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Phil wasn’t dumb.
He knew the minute he laid eyes on Tommy that he wasn’t human.
The too-tall, too-skinny blonde haired boy had shown up one morning in the rain, absolutely soaked. He wasn’t shivering. He hadn’t knocked or anything. Phil had just opened the door and Tommy had been there.
Phil had stared at him for a moment, the unease settling over his bones familiar and instinctual. Tommy had stared right back, unblinking.
“Well come in then,” Phil had said. “Don’t want you catching a cold.”
Phil had started a fire, given Tommy a warm blanket, and started cooking breakfast as if there wasn’t something pretending to be human teenager sitting in his living room.
He pretended not to notice the way the boy’s eyes were staring at him at all times, even when his back was turned.
He was about midway through breakfast when he heard Tommy speak for the first time.
“You know,” Tommy’s voice had been all sorts of wrong. Too high yet too deep, and seeming to echo. His words were a statement. Not a question.
“That you’re not human? Yes,” Phil hadn’t even turned around to answer. “I’m not an idiot, mate. Might wanna fix your voice before the others wake up.”
“Why allow me in your home then?”
Phil had turned for that question, fixing Tommy with his signature Fatherly Stare™️ as Techno and Wilbur would call it. “You aren’t going to kill me or the other people who live here, are you?”
Tommy shook his head.
“Then I don’t care,” Phil turned back around. “Try not to scare them too much. They’ve never seen something like you before.”
“And you have?” Tommy’s voice sounded more human now.
“Once, I think,” Phil hummed. “In a dream.”
“You are not scared.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Phil sighed and glanced at the boy. “Humans are scared of what they don’t understand. I don’t understand you, but I don’t believe that just because you’re not normal then you shouldn’t be treated right.”
“Humans are very strange,” Tommy hummed. “But you are most peculiar. I do not believe I have met a human who did not run away from me screaming in many millennia.”
“You speak quite traditional English.”
“I have not spoke English in a few centuries. I will adjust to modern speech patterns for this language in time.”
“You want to stay?”
“If you wish me to. I have many queries for you, strange one.”
“My name’s Phil,” he offered.
“Names have power, Phil,” Tommy had responded. “Do not give it freely to things like me again. Is Thomas still a common name?”
“You might be better with going by Tommy,” Phil suggested. “You don’t seem like someone with the name Thomas.”
“Tommy is a derivative of Thomas, yes?” Tommy pondered over the suggestion. “I will go by Tommy, then.”
There were a few moments of silence after that as Phil continued cooking.
That’s when Phil heard:
“What the fuck is that, Phil?!”
———
Tubbo was testing out how sharp his new claws were.
He’d already discovered that they could dig into wood without much trouble and without pain.
Skin broke at the lightest touch, so he was having to be careful with that.
So did fabric. It did not take much effort to cut through fabric at all.
“Do you think it would hurt if I scratched the stone?” Tubbo wondered aloud to Tommy, who was nearby doing... something. They were in Pogtopia, a few days having passed since Tubbo was turned. Quackity and Schlatt both turned a blind eye to his disappearances, so Tubbo was here most of the time.
“Would it hurt my ears? Yes,” Tommy grumbled. “Would it hurt you? Maybe. I don’t know, I haven’t done it in this form.”
“But should I?” Tubbo kept thinking out loud. “I am testing how sharp they are...”
“For god’s sake, do it if you’re going to do it,” a monotone voice called from not far away in the ravine. “I’m tired of listening to this.”
Tubbo blinked in surprise. That was Technoblade. Did he... did he know?
“You heard the man,” Tommy shoved him hard, but Tubbo didn’t even stumble. “Do it!”
Tubbo shrugged, and sliced his claws across the stone wall in front of him.
Four jagged lines appeared where his claws had scraped against the wall, and Tubbo’s hand didn’t even hurt at all.
“Huh,” Tubbo said, staring down at his claws. “Neat.”
“Doesn’t hurt?” Tommy asked.
“Nope.”
“Neat.”
“Creepy little fuckers,” Techno grunted, going back into his farm area.
Tommy and Tubbo shared a grin before heading up the walkway towards the surface.
On their way up, they saw Wilbur, standing in the middle of the path.
Blocking the way.
Wilbur had been acting strange lately. More distant and freaked out and quiet. It’d been about three weeks since the election, and only a few days since Tubbo had been turned. Tommy had told Tubbo that Wilbur had been off before the change, so it didn’t have anything to do with him.
As they walked past, Wilbur fixed them both with a blank, intense stare. More so at Tommy than at Tubbo.
“God, Wilbur, you look like shit,” Tommy said nonchalantly.
Wilbur did indeed look like shit. There were dark bags under his eyes and he looked too thin. He was swaying lightly, as if he wasn’t quite balanced.
But he said nothing. Just staring at them with no emotion on his face but an intensity in his gaze.
“Alright, this is weird,” Tubbo said loudly. “Bye Wilbur,”
Wilbur continued to say nothing, just stepping to the side enough to let them past him.
Tubbo was acutely aware of the position Tommy and him were both in as they passed Wilbur. All it would take was one shove and both he and Tommy would be plummeting to their deaths.
Though something told Tubbo that Tommy couldn’t die, and that Tommy wouldn’t let him die. So he wasn’t exactly worried.
Tubbo felt Wilbur’s eyes on him the entire way up until they disappeared into the topmost section of Pogtopia.
———
Phil was surprised to receive a letter from Tommy.
Tommy wasn’t one to write letters. If he had to tell Phil something, Phil would suddenly just know what Tommy wanted him to know.
The letter was brief and in cursive. Probably an old habit of Tommy’s that he hadn’t gotten rid of yet.
Phil,
I’ve met someone I think you’ll like. I turned him too (with his consent, since you deem it important). I believe Wilbur and Techno have finally realized I am not human. We’ll be coming to visit soon.
-Tommy