Chapter Text
Phil wasn't overprotective. Not at all.
Caring, yes. Preventive, by all means. Taught by experience that silence for more than half an hour means that one of his older sons is trying to sacrifice Tommy to Satan - maybe. But definitely not overprotective. All his actions were always fully justified and resulted in a straight line from the fact that natural disasters were generally more predictable and wreak less havoc than his children.
He was just a responsible, rational father with experience. And he was not going to stop following his painstaking instincts just because his two sons had passed the magical age of majority. They could be adults (to a minimum degree), but that didn't mean they wouldn't do stupid things or make even worse decisions. On the contrary, the older they became and the more responsibility was expected of them, the more obvious it became that they weren't yet ready to meet some of the challenges of adulthood on their own. Phil wasn't quite sure how much of it was actually his fault. He knew how much he blamed himself for - for everything, exactly - but no matter how many nights he had spent sleeplessly thinking about it, he still didn't quite know what he might have done differently.
Wilbur was the best example of this. Not that Phil was any less proud of him, never in his life, absolutely not. He just found it a bit ironic that just as Techno had calmed down a bit and allowed to help himself, his brother had concluded that it had gotten a little too nice at home and it was time to activate teenage hormones, ripening into the most chaotic of possible ways.
Of course, it could always be worse. Phil had told himself this to himself when his fourteen-year-old son began wearing only black clothes, communicating with the world only through grunts, and played killer music for both ears and gray cells. He kept saying it to himself as Wilbur smoothly went from being clingy to being outraged every time Phil tried to touch him or, God forbid, hug him. He kept repeating it when suddenly it turned out that he didn't understand anything, never understood and, apparently, is the worst parent in the world, who was born already old and has no idea how hard it is to be a teenager who's required to go to school, do his homework and also clean up his room.
He lost that faith two years later when he had to pick up his sixteen year old son from the park, very drunk, spouting gibberish and as underage as possible. According to the official version, Wilbur was staying with Techno at Dream's. According to the same version, as it turned out, Schlatt spent the night with them, and Phil had neither the heart nor the desire to be hailed as an snitch later, so when Schlatt finished helping to shove his friend into the backseat, he nodded to him to take a seat in front. Of the two bad things, Schlatt was at least relatively sober and had the sense to call him when things got out of hand, which earned him the promise of silence and the night on the couch.
Wilbur was much less graceful and even less cooperative. He puked all the way home, barely made it up the stairs, and spent the next half hour kneeling on the bathroom floor, doubled over the toilet. Phil had a bloody desire to leave him alone, not even in the hope that suffering would teach him anything, but for sheer satisfaction. Unfortunately, the mere sight of him made his heart soft, so despite all his rage, he was sitting on the floor, stroking his son on the back, brushing his hair from his face and making sure that at least he didn't get dehydrated.
It was hard to say whether Wilbur appreciated it at all, for he rarely managed to form a fairly consistent sentence.
"You're angry," was one of the first to be actually understandable. Phil really wanted to laugh at it, very, very bitterly.
"You don't even know how much," he nodded, grimacing as the boy spewed out again what was left in his stomach. He ran his fingers through his hair, because he was angry, yes, but he wouldn't be himself if he did not feel sorry for his child.
Wilbur sniffed loudly, pale and crying and struggling to keep his head up.
"I had to check," he muttered hoarsely. Phil winced at the condition of his throat tomorrow.
"We'll talk tomorrow," he said, first because he was too tired to reproach him now, and secondly, because the boy wouldn't remember any of it anyway. It will be much more satisfying to attack him in the morning when he's sleepy and with a hangover.
Wilbur slurped his nose again, gasping for air in long gulps.
"I needed to know if..." he whimpered suddenly, hiding his face in his shoulder. "Because they always said that- And- And I had to know if that was really why. And if I'm the same."
Phil didn't understand a word of any of this. But he also had reason to believe that Wilbur himself had no idea in what order he put his words.
"You're completely drunk and grounded for the rest of your life." He stroked his son's back, keeping his hand on his neck for a moment before moving it higher, brushing his hair. "But nothing else."
Wilbur spent the night on the bathroom floor because he somehow managed to fall asleep when Phil turned for a second to pour water into his glass for him, and it was impossible to wake him up. Wrapped in three blankets, a pillow tucked crookedly under his head, and a bowl beside him, in case he didn't have time to straighten up in time, he looked so miserable that Phil for a moment almost forgot how mad he was at him. Fortunately, he had a long, sleepless night ahead of him to cultivate his anger, with Tommy to help him, curled up in a tight ball by his side, because one look at his brother was enough to make him shrink in on himself, go silent, and refuse to be left alone.
Techno came home by nine the next morning, exactly as promised, apparently having a feeling that he was in serious trouble himself and it was better not to make his situation worse. Wilbur had already tumbled down the stairs and was sitting on the couch, slurping water with a very unhappy face and, as he had described himself, a murderous headache. Phil, who had already driven Schlatt home and convinced Tommy that the garden would be the best possible place to spend saturday morning, somehow had no sympathy for either of them.
"Upstairs," he instructed his eldest son when he paused uncertainly in the corridor. "I'll come talk to you later."
There was no need to repeat himself: Techno dashed up the stairs as quickly as if he feared he might lose a few precious minutes of peace at any given moment. Wilbur, by contrast, sunk a little tighter, clearly disappointed at the lack of any support. He put down his glass and pulled his knees up to his chin, his fingers flicking the material of his pants, much calmer but still as wasted as last night.
Phil exhaled slowly, closing his eyes for a moment, deeply hoping that the right words would just magically appear under his eyelids.
"Do you want to say what happened first, or should I start with how unimaginably angry I am at you?" he asked finally, because the world was stubbornly refusing to go to his side, and every second increased the chance that compassion would take over him and he would forgive his child of absolutely everything on the spot. It was always harder to get angry with Wilbur, especially when he looked like a beaten puppy and seemed to expect to be hit even more at any moment.
"I just wanted to know what it's like," he muttered, in the same tearful tone that usually meant he understood his mistake and just wanted to hear that nothing big happened, everything is fixable, and he doesn't have to worry that much. Phil was used to the trick by now. Which, unfortunately, didn't mean that he was completely immune to it.
"What what’s like? Getting drunk? Or vomiting half the night?"
The boy, if possible, curled up even more, hiding his head in his arms.
"The first," he muttered under his breath, so soft and indistinct you could barely understand him.
Phil raised his eyebrows, a little surprised by the honesty.
"And? What is your impression?"
In all possible scenarios, when the sad face itself didn't work, Wilbur moved on to more dramatic actions.
"Because..." he began, but then he broke off and sniffed loudly. His voice trembled and gasped in far too fast, shallow breaths, at the same time trying to get out of a million words at once and unable to put together more than two. "Because- Because it was bothering me. And I wanted to see if- Because I had to check, but- Well, because-"
Pity finally took over, and Phil put a hand on his knee, squeezing it lightly.
"Wilbur." He looked at his son meaningfully, holding up a hand to silence him. And then, lowering it down, showing him to let out the breath. "Slowly."
Wilbur nodded, obediently following the movement of his hand and trying to adjust his own breathing to it. He didn't do it until the fourth time, but at least he relaxed a bit and even moved a little closer. Phil didn't go out to meet him, but he patted his thigh before withdrawing his hand, and waited patiently for a few more seconds without trying to urge him on.
"Do you remember..." he heard at last, a little more certain and coherent. "You remember that one time you went to the bar with Bad and Skeppy and came back a little drunk?"
Phil, unfortunately, remembered. And he'd reminded himself of it a million times in the last year. Though he definitely wouldn't say he was drunk. Slightly squiffy - yes, but only because he has managed to forget his weak head and how little it takes to hold on to the wall for balance. It's been ages since he had time to go out with his friends (and since he had friends at all), he wanted to worry about absolutely nothing for once, and maybe he got a little too carried away by the fun. On the other hand, all three boys should have been in bed a long time ago when at one in the morning he tried to find a way to take off his shoes while keeping himself upright. They should have been in bed, sleeping and absolutely not wandering in the hallway so that he could pretend later that nothing happened, there were no witnesses, and no one can prove anything to him.
And yet Techno was standing at the top of the stairs, watching him alertly, wide awake, in pajamas and with one foot still frozen halfway down the stairs. So Phil was watching too, not sure what else to do. Only after a moment, when the silence grew a little too loud and the atmosphere too tense, did he put his shoe on the floor as slowly as he could and straightened, raising his hands.
"But don't tell your brothers," he just asked, not even trying to save the remnants of his honor.
Techno was silent for a moment, still staring at him with the same piercing gaze, but finally he relaxed visibly, nodded his head and retreated to his room without asking anything.
He didn't have to. Even without Phil, he was tormented by remorse even worse than a headache. And it didn't make him feel any better when Wilbur ran into the kitchen in the morning (pounding his feet by every step as if he had set himself the goal of torturing the family), he paused in the doorway, looked him up and down, and with almost comic astonishment said:
"Oh. You have a hangover."
Thank the gods, Tommy wasn't all that observant, and he was content to say that Phil wasn't feeling well, thereby allowing him to keep his dignity to a minimum.
Older boys turned out to be surprisingly understanding.
"It's fine," Techno said as Phil pulled him aside, trying to save whatever was left of his authority. "It's still just you, so..." He shrugged, then frowned, becoming more serious. "Just don't do that too often, okay?"
Phil hadn't even planned on drinking alcohol for the rest of his life, so he could make that promise with a clear conscience. Even that didn't make him feel less mean, so much so that as soon as Tommy emptied his plate and ran upstairs, Techno immediately nudged him under the table with his foot.
"Hey. Don't worry so much," he ordered, probably still holding on to the role of head of the family entrusted to him the day before. "It's okay."
"Well, I don't know," said Wilbur, grinning broadly over his bowl of cereal and firmly convinced that the whole world was one big cabaret and he was in the front row. "I've already taken a bad example from you. From tomorrow on, only hard drugs and the slope down. I'm kidding!" He squeaked immediately as Techno swung at him across the table. "I'm just kidding. I don't even know where to buy something like this."
His brother scowled at him, his hand still on the alert.
"You're friends with Schlatt. Just ask him."
Wilbur dropped his fork in indignation.
"Hey! Schlatt has been clean all year! No such innuendo, please."
Phil was never quite convinced that he was just joking. Just as he had never fully forgiven himself for that one night when he had thoughtlessly jeopardized years of painstakingly built trust. And, apparently, rightly so, because it came back at the most unexpected moment and completely uninvited.
"I remember," he admitted, his expression must have revealed the exact emotions that came with it, because Wilbur quickly shook his head.
"But that's not why! Don't make such a face, it's not because…” He waved his hands in the air, probably not quite knowing what he was trying to express. "You didn't scare me or anything. Seriously." He smiled slightly, sarcastically. "It was actually kinda funny."
Somehow Phil didn't share this impression.
"Very," he muttered under his breath, which Wilbur must not have heard, cause he continued:
"And then I was talking to Techno about it, that it was actually a bit weird because you were acting perfectly normal. I mean, normal for you. And usually... Usually drunk people weren't nice. Especially the parents. And it was better to stay away from them. And I thought maybe you were just special about it or something, but Techno said it was bullshit and that people just blame the alcohol when they do shit and are looking for excuses. And that the good people won't hurt you, no matter how drunk, because they just…” He hesitated, frowned, but finally just shrugged. "You just have to have that 'thing' in you. You must be willing to hurt someone." He looked down, suddenly much more interested in his socks, and his voice softened and faded significantly. "I wanted to know if I'm like that too. Because I've read a bit about it and... And people like me often have all sorts of... problems." He pulled tightly loose thread. "You know, of that type."
Phil, to tell the truth, didn't know. At least he very much hoped Wilbur wasn't going in the direction he had first come to mind.
"People like you?" He repeated, frowning.
Wilbur just shrugged.
"Well, you know. Foster kids?" He concluded, and Phil grimaced. It's been ages since he thought of boys as anything other than his children, and he definitely didn't want to change that for a second. "Usually we're a little more... fucked up."
"You're not-" he began, but Wilbur caught his word.
"I literally still have to go to therapy," he admonished, almost angrily. It was hard to judge if he was more annoyed by the fact that he still needed it, or if he just thought it wasn't producing enough.
Phil gave him a moment to calm down a bit, making a note in his head to come back to it again, preferably when they were both a little calmer and neither had a hangover.
"And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that," he assured for now, and Wilbur made a face as if he wanted to argue, but ultimately just nodded, slowly and without conviction.
"I know. But... But what if that's not enough?" He rested his chin on knees, his arms tightly wrapped around legs. He seemed much younger, insecure and completely lost. "It bothered me. And I had to check because I don't want to…” He took a deep breath and blinked quickly, his eyes glazing alarmingly. "I never want to hurt anyone. But I'm afraid that... that someday, accidentally..."
Phil was prepared to have this talk one day. But of all the possible occasions, he expected it the least today. He didn't have high expectations - he just wanted to scold his son for something stupid once and not get hit by all the trauma accumulated over the years in the face, so that he immediately felt like a ruthless tyrant. He believed he didn't require much, but apparently he was wrong once again.
Sometimes he wished someone had told him what it would really be like, when he was taking Wilbur under his roof years earlier. Maybe he could prepare for it a little better. On the other hand, he was terrified of the thought that he might just chicken out then.
He stared at his child in silence for a moment, before finally giving up, accepting that even if he searched all day, he would not find any magic solution and must limit himself to the usual, banal truth.
"Wilbur," he began, sitting down next to him on the couch. The boy immediately moved a little closer, as if trying to test the ground. "People sometimes hurt each other, more or less consciously. Sometimes we don't even realize it. It's impossible to dry-test all possibilities. The world doesn't work that way. There's no dress rehearsal."
Wilbur sniffed, sadly and with some passive acceptance of the injustice experienced. Phil carefully brushed his hair back from his forehead, trying to comfort him a little, and before he knew it, his son was already leaning against his side, his head on his shoulder.
"What am I supposed to do?" He asked helplessly, as if those smarter than him were still not trying to find an answer.
"You have to... try to be the best version of yourself. And just listen to others when they say something you're doing or saying is upsetting them. For example, I really don't like having to pick you up drunk from the park."
Wilbur looked up slowly, looking at him with a very apologetic expression.
"Am I in big trouble?"
Phil couldn't quite honestly say that he was not affected at all by those large eyes, full of inexpressible hope. Fortunately, over the years he has at least learned to pretend he had become immune to them.
"Very big. You'll be lucky if I ever let you out of the house again."
Wilbur grimaced but made no attempt to protest.
"But don't be mad at Techno. He didn't know," he just asked, which was certainly a nice gesture in the name of brotherhood, but somehow it didn't make Phil really stop being angry with either of them.
Wilbur endured two weeks of meekly going home straight from school before begging and arguing that he had undergone a profound change and gotten wiser. And two more before Phil actually believed it. He couldn't say that from then on everything was actually as perfect as his son had promised him, but it certainly felt a little calmer in the house. Wilbur fell silent, stopped insulting everyone for just any reason, teased Tommy less often, and maybe even became a little serious. He also became much more inclined to talk, which drastically reduced the number of "surprises" and Phil began to really believe that the worst was over, at least until Tommy decided to jump into the place that had just been vacated.
It was then, just over two years later, as Phil was beginning to feel secure and safe again, that Wilbur dropped the bomb on them.
"I'm not going to college."
Phil, busy packing lunch for his youngest child, making sure that none of the sandwiches were accidentally hit by the toxic pepper, didn't react at first. Only after a moment, when the kitchen grew suspiciously quiet, he slowly put down the knife, wiped his hands, and turned away from the counter.
"What do you mean, you are not going?" He repeated, still balancing between hoping he must have misheard and looking around for a hidden camera.
Unfortunately, none of his sons moved from their seats or discreetly gave him a sign that he was being screwed into something and that he was going to be on youtube at any moment. Techno froze with a spoonful of cereal halfway to his mouth and only stared between his father and brother. Tommy, so far bent on breaking his record of spelling errors in one message, stopped tormenting Tubbo for a moment and pricked up his ears.
Wilbur, standing in the doorway, shifted uneasily under the pressure of the three piercing glares, but kept his face blank.
"I’m just not." He shrugged, and only nervously rubbing one foot against the other showed that he was not as confident as he would have liked. "I thought it over and I see no point."
Phil was damn curious to know exactly when that great moment of enlightenment had come, since not more than a month earlier his son had brought home college pamphlets from around the country himself and had sorted them from most interesting to boring even before anyone could join him on the couch. Techno knew perfectly well where and what exactly he wanted to study and seemed more than pleased when his future university landed in the group of those representing the absolute last resort bordering on a waste of money. Tommy, on the other hand, was grumpy all evening and refused to even be persuaded to watch movies together. Phil later found him asleep in his brother's room, wrapped in a blanket, with Henry pressed against his chest, his hand clasped over the blue teddy sheep.
"He wanted me to play a little for him," Wilbur had explained in a whisper, carefully setting the guitar down. "You know, 'while there's still opportunity'."
He winced slightly as he looked away, and Phil just stood in the door, not quite knowing which child he felt more sorry for at the moment. Only later did he come closer and perch on the edge of the mattress, carefully brushing Tommy's hair away from his forehead.
"I'd love to hear it, too," he said, and Wilbur smiled, in that slightly sad way that always seemed to leave an aftertaste of bitterness.
Maybe now it was also about sheer longing. Maybe he felt suddenly less confident, too overwhelmed by the vision of being on his own, in a whole new place, among strangers. Maybe he was just having a bad day and everything seemed completely wrong, and he was trying to do his best to maintain an old, familiar routine.
Phil hoped very damn well it was one of those things that could be easily repaired or waited patiently.
"If Wilbur doesn't go to school, neither do I!" Tommy announced, breaking the remaining silence, which on the one hand relieved some tension, on the other made the situation a bit more real.
Phil tossed the sandwiches into the box with a little more panache than necessary, and slid them down the length of the table.
"You go to school and there's no discussion at all," he said firmly. "Finish your breakfast and jump to the car. I'll come to you soon. Wilbur." He turned to the older child, completely ignoring the younger's complaints about the injustice of the world and the conspiracy of all adults to destroy his most beautiful years. "What exactly have you 'thought over'?"
Wilbur shrugged, pretending to be staring directly at him while moving his gaze around him, strategically avoiding his face.
"Well, everything," he replied indifferently, as if it was about the color of his new shoes, not a huge part of his future.
Phil wasn't sure if it irritated him more, or if it only made him believe that nine years earlier, he should have confined himself to a puppy. Maybe two.
"But you wanted to go."
Wilbur rocked on his heels.
"But I don't want to anymore."
"Just like that?"
"Just like that."
Techno, so far busy trying to disguise himself as a decoration, put the spoon back in the bowl a little too loudly and immediately raised his hands defensively as Phil glared at him accusingly.
"Don't look at me like that, first time I heard it, too," he said quickly, which sounded bloody unbelievable and would absolutely not convince anyone who had known the brothers for more than two hours. And Phil, as funny as it happened, had a very long career of catching their every little lie.
Somewhere in the yard there was a sound of a horn, announcing that Tommy was losing his patience, slipped into the driver's seat and gave one final warning before he tried to start the engine himself and would most likely drive the car straight into the garbage can. Phil looked first at one son, then at the other, trying to figure out which one to focus on first, but the horn sounded a second time, this time longer, so he finally resigned himself to the loss.
"We'll talk about it when I get back," he announced with all the seriousness and severity he could find in himself. "And I would like a little more detailed explanation."
As it turned out, he could expect a million things, and there was no guarantee that he would get even one of them. Wilbur was stubborn. Like hell. Which meant Phil might as well talk to the wall and ask her to kindly consider moving a few inches to the left.
Wilbur said 'no', and he had absolutely no arguments, especially since he still hadn't given a single reasonable reason for his decision. Phil, in extreme desperation, pulled Techno to his side, but only got an hour-long fuss, after which the brothers didn't speak to each other for a good three days.
Wilbur decided to quit his education here and now, without any explanation, and, in fact, there was no way to make him change his mind. At most, Phil could ground him for eternity and forbid him from seeing Sally, but as damned enticing as it would have been, the more conscious part of his mind told him that he would only seem more desperate. And like a despot and a bit of a liar, because he himself always assured his sons that they shouldn't be influenced by any means and should do with their lives what they were really interested in and for what they had a knack for. If Wilbur didn't feel ready to go to college and wanted to wait a while (hopefully not forever), it made best sense to let him do it and help make the best of his time.
Therefore, two weeks later, when Phil found his older children in the living room, surprisingly already reconciled and able to share a common space, he made no attempt to restart the discussion, ask or persuade. Instead, he sat down in the chair and stared at the film himself for a moment without even the slightest bit of concentration before looking at Wilbur.
"You're not changing your mind, are you?"
The boy didn't even take his eyes off the TV, although he tense clearly and pulled his legs a little closer, clutching the pillow in his arms.
"Nope."
"And nothing I say will matter?"
"Nope."
"And you won't tell me what's really going on?"
Wilbur's hands tightened on the pillow, but his face remained blank.
"I already told you." He shrugged. "I just don't want to."
Phil took a deep breath and held it for a moment before he sighed very, very heavily, until his ribs ached.
"All right," he said, and two faces immediately turned to him, one full of hope, the other of indignation. Phil chose to focus on the latter, surely not because he was temporarily reluctant to look at Wilbur. "What? I can't drag him by force."
Techno raised an eyebrow.
"But I can," he said, nudging his brother with his foot. The latter, of course, gave him back immediately, but he took the wrong shots and was lying on the floor in a moment, knocked down with one jerk, complaining about a surprise attack and a potential shoulder dislocation.
Phil, exceptionally, made no attempt to intervene.
He no longer tried to convince anyone of anything, he did not try to advise, he focused only on concealing his disappointment and not revealing that deep down he might actually hold a slight grudge against his son. With the latter, he felt bad enough as he kept them to himself and, in solitude, tormented himself by putting his own ideals over the happiness of his own child. Especially since he still had a second child, at the exact same stage of deciding about his future, who needed his attention and time .
Though Techno knew at least what he wanted and he kept going no matter what. Phil would definitely prefer him to choose the college a little closer to home, and ideally not to travel at all, but other than that, he couldn't be more proud of his son. And he was saying it too often.
"Are you afraid that if you stop reminding me about it for a moment, I'll change my mind and stay, too?" Techno sneered as they rifled through the wardrobe to choose as few clothes as possible for as many occasions as possible. The trunk capacity was limited, as were the dorm rooms, and it was more than enough for the boy to insist on lugging half the bookcase with him.
They were left alone because Tommy, of course, got bored of helping out after a few minutes, and for the next half an hour he tormented Wilbur until he finally agreed to play with him on the console. Time and time again there was laughter and raised voices from the living room, breaking through the loud music, but the upstairs room was in a rare peace for their home, and for the first time in a long time Phil was able to really hear his own thoughts.
And he also perfectly heard the note of unease hidden behind the joke.
He froze for a moment, T-shirt in his hands, bent over the suitcase, and as he slowly straightened up and looked over his shoulder, Techno was sitting on the bed, staring at his socks with his expression all but amused.
"Once..." he began, but hesitated and pressed his lips together as he pulled the sleeves of his sweatshirt over his hands. Phil gave him a moment and pretended that the exact folding of his clothes was now his top priority in life, before closing the suitcase and sitting down on the mattress beside him. Techno shuddered slightly, distracted from his thoughts, and shook his head. "When you said you were adopting me, you also said... That this would always be my home." He took a deep breath and paused for a moment before gasping out in one breath, "It's still relevant, isn't it? Even when I leave?"
Phil blinked a little surprised.
"Of course it is," he said immediately, almost automatically, because he might have had many doubts in his life, but never on that one point.
Techno relaxed his shoulders a bit, but his knee was still twitching nervously.
"And if I wanted to stay, could I?" He made sure, glancing at his father and looking away just as quickly.
"Of course."
"And..." He pulled his sleeves so tight that the seams survived the test only by miraculous intervention. "And you're not at all glad that you finally have the opportunity to get rid of me?"
Most of the time, Phil could confidently say that in the last few years he had learned to expect absolutely everything, accept every creed stoically, and remember that the world doesn't revolve around him, and sometimes it isn't about his feelings at all. Sometimes his children still had more instincts, and he didn't have to give any particular reason, doesn't have to do or say anything wrong, or fail them in any other way, to make them assume the obvious worst-case scenario. He learned to accept this state of affairs and be a bit kinder to himself, and maybe he even actually slept a little more calmly thanks to it, and a little less often recalled every possible mistake.
But it still hurt like hell.
"Oh, Techno..." he sighed, his whole body struggling to hug his baby and at least thus prove what he thought of such an absurd idea, but he restrained himself, leaning down instead so that he could look his son in the eye. "If I could, I would keep you here forever and never let you go," he assured, placing his hand carefully on the fingers still clutching the sweatshirt, feeling with satisfaction as they relax a little at his touch. "But I think that you wouldn't be happy with it."
Techno smiled, pale and still hesitant.
"Wilbur would complain a little," he admitted. "But Tommy would agree if you took Tubbo too."
It was the last one that nobody in their family doubted. If his friend was involved, Tommy had no limits and was able to do almost anything, including eating six hot dogs in a row. Unfortunately, his stomach turned out to have a slightly higher standards. Wilbur had sworn he wasn't trying to trick him at all and had absolutely made no promises to take him to the park on the weekend if he could eat ten, it was all bullshit, childish imagination and terrible slander - but somehow no one believed it.
Phil also didn't believe that one joke could completely solve the problem, especially with Techno.
"You don't want to go?" He asked, squeezing his hand a little tighter in a short, silent reassurance that he could be completely honest.
Techno shook his head.
"I want to," he said. "No, I really want to," he repeated emphatically when Phil raised an eyebrow. "It's just..." He grimaced as he ran his free hand through his hair, once, twice, and then the third, clenching his fingers a little tighter before he realized what he was doing and quickly withdrew his hand. "It's stupid, because so much time has passed and I shouldn't be afraid anymore, but somehow... Somehow I feel that I wasn't here long enough. With you.
He looked embarrassed, as if he was admitting something wrong, and perhaps he truly thought that missing a home that he hadn't even left yet was childish and should never be mentioned. He was never good at talking about feelings, and at times he seemed to still believe that anger was the only emotion he was really good at showing and which he was entitled to. At times he was still the same little boy, unsure of what he might or might not say and preparing for the worst just in case. All this meant that Phil understood him even better now, and he could see even more clearly that there were still wounds that even time could not fully heal.
Sometimes he himself felt as if it had been weeks, perhaps months, since the children had entered his life. Sometimes he was still shocked when Wilbur served him something from the top shelf in the kitchen without having to set up a pyramid of chairs and a stool. Sometimes he couldn't get used to the fact that Techno was driving the car, instead of sitting in the back seat and barely touching the headrest with his head. Sometimes he didn't understand when Tommy was suddenly uninterested in home-made popcorn and watching Up for the millionth time, and preferred to go to the movies with his friends to try to slip into a PG-13 movie.
He was proud of his children, individually and all together, and loved seeing them grow up to be wonderful young people. But could anyone really blame him for this silent desire that they would grow up a bit slower?
He spread his arms wide, and it wasn't even two seconds before Techno slapped his face right in the middle of his shirt, hugging him tightly and almost pushing him on his back. Phil might still see him as ten years old, but he definitely weighs a lot more.
"You'll still be here," he promised, part to his son, part to himself. "You will still be part of the family, even if you go to the end of the world." He leaned in to kiss the top of his head. "And you'll still be my little boy."
Techno didn't back away, but he hummed in dissatisfaction.
"Okay, but don't ever say that in front of my friends," he snorted, so Phil, of course, kissed him again.
"I love you."
"Ugh, no, that one either," he said, pouting, but despite the twisted expression on his face, he was the first to say it a few days later, when Phil drove him to the train station. And then again, when he called at two in the morning because the new room was too quiet, too dark, the mattress too hard, there were not enough blankets, and no one was playing the guitar right outside the wall. Wilbur had to get involved in fixing the latter by sending his brother some of his songs to the phone. The rest was handled by Dream's move in, with his million regrets a day and his computer always on.
Phil could come to terms with an empty room and an empty chair at the table. Just as he could (and had to) come to terms with the fact that his sons would never fit in one hundred percent with his every expectation and wish.
So when a few months later Wilbur suddenly announced that he had found a job, a flat and was moving out in a week, he only asked:
"Is it because of Sally?"
Of course, he got the negative answer and in a very indignant tone. After all, Wilbur's girlfriend was the embodiment of all virtues, she never did anything wrong and aspired to the title of a saint while still alive.
"Totally because of Sally," Techno said when Phil shared the revelation with him over the phone. "She moves him around as she likes, and that moron still thanks her for that."
It was hard to disagree with that. Even harder - to accept the idea that there was nothing he could do about it. His son was grown up, stupid but grown up, and he had to learn from his mistakes. Even if some of them were idiotic, easy to avoid, and absolutely everyone around him warned him about them. Wilbur was stubborn and had to figure it out on his own before it even hit him. Phil was able to accept it.
What he couldn't accept was the silence.
He understood a few days without a phone call, really, the fact that he would prefer to talk to his children every evening did not mean that they would find time for him as well. But Techno somehow managed to save a moment two or three times a week to say he was fine, his grades even better, and he still managed to keep from murdering Dream with his bare hands, preferably in the middle of the night. Even Tommy would come out of his cave every once in a while and talk about everything he did with his friends at school just to avoid learning. In the case of Wilbur, it was difficult to even be sure that he was still alive.
At first, as promised, he called regularly, but quickly began to avoid work. Phone calls had become a rarity, he only sent text messages more and more, and eventually Will stopped even answering Techno’s calls, which had never happened before. He could be silent for a week, and then send the usual "Can't now" when they were all debating whether to call the police or hold off. Finally, exactly four months after he moved out, he fell silent completely.
Phil was more than concerned as he cooked dinner and poured the soup into jars. He was fucking furious and ready to put it in very firm, blunt words, the kind that, with a bit of luck, would end up where it needed to be. He was angry when he packed the jars in the bag and checked that they were not leaking. And as he started out of the driveway, trying to call his child one more time just to find out that his phone was off. He was angry when he looked for a parking space under a gray, dilapidated block of flats, he was angry when he climbed the stairs and he was angry still when he knocked on the door because the bell turned out to be broken.
He was angry, waiting way too long for someone to kindly open it for him.
And then he immediately stopped when someone did, and Wilbur appeared in the doorway, pale and emaciated and staring at him in utter horror.