” Technoblade rumbles—an old promise, and a true one.

Phil smiles, rubbing the dog’s ears. “It can be friends with Truearrow.”

“She’d like that.”

“When do you want to leave?”

Technoblade tips his head back, pointing his snout at the sky. Snow falls from the banks of clouds high over head, melting on his eyelashes and shoulders. He thinks of home. He thinks of a log cabin, and a dog, and cows. His heart aches for some unnameable thing. 

“Now,” he says.

“Deal.”

Phil picks himself up, dusting snow from his pants and shaking it out of his wings.

“Don’t you have things to do?” Technoblade asks, pricking his ears in surprise. “We have to reorganize the troops, and get them all home, and clear the bodies.”

“Nothing,” Phil says, looking levelly at him, “is as important as you.”

Technoblade looks away, embarrassed. “Ah,” he mumbles. “At least speak with the lieutenants first. I won’t want to neglect the military.”

“If that’s what you want,” Phil agrees, reaching down to offer him a hand up. He is so small that he doesn’t help at all, really, but the gesture warms Technoblade through anyway. “After that, we’re going home.”

“Home,” Technoblade agrees, sighing. “Let’s go home.”