Chapter Text
The next Phil opens his eyes, he is back in his chains.
A faint rush of memories paints itself across the back of his brain.
Tommy, sobbing. Wilbur writhing, then sagging against the floorboards, and going still. Life that is death overtaking the fever. A golden thread lighting up in his mind: a coven bond dampened almost entirely by the silver sticking to him. Phil, ripping himself away before he could get lost in the hunger, feeling himself come apart.
It had taken everything in him not to keep going – to take more than was necessary. Denying himself had taken its toll. His hunger had done its best to undo the control he’d developed over centuries. Ultimately, it was Tommy against his back that had pulled him back down away from the haze.
No sooner had Phil completed the turning, he had nearly fallen, utterly lightheaded. Tommy had yelled out, attempting to catch him as he dropped heavily onto one knee.
“It’s alright, little one,” he dimly remembers croaking, as spots swarmed over his vision. “Everything is okay.”
Whether or not Tommy had believed him is lost to the blur that had dragged him down. The last thing he remembers is dragging himself over to his previous resting spot, sliding the silver chains over his own wrists (knowing, even like this, that remaining chained until the venom set into Wilbur would keep Tommy the calmest).
Then, nothing.
Now, as he wakes up, Phil feels like he is the one who has been drained, who has had his body ripped apart by venom and rewired.
Phil groans, sagging against the wall. Soreness rolls through him, head aching like there is a stake being hammered into it. Morninglight shoves at the windows; Phil can’t see it but he can almost feel it. Sunlight that would never bother him when full makes his aches more violent, even though he’s not directly exposed to it.
But he’d done it. He’d turned Wilbur – saved him.
He finds quickly as awareness trickles towards him that the taste of blood had only made the hunger worse. Copper lingers in his mouth, and the angry hunger in his gut has morphed into a full-fledged monster. It rakes thick claws into his organs. He tries not to be bitter of it.
“Phil?”
Tommy’s voice breaks through the rapidly descending shroud of delirium. Phil blinks. Everything in the room wobbles, but after a moment, it stabilizes somewhat. Blurriness hovers on the outskirts of his vision, framing Tommy in the middle like an iris.
He’s at least somewhat in focus to him. Like usual, he’s huddled up next to Wilbur: sitting up, an admirable vigil. Phil’s eyes drag lazily down, absorbing the easy fall of Wilbur’s chest. There is no more wheezing, no more strain, just even breaths. Even from across the room, Phil can see how life has retouched his body. His skin is pale, but bright. The only flush dusting his face is healthy and pink.
Good. Phil really had saved him, then.
“Phil?” Tommy repeats, dragging his half-lidded gaze back to the fledgling. He is staring at Phil, eyes sharp. When he speaks, his voice pitches up into what might be worry. “Are you okay? You look… sick.”
Phil laughs, hoarse and strained. “‘m alright, mate.” He swallows deliberately. Moisture refuses to grace his mouth. His fangs ache. “Just… been a while since I’ve fed.”
It’s a sorry understatement. Phil has not been this weak in a long time. Tommy has accomplished what centuries of grudges haven’t been able to. For the most part, Phil had let him. But the mercy is taking a toll, one even pity and endearment is failing to keep up with.
Tommy’s face twists up – not in disgust, like Phil imagines it would’ve a day or two ago, but contemplation. He sits up straighter, sparing Phil some of the heart-deep determination he’d seemed only to reserve for his brother.
Tommy worries at his lip with his teeth. His eyes flash to the side. The knife from before, the one he’d almost used, lays innocently not more than a few feet away from him. Tommy swallows as alarm unfurls in Phil’s stomach.
His eyes hover on the knife for too long until he speaks.
“Do you…?” he starts, fiddling with his fingers in his lap.
“No,” Phil gets out sharply. Not even the blood starvation is enough to dampen the fury of his rejection. “I won’t take anything from you.”
Stubbornness ticks in Tommy’s small jaw. Tommy looks much too uncertain for Phil’s taste. His eyes keep glancing at the knife. Phil forces himself another inch upright. His nails dig into the ground as he curls his fingers towards his palms.
“Little one. Don’t.”
Tommy clenches his hands into fists. “I don’t want you to starve.” His throat bobs, eyes sad. “I– I told you I didn’t wanna hurt you.”
“I know,” Phil eases. “But please– save your energy. I can handle a little hunger.”
You cannot, Phil doesn’t say. The hollowness of Tommy’s face says it for him. The wiry, skinny frame of his body says it louder. Phil doubts Tommy has seen a full plate of hot food for months. Hell, even a full plate of cold food. He’d kill himself trying to do this.
Tommy hesitates. Phil matches it with a blank stare. He does not allow Tommy to be privy to any of his hunger, or his pain. That is not his burden to bear. Even if it is his fault.
Tommy sets his jaw. Phil’s eyebrows tick down towards a furrow.
The fledgling stands, pushing himself up off the floor with his hands. Phil lifts his chain, pushing up against his chains, mouth forming an objection–
That probably wouldn’t work anyway. He realizes it before the shout passes his lips. If Tommy is stubborn enough to kidnap a vampire, then he’s more than stubborn enough to ignore one. Phil blindly attempts a different route.
“I wouldn’t want your blood anyway,” he jabs. There is not much levity left in him to give, but he tries. “You’re much too scrawny.”
Tommy pauses. Relief eases the pressure in Phil’s lungs. The fledgling frowns, chapped lips parting.
“Wha–” He shakes his head, snapping back into himself. Anger glints off of his eyes. “Fuck you, man. My blood probably tastes great. Top tier blood, it is.”
Amusement twitches across Phil’s mouth. “Top tier?”
Tommy nods seriously. He makes a small attempt at puffing his chest. “The best on the block.”
A real laugh tears out of Phil then, shaking his shoulders. It’s nothing more than hoarse amusement and perhaps some desperation to keep Tommy distracted.
“My apologies,” Phil amends with a graceful dip of his head. “I should’ve known.”
“Yeah,” he shoots back, scrubbing a hand across his face. He stumbles away from the knife. Phil– well, he doesn’t quite breathe again, but it feels like it. “You better apologize, ha. You better…”
He trails off, amusement dying on his face. If Phil were paying more attention, he would’ve taken that as the warning it is.
But he doesn’t. Not in time to do anything.
As Tommy steps back – nodding and scrubbing at his face with his hand like there’s an itch there he can’t soothe – Tommy’s skin turns a nauseating shade of gray. He lets out a little gasp as he sways on his feet – and then falls.
His eyes roll up into his head, blue marbles. Tommy drops down to his knees. He barely catches himself, hunching forward with his eyes squeezed shut and mouth pressed into a grimace. Phil jolts, forgetting that he is bound in place. Each side of his ribcage attempts to meet the other as his chest seizes.
“Tommy!”
Tommy exhales raggedly, gasping at the ground. He stares at it, head lilting forward. His hands drop down as his body follows his head. Tiny arms shake as Tommy holds himself up on his hands and knees.
Phil forgets about the knife. The worry from before merges into panic, meeting a new fear.
“Tommy,” Phil hedges, as he curses the fact that somehow this has gotten worse. “What’s wrong, little one? How do you feel?”
Tommy takes an eternity to respond. He continues quietly gasping at the ground before he gets enough energy to turn his head to the side. Phil is greeted by cloudy, half-lidded blue eyes, and a tiny face cut out of misery. Sweat beads on Tommy’s brow. Confusion burrows there too.
“I think,” he rasps out over a thick tongue. Blonde lashes flutter drowsily. “...I don’t know.”
Phil’s first thought shouldn’t be a swear, but that’s what it is. A curse at the universe for somehow making this worse, and a curse at himself for failing to remember that human fledglings have much more persistent needs than vampires.
Phil can’t remember the last time he’s seen the boy eat. And maybe that isn’t Phil’s right to worry about, but when Tommy has given more of himself to his brother than he’s kept… the responsibility has etched itself delicately into him.
“That’s okay,” Phil lies, running his tongue over his teeth, snagging on the fangs. “Do you think you can come here so I can check?”
The second warning that Tommy is far from okay: he doesn’t hesitate. Tommy just nods, drowsy, and begins to edge over to Phil. He tries to rise; Phil almost shouts.
“Don’t make yourself stand if you’re dizzy,” he advises, trying not to let any of his bladed worry slip into his voice. “Just focus on getting over here.”
Tommy nods. Phil barely sees it for how small of a motion it is. But he grits his jaw and lurches up enough to half-crawl, half-stumble over to Phil.
He gets there and stumbles, head slumping forward. His body follows it, and Tommy staggers into Phil’s side with a small yelp. Phil starts, twisting in place to try to catch him with useless hands.
“Shit,” he swears under his breath, silver chains stinging violently as it scrapes over raw skin. “Easy, little one.”
“Sorry,” Tommy pants, tugging himself back with great difficulty. He falls onto his knees, gasping for breath. “Phil,” he wheezes, blinking hard and slow. “I– I think somethin’s wrong with me. Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize,” Phil murmurs. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
The last part of Tommy’s broken confession falls harshly onto Phil’s eardrums. He has never felt so helpless as he does now – and it has to do with the chains as much as it has nothing to do with them.
“Tommy,” he begins, “Can I feel your forehead?”
Tommy blinks drowsily at him. Then, he drops his forehead against Phil’s shoulder. Phil chokes out a breathy laugh, if only to have something to do.
“No– with my hand, Tommy,” he corrects gently. He keeps every syllable sharp and clear. “I want to check your temperature.”
From his shoulder, muffled, comes a small, “Oh.”
Tommy pulls back. Phil clumsily gets his hands up, extending his palm out. The silver stings but Phil hardly feels it. All he sees is the fledgling kneeling blurrily in front of him.
Phil combs over his gaunt face, watching him struggle to focus his eyes. More concern rushes through him; Phil’s hands are plainly visible to Tommy. He shouldn’t take this long to latch onto them.
Phil presses his lips harshly together. The fledgling finally seems to drift back down to reality. Tommy sighs and leans his forehead against Phil’s palm.
A hiss instantly escapes Phil’s lips when he feels the heat emanating off of his skin. A fever. Phil doesn’t appreciate his suspicions being confirmed, but it does provide him some amount of clarity – and with it, the faintest amount of relief.
If Tommy is merely sick, then that means he’s not hiding a mortal injury of any sort.
That hardly makes it easier to handle – the reasons for Tommy’s sickness are endless and daunting. Humans are so terribly breakable. Human children are porcelain.
But he’s sure it’s not immediately fatal, which Phil does appreciate.
Phil has to resist the urge not to beg Tommy to undo his chains once again. But he doesn’t know if Tommy will listen – or worse, if that will cause Tommy to relapse back into that stubborn distrust. The one that had gotten Tommy this deteriorated in the first place.
So he doesn’t ask. Not just yet. Even if all he wants is to put an end to this: to get away from the silver and the hunger and call Techno here to help them home.
“Alright,” he breathes, latching onto his lagging clarity if only for Tommy’s sake. “You’re burning up.”
Tommy grunts something unintelligible out as he pulls away from Phil’s palm. His lashes flutter as he sways, seeming to have trouble keeping his balance even when he’s on his knees. Phil forces himself to think.
Admittedly, time has deteriorated most of what he knows of humanity. This starvation has muted the rest. He runs through a list of what he knows about humans. What do they need again?
Too much, supplies a cynical cadence in his brain. Too much that I’m not in the position to give.
Phil neatly shuts that voice away.
“When is the last time you’ve eaten?” he asks.
Tommy immediately frowns. Phil lets himself believe that the reason Tommy hesitates for so long is because he’s sick, not because it’s been so long he can’t remember. But the charade is paper thin, and Tommy flattens it in the next breath.
“Um,” he mumbles, “I dunno. I forgot.”
Phil resists the urge to swear again. He doesn’t want to scare him. He’s sure Tommy knows that he’s hungry, even if it’s hard to notice under all his courageous concern for Wilbur.
(The irony that Phil’s captor is just as starving as he is – he the hostage – is not lost on him. In fact, it resembles tragedy more closely than irony.
Once this is over, Phil thinks, the first thing I’m doing is feeding him. If he has to kidnap a human chef to do it, he will.)
“Okay,” Phil breathes. “Do you have any food?” Tommy thinks, then nods. Relief spreads like warmth over his chest. Good. “Why don’t you have some?”
Tommy shakes. He wraps tiny arms around himself, lips turned downward in a pout.
“‘s for Wilbur. He needs it.”
The heart Phil doesn’t have pangs. This kid.
“He doesn’t need it anymore,” Phil reminds him gently. “You should eat it.”
Tommy frowns, a million emotions fluttering across his face before descending into misery again. Phil would be guilty if he wasn’t so desperate. His own starvation has eaten away at his grace. Bluntness is all he can manage right now.
Tommy’s hesitation unlocks a new type of fear in him.
Phil wets his lips. “If you don’t eat soon, Tommy, you won’t be able to help Wilbur.” Tommy’s breath hitches. No room for guilt. Not when the child needs to eat. “He needs you to take care of yourself.” Phil hesitates, then, “I need you to take care of yourself.”
That does it. Phil had expected it to, but seeing Tommy’s shoulders slump as he gives in has Phil sagging against the wall in relief.
“Okay,” he grumbles. “I’ll fuckin’... for Wilbur, yeah. For– for Wilbur.”
Whatever it takes, Phil acquiesces. He’s sure he’ll find time and energy for louder emotions when he’s not being held hostage in a decrepit hut, however willingly he is letting himself be.
The outpour of love Tommy has for his brother is bigger than his skin. It warms parts of Phil that he’d thought were long dead. He’s never felt such a visceral sense of paternity over anything in his life, except maybe Techno. Even then, Techno feels more like a friend to him, bonded across decades. This is different.
“Good,” Phil encourages gently. He tries to transfer any remaining bit of strength to Tommy through the force of his words alone. “Good job, Tommy.”
Tommy nods noncommittally. Phil almost fears that he hadn’t heard him, but then Tommy slowly eases himself up off the ground.
“Be right back,” he mumbles to Phil, who manages a nod and eases more of his weight against the wall.
Tommy stumbles away, towards Wilbur – then the door. Phil imagines there is a kitchen there, somewhere outside the room. (And isn’t that a weird thought. That even though he’s been here for so long, the world does exist outside. It hasn’t narrowed down to just this.)
Don’t pass out, Tommy, he prays briefly to nothing. That would be inconvenient.
Phil leans his head back, eyes locked unblinkingly on the ceiling above. He traces the paths of cracks and dirt as exhaustion leans heavily onto him. It’s hard to think, hard to do anything really, through the combination of hunger and pain ravaging him.
His stomach twists violently. Hunger rivals the silver, a thirst that infects every inch of Phil. Mercifully, cotton swells over the edge of his consciousness the second the hunger carves to the front of his mind.
Phil’s eyelids start to droop. He feels inky tendrils of sleep start to tug on him. He’s not strong enough to stop them. He knows he’s not – knows that the longer he goes, the harder it will be to resist.
Even sires, even those as strong as Phil, are fallible. And Phil, by indulging this soft, affectionate side of himself, has made himself weaker. If he hadn’t done the same for Techno, Techno would probably be crucifying him the moment he gets back to the manor.
Whenever that may be.
Just a little longer, he assures himself. He doesn’t let himself regret this. He’s in too deep now. Just a little longer, and it’ll be over.
They can go home.
–
When he comes to, the first thing that Phil hears is sobbing.
“Phil,” Tommy is gasping. Tiny hands clench the fabric of his cloak, tugging and shaking. “Phil, please wake up. Please.”
Phil’s eyes snap open. He’s not even a little drowsy as he lurches forward, instincts screaming at him even before he’s fully awake.
What happened– what do I need to do– are the fledglings okay–
Tommy gasps, and Phil stops scanning the room when he realizes that Tommy is right in front of him. He’s crying, tears shining like pearls on his cheeks, but he’s okay. Wilbur’s okay, too, from the look of it. Everything seems… fine?
Muscles loosening, Phil starts to relax. He pulls back the instincts that had shoved up through him, and the drowsiness he’d just escaped spills back towards him.
But he hardly has a chance to be relieved over Tommy’s wellness before Tommy’s face crumples. He bursts into tears, expression shattering. Phil’s eyes widen.
“Little one–” he rasps, clumsily sitting up–
Tommy throws himself at his chest, sobs still hiccuping out of him as he wraps his arms around Phil and squeezes him. Phil blinks, looking down. Tommy’s face is buried into the crook of his neck, hidden away. But he holds onto Phil like he’s holding onto gravity, to the world itself, and Phil… doesn’t understand.
Until he does.
“You– you weren’t moving,” Tommy heaves. Cold wrenches Phil’s stomach. His lungs twist, tangling together. He frowns, wishing he could pull Tommy close as he sobs. “I thought– you said you were h-hungry and I– I thought I killed you, I thought–”
Oh. Phil folds over – it’s only the chains that keep him in place. So he does what he can. A thousand breathless comforts spill past his lips, bleeding into one another endlessly.
“No, no, I’m fine,” he assures Tommy. His chest crackles like brittle ice. “Everything is fine.”
Awareness returns to him like the slow trickle of a lazy river.
He probably should’ve warned Tommy how disconcerting it is to watch vampires “sleep.” Dozing is closer to what they do, like he’d said before. More of a hibernation state than resting or dreaming. But it had slipped Phil’s mind, like so much of his lucidity.
Tommy answers him with another muffled sob. Every quiet, broken wail draws out his youth sharper than the next.
Phil drops one sore, silver-chained hand into Tommy’s hair before he can think about it. Gentle fingers card tiny rivers through Tommy’s loose curls. It encourages Tommy further into his chest. The violent trembling wracking his body eases.
“Easy,” he breathes, curling into the fledgling like he is his own. “Breathe.”
Tommy listens. He drags a deep breath through rattling lungs, and his sobs go quieter. Phil continues stenciling tenderness through Tommy’s hair, eyes unfocused somewhere in front of them.
After a few minutes, Tommy’s cries ease. Phil relaxes with each easier breath.
And then he readjusts his wrists, attempting to rub circles into the youngling’s back– and that’s where he goes wrong. Silver blisters his skin. Heat radiates from Phil’s wrist, spreading through the muscles in his hand, sizzling in his fingertips. Phil clamps his teeth together, trying and failing to swallow a pained hiss before–
Tommy jolts, shooting away from him. Pearlescent tears gleam on his sharp cheekbones, but his eyes are wide and dry as they inhale every inch of him. Tommy’s lips tremble as his gaze narrows in on the raw, pink splotches mottling his waxy wrist.
The fledgling grows even paler than Phil, whose blood has not warmed him for a long time. Guilt steals the life from him in the same measure that vampire venom had stolen Phil’s.
“Shit,” he stammers out, pawing frantically at the lump of necklaces hiding behind the neckline of his shirt. Clumsy fingers untangle the leather cords, feeling over the charms hanging there. Tommy might have an easier time fishing for the key to the cuffs if he is able to tear his eyes away from Phil’s seared skin, but he isn’t. “I– fuck, I forgot.”
He seizes the key with a pulsing desperation, fumbling to loop the necklace chain over his head. Phil observes him mildly. He doesn’t dare to convey the full force of his relief, but gratitude warms his wrists in anticipation.
Tommy scoots forward on his knees, grabbing for the lock.
“You didn’t have t’ lock yourself up again,” Tommy barely manages to get out. “You saved him.”
You saved him. Three words: that’s the price of Tommy’s trust.
Phil shrugs half-heartedly. It’s hard to track down the paths of his decisions. Every single one he’d made in this room has been colored by something irrational. “I wanted to make sure you were comfortable.”
“I’m not scared ‘f you anymore,” Tommy mumbles. There’s a click that sounds like liberation – and not all relating to the physical kind. The pressure closing in over his skull eases. Phil’s immortal, mental link to Techno glimmers with just a bit more clarity in his mind’s eye. Tommy is blind to Phil’s attempt at connecting to that golden thread, too busy struggling to juggle his panic. “You didn’t have to… I’m…”
Tommy is a sorry captor. Phil finds it endearing that this is where his strength ends, where the guilt starts to bleed through. His heart is too big for this whole… abduction business. Hopefully, Phil can give him a better purpose for it soon.
Techno, he calls into the void of his mind.
Phil receives nothing back – something which does not totally surprise him. As Tommy untangles the chains wrapping his body, binding him to the wooden floor, the static in his skull lessens but does not ease completely. It will be a while, he guesses, before the sickness from the silver lets him reconnect with his coven bond.
Even Wilbur’s fresh link to him, newly imprinted into his blood, feels faint as a whisper. And Wilbur is only across the room.
Phil does not mourn that loss too deeply. He has time, and there is more that can be done here, with Tommy and Wilbur. More that can be patched together, triaged, before they can be taken to rest.
A harsh clatter startles Phil. He whips his head to the side, perhaps too quickly to be very human, and watches Tommy heave the loops of chain angrily away from him. Nausea bobs in the boy’s throat.
Frowning, Phil reaches forward, cupping Tommy’s face with a hand that has not yet regained all feeling.
The featherlight touch seems to startle Tommy, whose eyes flicker uncertainly over to Phil. Phil cradles his gaze gently.
The fledgling looks so tired, purple creasing beneath his eyes. It drains the blue out of irises, turning them a moonlit grey.
Tommy tentatively sinks into the cradle of his palm. Phil wonders if he is conscious of it. He seems hardly awake.
The closest he holds to clarity is a dull glimmer of something akin to expectation. He falls into Phil’s hand like he’s waiting for it to be ripped away: resting, but not relying. Phil’s frown deepens.
Tommy clears his throat near-inaudibly.
“You can leave now,” he whispers, swallowing hard enough that Phil feels his jaw work against his hand. “I’m sorry for taking you.”
I know, Phil thinks, blinking drowsily. I know you are.
And, oh. That’s what he’d been waiting for. It makes sense. Leaving is the rational thing for Phil to do here – if only to slip out for a hunt. The thirst is overpowering. Phil should listen to it, these primal instincts urging him to fulfill them.
“When is the last time you’ve slept?” Phil asks softly.
He has never been good at doing the conventional things.
Tommy blinks uncomprehendingly at him. Then, the question seems to make it to his mind, because his lips turn down.
“Earlier?” he answers, but his voice wavers with uncertainty.
Phil clicks his tongue at him. That feels insufficient. He’s sure, even with his limited knowledge, that the few hours of sleep Tommy has uneasily managed to scrape up is not enough. Not enough to sate the worried thing in Phil’s chest, anyway, the one that becomes more wanting the more tired that Phil becomes.
“You should rest.”
Tommy’s eyebrows draw together. “I…” He shakes his head, leveling Phil with a hard, chipped ice look. “You should leave. You already–”
“Maybe later,” Phil smiles. He cauterizes every possible reason that this is, frankly, ridiculous with a frail facade of nonchalance. “I’m quite comfortable here, I think.”
Tommy’s mouth falls shut. His face scrunches up into a ball of confusion. It looks the same way that the strange lightness in Phil’s head feels.
For a moment, Phil is sure that Tommy is going to call him out for being a liar. There is nothing comforting about any of this – not physically. He can practically see the accusation forming on Tommy’s tongue. He’s a clever little fledgling.
But he doesn’t cast the accusation at Phil. He just stares.
Phil sighs and withdraws his hand toward his lap, the one cupping Tommy’s face. A muffled sound tries to jump out from behind Tommy’s mouth, perhaps a complaint. Phil barely hears it. He leans against the wall, tipping his head to the ceiling and letting his eyes fall shut on their own – none of that immense pressure, forcing him down where the hunger can’t reach him, attaching to his bones and dragging.
“You’re welcome to join me,” Phil calls to the open air, no expectation applied. “If you’d like to rest.”
After a moment, he hears scuffling. In the next instant, a pressure settles hesitantly against Phil’s side. Tommy. He crawls over Phil’s legs to curl up against Phil’s shoulder. A drowsy smile that can’t be made of anything but a pure, unfiltered sense of paternity unfolds across his face.
“Are you feeling better, little one?” Phil asks, lips hardly moving. He keeps his eyes closed, not wanting to pin the question on Tommy. “Did you eat?”
“Mhm,” Tommy mumbles. “Ate some bread. It was good.”
“That’s good. Bread is good.”
Phil hasn’t had bread in more than a few centuries. That makes him no less firm in his affirmation.
Quiet settles gently over them like a thick, heavy blanket. Tommy burrows into his side, breaths growing heavier, deeper. The quiet thickens with it, but it doesn’t last.
Right as Phil thinks the fledgling attached to him has fallen asleep, he speaks.
“Can I tell you a secret?”
Tommy is not asleep, but he is close to it. The edges of his syllables blend together with exhaustion too big for him. However dull his voice is, low and quiet, the question piques Phil’s interest like a silver hook.
“Of course,” Phil rasps. Tommy shifts, face pressing firmer into Phil’s shoulder.
“I like it when you call me little one,” Tommy whispers. Phil tenses, not in an unpleasant way. “R’minds me of Wil. He calls me nicknames.”
Phil nods interestedly. Tommy’s small rambling seems more for the fledgling than the Phil. Still, he indulges it. How can he not?
“Like what?”
Tommy lets out a quiet sigh. “Says I’m his sun.”
Phil smiles. A sun of his own blossoms between his ribs, joining the two-star system already hovering there. “You are very bright.”
And so is your anger, Phil thinks. That blinding indignation that is love. That fierce desperation that is protection. So bright and colorful that he’d managed to brand a mark into Phil’s heart with it. One mirroring Techno’s. One that shouldn’t have worked but had.
“Mm,” Tommy hums, tiny confirmation. “He also says I’m a shit head.”
Phil laughs. “Does he now?”
Tommy nods against him. Phil can’t be sure, but it feels like it contains the whisper of a scowl. “He’s a dick, you know.”
Phil lifts an eyebrow, opening his eyes to glance down at Tommy, nestled against him. He hadn’t noticed but sees now that Tommy has tangled his hands into Phil’s cloak. He fiddles with loose threads that this… experience has pulled out of the rich fabric.
“Once he’s awake, I’m going to beat his ass for scaring me.”
Phil snorts. That feels right.
“I’m sure you are.” A beat that he lets quiet nip at before, "You care about him very much.”
It’s blatantly rhetorical. The statement belongs to the same casual infallibility as the natural laws of the universe.
“He’s my brother,” Tommy agrees. There is no other answer. This is his brother, his medicine and oxygen and heart. “He’s all I have.”
There it is – the last cauterization. If there was any resentment left in Phil, it’s stripped away.
Not anymore, he murmurs, a promise only for himself. He will tell it to Tommy later, though perhaps in not so many words. Perhaps in the form of a manor, too quiet, and too big to be so quiet. Perhaps in warm clothes and soft beds and hot food (rudimentary, maybe at first, but never-lacking.)
“Do you remember Techno?”
Tommy shifts. “Your family?”
Phil nods. “Yes,” he recalls. “My family.” He lowers a tender hand back into Tommy’s hair. The fledgling melts against him. “He’ll be coming for me soon.”
The thread in his mind rolls, falls. Still out of reach, but not so broken.
“He is?” Tommy’s voice wavers.
“Once the silver wears off,” Phil starts, drawing a minute, guilty flinch out of Tommy, “I’ll be able to reach him.” If Tommy seems confused by that, he doesn’t show it. He just goes a little stiff, a pile of sharp limbs pressing into Phil. “I have a manor outside of the village.” Phil threads through his hair, untangling knots with delicate ministrations, brushing dirt from between the strands. He clears his throat. “There’s room for more. I’d be happy to share it.”
Phil knows Tommy understands his offer by the small hitch of his breath. Or at least, he thinks he understands.
Tommy is not looking at him. Tommy looks at Wilbur’s supine form, tension cracking over his face. White blossoms over his knuckles as he squeezes handfuls of Phil’s cloak into a bloodless grip.
He’s bracing. Shoulders sharp, jaw set, mouth swallowing over words he can’t bring himself to ask – Phil knows that he is. Phil remains silent, giving Tommy all the time he needs to come up with a question. Phil has enough of it.
Of course, he can’t entrust the decision entirely to Tommy – not when his older brother lays across the room, barely alive, freshly turned into something that could destroy him without a sire. But Phil won’t force the fledgling into something he doesn’t want, even if it’ll help. If Phil needs to bend the Earth to figure out how to help these two wayward sons another way, he will.
But Tommy, ever in touch with things he is too young to carry, mirrors what flickers through Phil’s mind.
Sounding for all the world like he is baring all of himself to speak, Tommy asks, painfully quietly, “Can Wilbur come?”
He looks at Phil now, burning this fragile plea into him.
Relax, Phil wishes to whisper. Shed some of that weight off of your back. The sky does not belong to you to hold.
But he doesn’t. Tommy curls against him like a coiled spring, like a starving dog, anticipating a blow that won’t ever land. Phil doesn’t waste time dragging this out. Phil can lessen this self-inflicted burden when it is time.
“Of course Wilbur can come,” Phil answers. Tommy nods, swallowing like that pains him. Phil frowns and tries to ease it, extending more handfuls of reassurance. “It’ll be better for him to be around his own kind, anyway. Techno and I can help him get adjusted.”
Tommy nods again, shoulders slumping, body sinking further against Phil. He no longer looks at him, head tucked towards his own collarbone. The hand tangled in Phil’s cloak begins to twist and twist.
“‘s Techno nice?”
Tommy flicks a glance up to Phil, fleeting as a bat wing flapping. Even then, Phil doesn’t miss the sheer shine of fear glossing over his drowsy eyes.
Phil nods.
A fond smile curls on Phil’s face, dampened only by a pang of wistfulness. He misses Techno, misses his coven, and the thought of having to wait for the silver to wear off is more agonizing than the actual silver was.
Soon, he assures himself. Soon this mess will be cleared.
“He’s very nice,” Phil tells him. He pauses, shifting so that Tommy is comfortable against his shoulder. He doesn’t want to push the kid too far, he’s only barely started trusting Phil, but the urge to make sure he’s safe pushes irrationally forward. “Some people think he’s scary, but he’s a big softie.”
Tommy holds his breath; releases it. “And… he’ll be nice to Wilbur too?”
Phil nods, slow this time. Tommy’s concern for Wilbur is endearing but… worrying. It’s like he has none saved for himself. A sliver of the protectiveness that Phil had admired sours in his mouth. Not in a way that is unfixable just… hollowing.
“Okay,” Tommy sighs, and his anxious hands go still. “Okay.”
Phil’s anxiety doesn’t, churning passively under his skin. Is he missing something here? He feels like something is slithering behind the sickly haze still eating at him. But whatever it is lost with most of his lucidity.
“You should sleep,” Phil murmurs. And before Tommy can summon any resistance, shoulders starting to tense, Phil adds, “I’ll keep an eye on you and Wilbur.” The older boy has yet to move very much, the venom having sunken deep into his veins. Phil imagines the coma will last for at least a few more days before there’ll be any sign of undead life. “Nothing will happen while I’m here, I swear it.”
Like untangling a knot, Tommy goes lax again. Phil smooths away any last bit of tension with gentle circles that he traces through Tommy’s hair.
“Sleep, little one.”
By morning, the link should be strong enough to bridge the gap to Techno. Tommy couldn’t have taken Tommy too far from the village.
“Okay,” Tommy mumbles, shifting in place before dropping his head onto Phil’s shoulder and going finally, peacefully still. “Don’t eat me in my sleep, bitch.”
Phil’s short burst of laughter accompanies Tommy into an easy sleep. Phil carves a nook of peace in a place where there shouldn’t be any, and the tiredness clinging to him begins to feel more like plain contentedness.
By morning, things might start to get simpler.
By morning, this will be on its way to over.
–
Techno?
There’s a ripple in his mind. A nudge, like something moving. Someone.
Techno.
The link hums. Not an answer, but a connection. Progress.
It’s somewhere close to midnight. The silence that greets Phil is not so absolute.
–
The night is quiet. Phil settles into it like it’s a second skin. The weight against him keeps him alert.
It is hours before the silver breaks like a fever. The headache hammering stakes into Phil’s temple ebbs, then vanishes. Tommy begins to stir at his side when finally, finally, light breaks through the darkness clouding Phil’s mind.
Light begins to bleed into the hut too, watery and pale. Dawn reaches past the slatted windows, taunting him.
Techno, he breathes into his own mind, and he feels a golden thread light up in skull.
Phil?
The panic that slams into him is fierce, and overwhelming. Phil cringes, trying not to flinch too much. It’s been too long since he’s felt so much at once from the link.
Techno’s fear is almost more than he can take. He may not have noticed Phil’s absence – time goes so… slow for immortals; a few days is usually nothing more than a blink – but he would’ve noticed the static consuming Phil’s place in his head, cutting off that sacred link.
And now, Phil feels him notice that new thread. Wilbur.
Phil, where are you? Phil winces. What is happening? Who–
Bring me home, Techno, Phil interjects.
He’s still too drained to do much else. He can’t offer Techno the reassurances he wants, the explanation his fear commands. But they have time to go over the rest later. If nothing else, they have time.
Bring me home.
–
Phil waits until Techno is close before daring to wake Tommy up.
It almost pains him to break the peace this way. Tommy looks younger than ever like this. Asleep, there is no righteous, too-big anger etching harshly into his face. Nothing but peace, smooth and still. That paternal thing in Phil’s chest aches.
Phil shifts, stretching his neck to the side. Sensation rushes into his limbs. A yawn crawls out of his mouth despite him not having slept. He sits up straighter. Tommy is glued to his side, but he shifts as Phil moves, tired grumbles falling out of his mouth.
Phil huffs a silent laugh. He reaches around the cloak bundled around Tommy’s shoulders to nudge him.
“Tommy,” he whispers, voice rough from disuse. “Little one, it’s time to wake up.”
“...fuck ‘ff,” Tommy mumbles, smashing his face further into Phil’s shoulder.
He bats away at Phil’s hand on his shoulder, squirming until he’s settled again. Phil smiles.
“Sorry, mate,” he offers him genuinely. “But you’ve got to wake up. It’s almost time.”
In an unreal way, Phil can feel Techno moving in his head, growing closer every minute. It’s hardly more than a pressure: a shifting mass of emotions that don’t belong to him breaking into motion. Techno has never been one to let too many of his emotions flood over the bond. Keen on his privacy, Techno is, even for family, which Phil respects.
But he’s moving quickly now, and splashes of emotion spill into Phil’s head like an overflowing bowl of water. A splash of fear there, desperation here, anxiety curling and panic strumming; some sharp protectiveness cutting in occasionally, confusion filling any gaps.
It’s a lot. Mostly, it’s a relief – for Phil. Not for the fledgling tucked against him.
The peace shrouding Tommy’s face cracks, then shatters. His eyes flash open as the words register. Phil straightens even more as Tommy lurches upright, nearly slamming his head into the underside of Phil’s chin.
“What do you mean?” Tommy asks. Barely a strand of that sleepiness lingers in his voice. His eyes shoot over to the slatted window, taking in the reaching fingers of dawn slipping inside. “It’s… time?”
“Almost,” Phil nods, hope spiralling in his chest. His limbs ache for a proper bed – anything but chains and hard floor. Everything else aches for blood. “Techno is coming.”
Phil distantly hopes Techno brought him a juicebox. He hadn’t thought to ask, and Techno has long since left the manor behind. He’ll be here too soon for it to be worth turning around.
Phil doesn’t know what exactly he expects from Tommy upon hearing the news. Narrating his own rescue is awkward, in a sense. Despite everything, there’s still so much distance between them that Phil hasn’t even touched.
But what he doesn’t expect is ultimately what he gets.
To his utter surprise, Tommy’s eyes flood with tears.
He tries to swallow them down. Phil recognizes the expression he pastes onto his face, the one that had greeted him when he’d first opened his eyes to a hut and a small, broken boy he’d never seen. The one that said, I’m falling apart, but you don’t get to see it unless I let you.
Immediately, he’s frowning. Phil extends a hand, preparing to sweep a thumb under his eyes and swipe away the tears slicking down his face. But Tommy jerks back, wetting his lips as he curls his tiny arms around himself.
“Tommy?” Phil asks, words falling lightly. “Is something the matter?”
Tommy’s eyelids flutter shut. When tears continue slipping out, he squeezes them shut. Coldness blossoms across Phil’s skin as the fledgling shakes and cries and makes a valiant effort at holding himself together with dirty palms and pure, unbreakable will.
Which is strange because Phil hadn’t even seen the fracture lines, hadn’t even noticed he was falling apart.
Tommy sniffles. He swipes the back of his hand across his reddening nose with the speed of a serpent, hand flying right back down to cradle himself. And then he tips his head back, cranes his neck up, like he’s rejoicing some sort of invisible god above him.
Phil… stares, held still. He doesn’t understand. Tommy’s heart beats fluttery and quick. The noise thumps in Phil’s eardrums, mixing into the sound of Tommy’s jagged breaths – dampened behind a clenched jaw – and chattering teeth. Phil grows colder, and he doesn’t understand that either.
This must not be anything more than terror. Terror so thick Phil almost chokes on it in return, terror that spills out of Tommy like blood with a source he cannot see.
“Do it,” Tommy chokes out, eyes still shut, body still shaking. “Please, make it quick.”
Dread grows vines in his stomach.
Phil leans closer. Tommy flinches but stays in place. Phil jolts away, watching him wondrously. With his head craned up, Phil can see Tommy’s throat bob and waver with every sob and hiccup that tries to punch past his mouth as he chokes on his own emotions. It makes Phil distantly nauseous.
“What?” he breathes.
The room swells around him, tripling in size without changing a bit. Phil feels small under the wave of confusion assaulting him.
At the sound of his voice, however quiet and stilted, Tommy flinches, and his eyes crack open. So quickly that Phil almost misses it, despair crashes onto his face. It wars in his eyes, tugging at the corners, trying to split him apart, and leaves a rubble plain of misery behind.
Misery – and resignation. Horrible resignation the same shade as gravestone marble.
Tommy’s gaze pierces between Phil’s ribs like two stakes.
“I know I can’t walk away from this,” he breathes, letting out a tiny, choked laugh. Tears fall into his mouth, tears mixing with the horrible laugh. “I– I fucked up.”
A chasm rips through Phil’s chest.
“Oh,” he breathes, blinking quickly. “Oh, no– Tommy, no–”
“But please,” Tommy whispers, lips trembling. His eyes flit to the right, snagging helplessly on Wilbur with a pain Phil cannot even begin to break down. He can barely stand to look at it when Tommy’s imploring gaze finds him again. “Please, don’t– don’t do it where Wilbur– where he can see.”
Phil reels back.
Pain skitters up his spine with the force he slams into the wall, but he barely feels it. Shock makes it feel like he’s falling, limbs suspended, stomach up by his throat, hard ground rushing up to meet him and make the fall hurt. Tommy’s expression wavers like it’s threatening to collapse, like Phil’s denying him this, when really Phil can hardly comprehend what he’s been asked to do–
Even in death, Tommy is thinking about his comatose brother. Thinking of how to soften grief that hasn’t happened yet, thinking about making his own ending easier to swallow. Bile pools on Phil’s tongue.
“Tommy,” he chokes out, those two simple syllables tangling up between his fangs and lips. It’s just a name, but it’s all he can say. “Tommy–”
“Don’t,” Tommy half-barks angrily. It just feels scared. “Don’t– don’t act like I get to walk away from this.”
Phil swallows, reaching out and closing his fingers around air. Nothing but air.
Tommy bares his throat wider, and Phil flattens against the wall. He draws his hands back cautiously, raising them in what he hopes resembles a surrender through his own disorientation – and now panic.
“You can,” Phil argues. He tries to keep his voice calm, level and casual, but it’s hard. Tommy’s unraveling makes him want to mirror it. Every broken sound cuts Phil up. “We can all walk away from this. Together.”
A helpless whine crawls out Tommy’s throat against his will. Hope shatters across his face, a lightning bolt that immediately splits into a million different directions and vanishes.
“We can’t,” he insists, “We can’t, we can’t, we–”
Tommy chokes as he cuts himself off. Redness flushes violently over his face. Tommy falls forward, breath vanishing from his lungs. Phil is able to catch him this time. He cradles him in his arms like Tommy is a part of him, tucking his chin on top of Tommy’s head to keep him there.
“We can,” Phil whispers. And instead of trying to wrestle away from him, Tommy moves closer. “We are.” A fearful, strained breath breaks out of him. “I didn’t tell you about the manor for nothing, little one.”
“That was for Wilbur,” Tommy rattles. “That was– you said–”
Phil’s chest seizes. All he wants to do is squeeze Tommy tighter, into a proper hug, but the youngling is still gasping for air, sounding like he’s dying, guilt smothering him, so he doesn’t. He can’t.
“No,” Phil whispers. “No–”
“–and he, and he deserves it,” Tommy is gasping, not hearing him. “I know he does, you’re his– his o-own kind.” Phil’s own words slap, stinging in his skin, even though he’s sure Tommy hadn’t meant to fling them at him. “He’ll be safer, I know, he can be safe, but I– I can’t.”
He curls forward like those words cut his mouth up on the way out. His arms fold over his stomach. Tommy rocks on his knees, head pressed against Phil’s chest, and Phil tries to press him back into completion with just his hands.
“Oh, Tommy,” Phil breathes, and the empty space where his heart used to be strains to be full. It gapes like a missing limb, phantom aches stealing Phil’s breath focus. “Oh, Tommy, no. That included you, little one. Not just Wilbur, you–”
“Why?”
The question shakes. Silence descends with a fury as both of them fall unprecedentedly silent.
Tommy brings his hands up, shoving at Phil’s chest. Phil lets him untangle himself, arms slipping off of Tommy’s shoulders without resistance. Tommy stares him down with trembling lips pressed into a thin line and eyes that contain oceans and oceans of misery and guilt.
“I took you,” Tommy admits, spitting the words like bitter acid. “I don’t deserve to go.”
Phil shakes his head, lips tilting up wryly at the corners. “The fact that you had to take me,” he begins firmly, “is why you deserve to go.” The truth scrapes past his fangs. “Tommy, you’re still so young. You’re just a kid.”
Tommy sniffles, shaking his head. “I’m strong.”
“You are,” Phil agrees, not missing a beat. “The strongest child I know. But you shouldn’t have to be.” He exhales heavily – a reflex more than anything necessary. An attempt to rid the pressure closing down like an anchor has been sat on his chest. “You won’t have to be.”
Tommy’s heart rate ticks up. Phil hears it, and he knows that he’s helped bring him down away from the ledge he’d created for himself. He clenches tiny fists at his side, breaths pushing out of his lungs with an uneven rise-fall.
“I can…” he starts to speak before his throat clamps shut. Tommy swallows and tries again, looking like it’s taking everything in him to keep hope from snaking across his face. But Phil can see the spiderweb cracks gleaming there, hardly visible after being shaved away for so long, his entire life. When he gathers his strength again, Tommy speaks, and it’s broken glass. “I can… go with you? With Wilbur?”
“Of course,” he rasps. “God, I’d– I wouldn’t take your brother away from you like that.”
The tired dip of Tommy’s head tells him everything; tells him that he’d thought he would. And not just that he’d thought Phil would be disappearing with his freshly turned fledgling, with Wilbur, but that Tommy would’ve let him. Even if it killed him.
It’s a loyalty unlike anything Phil has ever seen. A bond he thinks could swallow a coven bond whole.
Brotherhood, he thinks. Humanity’s greatest creation.
At least, Tommy makes it seem that way.
“You promise?”
Tommy’s whisper pulls Phil out of the claws of his own mind. He trembles as he gets the word out, shoulders so stiff: cut out of diamond. That’s another stake, piercing Phil’s chest.
“I do,” he swears, but Tommy does not let that suffice.
Instead, the boy’s face hardens. He reaches a hand out, filling the empty air between them, and… extends a pinkie?
Phil frowns at it, mind failing him for too long of a moment. He skims Tommy’s face for an explanation and finds none, just stony expectation. Phil hesitates. Does he…?
Oh. He understands.
Phil carefully extends a pinkie of his own, wrapping it around Tommy’s. A tear-choked smile splits the boy’s weathered face, and Phil thinks he’s done the correct thing in sealing the promise like this. The next time Tommy blinks, Phil dares say his eyes are a bit dryer, not so grieved.
“On eternity,” Phil promises, and the sire means it.
Phil has so much of eternity to spare, and he gives it all. Fate be damned, logic be damned, it flows out of him – drowning out even the loudest cries of hunger still ravaging him. The weight of a tiny pinkie against his is its own coven bond. Phil feels as bound to it as if it is blood.
“Okay,” Tommy murmurs, and the fledgling believes it.
And as their promises blend together, the sound of a door opening smashes through the hut, followed by rapid footsteps, the quick swish of a cape–
A shadow falls over the doorway, tall and hulking.
Techno seizes the doorway with his hand, leaning against it. Chest heaving, he takes in the scene before him: shock-blown, garnet eyes sliding over to Wilbur, where Phil imagines the fresh bond link is drawing him, then to Tommy, whose eyes widen as he scoots back to seek asylum against Phil’s side, and finally–
Phil gives a smile, wry and tired, to his oldest friend.
“Hello, Techno,” he greets, lifting a hand in a mild wave. “Long time no see, mate.”
Techno scowls. Phil grins.
It’s over.
–
What is this? Techno hisses into his mind when the shock subsides, giving way to horror at Phil’s… less than ideal state, then confusion at the sight of the kids, then a blank mask, carefully contained. Who are these children? He blinks, nostrils flaring as he realizes it. Human children?
Phil, perhaps regretfully, ignores most of his questions. They don’t have time to unravel this now and sift through the details. He’s hungry, and tired, and the kids are worse off. So instead of answering Techno, he throws a hand up, sleeve slipping down to reveal a mess of pink skin wrapping his wrist.
Techno’s complaints are drowned out by worry. His pupils dilate, panic pushing at Phil through the bond. But Phil just pins him with a pointed look, one that Techno tracks to the fledgling still clinging to Phil’s side, and accepts with a disgruntled swallow.
“Help me up,” Phil says – out loud, for Tommy’s comfort.
Techno does, fingers twisting carefully around his hand, avoiding his wrist. He lifts him like he weighs nothing at all. Phil lets out a ragged sigh.
Tommy makes a small sound in the back of his throat when Phil is helped to his feet. But Phil doesn’t leave him there, small and alone and huddled against the wall. He wavers, having to lean against Techno as the room pitches violently in his frame of vision, but still extending a delicate hand down to Tommy.
“Come on, little one,” Phil murmurs. Tommy, crouched like a terrified, starving dog, wets his lips. His eyes flicker over to Techno, who nods at him. Then, Tommy scampers to his feet, pressing himself against Phil’s side again. He slots neatly there, half-hidden in his robes, like a puzzle piece slipping into place. “Well done.”
Tommy nods, and says nothing.
That’s when Techno takes the moment to jerk his head in Wilbur’s direction. The fledgling is still locked deep inside a coma: hurt, but peaceful. And so out of place.
“Is he… ours?” Techno manages, pressing a hand to his temple, no doubt overwhelmed by the sudden addition to their coven.
“In a way,” Phil answers vaguely. The bond doesn’t allow for that sort of vagueness – but Phil makes it, for now. Once Wilbur has the capacity to deny it, if he wishes, then he will consider that. “He’s coming with us.”
Techno’s jaw clenches. It’s not out of any sort of aggression, Phil knows, but more of a mixture of disbelief and frustration at not knowing. Guilt pricks at Phil’s lungs. He will have a lot to explain. In time.
Tommy doesn’t know Techno’s mannerism like Phil does. Phil notices the way he misinterprets the frustration and worry and shock as something akin to hostility. Tommy patters forward, tiny chest puffing up.
“He’s my brother,” Tommy growls at him.
Techno just levels him a confused look. Phil answers it in his head as adoration swells over him.
Be nice, he instructs. He’s been through a lot.
Techno’s jaw ticks. His eyes flick to Phil. I don’t know how to handle children.
Phil’s lips tilt. We’ll figure it out. The response he earns, unspoken, is nothing short of baleful. Phil raises an eyebrow. You’ll live.
Techno scowls – until he hears Tommy’s breath hitch, fear pumping warm blood wildly through him. He jerks his head down guiltily, forcing his reservations aside. Phil smiles tiredly.
Told you, Phil thinks – not to Techno, but himself. To Tommy, in a way. He’s a softie.
“Can you carry him?” Phil asks, clipping his chin towards Wilbur. Tommy stumbles back, finding Phil’s hand with his own and seizing it in a death grip. Phil offers a piece of a smile to him too, soft and soothing. “We have quite the journey ahead of us.”
Techno nods. Tommy’s fingers dig near-painfully into Phil’s hand as Techno crosses the room, kneeling at Wilbur’s side. A frown pinches between his eyebrows, accentuating the tenderness he only reserves for their own.
“Techno’s got him,” Phil murmurs to Tommy, squeezing his hand back. The fledgling shakes in his grip, watching tensely as his brother is hefted into strong arms. “He’ll be alright, mate.”
Tommy nods, it’s clipped. He’s not giving himself room to doubt, Phil thinks. He’s making himself trust, and he reckons it’s scaring the shit out of him.
Tommy watches Techno with no small amount of distrust, but the way that Wilbur sinks against him with a sleepy sigh is enough to assuage him. He doesn’t lunge at Techno like a feral raccoon or anything, so it’s enough.
“Tommy,” Phil says, and the fledgling jerks his head around to face him. Phil drops gingerly onto one knee, putting them eye level. Tommy sucks in a deep breath, studying his face. Phil tries to grin, hoping exhaustion (and starvation) hasn’t hollowed him out too much. “Are you ready to go?”
Phil opens his arms wide, the exact shape of the promise he’d made. Tommy’s breath hitches. He knows, that despite their physical proximity, that there is an immeasurable amount of distance between them: oceans of trust that haven’t been bridged yet. But Phil is not asking Tommy to trust him, he’s asking him to try.
And perhaps the clever little fledgling understands that, because he only slices one last scrutinizing glance over Techno– before clambering into Phil’s arms.
Phil stands, and the world does not wobble so much even in this state. He doesn’t miss the aborted sound of protest Techno makes as Phil takes Tommy into his arms, Tommy resting his face against the crook of Phil’s neck, but he does ignore it. All he has the energy for now is leaving.
Cradling him, Tommy is the lightest thing in the world – or maybe he’s just light itself. Whichever one, lifting Tommy barely strains Phil. He doesn’t feel so tired.
“Let’s go home,” Phil murmurs, and there is no complaint.
Just uncertain silence folding over to resolution, and the will to try. It’s enough.