Chapter Text
The king’s summoning arrives on a quiet, warm morning.
Phil wakes up to the knock of royal guards at his door, towering, armored figures draped in the colors of the crown, their expressions giving nothing as they deliver a letter to his waiting hand.
They tell him that King Technoblade awaits him at the castle of the capital, that a carriage is arranged, and that his presence is expected within the week.
Phil leaves his home, an empty house that is a decade lived in, on a quiet, warm afternoon.
He packs lightly. He takes only the essentials, a change of clothes and a bag of coins, meager savings made from the occasional odd job. Whatever else he’ll require, he’ll buy on the way, or when he arrives.
It’s been too long.
In part, it’s his own fault. He’s had his own handful of years to return back to the capital, now. Techno has been ruling comfortably ever since the death of his parents, and he’s settled into his throne well enough for Phil to not worry of any lasting punishments made by the previous head of the family. If he were to show his face again, it’s doubtful it would be taken as an insult, but there is a lingering guilt for the way he was made to leave at all.
Phil knows the king well. He knows Technoblade well, and he knows his brother, Wilbur, just as well.
The two darling princes of the kingdom, the heir to the throne and the spare, born only two minutes apart. Twins, as fate would have it.
The last time Phil saw them, they were both reaching their eleventh year. They were so little, then. So small, and yet so important, and yet so frighteningly alone, in such a grand, great castle.
The previous king and queen were gracious rulers, and they upheld the kingdom with care, but the same could not be said to how they handled their own children.
It could not be said they ever handled their children at all, with how sparingly they gave their attention to them. Phil remembers the silence of it all too well. Remembers the way those two boys used to stare up with such hope, the way they used to linger around the halls, waiting at closed doors, hoping for a way inside.
Gods, they were so little.
Phil was reassigned to their wing of the castle when they were both about the age of five. He was told to tend to their needs, to sort their laundry, to tidy their space, to provide their meals. If Phil were a colder man, he would’ve done so without a single word to the children. He could’ve carried out his duty and carried no greater weight on his heart, but-
They were still children. Even with the titles of being royalty, even with their ranks being so vastly distant, they were still so young, and Phil remembers with grief now at how lonely those boys seemed to be. They had everything they could ever want, they could ask for anything material in the kingdom, and it’d be theirs, but they could not acquire a second of their parents’ time.
At first, Phil tried to explain it neatly, when they dared to ask why.
The king and queen are simply busy managing the kingdom, he told them. They have to take care of all the people, all their courts and their soldiers and their subjects in the towns far away. It requires a great deal of effort. It requires a great deal of time.
But even with all their time spread so thin, could it really be so difficult for someone of the crown to force away a few minutes for their own sons? Is it really so hard to give the greater effort of being a parent to your own child, to give love to something that is yours?
Phil’s excuses ran dry within the first few weeks. The princes never seemed to believe his words all that much, anyway. Something in them already knew the honest truth. The king and queen did not have children for the dream of a family. They had children for the sake of the throne.
The heir of the kingdom- and a spare.
That’s how they tended to be described, around the whispers of the halls. Phil hated to listen to it, and hated witnessing the effect, the way those two boys seemed to hide themselves away, learning that they wouldn’t be considered valuable until the day they were grown.
Phil, upon the first day of being reassigned to that part of the castle, was told to tend to them.
So he did so.
For six years, Phil raised them as well as he would, as much he could. He held them when they were lonely, and soothed them when they were afraid, and put them to bed when they were tired, and fed them when they were hungry, and he listened to them, and he talked to them, and he saw them, he loved them.
And then word broke out, one day, of the title bestowed over Phil’s head, a gentle, murmured thing given from the princes’ lips.
Father, they once called him.
Once, and then never again, because the crown does not take lightly to servants overstepping their stations.
Phil was thrown out from the castle and forced out of the capital within a day, with nothing but the clothes on his back, and a stern warning that if he was to be seen again, he wouldn’t live to see the next sunrise.
He never was able to give a proper farewell. He was never able to quite send any sort of word to the princes, not unless he wanted his head severed from his neck. For his sake, he made his distance, and he stayed at a distance, even when the king and queen passed, even when the heir finally took his spot upon the throne. With so much time having gone by, would his return even be wanted? Would he even be remembered? What could he expect, from going back? He did not act as he did for the sake of reward. They were just children. They just wanted to be loved.
For a long time, Phil supposed it would only ever stay as an old memory. Something of the past that had to stay in the past.
Now, he sits in the back of a carriage, and wonders if he is a fond memory, something cherished enough that the princes would want it back. The king and the prince.
Phil rests his elbow upon the edge of the window beside him, giving a slight sigh, a prideful sort of smile tugging at his lips. Technoblade, ruling as the king, at last. He wonders how he’s taking it. By all reports, the kingdom is flourishing well, and there’s little protest and complaint to how it’s been managed, but Techno had never been the sort to really enjoy his role.
Not that being a king is something that one can enjoy. It’s a heavy weight- but Techno, still, had never cared for it in any sort of way. Phil remembered the way he used to complain of it, how he hated the idea of being stuck in those meetings, how he hated the idea of being trapped in court, how he nearly dreaded the future of sitting up on that throne, all eyes upon him.
Phil always assured him he’d do fine. Wilbur always insisted he’d help. Techno, every time, replied that he’d rather be a knight, and ride to death in bloody glory.
Such a dramatic child. Both him and Wilbur. While Wil was one to give the more outward appearance of tantrums, Techno was more subtle in his own. The two of them were terrors, regardless. Wilbur screaming and crying incoherently with his brother silent and staring stubbornly into a wall, the two of them giving Phil no answer as to what upset them both.
He almost misses it, in a way. Back then, their issues seemed so small. There was nothing a bit of his patience and a bit of kindness could not fix.
Now, it’s-
Phil breathes in, fingers tapping over his knee. Now, it’s all a bit more than just children acting out. Now, his boys are men, fully grown into their roles, and maybe now, they’re nothing as how they used to be.
All the more reason why he’s hesitant for his return.
He looks over the letter given to him. A king’s summoning, short and simple and to the point. They must want to see him again, surely, if they dared to call him at all. This isn’t a punishment, in the way he’s been retrieved. He isn’t a prisoner being taken to hear out his final sentence.
No, he feels this is more along the lines of a welcome to home. Even if there is little warmth in the words written out across the paper, even if the guards themselves are taking him along with little conversation made, all oath-bound duty and none of friendly chatter-- Phil knows the circumstances. He is being handled quietly because he is important to them. He is being escorted with a decent group of protection, because he is loved.
He wonders how they will frame his reappearance within the castle. He knows how prone the royal court is to rumors and gossip. Gods know there will be talk about his prior role, about the name they dared to give him, and the reaction of the old rulers before.
Maybe it won’t matter now. It’s best to not speak ill of the dead, but better to not speak of them at all, when it is better that they are dead. Who can protest about Phil overstepping now? Would there even be a point to trying that, when the new king now clearly favors him?
Phil tries to bite down the overconfidence swelling through his chest. Something in him fears the worst, and insists that he be wary that his boys won’t remember him well, but how can they forget all those years they shared? How can it be forgotten, the way he held their hands through the royal halls? They always turned to him, he remembers it so well in reminiscing now. Always, always, whenever they felt something of doubt or fear, they turned to him. Not to the king and queen. Him.
Are they turning to him again now?
Phil leans back into his seat and stares on to the scenery moving past. He will know nothing until he speaks with them, but he finds a satisfaction in knowing that if the reason he was called is because they wish to turn to him for help-- then there is nothing in his way in coming to answer that call. The rumors don’t matter, the old king is dead, the time has passed.
He is coming home.
---
The castle halls are still familiar in his memory.
They’ve been redecorated since the last time he walked through them. A few banners swapped here and there, a bit better lighting in those darker corners.
The castle seems brighter, a little better maintained. The colors are different, the people have changed.
The route to the throne room is still the same.
Phil knows the way just fine, though he still lets his group of guards escort him towards it for the sake of going along with the king’s orders. As optimistic as he feels, he can’t be sure of the entire picture, so he’ll follow until he’s sure there’s not too much of a need. Everything and anything can be an intentional move, within these walls.
The amount of protection he’s been given is a deliberate choice on its own. He moves through the halls, surrounded and kept as if he’s a person of great standing, and all the passing servants carrying out their duties and all the soldiers standing watch at their posts see his presence and think of that as his introduction. His first steps into the castle, to an immediate audience with the king, with an escort beside him throughout the whole way-
Phil tries to keep his smile from looking too obvious. Have doubt, the logic in his head insists, have wariness for the sake of your self-preservation! But it’s hard to doubt anything when he knows the children he raised. He knows their habits, knows their way of thinking.
He knows the face sitting up on the throne, his calm eyes looking back at Phil the second he walks into the room, the doors opened for him and his presence announced.
Phil takes a breath in, keeping it held in his lungs with a slow blink.
Technoblade has grown throughout the years. Some part of Phil knew, he knew it, but it’s one thing to assume there will be a difference and it is another to realize it in person. The boy whose hand once trembled in Phil’s palm moments before needing to give a great speech to an awaiting council is now sitting upon the throne before an entire crowd of people, the great hall filled with the nobles of the royal court, everyone acting as witness for Phil’s arrival.
…there is something about him that makes Phil pause. More than just the aching sight of seeing the years he missed, a loved face having grown up without him there to see it.
There is something off, almost, but Phil doesn’t have the focus to catch it. He’s escorted directly before the throne itself, made to stand before the steps leading up to it, and then he’s left to stand alone, to bear the weight of the king’s gaze.
It's a warm look that he’s given. A smile that Phil still remembers well.
Phil bows his head, and it is both a thing of respect, and a way to hide his eyes from the onlookers at court, so that they won’t see the tears trying to escape out. He tries to keep his breathing steady, not wanting to dissolve into embarrassing sobs.
“Your majesty.” He greets, his voice seeming to nearly echo with how quiet the room has fallen.
He can feel every single set of eyes upon his back, but they all seem very unimportant in the face of the person before him. Phil lifts his head, and he knows he’s doing this all wrong, knows there’s a way to be acknowledged and a rule to not speak before spoken to, but Techno’s never been cruel like the past king for needless things of respect like that, and Phil cares not for what punishment he might have for raising his chin too soon, bowing for too little time.
He just needs to look upon that face. See the way he’s changed, the way he’s still the same, even with that crown resting on his head.
“You’ve gotten taller.” Phil says outright. A quiet murmur floats through the hall, nearly amused, and the king lightly waves his hand, the silence falling back down.
“Only a bit.” Technoblade says, grinning at the simple comment.
Phil smiles in return, brows furrowed together. Why does his smile seem so odd to Phil? He sits with a clear power in his presence, all the grace of a ruler knowing how to command the room, but there’s something about that face. It’s not hesitant in any way. It’s just strangely familiar, yet somehow misplaced.
“It’s my honor and relief to welcome you back into the castle. Your presence has been missed.” He announces, and Phil sees the little glint of mischief flash past his eyes, all the same as when him and Wilbur were young. “Father.”
Phil’s expression melts out into complete shock, his shoulders dropping as he takes a sharp breath in through his teeth.
The room itself stays silent, but he can see out of the corner of his eye the way some nobles have their hands over their mouths, their faces caught in surprise. It’s not a very big secret that Phil had been the one to raise the princes behind the scenes, but it is particularly unexpected for Techno to just- acknowledge that, and to give that same title again, knowing that-
That- what?
There is no consequence to come from this, now. The old king is dead and buried. Technoblade has since had many years to mold the council and the court to his own liking. His rule is absolute, his place on the throne cannot be ignored. He’s the highest power of the realm, and he can’t be punished.
He can claim Phil as his parent if he so pleases.
Phil breaks out into a short, sudden laughter, hands lifting up to hover by his face, wanting almost to cover his joy. No point to it, though. There is no danger in being seen. He is a servant whose hand has reached a bit too far, perhaps, but it is the boy he raised who now holds the crown. The boy who has called him home to welcome him back with open arms.
“Where’s your brother?” Phil asks, wiping a slight tear out from the corner of his eye, feeling like something cherished in where he stands, even under everyone’s thoughtful gaze. “I do hope he’s come to greet me as well.”
Techno nods his head to the side to a royal guard that’s been standing by the throne during this whole time. Phil almost does a double take, having not realized the significance of this specific guard standing so close to the king.
“Welcome back, father.” Wilbur greets, removing the helmet over his head, allowing Phil to see his face in full.
Phil stares in a moment of needing to take it in.
Again, he’s grown so much. He’s taller now, much like his twin, but Phil looks again and finds a jarring sort of surprise for the fact it is Wilbur standing there in polished armor, a deep red cape draped over his back, a prominent scar made over the bridge of his nose. He stands with the confidence of a man who’s gone to battle and won. The bravery of a warrior who fears very little.
“You’ve- become a knight?” Phil asks, confused for a moment.
How is that Wilbur has become a knight? It’s been years, now, and he supposes anyone can change over time, but Wilbur had never- he was never that sort of a child. He never liked the violence of swords, or the brutality of battle.
“Honorable and victorious.” Wilbur says, and Techno almost rolls his eyes, hiding the action in pretending to turn his head to the windows up above for a moment. Wil grins a bit more, in a smile that again, makes Phil falter. “I’ve proven myself well over the years.”
“I have no doubt of it.” Phil says, though, really, there is some doubt. Wilbur, a knight. Of all routes for him to take…
It was always Techno who had wanted to become a knight more than anything, when they were both so little, though Phil always had to gently remind him that it wasn’t a true possibility, with his birthright as a future ruler.
He never seemed too keen on that, but Wilbur had been so ready to offer his help, to the point where Phil had been convinced he’d turn out to be a diplomat, perhaps, helping at his brother’s side. Instead, now, he’s taken up a sword, and-
And…
Phil looks upon Wilbur’s face again, and then looks to Techno.
…Oh.
“Your majesty, may I request a private audience?” Phil asks, and the king’s face flickers into something of surprise. Phil quickly goes on, so as to smooth over any rumors the nobles around them are already thinking of. “There’s certain matters I’ve always wanted to settle from before I was sent away. I’d like to discuss it at length.”
“Of course.” Technoblade immediately grants, looking a little thrown off by the request, but not very bothered. “We’ll resolve things as soon as you’ve gotten some rest. Wilbur can show you to your living quarters-”
“There’s no need for that. I can stand to wait a bit more.” Phil interrupts, sounding quite sure of it, Wilbur giving a slight frown to the instant refusal.
“You’ve only just gotten here.” The king points out. It’s colored with a faint hint of worry. Phil’s heart aches for the clear sign of care. “I do insist you take a bit of time to recover from the trip.”
“It wasn’t a terribly long thing.” Phil insists back. “But if it’ll ease your worry, I’ll go rest just after we speak for a moment. It’s been- quite a while, I think.”
“It has.” Technoblade agrees. And that reminder of the time that has passed seems to be the winning point.
The royal court is concluded very quickly. The nobles and the guards all move out of the hall, while the king, his guard, and Phil move to one of the smaller rooms to the side, something more meant for a smaller council.
Wilbur goes to stand at the outside of the door, taking it as his post. He watches as Phil and Techno enter the room together, and he closes the door behind them, gentle enough to have it close with only a quiet click.
Phil stands within the room, looking upon the king in a new light, now that they stand on an equal footing, away from the eyes of others and the height of the throne.
Good fucking lord, he’s gotten tall.
Both him and his brother- Phil feels almost brought towards another urge to cry for the sight of it, for the way he has to tilt his head up to see his face, but he tries to move past it. Focus, he insists.
“I’m sorry it’s taken this long.” He speaks before Phil can say anything first. “To bring you here. And to welcome you back.”
“It’s alright.” Phil assures. He’s forgiven it already, though there was never anything to forgive them for. It was not the princes’ fault their parents sent him away.
“I had hoped it would be sooner.” He goes on, leaning back to the edge of the wooden table behind him, a thing meant for a royal council. If this were a proper meeting, the king would sit in that seat at the end, and Phil would stay standing, out of respect, and for the difference in their importance.
Here, there’s no need. Phil is not speaking to just the ruler of the realm. The king is not speaking to any simple subject of the kingdom.
“We both wanted you back as soon as possible, but it was better to get things in order before that. We had certain- matters to take care of, so that you’d be safe.”
Phil can’t help but gives a sympathetic look, head tilted as he stares upon the king’s face. He makes a small smile. “Bold move to call me father before the court itself.”
“Is it not truth?” He asks.
Phil lowers his head, blinking quick to ease back the burn in his eyes. “It’s just very sudden.” He tries to reason, and suddenly the king is straightening up on his feet, eyes wide.
“Oh- is- is it too much?” He asks, now filled with worry, an expression made with concern. “I didn’t mean-”
“It’s alright.” Phil holds his hands up, trying to focus back to the greater matter at hand. “I have no issue with it, I’m-” He loses focus so easily again. “If you’ll have me again, I…I do want to try.”
“There’s no need in trying. You already are our father.”
Phil closes his eyes.
The king begins to move past him, one hand grazing past the side of his arm as he tries to head towards the door. “And there’s so much we’ve been hoping to catch you up on. There’s so many things I want to show you, and that Wilbur wants to show you, and your room alone is the start of it, we spent ages trying to make sure it’d be right-”
“Wilbur.” Phil says, speaking the name in a murmur.
The king gives a slight puzzled look as he instantly turns his head to face back towards Phil. He pauses in place for a moment, then turns away from the door.
“What of him?” He asks, and Phil bites into the inside of his lip, feeling a little bit like an idiot for not catching onto the details sooner.
It’s been so long, he can’t help but think. It’s been years, and his boys have grown up without him, of course he’d miss the signs, but still, to be in the dark with all the others, to be tricked all the same, in something almost so predictable.
How can a father not know his sons better?
“How long?” Phil questions, his voice turned stern. He turns to face him.
The king’s expression shifts through a sort of worried confusion, nearly nervous. “I don’t- I’m not sure what you’re asking?” He says, and Phil narrows his eyes into something of a warning.
“Wilbur.” He speaks again, so very sure of it in the way the king before him holds his hands in front of him, fingers fidgeting together.
There’s still a difference to their faces, even if they were born twins. A slight variation to the shape of their chins, an ever so slight placement of their eyes. Techno’s always grinned in a way that bared his teeth. Wilbur’s always held a certain look in his gaze when getting up to something. Phil knows it in the way he knows them.
He raised them.
“For how long have you been wearing each other’s names?” He asks Wilbur, who is wearing his brother’s crown, draped in a king’s clothes, his face going pale in a sudden thing of terror.