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Phil has lived for centuries upon centuries, he has seen civilizations rise and he has seen them fall, he has watched as galaxies formed across the universe, he’s seen the unfolding of stars being born and their death eons later, he remembers the Ancient Ones lost to the whims of mortals far too young to remember them, he remembers a sky so different than this one, young and new and not-yet blemished by conquerors and rot.
He is older than time itself—he is immortal and he is powerful and he is angry .
And he has lost his sons.
There are beginnings and there are endings and his starts with a creature much like himself but too new to the universe to be the same. Dream is what he’s called because although he is foolish to have taken something of Phil’s and run away with it, he is not foolish enough to divulge his real name, he’s not foolish enough to take it out of hiding.
Real names held power, real names were power.
Humans did not know this, most of them anyway. Phil found this out perhaps millenniums ago, back when they were still such a new species, still trying to grasp something beyond the world around them. Perhaps only seconds ago, too—humanity still young and still hungry and still trying to grasp even a shred more than themselves because a hunger like that can never really be sated.
He folds himself into the pockets of the universe to try and figure out what is so desirable about the ‘more’ and came back no less passionate about the fleetingness of mortals.
The humans loved to tell stories of magic and whispers of fantastical creatures and spread legend to myth to nothing, created and created and created until they had so many ideas that it began to be hard to keep track. They consume and love and hate and give as much as possible because they won’t be able to one day.
It’s fascinating to think about, how short of a time they have to love but they still do so with such fierceness, knowing it could be taken away in a single breath.
He visits the past sometimes, just to compare it to the Future. To the Now.
Time works differently in his realm, his territory—different in the way that there is none to pass. No second, no minutes, no days. It’s endless stagnation, and it only changes when he wishes. He grows, but does not grow old, and it must too.
Afterall, immortals need no clock to count down the years until the inevitable.
There is no inevitable, none for one such as himself. For Phil, there will be no deathbed, no ticking bomb, no body left to decay, to return to the Before of his existence.
Lady Death is his lover, a friend, a piece of his heart and he has no fear or worry of her hands wilting him, because they cannot nor does she want them to. She is a being as old as Phil himself, perhaps older. Neither are sure and neither care. The companionship that lasts when everything else around them does not is more than enough.
They do not love the same as mortals, but they still love, and it’s enough to inspire creation.
She gives him gifts—a flock of crows as endless and as dark as the night sky, a set of wings soul-kissed into his back as powerful as her words and as sturdy as her hand in his, a wedding band hastily fitted against shifting skin and a golden necklace dripping into a heart as it settles around his neck—and he does the same. His gifts can’t compare, he is not a being meant for such craftsmanship; a being of destruction, of plight, of compassion.
But she takes the magic-woven ring and the feathers dotted with devotion and cradles it against her, and she makes it so they last as long as them.
These are things that will outlast their souls, these small things insignificant to all else.
Lady Death though, oh, she’s magnificent . She doesn’t stop giving, she always has more love to share, even after she etches her name into the space between his ribs and he carves his own into the crook of her throat, she has more to share.
More than their real names, their power—her next gifts came in the form of little ‘godling’ creatures, his sons. From the moment he laid his eyes on them, he knew that their hearts were what held all the gentleness within Phil’s very existence.
Kristin did not need his gentleness, she was Wild, she was a god.
But these beings? These little souls, that from the second Lady Death brought her hands away from the universe’s mawing mouth with fingers dripping with starlight, were dizzily dancing in energy and bright and oh so beautiful.
Oh so young.
He knew—Phil knew from that moment that these souls were his to protect. His to love, his to trust, his to guide and care for and to show the wonders of everything more . Because they might be fae by human standards—might be magic and stories and centuries of tales unwoven—but they are not human, they are not fae, not truly.
They are his sons and they are capable of wonderful things.
Dream knew this, knew they’d be born human, born fae, born mortal before they would be reborn with stardust filling their lungs; as every being like them is. He knew that without them, Phil had no inherent purpose, that he had lost his light.
Souls were unique things, some never connected with another for as long as it stays bright and others connect to each other, sparks flitting into creation as soon as they are in reach of one another.
Some never realize that they were connected to begin with until it is too late.
He trusted only a few with this, the knowledge of who his soul bonded to.
His sons were young, their very existence a mere spec within all Phil has lived through and will continue to live through, but they mattered so much more than anything he has seen or done or survived. They did not have the same strength as him nor the strength to protect themselves, to do anything, really.
And, well, one of his trusted friends simply shouldn’t have been trusted.
They stole his sons in exchange for Dream’s loyalty, for a mere bite of what the fool’s power tasted like. They should’ve asked for his protection instead.
Because a being as ancient as Phil does not deal with niceties such as mercy, does not hesitate, does not regret. He wondered, briefly, if they regretted it as he waved a single hand and wiped their story from the stars, erased their very existence and returned it to Creation’s hands to mold into something new.
He wondered how many ways there are to make Dream feel regret.
Then he plans them.
A decade passes and Earth turns over on itself, his territory rumbling with something new , something calling to him without pause, without hesitation in voicing their need for him and he finds his oldest son swathed in the blood of his enemies; all jutted teeth and wild eyes and pain as deep as Phil’s wings are black.
He is young but he is already deadly and Phil is proud that he has survived where many have not. Two centuries go by and although Lady Death helps, although he and Technoblade spend every waking moment skimming through time like book pages, they gaze at souls but have not yet laid eyes on the ones they need to find.
Dream is both here and there and nowhere at once, each glimpse they see of him, the godling slips away like sand through their fingers.
Techno is old enough now to taste magic without straining himself, to hiss at Power’s stubbornness until it stops hissing back, has learned how to be perfectly lethal all on his own.
Then he learns how to be Phil’s kind of lethal and learns how to be a god .
He is still too young to perfect patience but old enough to be familiar with rage.
He wants his brothers back, his soul aching along with Phil’s own, aching in a way that he has felt sink into his very soul, light slowly slipping away by the force of separation.
They find Wilbur sometime later with a sword to the musician’s throat and a guitar to his back and the immortals turn the offender to dust with laughter alone. His second son is just as smart but less wary. He speaks of Dream fondly and then with anguish, with bitterness, when they confess the truth.
Dream still slips away from them, even with how his starlit child had taken to his magic as easily as his fingers make music among perfectly tuned strings, even with Wilbur branding him with betrayal, with anger, with a siren’s call of this isn’t over .
Phil rarely has to sleep but he takes to it because he dreams of his youngest—a son with once-bright eyes, a dark past, and brilliance hiding behind faux ignorance and very real spite.
He dreams moments of his son’s life and speaks of them to the others in his wake.
Techno hears his brother’s thoughts, Wilbur feels his pain. All three of them worry.
His wings ache, feathers twitching in place, and not even the soothing chills that Kristin’s touch brings can ease the sting brought by the weight of his loss.
Their fourth is barely eight summers, barely breaching infancy within Phil’s own realms’ standards, and yet he seems to gather knowledge and violence and magic into every bit of his life that he can. He is far from Ancient but yet he knows ancient things, they know that his soul has grown faster than it should have.
The humans in his youngest’s life are only brief flashes and have no faces in his dreams, they move in and out of his son’s existence like the child can’t quite hold onto any of them.
He sees Wil grow guarded with phantom pain under his skin, squeezing his eyes shut tight even while asleep, his own hurt crashing through his ribs as if a sword was put through his heart, as if he had given up his ever-loved symphony of songs.
He sees as Techno grows angrier with the added thoughts, his own filled with a need to protect, to revenge, to hold; they only grow quiet when his hands are stained red.
Phil wishes to reassure his sons that they will find their brother, he wishes to finally join his youngling’s side but he can’t quite reach him. Can’t quite see when or where the boy may be, where Dream is keeping him.
For four years, their energies grow, rapid and restless in the wait. For four years, they found nothing.
Then, all at once, the whole Universe shifts.
Everything changes in the blink of an eye, and they don’t miss it.
Tommy was minding his own fucking business when he tripped, okay?
He didn’t take anyone down with him on the way to the muddy ground, didn’t think there was even anyone around to see him fall, so he just… let himself fall.
Let himself, for just one moment, be weak.
To have control over how he was hurt, to know exactly when and why and how he bled, he bruised. To let exhaustion sink its claws into his chest and keep it there with his surprised, hitching breath. To fake that his life was his own for a few seconds at a time.
Then the moment passed and reality crashed back in and he didn’t fight it as he exhaled.
Tommy ignored his stinging knees and throbbing palms as he pushed himself to sit up, angry with himself because to be or not to be weak was a choice and he chose wrong.
Dazed enough that he, apparently, missed someone standing right in front of him until the fucker spoke, scaring the shit out of him—making the teen reel back with a gasp, with squared shoulders and a narrowed gaze.
(He has long since learned the easiest and quickest way for people to leave him alone was to be as angry looking and sounding as possible.)
“I’m looking for someone,” the man said, voice silver-smooth and an unsettling part of himself recognizes it. His heart pounds in his chest as he stares, Tommy stays mouth-gaping as the stranger speaks. “They’re alone and lost. Can you help?”
It must be the trick of the sunlight or something, but he swears the man’s eyes glow.
The stranger has brown curls, a soft but somehow also sharp face that was way too pretty, round glasses and a thick yellow sweater underneath a trench coat and well. Yep. Glowing eyes.
Tommy must be fucking dreaming or something, because on top of all of that this random person— person , some part of him cackled at the lie—seemed familiar to him.
Yeah, he must be dreaming because the man was still waiting for him.
No one else is that patient, looks at him like that , like they could wait for his input.
Like they cared .
“I’m dreaming,” Tommy said—nothing else.
The man laughed, all dandelions and sunshine and retribution etched into the sound, and looked at him with amusement, with sadness. “No you’re not, but that’s okay. That means you can help.”
He wasn’t dreaming?
Huh. Okay.
Weird shit happens to him all the time, so why not?
“Help?” Blue met brown and he swore that they weren’t just brown, that his eyes were somehow just more . His own, he knew, were blue and dull and this man was everything he was not.
His presence felt so—alive.
So concrete, as if the man’s energy was seeping into the very space around him, leeching onto Tommy. Familiar and safe, as if the blond has known it all his life, as if it was life itself.
Warm and melodic and soft.
Which is strange, since he’s always cold, sometimes enough for his fingers to go numb.
“Yes,” the stranger smiled—and some part of Tommy screamed, bit, fought back against the feeling trying to wiggle itself into his bones, some part of him wanted to yell as loud as he could as it dug its claws even further, some part of him wanted to let it get past his body and to his soul.
But that part of him only really thought that for about half a second, before thinking what the fuck and his teeth are too sharp to be human and immediately shoved the feeling away.
Even if it was warm, even if it was nice, it’s not safe.
Something sharp turns in the stranger’s eyes, dark and twisted and it makes him want to run, but then his eyes go soft and sad and the glow dims a little, as if some kind of light within him was slowly being put out.
“I’m looking for someone,” he repeats. “They’re alone and they’re lost.” Pausing, the man meets his eyes, magic to mortal to nothing at all. “Can you help me?”
Say no, there’s that ugly feeling in his chest.
Don’t answer , it screamed. Run before you don’t have the chance.
Tommy winced, resisting the urge to reach up and rub his temples as he looked away, words falling from his tongue, disobeying. “I don’t know how I could help.”
I’m alone , wanted to fall, too. I’m lost.
“That’s okay,” the man (the lie) reassured, a tame smile in comparison playing on his lips. “Not to know, I mean. That’s okay.”
“What’s their name?” He asked, because the people in this town might not like a scrappy street kid like him but they still knew him, and he knew them in return. “I could help you look.”
He doesn’t know why he offers the help, and it scares him.
“I don’t know,” the smile turned a little sad, the voice telling him to run a little less vindictive. “But they’re alone and lost and I need to find them. Could you help?”
It felt like a trick—those words, this question.
I’m alone, something in him whispered. Run, something howled back.
Tommy flinched, taking a step away before he realized his feet had even moved. Heart racing in his chest, air heavy in his lungs.
Had he been dizzy all day? Is he just noticing it now?
“I—” Don’t answer him, it hisses . Don’t answer! “I’m… I—”
Something in him ached, a cold fear rolling down his spine, phantom fingers close around his throat; they hurt but they didn’t hurt and could’ve only been Dream’s—
Just stay quiet, something purred, it sounded like a nightmare, just stay quiet and be good.
—but Dream wasn’t here.
Tommy wasn’t under his control anymore; so he took that feeling and shoved it away, pushing it back to wherever the hell it came from.
It didn’t work as well as usual, and for a second he panicked, then there was a gentle hand on his shoulder, dark hair and glowing eyes the only thing he can focus on as the stranger crouches in front of him.
The hand was gentle. Gentle. Gentle and nothing more.
It made him want to cry.
“Hey,” the words are soft but still silver-tongued, “are you okay?”
That warm feeling is back and his soul-deep aches reach out past his skin and collapse into it. He let himself rest for a moment, for two. He paused, then pulled away. The feeling faded, goosebumps rising to his skin even though the cold rot hadn’t yet tried to return.
Tommy’s been hurt too many times by warm things, it’s instinct by now to block it away. Warm things left scars, they burnt.
And he didn’t need anymore scars.
“M’fine,” Tommy scowled, embarrassed and palms stinging as he clenched them tight. “Where’d you lose your uh…”
“Brother.”
Great, there was another one of him. Lovely.
“Brother,” he nodded, wondering what it was like to have one of those. Wondering if he had one, and was lost, he’d be found. “Where’d you lose ‘im?”
“Right here, a long time ago.” The answer was soft. The man slowly held out a hand, skin shimmering for a second before settling into something more human. His palm was scarred, fingers calloused.
It was a bit odd to give some random twelve-year-old a hand shake, Tommy thought, slowly taking his hand , but no less strange than trying to look human when this stranger was painfully not.
“I’m Wilbur ,” he said, and that—that right there, that’s the more he dreamt of.
The name, that power, settles into his chest as if it belongs.
It rested against his soul like a blanket. It was like magic, like medicine, weaving back together something in him he hadn’t known was broken and missing a piece of until now.
Half-dazed, Tommy slowly gives the hand in his a soft squeeze, “I’m Theseus .”
Wilbur’s hand was warm and he knew, somehow, that the heart-shaped scar on his palm was made in the back alley of a country that has yet to exist, knew that the man usually ran warm but wore sweaters anyways, that he was starlight and melted chocolate and warm—always, always warm.
But he wouldn’t burn Tommy, no, he was careful.
And Tommy was safe with him, with Wilbur, and why wouldn’t he be? This kind of warmth, it could only mean—
Run! The ugly thing in his chest snarled, clawing desperately at the golden threads around his soul, tugging and tugging and tugging against them even though they don’t budge, don’t fray. You need to get away!
What the fuck , he thinks, then everything comes crashing back.
Tommy jerks, ripping his hand away. He doesn’t miss the look of hurt in the Fae’s (not human’s, never human’s) eyes and it shot something painful through his chest, and he stumbled back.
Why, why, why —why would he give this stranger his real name?
Why would he break the one rule of Dream’s he agreed with—to a Fae, nonetheless?
Why, why could he never do anything right?
What’s so special about Wilbur that—
Run, it was back, the feeling was back, twisted and ugly and angry. Run and don’t look back. It dug in its claws harder, snarling. You need to run.
“I have to go,” Tommy spluttered, not waiting for a reply as he turned around, legs tensed and ready and—
“ Theseus ,” Wilbur said and he froze, heart palpitating and loud in his ears. His name wrapped around him, warm from the Fae’s magic but cool with the control that he no longer possessed. “If you’re in trouble, if you need protection, if you need someone, say my name. I will come, I will help. I will be there for you, starchild.”
The control snapped and he shot off like a bullet, sprinting as fast as he could away from the park, down that one street, crossing the alley and then another, houses passed in a blur before he’s left panting, eyes blurry with tears as he huffed for breath.
He got away from Wilbur, away from his mistake.
But everything within him wanted to go back.
Back to the Fae who holds his name, back to the evidence towards his weakness, to why he will never survive on his own. Back to the Fae who is warm and weird and nice, who felt safe. Back to his show of desperation, to the foreignness of kindness.
Back to his—
Tommy stopped, clutching his throbbing side, trying to see a street sign, trying to see anything that could tell him where he was, where he had run to in his panic.
Oh, he thought. I’m alone, I’m lost…
Phil met up with Wilbur and Techno sometime between the Now and the Future in a shoddy little town in a country he has only seen the destruction of and never the beginning.
It holds no historical significance—not yet, anyway—but this place, it’s important.
After all, this is where Wilbur met their fourth, the final missing soul, his lost son.
He had felt it, the second a new name but old power wrapped around Wil’s soul, the familiar stain of red and sunshine and brilliance giving whose name it was away in a heartbeat.
Techno had bombarded their bond with questions, demands. He wanted to know, needed to know if their little brother was safe, wanted to know everything and anything that his twin could find out about the young being.
Phil had sat back, the Universe open for him to watch, strings of light and creation and ruination twirling around his fingertips, content to just feel his sons’ relief, concern, jubilance instead of invading on the moment.
Lady Death peaked into their souls, a breathless joy shaking their foundations as she realized the last part of her gift had been found. Her energy wrapped around his—once, twice, brushed through his feathers before pulling back.
She was an Ancient One, after all, and she had important things to do.
He knew, though, that she’d be back to celebrate and help soon. This was her son, too.
It was no small amelioration, it was as if the very base of their existence sung with happiness at the change, at the improvement, the final slip before the fall of becoming a complete family.
They found their fourth.
They’d have him back soon.
Phil was a patient being, he could wait.
Tommy is many things but stupid is not one of them.
A little foolish on a bad day, down right stubborn on a good one but not stupid. He knows how to survive even when those around him believe he will not. Hope he will not.
He knows that there are creatures out there he should not, simply, fuck with.
He knows Dream is one of them—knows that Dream has branded him, hurt him, did something that put the cold rot inside his chest.
Part of him knows it’s to keep something (someone) else away.
Part of him knows the moment he met Wilbur, the moment he gave up his name, that it didn’t work anymore.
It lost its touch—the twisting thing in his heart doesn’t sting as bad. It still pulls him this way or that, still wretches words into his mouth, still tears anxiety through his body without care for how dizzy it makes him.
He’s not stupid.
He knows Wilbur isn’t human; that he’s to blame.
He knows he shouldn’t dare to go back to the park, shouldn’t dare to hope.
But here he is—and there Wilbur is too, sitting on a bench and holding something slightly steaming in his hands, posture relaxed and welcome.
Tommy hesitates. He’s not stupid, he’s not. He knows wanting is dangerous, wanting could get him killed. Want is a frivolous thing, it takes and takes and takes and it’ll leave him with nothing in the end. It never leaves him with anything but guilt and fresh wounds but—
But here is this creature —this curiosity—
And Tommy wants so badly to understand it all.
Dream isn’t here to stop him.
The cold rot inside his chest can’t either.
The golden threads tug against him harder, begging, urging him closer and Tommy stopped hesitating. He keeps his wariness close to his chest, his knowledge that this isn’t safe no matter how much his heart is convinced that it is, and slowly walks to the bench.
Wilbur’s eyes are glowing when they meet his, happy and warm and magic.
“Is this—can I sit down?” He stammers, feeling suddenly oh so very small while feeling seen. It feels like there’s no part of his true being that the fae is missing.
It’s as unsettling as it is reassuring.
“Of course,” the fae gestures and Tommy’s startled to realize that the things in his hands are sweets from Niki’s cafe.
Niki's a nice woman—sweet but not soft, gentle enough to treat him nicely but harsh enough to demand that silent type of respect that comes with being a good person.
“I’d love the company, little starchild.” The fae nods to the seat.
“It’s Tommy,” the blond dared to correct, arms going around himself as he sat down.
He doesn’t know if he’s more terrified or if he’s more happy at this moment. Part trepidation, part joy—it’s like half of him recognizes this being as nothing if not deadly and the other half thinks it knows the other so well that it’s pure protection to sit so close.
Overall, it’s confusing.
He’s tired of the conflict.
“Tommy,” Wilbur tilts his head, a soft smile flitting across his lips. “A very nice name for a bright boy.”
“I um, thanks,” he swallows heavily, ignoring the heat rising to his cheeks.
He's not used to such compliments—to any compliments, really.
Clearing his throat, he asks, “did you ever find your brother?”
“Hmm,” the fae sat back, glowing eyes moving away from him and to the treeline. “I want to say yes but I don’t know if he’s truly found yet.”
“That’s strangely cryptic.” Tommy wrinkles his nose.
“I know,” he chuckles, low and sad. “Would you like to hear a story?”
Thrown for a loop, Tommy has to blink a couple times before he can bring himself to nod.
He had an active imagination as a kid—something Dream tried to squash.
He's always loved stories.
There’s no need to wonder about the more, Tommy, the masked man would sneer. You have anything you could need right here.
But Tommy never did and now he figures the scars across his back that he earned for not doing so are well worth it when Wilbur begins an odd tale of an old warrior with pink hair and wild eyes—half god, half mortal and entirely too gentle for his own good.
It’s a lovely, sorrowful story.
The warrior feels most at home with blood on his hands yet he hates the stains. The warrior loses himself into the fight and finds far too much satisfaction in the ending. The warrior is a wanderer, always searching. The warrior slowly, yet surely, finds a new home.
He’s told a crow’s call and a siren’s song follows the warriors footfalls.
He’s told that the warrior stops being a warrior for a while and turns to growing potatoes—and Tommy laughs until his sides ache.
It’s a wonderful world that Wilbur sees. There’s no part of it untouched from magic or chaos or man’s destructive hands.
There is no such thing as a sinless god or a timeless mortal and he loves it; loves imagining a deer so tall it towers over oak trees and a cryptid being made of diamonds, a man who sleeps for centuries at a time covered in mushroom and moss and starlight.
It’s everything more that Tommy’s dared to think about in a while.
Dared to desire, to want to experience.
He’s only human though, he’s young and he knows he can survive but he also knows his life will just be that, just be survival—so he asks.
He asks about life and gets told about an Ancient Being with wings as black as nightfall against his back, about a universe always expanding and infinite in the ways it can create life, about decay and time and everything Wilbur can think of.
He asks about Death and gets told of a mother’s love, of sturdy hands holding him tight and three boys that were once made from stardust and brilliance and light.
He thinks it’s beautiful.
He thinks that Wilbur is lucky to live a life full of creation.
It’s a good day but good things must come to an end—the sky is dark when Tommy apologizes and goes to leave. Wilbur tells him to stay safe and gives him the bag of sweets, disappearing before the boy could protest.
Tommy knows he should be scared of the fae. He can no longer bring himself to be.
Every other day the fae meets him at the park and Tommy slowly, but surely, starts to break down the cold rot in his chest; he replaces it with warmth and golden threads tightly bound against every inch of his heart, his soul.
The fae goes from familiar to friend to brother terrifyingly quickly.
He does not use his true name against Tommy, he does not hurt him, does not lord his power over the boy’s head and plays at being better. He treats them as equal, treats him with respect.
He treats Tommy as if he’s someone the other wants to be around. It’s a startling and a new feeling but it’s warm, it’s nice.
It feels lovely to be wanted.
The fae brings him fresh pastries but more often than not, he brings Tommy things he needs to survive.
Warm blankets, a bottle full of clean water, a thick jacket. He thinks that Wilbur knows he’s terribly alone but his brother never says anything so he never does either.
It feels… shameful, somehow, to need the help. To like it.
He tries not to let that get in the way of the fun he and Wilbur have, though. Tommy’s determined to keep the bond between them good.
Wilbur stays good, too.
It's refreshing to be around someone who doesn't bring him pain.
Dream returns once, only for a day, and carves runes into the boy’s wrists.
He leaves with a warning, a threat, and bloody hands.
It makes Tommy physically sick to even think about visiting the park, in seeing Wilbur.
The cold rot comes back furious and with a vengeance; it hurts as it digs into the golden threads and tears at them until the insides of his chest feel raw. Until it feels like his ribs will crack under the strain. Until his heart hurts.
Until the want turns into longing turns into sorrow.
He misses his brother.
He feels like he's missing part of himself, too.
He can’t bring himself to make it to the park for three weeks and cries when he can finally force his tired, aching body down the street, through the small wooden trail, and finally— finally —into Wilbur’s arms.
The gold strengthens but the hurt doesn’t lessen.
The rot eats up his pain and laughs as it creates more, a feast for itself wrapped up in blood and shredded protection.
Wilbur holds him close, pressing a shaky kiss to his brow, “I’m sorry, starlight. I’m so sorry. I’d take the pain away if I could, I’d take it all away.”
“Wil,” Tommy cries back, trembling and tired as he pushes his face into the fae’s neck.
“Shh, sh, I know, darling, I know.” A warm hand rubs gentle circles into his back and he’s eased to rest against Wilbur, a soft hum filling the space between his words. “I know it hurts, little one. Just rest. It’ll be okay.” A sob wracks the boy’s body and another hand gently goes through his hair, soothing and full of magic. “I know, I know, I’m so sorry.”
It hurts, it hurts, it hurts—but he’s wrapped up in Wilbur’s arms.
It hurts but here, here he is safe.
(When Tommy wakes up, he is covered in his brother’s jacket and held close to a warm chest by sturdy arms, a hand in his hair and tear tracks over his cheeks.
The rot in his chest simmers but stays pliant at the base of his soul, weak.
It stays there for two weeks.)
Tommy met Wilbur with sunshine pouring through the clouds and he meets the other’s brother under the cover of a thick oak tree while rain fell from the sky in a roaring symphony.
He recognizes the pink hair, the scar across his cheek from one of the brown-eyed fae’s stories, and promptly asks if he ever won the Great Potato War because Wil never told him and he's curious .
The fae blinks at him, red eyes swirling and half-surprised.
“So, did you?” Tommy tilts his head, only a shred of fear pressing its way into his heart. The rot struggles to even stand—it cannot claw at him, cannot scream to run. The runes on his wrists sting but that is all they do.
The days with Wilbur holding him tight, holding him safe, have made Dream's magic dull.
“Yes,” the creature tilts his head back, looking at him with endless eyes. “You’re not what I expected.”
“You’re exactly what I pictured,” Tommy returns, a small grin on his lips.
He has perfected the way that anger looks but has yet to master the art of a smile. He thinks he needs more practice but Wilbur said all he needs is time and reasons.
The fae’s lips twitch up, amused.
If Tommy had a bit more self-preservation, he’d probably have run away by now.
This stranger (but not a stranger, not really) has a bulky body meant for destruction, meant for the battlefield, and a height that positively towers over him and Wilbur despite the brunet being an absurdly tall bastard.
If it were anyone else, he'd be terrified—but it's not anyone else and he knows he's safe here.
Safe with Wilbur; safe with these faces.
“Wil’s told me about you,” the fae confesses, kneeling to be on his level. He looks more huggable than anything else, now. “He told me that you’re trying to help him find our brother who’s still a little lost. A little alone.”
The warrior, he's reminded, is a gentle giant.
“I am,” Tommy agrees.
He hasn’t forgotten the way that he met his brother.
“Thank you,” this is said sincerely, said with relief and then: “My name is Technoblade and it’s yours. If you need me, little starchild, I will be there. Just call my name.”
It’s said so confidently, so casually, that Tommy doesn’t realize the significance until pink threads are mixing into the gold, strong and soft.
He knows there’s power in names.
He knows there’s very real danger in two beings as powerful as them to have his name yet—
Yet Tommy doesn’t hesitate to grin, to take the hand outstretched in his own, and say, “ Theseus . What’s mine is yours.”
And that’s that.
Wilbur makes a joke, calls Technoblade dramatic, and the day continues.
Tommy laughs more than he has in a while, learns about the way the other fae views the world, about mythical creatures and lovely authors and great heroes lost to time.
About how things turn from truth to legend to nothing and then back to myths.
About beginnings and ending and everything in between.
He asks about war and is told about love, about sacrifice and the names of so many flowers that when he eventually goes back to his house for the night, he cannot spot a stray one without matching a name to it.
It's a great thing, knowledge.
It makes him feel a little less lonely, like he's somehow carrying a part of the games with him wherever you go.
While Wilbur brings him useful things, Technoblade brings him beautiful ones.
Pressed daisies, an old but well appreciated book, a weaved leather bracelet, a small amethyst rock shined to perfection.
Small, lovely things.
It takes the fae half the time it took Wilbur to get close to Tommy.
(He thinks because he's not as wary, not as hurt but—truthfully—it's because he wants this.
Want is selfish but he's learning to be a little selfish, learning it's not too bad.
Learning that it's okay to take even if it might hurt.)
Techno quickly goes from Wilbur’s brother to our brother in his head and the blond doesn’t bother to change it; it feels inevitable, it feels right, like the three of them were always meant to come together, to be brothers.
It feels magical.
Technoblade begins to visit him the days that Wilbur doesn’t and even on the days that he does.
He makes Tommy feel special.
He lets Tommy steal the red cape he keeps against his shoulders, lets the boy tease him for the things he wears, lets himself tease the boy back, and it’s nice.
He teaches Tommy a lot of things.
Mostly, though, he is teaching Tommy to defend himself—how to block blows, to curve his body so an impact hurts less, to deflect and dunk and punch back.
It goes slowly.
The twelve-year old is malnourished despite the two’s help and he’s injured more times than he is not.
It’s slow but he does learn.
He gets better, gets up quicker, learns new ways to keep himself safe.
One day, after blocking particularly well, Technoblade ruffles his hair and tells him “Ya did good, kid. I’m proud of you.” and it has Tommy tearing up.
He’s offered a hug and he takes it.
He doesn’t know why it feels so right but he’s grateful that it does.
The second time Dream comes home he finds Tommy while the boy is at the park, hands wrapped around Techno’s wrists as he forces the fae to dance with him—Wilbur giddily singing for them as he plays the guitar.
They’re happy here, in this one moment.
Then the moment passes and Dream is there, snarling out, “Tommy!”
And the blond finds the joy slipping through his fingers, his hands grasping at panic instead as it seeps into his skin and spreads through his veins.
The panic that comes with the rot feels all consuming.
Tommy's not quite sure what happened—one moment he was laughing with Technoblade, the next there were hands over his skin.
One pair cold and brash and tugging so hard against his wrist that it has the boy crying out.
It has something sharp and painful twisting at his insides.
It has the hurt come back; heavy and loud and—
And there's those thick threads against his soul, creating a bright song to eat away at the darkness.
There's those warm hands, tugging against him, a body against his back, looming and protective and—
The rot sinks in harsher, biting—
Pink bursts into the fight, cutting and rough and gentle all in one go; a rose with sharp thorns, petals soft to those it wants to be soft to and dangerous to all else.
The coldness hurts, hurts, hurts but then it lets go—
Darkness comes next.
Tommy doesn't know how to feel about the darkness.
Phil is not a gentle being but there is being he will be gentle to and for—his sons are all of them.
The circumstances in which he meets his youngest feel like the burn of a newborn star.
It is painful and raw.
It isn't something that he thought, even through all he has seen or experienced in his magnitudal existence, he would go through.
Tommy is smaller than he thought the boy would be.
A short, worn down body holding a sparking, hungry soul that is far too tiny for a being with such potential.
His brothers are larger than the world, larger than Ruination, than hope.
It is a sorrowful comparison.
His youngest is safe now, though.
Safe from Dream—the creature who dared to take his three little life lines is now nothing more than a replaying bad memory.
He had been stripped of nothing but his name, the power that was attached to it now gone. His magic, useless. His state of being as empty as his satisfaction.
He is below the Cold Ones, forced to live in a void that is both empty and full; a void that possesses nothingness and everything at once.
It is a living hell.
To have not a thing but ones thought, to remember control but have none.
The creature is only a living nightmare. Nothing more, nothing that can hurt. Nothing but a name that leaves a bad taste in someone's mouth, rotten fruit that's been thrown out, mold that's been washed off.
Tommy is the very opposite of that.
He is a creature full of light. He's a brilliant amalgamation of wit and compassion and ferocity.
He's lovely, a little fire never burning out.
It takes Phil the longest to bond with the boy, much longer than his other sons had taken.
He does not take offence, he knows why.
The boy— his boy, his son—is as lovely as he is smart but smarts and loveliness is no protection from the after effect of trauma.
Phil knows the scars Dream has left against Tommy's skin, his mind, his soul.
He knows that time—no matter how fake, how frivolous—is the key ingredient to healing such wounds.
He cannot rush the process and he has urge to.
Phil is patient.
His sons are safe and so, he waits.
Tommy trusts his brothers and, belatedly realized, he trusts Phil—his dad —just as much.
The Being is kind but he had been intimidating at first.
He hadn't quite know how to get over that fear but, oddly enough, it started with a golden apple.
Phil is everything Tommy has been conditioned to be scared by.
Strong, powerful—older than him and Ancient even outside of the comparison, a father, a God.
He's Dream on an upside scale.
But he is not Dream and he doesn't hurt Tommy.
The space within the Being's realm (something the blond still struggled with wrapping his mind around even when his very soul has no problems with settling in) is weird. It shifts, changes.
One day, Phil had changed a part of the house towards Tommy's liking.
A wide stove, open cupboards, steady floors and a long shelf on either side of the fridge to make things on.
The apples had been in the middle on a tiny, marble island. They were in a red and white bowl, glistening under the lights and glowing with their natural sheen.
He's seen his brothers eat them before. Wilbur said they taste like the feeling he got from finishing a song, of swimming on a sunny day, of sly words and the soft textures in a pastry.
To Technoblade they were sharpening a sword until it's just right, of a hearty stew in the middle of a cold winter, of late night laughter and a burning fire making sure he stays warm when everything else had felt far too cold.
To Tommy, it tastes like the chocolate cake Ms. Niki used to make for him when he fell sick. Like the oranges an old friend of his used to share before sundown, like the crisp midnight air he used to laugh in when catching fireflies. It tastes like the first time he saw Wilbur: warm, light, and everlasting.
(He knew the apples were magic, were something beautiful and great and more .
Phil promises to teach him all about the more. Wilbur promises to teach him all about the greatness within life. Techno promises to teach him about beauty.
And he believes that they'll keep their promises.
It's enough to keep him smiling stupid for a week straight.)
And Tommy was more curious than cautious and Phil had said that, in moderation, that was a good thing.
So, keeping it short, he had asked the Being what it tasted like to him.
The answer was short, too.
A soft smile, sure and unwavering as he said: "Like starlight. Like love."
And Tommy smiled.
He liked that Phil knew what Love was like so intrinsically that he could pinpoint the taste.
He liked that there was no hesitance.
His family—and they were his —deserved happiness, deserves love.
And… and he did, too.
Tommy knows that he already has love. Happiness gets hard to hold onto some days but he knows—knows as surely as he had known that Wilbur was his, that Techno was gentle, that Phil is kind—that his family will be there to help him hang onto it.
Happiness and love are two things he didn't think he had deserved, that he didn't think he'd ever get.
Yet, here he is.
Tommy quite likes the home he's found. Quite likes not being so lonely that when Phil comes to him one day asking this, he's sure of his reply:
"I have a son who had been alone and lost." The Being smiles, blue eyes shinning with Creation. "Can you help?"
"I don't need help," Tommy smiled back, wrapping himself into his father's arm, his wings. "I'm no longer alone. I'm not lost."
"You're home," Phil presses a kiss to his hair, humming.
"I'm home." Tommy laughs, humming back.
Phil has lived for centuries upon centuries, he has seen civilizations rise and he has seen them fall, he has watched as galaxies formed across the universe, he’s seen the unfolding of stars being born and their death eons later, he remembers the Ancient Ones lost to the whims of mortals far too young to remember them, he remembers a sky so different than this one, young and new and not-yet blemished by conquerors and rot.
He is older than time itself—he is immortal and he is powerful and he is far from alone.
He has all of his sons with him, has Lady Death by his side, and he is happy—he's happy and they're happy, too.
Wilbur is still a musician, Technoblade still a gentle warrior.
And Tommy? Tommy is no longer a lost, lonely kid. He's with his family and he's oh so very loved.
He's finally found.