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Phil wakes up to the sound of crows. Right outside his window.
This is decidedly not normal.
The sheets against him are woolen and scratchy, the space beside him empty and cold. When he opens his eyes, he’s greeted with looming wooden ceilings made of old logs, a stark contrast to the pale walls of his bedroom that he’d expected. He pushes himself up onto his elbow, still half-asleep, and a heavy weight between his shoulders follows him, nearly dragging him right back down again. He feels unbalanced, resorting to sitting up entirely when the weight grows too heavy.
“Th’ fuck?” he mumbles, scrubbing at his eyes with the back of his wrist and pulling it back in confusion when dark, silky fabric brushes against his cheeks. He’s wearing long sleeves, which is strange, because it’s way too fucking hot outside for anything like that. He’s also burrowed beneath several layers of blankets, and Kristin—
Kristin’s not there.
It’s then that his surroundings finally register, that his breath catches in his chest and his heart stops as he looks around the unfamiliar room with nothing short of horror.
“Kristin?” he calls out, throwing the blanket off of him, staring out at old wood and the falling snow outside, and the bed that’s far too small for the both of them. “Kristin!”
There’s no answer, only the whistle of the wind outside and the creak of wood beneath his bare feet as he slides out of bed in search of her. A crow caws again, a dark shape tapping its beak against the window. There’s no sign of his wife anywhere. He nearly throws himself forward in his concern, his heart in his throat and the sheets tangling around his legs.
He takes one step and stumbles.
His knees hit the ground—hard, a muffled curse spilling out between his teeth as he catches himself with his hands. Something dark spills out around him on either side as if to brace him, and that’s when he finally sees them—a curtain of black feathers, encircling him on every side. Great, dark wings, as though some massive bird is balancing on his shoulders. Only, there’s no bird—and when he moves, so do the wings, twitching and shuffling upon his back, where they rest, firmly connected.
“What the fuck,” he breathes, reaching out to touch them. They flutter against his touch, but he can feel every second of his fingers carding through the down, every nerve hypersensitive to his touch. They’re his, alright, and as he feels the panic in his chest beginning to rise anew, the feathers ruffle and prickle and flare, and he’s reminded oddly of a cat arching its back. “Right—okay. Fuck. What the fuck. I have—I have fucking wings?”
It’s a shitty, weird dream. It has to be. But his knees ache and his palms sting, and the weight on his back feels all too real. He squeezes his eyes shut and clenches his fists so hard his nails dig into skin, but he doesn’t wake up. He opens his eyes.
Same room. Same clothes. Same wings.
“Right. That’s—okay.” He stares down at his hands—skin stained black at his fingertips, nails sharpened into dark, fine points. He reaches up to run a clawed hand through his hair and brushes against long, soft strands. His hair falls much longer than it should, curling around his chin in gentle waves, tangled from sleep. “Long hair. Weird hands.” He looks up, and catches a glimpse of a mirror on the desk at the far end of the room, alongside a set of stairs leading downward. It takes more effort than he’d like to admit to carry himself across the room, his knees wobbly and unfamiliar beneath him, his head spinning with dizzying adrenaline and confusion.
He stares into the mirror.
Someone else’s face stares back. Or, well—
“Shit.”
It’s his face, but not. It’s older. More tired. His hair is long and his eyes are piercing, his ears tipped with long, dark feathers and his cheeks dusted with down. Dark wings flare out from his back, lopsided but no less beautiful—one wing tattered and torn and burnt, aching as he flexes it. It stings with phantom pain, every moment labored, and he’s forced to look away from the damage when it becomes too much to bear.
He stills at what he sees next.
Next to the mirror sits an old, weathered hat. White with green stripes, wide-brimmed and floppy, beads and feathers dangling from golden chains and flowers encircling the base, tucked beneath a dark green ribbon.
“That’s—” He swallows, voice breaking off into nothing, hands beginning to shake. It’s not the exact same, no—more like the elaborate fanart he’d often seen while scrolling on Twitter, but it’s the same damn hat he’s been teased about for so long for making his brand. The same one that earned him the nickname Weebza from his chat, similar to the one that sits unused back on his desk at home, right beside his computer.
It’s Urahara’s hat. Or, more specifically, it’s—
“My fucking character?” Phil breathes, staring at his reflection. Philza Minecraft—his fucking Minecraft skin, his Dream SMP character—stares back. “Holy shit— okay, that’s—” He giggles, stepping back, and nearly trips over a stray wing dragging along the floor. “Jesus Christ.”
He can’t decide whether to be terrified or excited. The decision is made for him when he hears a door creak open somewhere below, followed by the clip-clop of hooves against the floor.
“Phil?” Calls a deep, rumbling voice, and Phil’s face splits into a grin.
“Techno?” he calls back, daring to hope, his voice coming out high-pitched and scratchy with panic. He wobbles his way over to the stairs, but his friend meets him halfway, only—
He’s a fucking pig. The creature with Techno’s voice is a hulking, massive pig, covered with soft pink fur, with a snout and tusks and hooves to match. He towers over Phil, looking him up and down with evident confusion and concern, one hand outstretched as if to steady him as he wobbles. He must see the change in Phil’s expression, because he takes a quick step back, palms lifted. Phil’s wings, instinctively flared, lower a little.
“Phil?” the pig— Techno asks again. “You okay man? Yer’ lookin’ a little…” He gestures vaguely to all of Phil, and Phil—
His knees buckle, one hand clutched to his chest. Technoblade is quick to catch him, dropping to his knees beside him and bracing him on either shoulder. He holds him up like he weighs nothing at all, and Phil stutters out a frantic laugh at the strangeness of it all, his heart racing a million miles a minute.
“Phil? Phil, answer me. Are you okay? What’s wrong, man, you gotta tell me?”
“Techno,” he rasps. “You’re—you’re Techno.” Not his friend, but the character.
The piglin’s brow furrows.
“That’s me,” he answers cautiously, looking at Phil as if he’s just grown two heads.
“You don’t—Christ, you don’t understand,” Phil manages. “Techno—where are we?”
“Phil, c’mon, this isn’t—”
“Techno, where are we?”
“...Essempi,” Technoblade answers. “We’re at home, in the commune out in the arctic.”
Essempi.
SMP.
“Fuck.”
“So yer’ tellin’ me yer’ from another world? Where you… control what we do? Everything? Using magic?”
“...Something like that.”
Phil has been in the world of the Dream SMP for three days now. For three days, he’s lived in a body that isn’t his own, sleeping alone in a bed that creaks with every movement and listening to the whistling of a snowstorm outside when it should be late spring. His limbs ache with a pain he doesn’t recognize, his wings moving against his will. His best friend is a pig, and there’s an uncomfortable awkwardness between them as they both realize they hardly know one another at all. Technoblade tries to stick to himself, for the most part, and there’s a strange melancholy in every discussion, a hopelessness the piglin tries desperately to hide.
Phil wishes he could be the one his friend is missing. He wishes he could be home right now, watching movies with Kristin or teasing chat, or filming silly vlogs with Tommy.
Instead, he rises to the sound of crow calls he can’t quite understand. Not even chat is here to comfort him.
He’s alone.
On the dawn of the fourth day, he wanders down the stairs half asleep, in search of the teapot. He doesn’t even like tea, but he’ll do anything to clear the fog in his mind. Only, he’s out of tea, so he’s forced to pad barefoot across the snowy bridge between his and Techno’s homes in desperate hope of stealing from his stash. The lights are out. Technoblade rises much earlier than him, and has been making himself scarce, leaving Phil alone with his thoughts while the two of them work desperately to find a way to send him back home.
Techno’s not here, so he can’t exactly ask for some tea. But he’d always borrowed from Techno on the server without much of a fuss, so it shouldn’t be a problem if he steals some tea leaves, of all things.
The door creaks open.
There’s a soft clatter from within. He starts, stepping backward, praying he hasn’t managed to piss off the literal fucking polar bear Technoblade calls a pet. And then he sees it—a mop of curly blonde hair, a familiar red and white shirt and long, lanky legs kneeled beside the open chest.
He’s moving before he can think better of it, Tommy’s name on his lips as he stumbles across the cabin, his cane clattering to the ground, forgotten. He drops to his knees beside the boy just as he realizes he’s been discovered, and he doesn’t hesitate to pull him into a tight embrace, burying his face in his hair and pulling him close against his chest. Tommy doesn’t reciprocate, stiff in his arms, but that’s okay, because Phil is more than willing to do all of the hugging right now.
“Tommy,” he breathes, his heart in his throat, tears of relief prickling in the corners of his eyes. He’s not alone, thank God—he’s not the only one trapped in this hell. “ Fuck, mate—thank God you’re here. You’re alright, mate— Jesus Christ, you scared me.”
And then Tommy pushes him away. The warmth against his chest vanishes, Tommy glaring at him with wide eyes and bared teeth.
“What the fuck, Phil?”
Phil stops dead in his tracks.
For a brief moment, he’d fooled himself. For a heartbeat, he’d allowed himself to believe that this Tommy was his Tommy, a friend and a nuisance and some sort of pseudo-internet-son all wrapped in one. But this Tommy looks at him with undisguised hatred, his face full of dark anger and hurt and betrayal in a way that Phil doesn’t understand, at least—not until he remembers.
“Oh,” he breathes, before he can really help himself. “Shit, that’s right, we—” He swallows, overcome with a sort of guilt he’d never expected to feel about the chaos of that day. There had been no consequences for the withers he’d spawned, save for the screaming of his chat and the usual backlash on Twitter. Nothing real, nothing tangible. But the boy in front of him stares at him with haunted eyes and a shadow of grief hanging over him, bearing a face just like his friend’s and yet far too old.
“What do you want, Phil?” Tommy snaps, backing away like a cornered animal, clutching an armful of golden apples to his chest. Phil just stares, until an apple drops from Tommy’s hold, rolling across the ground to bump against his boot, startling him out of his stupor.
Oh. Right.
“You can take those,” he offers lamely, unable to find the right words to comfort, and Tommy continues to bristle. “Techno can make more, he’s got a shit-ton of gold in the—”
“Are you gonna kill me?”
“…What?” Phil is startled into a laugh. His wings flutter clumsily behind him in his surprise, still utterly out of his control. “Jesus Christ , mate—that fuckin’ escalated, didn’t it? Why would I—why would I kill you?”
“I’m stealing, aren’t I?” Tommy snaps, no longer cowering as he pushes himself to stand, leaning against the wall with the same defiance his counterpart would have held. It’s achingly familiar, in a way that makes Phil’s heart twinge with homesickness. “C’mon, big man—aren’t you gonna kill me, too? I’m a traitor, aren’t I, you massive fucking dickhead, so why don’t you just go ahead and do it.”
“Tommy!” Phil snaps, with much more force than intended, his wings flaring out behind him and nearly sending him stumbling. “Fucking stop— I’m not gonna kill you. The hell’s gotten into you? I would never hurt you!”
“Wouldn’t you?” Tommy says softly, and in his eyes Phil sees fire and smoke and ruin, something so much more than just pixels on a screen or a quick respawn. Phil imagines Doomsday in all its terrible glory—dynamite raining from the sky, skeletal creatures rising up from the ashes to reign hellfire down, burning and destroying until all that remained was a yawning chasm where a city once stood.
“Fuck,” Phil breathes, pinching his brow between two fingers, trying and failing to steady himself. “Okay—right, shit. Look, Tommy, this is gonna sound crazy, but you have to believe me, okay?” He holds out his hands placatingly, watching as the boy’s eyes follow his every movement. “Look, I’m not—I’m not your Phil.”
Tommy just stares.
“I mean—God, this is…” He sighs, long and heavy, wishing he were a little less shit at this sort of thing. “Sorry, it’s hard to explain, but… I’m not your Phil. I’m not—I’m not from this world…?” He trails off, and Tommy looks just as confused as he feels— though he supposes confused is better than utterly disbelieving. “Look, I know it sounds stupid as hell, but I’m not joking. I don’t know how I ended up here, but I’m not the Phil that blew up your country, or the Phil that’s Wilbur’s dad, or any of that shit. I’m just—I’m just Phil, and I don’t even know how I got here. Your Phil is—I don’t know where he is. But he’s not here.”
Tommy blinks.
“Well, that explains things.”
A beat. Phil barely dares to breathe.
“You… believe me?” he asks. “Just like that?”
Tommy snorts.
“‘Course. You’ve been acting weird since you showed up, ‘s fucking creepy, man.” Tommy taps his foot impatiently, casting a sidelong look at the door. “Look, man, it’s not like I hate you or anything, but—” He huffs, mirroring Phil’s earlier actions, pressing his hand to his face exaggeratedly. “No offense to you, but I almost preferred it when you hated me. This whole… caring thing you’re doing is just—it’s fucking weird.”
“Mate,” Phil breathes soothingly, almost a reflex as he sees the boy’s tense shoulders and shadowed eyes. “I don’t—I don’t think he hated you…”
How does he explain that he knows? That he created the one who helped to make this kid’s life a living nightmare? Good intentions or not, he’d still done it—still caused this pain, these scars. How does he explain that it had been done out of love—out of a desperate, if foolish, attempt to help the citizens of L’manberg see reason? That their Phil—the Phil he’d played the part of—had only been trying to free them?
How can he say that, when faced with the mirror of one of his best friends, broken and hurting and scared?
“Really?” Tommy asks, and there’s a hollowness in his voice—an exhaustion that doesn’t seem like it will ever truly fade. A child soldier, donning a mask that he’ll never remove. “‘Cause it sure fucking felt like he did.”
Phil remembers every time he’d tried to plan lore with Tommy, only for their plans to fall through, plans for reconciliation and redemption set aside for the time being. He remembers losing interest for the server alongside the others—flocking to Origins and hardcore and every other distraction he could think of while busy schedules kept them from ever making progress with the script. It had been an ugly mix of conflicts and miscommunications, and he’d never thought it to be anything more than a minor annoyance, something for the fans to complain about. But now, as he stares face to face with the consequences, intentional or not, he can’t look away.
“He…” The words die on Phil’s tongue. It sounds ridiculous, even to him, to try and explain. Instead, he settles for a soft sigh, his heart heavy and laden with guilt. “Look, mate…” He thinks back to all of the times he’d laughed at the suffering of Tommy’s character, replaying clips to his chat and teasing them about the “angst” of it all. It makes him feel a little sick. “I know you and him weren’t on the best of terms—” and Tommy snorts, but Phil presses onward, “—but I need you to trust me when I tell you he doesn’t hate you. He’s just…” He toys around with the words, with the right thing to say. “...He’s a little lost, mate. He wants what’s best for you, and deep down he cares about you—and everyone, even if he doesn’t really show it.”
Tommy is quiet for a long time.
Phil’s pretty sure he doesn’t breathe for any of it.
The boy rocks on his heels, his gaze downcast and his jaw working, as though he wants to speak but doesn’t have the words. Behind him, Phil’s wings flutter uselessly, unable to suppress the anxious urges no matter how discomforting they are—a part of him that still feels so detached from the rest of his body.
And then Tommy sighs.
“Whatever you say, big man,” he says, with none of the youthful spite Phil expects, and turns to go, and Phil—
Phil can’t let it end like this.
“Tommy,” he calls, and watches the kid turn toward him once more. “Can I…?” He holds out his arms, a silent offer, never once moving from his place for fear of startling the kid. It goes quiet again, long and painful, and for a moment, he worries he may have made a mistake, that Tommy will run out of the door and never return. He closes his eyes tightly, praying that when they open again, Tommy will still be there.
And then he feels slender arms close around him, soft curls ticking his cheek.
“Don’t tell anyone about this,” Tommy mutters. “I’ll kill you if you do.” And Phil laughs, wet and watery as he returns the embrace, pulling the kid tight against him. Tommy squirms a bit before going still, hands reaching up to tangle in the flowing fabric above Phil’s wings, leaning down to rest his head on Phil’s shoulder. It’s a little awkward, like hugging Tommy always is, but it’s familiar, and warm, and Phil finds himself leaning into it with a breath that’s closer to a sob.
“Gods, you’re even worse than him,” Tommy says, but there’s no bite to it. “Big fuckin’ crybaby.”
“Shut,” Phil mutters, because he knows Tommy needs this just as badly as he does.
They stay there for a while. Neither one of them wants to pull away first.
Ultimately, it’s Phil who finally makes the move, though his hands still rest on the kid’s shoulders, squeezing gently. Tommy meets his gaze with confusion and unspoken relief, as though some great burden has been lifted from him, and Phil can’t help but smile.
“Take care, okay, mate?” he rasps. “Don’t go doing any stupid shit, alright?”
Tommy scoffs.
“No, mate—I’m serious, Tommy. Listen for a second, alright?” Tommy’s face softens almost imperceptibly, but his lips close and he doesn’t move to leave, and that’s enough for Phil. “Look, I know I’m the last person you probably wanna hear this from, but—there are people out there who care about you. Who will help you, if you ask.”
Tommy’s breathing hitches.
“I know you’re stubborn as a fucking bull, but—I’m just saying, you don’t have to do anything alone, alright?” Phil sighs, long and tired and desperately, foolishly hopeful. “I know you don’t wanna hear this, but—Techno would help you.”
His gaze darkens.
“No, mate. Really. I know you both hurt each other real bad, but I promise you, he cares more about you—about people than about any stupid little grudge. If you asked—if you two just talked— he’d listen.” His hand finds its way to Tommy’s shoulders, and he looks into blue eyes and sees little more than a boy, blue eyes wide and wet with unshed tears, lips twisted into something pained and conflicted. “You’re both so fucking stubborn but—gods, you’re not alone, Tommy. Just—remember that, okay? I can’t force you to talk to him, or any of that shit, but he’s there if you ever need him. He misses you more than you think.”
It takes a while, a few heartstopping moments that seem to drag on for hours, and for a second Phil fears he might have just fucked everything up again. But then Tommy nods, slight at first but then gradually more obvious, and then he’s throwing his arms around Phil one last time.
“Thank you,” the kid muffles into the fabric of Phil’s haori, and unconsciously he squeezes Tommy a little tighter, nearly lifting him off of the ground. It’s much shorter than the first, and far too soon he pulls away, but there’s a twitch to his lips that hadn’t been there before, and a brightness in his eyes that isn’t just the tears. He mumbles a hurried farewell, and before either of them can drag this out any longer, he leaves with an armful of gapples and iron Phil had been more than happy to provide.
When the door shuts, Phil is able to breathe a sigh of relief for the first time since he arrived here. It’s followed by a dizzying rush of confusion and anxiety that nearly makes his knees give out from beneath him, the reality of the situation beginning to sink in with horrifying intensity. He sinks down onto the couch with his head in his hands and muffles a wheezing, teary laugh, and wonders just how the hell any of this could possibly be happening.
“I’m going fucking crazy,” he muffles into scarred palms he doesn’t recognize, and tries to ignore the ache in his heart that longs for the life he used to have. “What am I doing?”
He wants to go home.
But he doesn’t even know if he can go home anymore.
When Wilbur comes around, Phil is expecting it.
There’s something inside of him that knew he’d come—that knew there was something left still for him to have to fix. He’d pushed it to the back of his mind, spending time with Technoblade and trading stories of their strange lives, learning to work the farms and craft new things with his bare hands, and amidst his work he’d forgotten, briefly, about the tugging in his chest. It’s been weeks, and he’s starting to give up hope of ever returning to the life he’d known. He misses it—misses his home and the safety and streaming and Kristin— and he doesn’t even know if he’ll ever make it back to her. He buries himself in his work, and pores over old texts trying to find an answer, and slowly begins to lose track of time.
But the tugging returns full-force when he catches a glimpse of familiar brown curls on the horizon one day while working the fields. A tattered leather coat sits around slender shoulders, a pale face smudged with his namesake and a lazy smile playing out across his lips. And Phil knows, deep down in his heart, that this is not his Wilbur—this one old and worn and tired of the world—but he runs to him anyway, throwing his arms around the man before he can get so much as a word in edgewise.
“Wilbur,” he breathes, squeezing him tight.
“Hey, Phil,” Wilbur says, with that same playful teasing he always has, and Phil chokes back a watery laugh as skinny arms curl around his waist and lift him a little, his wings flapping out to either side with barely constrained delight. “Aww, Dad. You miss me that much?”
“You have no idea,” Phil rasps. “You piece of shit, visit more often.”
He didn’t realize how badly he missed him until now.
Wilbur laughs brightly, setting Phil back down in the snow. Phil shakes off the loose powder that’s gathered on his wings, clutching his cane tightly as he leads the way back toward the cabin, where smoke is billowing from the chimney out into the cold winter air. Wilbur’s hand settles on his shoulder, a steady, warm, comforting weight as they make their way up the stairs. He opens the door for Wilbur with a smile, and the two step inside into the cabin’s cozy warmth, where Wilbur immediately flops across the couch, kicking his feet up.
“Right,” Wilbur says, as Phil sets about pouring tea for the both of them. “So where’s Phil?”
One of the teacups promptly shatters against the hardwood floor.
“Shit,” Wilbur says. “What’d you do that for?”
“Mate—” Phil’s mouth opens and closes, wings puffing up behind him. “I—How’d you…?”
“He’s my dad,” Wilbur says, and the look he gives Phil is one of near boredom. “He’s a traumatized old bird with five hundred years of isolation under his belt that gets this look in his eyes whenever he sees me. Trust me, it wasn’t hard.” And then his brow quirks, and he looks a little harder at Phil, clearly interested in whatever he’s seeing. “It’s weird though. I should probably be pissed seeing as you’re—what—possessing my dad’s body or some shit? But, I mean, you don’t seem like a threat. You’re a lot like him, you’re just…”
“Different?”
“Yeah.”
Phil sighs, abandoning his efforts of preparing tea in lieu of sitting beside the younger man, who shuffles to make room beside him on the couch. It takes him a minute to find the words, but when he speaks, Wilbur doesn’t scoff or laugh or draw a weapon—instead, he maintains a calm, curious silence, looking at Phil as if he’s some particularly interesting object in a museum.
“I’m not Phil. Well—I mean, I am. But I’m not your Phil.”
Wilbur merely nods.
“You’re not surprised?”
“I was in limbo for thirteen years, Phil. Not much really surprises me anymore.”
“Right.” Christ. “Sorry about that.”
“Why are you sorry?” Wilbur doesn’t look accusatory, only perplexed. “If you’re not my Phil, then there’s no need to apologize, right?”
Phil draws a deep, shuddering breath, running clawed fingertips through his hair. It would take too long to explain it—he’d given up with Technoblade after the third or fourth time trying. Even if Wilbur understood, it would feel wrong to tell him everything—to explain that nothing in his life has ever actually been entirely in his control, that they’ve played with their lives like toys for the amusement of millions. Instead, he swallows, pinches his nose, and then fixes Wilbur with a long look. He hopes the man can read all of the emotions there. He’s given up trying to hide them these days.
“I’m not your Phil. But I—I still feel responsible. I can’t explain why, I just—I just do. So just… I’m sorry, mate.”
Wilbur doesn’t speak for a while. Phil can practically hear the gears turning in the man’s head, his brow furrowed and his lips drawn in a tight frown. For a moment, Phil thinks he might reject him entirely, that he’s just crossed a boundary that he shouldn’t. Wilbur could easily lose his temper—God knows he deserves it, for the choices he’d made that day at Wilbur’s insistence, carelessly killing a character on a screen and rightfully never imagining he’d ever see consequences. Phil holds his breath and waits, and waits, and makes peace with the thought of a world in which Wilbur, one of his best friends, hates him.
But eventually Wilbur nods, and then smiles, and then he’s reaching out and squeezing Phil’s hand, and there’s a look of grim understanding somewhere behind smudged glasses, and of something softer, too.
“...It’s okay, Phil. I wanted it, alright?” Scarred hands, weathered and worn and far too damaged in a way that makes Phil’s heart ache, encircle his, holding fast. Wilbur’s hands should never be like this. His face should never look so tired. “I wanted it then, and you gave it to me, even though it hurt. I shouldn’t have asked you for that.”
Phil’s heart aches with a grief he didn’t know he possessed. The smile he forces is trembling at best, his throat bobbing as he tries and fails to find something to say.
“I’m alright now, okay?” Wilbur grins sheepishly. “Or—well. That’s not entirely true. But I don’t want it anymore. You gave me mercy, Phil, even if you knew it would take a piece of you with it. So thank you.”
Something breaks. Phil feels hot tears pricking at his eyes again.
“Why’re you…?”
“Something tells me you need to hear this.”
“Fuck,” Phil breathes, sniffling into his sleeve and turning his face away from Wilbur. “I don’t—I don’t know why I’m crying, I don’t even—it wasn’t even me, I don’t—”
Wilbur smiles softly.
“It’s okay to cry. Even if you’re not him, you were clearly feeling guilty, you sappy old man.”
“I’m not fucking old,” Phil rasps half-heartedly, the familiar banter stemming the flow of tears. “You’re just a little shit, you know that?”
“It’s what I do best,” Wilbur quips, his grin sharp but affectionate.
Phil laughs. It still feels weak, though.
“So—you’re not him, then,” Wilbur says after a moment of silence. “Right. But—you clearly know something, don’t you? You know me, and not just whatever version you know, but this me.”
“I know a lot, mate,” Phil says, and he watches Wilbur’s expression flicker. “More than you’d probably like me to, I imagine.”
The man hums contemplatively at that. Something about his posture changes, then, almost imperceptibly. His shoulders stiffen, his gaze narrowing ever-so-slightly. Phil’s not a threat, at least, not physically, but Wilbur is sizing him up like one, as if daring him to continue. Phil’s playing with fire, knowing what he knows about the character, and yet he grits his teeth and pushes on.
“I know what you’re planning,” he says, and the warmth in Wilbur’s gaze drops.
“You know not to get in the way, then?” It’s a poorly concealed threat.
Phil is silent. It’s as good of an answer as any.
“Right,” Wilbur says. “Okay then, not-Phil. You stay out of my way, and I’ll stay out of yours. Deal?” When Phil doesn’t answer, he rises from his seat, looking almost panicked, though he's rying desperately to shut Phil out. “Good luck getting back to your world. If you see father dearest on your way back, would you mind not telling him about all of this?”
“Wil…” He can’t let him just leave. Not like this. Not when he knows so much. Too much. He needs to tell him, needs to make him see.
“I’ll be off, then–”
“Wil!”
Wilbur stops, Phil’s fingers tangled in the sleeve of his coat.
“Wil, I—Look, before you go, just listen, okay?” Phil holds Wilbur there. “I know you don’t want to hear this, or listen to someone you barely know, but… Whatever you’re planning, whatever debt you think you owe Dream—Tommy needs you. He’s hurting, mate. He needs someone. Not a leader to follow or a new country to give his life for, but a brother.”
Wilbur is silent.
“He’s your brother, right? Not—not by blood, but heart, yeah?” Wilbur nods, and Phil continues, praying his desperation shines through. “He’s hurt, Wil. He needs somebody to look out for him, somebody to actually give a shit for more than a few days.”
“I need to do this. No matter what, I need—”
“No, Wil—you don’t. Stop lying to me—to your dad, too. You don’t need to prove yourself. You don’t need to build something great. Everything you need is already here, dude.” He reaches up, carefully cupping Wilbur’s cheek with one hand, looking into a face that is altogether foreign and familiar, staring into dark eyes full of pain and confusion. “It’s okay to let go of a dream, Wil. Look at what’s around you. Who’s around you.” He thumbs away the tears clinging to the man’s lashes, his heart threatening to splinter at the sight of his brokenness. “It’s okay to not be okay. You just—you gotta tell somebody. You and Tommy, you can still heal. Together. You don’t have to throw it all away again.”
“Phil…”
“You don’t have to believe me. God, I know I sure fuckin’ wouldn’t, with how crazy this is. But—just think about it, okay?” He shakes his head with a breathy laugh, grateful that Wilbur isn’t pulling away, or trying to fight him. “I’m sure the other me has more to say, if you’ll let him. Whenever he comes back—whenever I’m gone—don’t shut him out, Wil. Give your dad a chance. He loves you a lot, mate.”
Wilbur nods, visibly fighting back tears. His anger is gone, replaced by something much more vulnerable.
“And I’m sure he’s proud of you for making it this far.” Phil smiles, and for a moment the guilt is gone, replaced by affection that isn’t entirely his own. “I know I would be.”
Without warning, Wilbur pulls him into another hug.
It’s bruisingly tight, full of sorrow and desperation and the terror of a man who has been lost for too long. But Phil feels something click into place—an understanding, of sorts. Things aren’t fixed. They might never be perfect again for the broken little patchwork family he’ll be leaving behind one day. At the very least, though, they might be able to start to mend. He hopes he’s bridged the gap between them, somehow. He hopes they’ll listen to him—that they’ll take what he said to heart, and maybe, just maybe, begin to heal.
And Phil?
He’s going to make it back home one day. He’s going to get back to Kristin, and he’s going to hold her close and never let her go again. He’s going to see his Tommy, and his Wilbur, and, damn it, he’s going to fly to America and see his Technoblade, too. All of them, together again. He misses his family—his silly, chaotic little family, and he’s not giving up just yet. So maybe…
Maybe, one day, he’ll make it back.
Maybe, one day, a father and son will be able to reunite, and finally share their pain.
Maybe, one day, a boy will find a home again.
Maybe, one day, a family will be formed amidst the rubble.