Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Everything is kind of a blur, after the night of the phone call. The unknown phone number with an unfamiliar area code, blaring into Phil’s otherwise quiet one-bedroom apartment and waking him from where he’d fallen asleep on the sofa, cable news reporter still running his mouth silently on the muted television. It’s kind of a blur all the way back to-- what, ten years ago, now?

It’s embarrassing that he’s lost track.

Back to when Tech was still looking at colleges and Wil had only just switched from ukulele to guitar, when Tommy-- Tommy was barely out of kindergarten, walking with new lace-up sneakers and a cheeky grin everywhere he went, still sounding out letters and learning to count past one-hundred, creating dissonant chaos with Wilbur’s old ukulele and tugging a brush through Techno’s long hair with appropriate levels of gentleness and grace for a six year old with poor fine motor skills. Waiting by the gate every day after school, his backpack filled with whatever new crafts were waiting to be stuck on the fridge, stickers on his shirt, sneakers scuffing the sidewalk-- he was there every day, waiting for his dad or one of his brothers to come and pick him up, and he knew not to leave the school until then, but one day-- one day--

It took six months for the media to wind down. A year for Tommy’s case to spindle slowly down amongst the search team's priorities. Seven until he’d been gone for over half his life, and was presumed dead.

(Only four for Wilbur to pick up smoking, and another four for him to stop. Three until they had to cut down the old treehouse. Two since Philza had cried over his youngest-- well. Scratch that. But these recent days have been an outlier.)

For the past ten years, everything has been moving around him. The boys graduate, go off, Tech calls, Wil doesn’t. The old house goes. Phil moves into his apartment, helps the lady down the hall carry up her groceries sometimes. Works.

The summer house goes untouched through all of this. It would be wise to sell it, but Phil can’t bring himself to. He also can’t bring himself to go and see it-- he’d tried, the summer after what should’ve been Tommy’s seventh birthday, brought the boys up and everything, but a moody preteen and an aloof teenager stuck with their grief-stricken dad in a house of sore memories, no more giggling baby brothers to liven them up, no more stepping through the creek with small hands clutching fingers for security, no more sticky faces pleading for another s’more, no more-- no more Tommy, it just--

It wasn’t good, anymore. They’d packed up after three days and Phil hasn’t been back since. And so the place has remained in limbo. Waiting for Tommy to come home. Just like the rest of them.

Well, here they are, anyway.

It doesn’t quite feel real. Hasn’t, since “Hi, I’m Cara Puffy from the California Department of Social Services,” a few days ago, or since “Thomas is officially presumed dead,” a few years ago, or since “We’re launching a full investigation into the disappearance of your son,” a decade ago, or even since “Hey Wil, weren’t you meant to pick Tommy up today?”

It feels strange. Phil feels strange. Kind of tuned out. A bit like he's moving underwater. He’s going to walk through the airport, collect his baggage, and then he’ll walk out into the receiving area and Tommy will just… be there. And he’ll be sixteen years old. As old as Tech was, the last time they’d seen Tommy. And he probably won’t speak much-- Puffy said that was something they were working on, but does Phil 'know any sign language because that’s one of Tommy’s communication tools, and he’s been getting more fluent and it’s really making all the difference.'

Of course Phil doesn’t know sign language. But he picked up about five different books and videotapes on it in the days before coming and spent most of the plane ride practicing, despite the awkward looks from other passengers. He’s got the alphabet mostly down, at least. So that’s something.

He’s… prepared. He’s got all the things Puffy recommended he bring-- some older family photos in addition to recent ones, and a few things that might be familiar to Tommy. Phil had chosen an old plush cow and a couple of bedtime stories that he remembers Tommy being fixated on. Puffy said those were perfect. 

Phil’s not actually sure if Tommy will be waiting outside the gate or back at Puffy’s office. From what Puffy told him, Tommy wanted to be at the airport, but Tommy had also wanted a phone call with Phil until he backed out at the last second. (“Tommy, it’s okay, honey-- no, no, he wants to talk with you, you’re fine-- ah, Phil, I’ll have to call you back.”)

So this is-- it’s all a little turbulent. Phil clutches the handle of his luggage and forces himself to step out of baggage claim.

The first one he spots is Puffy, a tall woman with fluffy hair and a pantsuit, holding a sign with his name on it. She’s got a sweet face that brightens when she catches him looking, and she shuffles over through the mass of people-- alone.

“Mr. Watson?” she asks, in a voice he recognizes from the phone.

“Yeah, hi.” He sticks out a hand, and she shakes it firmly between both of hers. “Call me Phil. Uh--”

Puffy takes notice of the way he keeps glancing around the crowd and her expression softens. “Tommy is here,” she explains. “Sam took him to grab a snack. They should be back any second.”

Phil exhales in one big rush. “Okay.”

That’s another thing. Sam is Tommy’s… foster parent. Of two years now.

“Two… years?” had been Phil’s initial reaction, when Puffy explained over the phone.

“That’s how long it’s taken us to find you, unfortunately,” she’d told him.

Her voice had been horribly sympathetic. Phil dreaded it.

“How is that possible? Surely Tommy would remember my-- my name, or his old address, or something,” he’d argued.

And then, soft and low like she’d been delivering a prognosis,

“I’m afraid Tommy wasn’t cooperating with us on this until pretty recently.”

It’s a nice way of saying that Tommy wasn’t ready to come home yet. Phil had let himself cry about it for one night and then tried not to let it bother him.

It… still bothers him.

Nevertheless. Phil hasn’t spoken to Sam, but apparently, he’s become a good friend of Puffy’s and she claims she’d trust him with her life. Phil hopes that’s good enough for him to be trusted with his son. He isn’t confident.

Puffy places a hand on his shoulder. Her smile carries the same amount of sympathy as her voice had over the phone, and she’s probably picking up on how nauseous he’s beginning to feel. She's a professional at that, supposedly.

“Should we sit down? I left Tommy’s backpack over on the bench, and we should probably be keeping an eye on that,” she tells him smoothly.

“Sure,” Phil croaks out. Speaking is becoming increasingly difficult. There’s this muddled weight in the center of his chest, consuming all of his awareness, manifesting in the bow of his shoulders and the tightness in his throat. He can’t be doing this right. He’s supposed to be joyful.

Puffy leads him to the bench, a gentle hand against his shoulder all the while. They sit. Tommy’s bag is black and unassuming, with a Zelda keychain hanging off the front, and Phil can’t stop staring at this thing that belongs to Tommy, a sign of his life, a mark of his existence. The first one Phil’s had in ten years. He realizes, only as he reaches out to touch the keychain, that his hands are shaking.

“Drink some water,” Puffy murmurs, handing over a plastic bottle, already unscrewing the cap for him.

He takes a few sips, but that’s all he can manage. “Thanks,” he gets out.

“Try not to panic,” she tells him quietly. “Take a few deep breaths. We’ll take this slow, like I said.”

Phil only nods. His hands keep twitching involuntarily.

He sits there for the next few minutes, more or less zoned out-- Puffy is talking to him, bringing up traffic on the way to the airport, maybe trying to distract him. He says things like sure and oh wow when appropriate, but the sound is rushing out of his head and his thoughts are going too fast for him to keep up. His heart thuds in his chest and he drinks more water when Puffy encourages him to, but for now, Phil’s world is regulated to the waterfall in his ears and the sweatiness of his hands and-- and the victim is declared dead after seven years have passed and have fun at school, Tommy, I love--

“Hey, guys!”

And the sound rushes back in. And Puffy is standing up with a bright smile and a wave, facing two people who approach them-- a man slightly younger-looking than Phil who holds a carton of french fries in one hand, while the other arm is slung around a blond teenager who’s got his head ducked and his hands stuffed into his pockets. And it’s this kid, this boy who is so familiar to him, but so-- so--

Oh.

Phil blinks. Breathes.

Puffy is calm and cheerful as she addresses them, but her hand remains secure against Phil’s shoulder. “Did you go to Mcdonalds? Could’ve gotten me something, you know,” she teases them. She’s trying to make this normal. Casual and easy. Try not to overwhelm him, she’d told Phil.

The teenager keeps his eyes low.

“This is purely for sustenance,” the man retorts, deadpan. His eyes flick to Phil a little anxiously, but he keeps talking. “The big man’s gotta eat.”

Puffy laughs. “The ‘big man’ should not be eating junk food for sustenance, but sure,” she jokes.

There’s a beat. A million beats coagulated.

And then Puffy’s smile softens. “Hey, Tommy?” she says.

She says, “C’mere.”

And the teenager glances up.

And… it’s Tommy.

Phil is standing up before he even realizes it. Tommy flinches.

It’s Tommy.

“This is Phil,” Puffy is telling them, and Sam begins to say how nice it is to meet him, but right now Sam is a faceless interloper because Phil can’t stop looking at his son. He’s thin and tired looking and his hair is darker than it was when he was a baby, but he’s still got his blue eyes and-- and amongst the unfamiliar scars on his face are ones that he’d gotten from playing too rough with Technoblade, when he was three years old, right near his eyebrow. The shape of his face is like Wilbur’s, and-- and he’s-- he’s alive, this is his Tommy--

“Hi,” says Tommy, clearly uncomfortable.

The waterfall stops.

Phil falters. “Hi,” and his voice comes out shakier than he’d like it to, “um.”

I missed you, I never stopped loving you, I haven’t felt this much joy since the day you were born nor this much anxiety since the day you disappeared.

He coughs. “You-- you remember me, yeah?” is what comes out.

Tommy furrows his eyebrows. “‘Course.”

“‘Course,” Phil repeats, with a little chortle of disbelief. “‘Course you do, sorry.”

“It’s okay,” mumbles Tommy, awkward.

There’s an excruciating pause. Phil fumbles for his backpack.

“I-- I brought you-- here,” he says, unzipping it to dig out the stuffed cow and the photos. He finds the cow first and hands it over. “Take Henry, and-- just hold on one moment--”

Tommy stares down at the toy in his hands like it has come to life and smacked him across the face. Phil sweats.

“I have pictures and all that, of-- of you and Wilbur and Tech-- they’re coming, by the way, just-- in a couple more days--”

He can’t stop talking. If he doesn’t fill up the silence, then something else will, and he can’t allow that thing to be crying or awkwardness or rejection. Mercifully, Puffy lays a hand on his arm.

“Maybe we should head back to Sam’s house?” she suggests. “And then you can show us the rest of what you brought.”

Phil hesitates, and then he nods, zipping up his bag and hoisting it back over his shoulder. “The boys, um-- they were overjoyed when--” Phil struggles. “They’ll be glad to see you, mate,” he finishes quietly.

Wilbur had been hysterical, actually, upon hearing the news. According to Tech, who went to stay with Wilbur the next day in anticipation of their flight to California, he’s been flitting between utter elation and crying himself into exhaustion for a couple of days now. It's understandable, but Phil will strangle him if he bursts into tears upon arrival and scares Tommy.

Tommy doesn’t seem to have anything to say to that, anyway. Sam gives him a few seconds to respond before breaking the tension himself.

“Tommy, do you want to ride up front on the way home?” he asks, gentle, offering.

It seems to have the opposite effect from what he intended as Tommy looks up at him with a subtle head-shake, hesitating to make a few quick hand movements and worriedly eyeing Phil’s reaction as he does.

Sam also glances at Phil and then places a hand on Tommy's shoulder to turn him slightly in the opposite direction. He says something quietly, and Tommy nods. He says something else, and Tommy nods again.

Phil looks to Puffy, who smiles reassuringly.

“Is he alright?” he asks quietly, worriedly. And there’s so much more-- what can I do, how do I make him trust me, please help me know him again. But those are all too big for five pm in a crowded airport, two minutes after meeting for the first time. He bites his tongue. Saves it for later.

Puffy’s smile falters. She opens her mouth, struggles around the beginning of a word-- and then the other two shuffle to face them again and her smile pastes itself right back on. Phil feels sick.

“Ready?” she asks them.

Sam keeps his eyes on Tommy, reading him, looking out for him in a way that Phil both resents and worships him for. “We are.”

“Great!” she chirps, beginning to lead them all out. To Phil, she whispers, “We’ll talk about it later.”

He grimaces.

It’s a half-hour drive to Sam’s house. Tommy hops out of the car and walks through the front door like he owns the place, and Phil keeps having to remind himself that this is where Tommy lives, has lived for two years, and will live for yet another while, at least until everything is sorted for him to come home.

There has been no safer place for Tommy in the past decade than this house. Phil needs to remember that.

If seeing the backpack was a shock, then Sam’s entryway alone is like getting hit in the face with a flatiron. Tommy has been here for a long, long while, and the proof is in the dirty sneakers scattered around, the framed photos, the piles of school folders and comic books; in the way Tommy toes off his shoes without hesitation and tugs Sam into the living room. Puffy goes after them and gestures for Phil to do the same.

“You can sit wherever you want,” Sam tells him, as Puffy heads for the kitchen.

“Thanks,” Phil says tightly, opting for one of the armchairs opposite the sofa where Tommy and Sam are already sitting.

“Can I make coffee, Sam?” calls Puffy from the kitchen.

“Go for it,” he calls back.

And then there are a few moments of hesitation. No one knows where to begin.

“You said you had some pictures?” prompts Sam.

Phil nods. “Right, yeah, I--” he reaches for his bag and starts sifting through the contents-- “here.”

He pulls out a folder. Inside are a couple stacks of photos-- sorted into before and after piles, with one stack containing baby pictures of Tommy, pictures from the summer house, first day of school photos-- the one on the top, actually, was taken about two weeks before the disappearance. Tommy is grinning at the camera, showing off dimples and a missing tooth, ready to start first grade. Phil glances from the photo to present Tommy, who is fidgeting terribly and avoiding any and all eye contact, eyes shadowed and cast downward. Phil swallows, hard.

The rest of the photos are the ones without Tommy. It’s a much smaller pile. School photos of both Wilbur and Technoblade, one candid of Wil playing guitar a couple years back, and one of Phil and Techno last Christmas. The latter two, he slides over first.

“There’s your brothers,” he explains quietly. “All grown up, now. Like you.”

Tommy stares at them for a moment, cautiously interested. “Wilbur still plays,” he notices.

“Yeah, professionally, actually,” Phil tells him.

Tommy glances up. “What’s Technoblade doing?”

“He’s a history teacher,” Phil explains. “High school. It’s lucky, actually; he’s just gone on summer break, so he can come and see you without any, uh... any hassle.”

Tommy looks back down at the pictures. Phil pulls out some more, encouraged by the way they are keeping his attention rapt.

“These might be a little more familiar,” he remarks, sifting through the first pile. He grabs a picture of the three boys standing on the bridge over their creek, sometime in summer-- Tommy looks about three years old, which would put Wilbur at eight and Techno at thirteen. Wilbur is beaming at the camera, holding Tommy up with arms around his middle, and Tommy looks like he’s squirming to be put down. Tech has his shoulder-length hair up in a small ponytail and his face is flat with adolescent disinterest. It’s not a picture-perfect photo, but it makes Phil smile.

Sam and Tommy are a tough crowd, though. Sam just observes quietly while Tommy still seems more interested in the recent photos of his brothers. Phil hands over a few more pictures-- five year old Tommy wandering a petting zoo, Wilbur and Tommy peering out from the window of their old treehouse, a toddler-aged Tommy looking past the camera with his arms outstretched, like he’s looking to be picked up. Tommy looks at them all, but he doesn’t ask any more questions. Phil tries not to let his discouragement show.

“Coffee is ready,” Puffy announces, popping around from the kitchen. “Phil? Can I get you some?”

“Sure, thanks.”

She disappears, and there’s a bit of clamoring. “Sugar? Cream?”

“Just cream,” he calls back.

After a few extra moments, Puffy comes in, balancing three mugs of coffee and a Capri Sun, which she hands over to Tommy. Phil is confident that at that age, upon being handed a juice pouch, Technoblade and Wilbur both would’ve complained that they were old enough for coffee as well. But Tommy accepts it like it’s a glass of red after a long day.

“What have I missed out on?” Puffy asks, sitting down and leaning forward to peer at the photos on the coffee table. “Baby photos? Oh my gosh.”

She picks up the one of Tommy with his arms outstretched and pouts. “You were such a cutie!”

Quietly, Phil hands her the rest of the folder, trading it for his mug. She looks through eagerly.

“Your brothers are so handsome-- oh, your brothers, Tommy.” She looks at Tommy with a bittersweet smile, slightly watery. “That’s--” she shakes her head, turning to another photo. “That’s something special.”

“They’ll be here in a couple days, you said?” Sam asks quietly.

“Yeah, they’ll both be on a flight from Wil’s,” Phil answers. “Uh, the seventeenth, it’ll be. I’m calling them later tonight, though, if you… Tommy, if you’d like to…”

Tommy nods, shrugs. His shoulders stay hunched and his eyes averted. “Sure,” he mumbles.

Phil nods, emotions turbulent but hopeful. “They’ll be… that’s great. They’ll be glad to hear from you.”

There’s a beat.

“Phil, did they feed you on the plane?” Puffy asks. “Well, even if they did, I’m sure it wasn’t-- would you like something to eat, is what I’m trying to ask?”

“That’s--” Phil laughs, a little awkwardly-- “well, it’s Sam’s house, so.”

Sam waves a hand. “Mi casa es su casa and whatever. Just…” he glances at a clock hanging near the entryway. “Try not to fill up on anything. I’ll probably get to work on dinner soon.”

Tommy nudges Sam and signs something with one hand, quick and subtle. He doesn’t look at anyone while he does it, but judging by his expression, he seems intent on Sam’s answer.

Sam laughs. “Yeah, kid, we can do burgers. You cool with that, Phil?”

“Yeah, fine,” Phil tells him.

“Good.” Sam nods, moving to stand up. “I’ll bring snacks out in the meantime.”

Nearly as soon as Sam stands up, Tommy does too. He mumbles something about wanting a nap before dinner and begins to head down the hallway. Inwardly, Phil wilts. He's leaving?

“We’ll grab you in an hour or so, okay?” Puffy asks after him, calm and unsurprised.

Tommy shoots her a thumbs up as he disappears down the hall. As soon as his door clicks shut, Puffy sighs before turning a gentle smile towards Phil.

“How are you feeling so far?” she asks softly. “I know his response to all of this might seem a little… underwhelming. But let me tell you, I can tell he’s trying really hard.”

“That’s alright,” says Phil quickly, despite the rolling in his gut. “I’m okay.”

“You don’t have to be,” she tells him, quiet and knowing.

Phil hesitates. “He left Henry,” he comments, noticing the stuffed cow left atop a pillow. It feels childish as soon as it comes out.

“Henry’s the cow?” Puffy asks.

Phil nods.

“That’s adorable.” She stands up; walks around to the sofa to pick Henry up and inspect him. “Was he a comfort object for Tommy?”

“Had him since he was born,” Phil tells her, as way of explanation.

Puffy smiles at the toy, bittersweet. She turns her gaze to Phil. “We’ll get it back to him,” she says quietly.

Sam returns with a plate of wafer cookies, and it breaks the thin film of emotion that has settled over the room. Puffy snaps to help, moving photographs to make room for the plate and returning Henry to the sofa.

“Anyway, you can expect him to be taking a lot of these breaks,” she adds as she sits back down. “Please don’t take it personally. He’s just overwhelmed.”

“How can I…” Phil struggles for a moment. As far as he knows, Tommy is a bit overwhelming, and it takes a lot to shake him. Growing up with two playful and significantly older brothers will toughen a toddler right up. But Tommy is not a sticky, screeching, roughhousing, goofy, lovable toddler. He’s anxious. He’s so quiet that he uses his hands to communicate. He’s a teenager. He’s overwhelmed. And Phil…

“...I don’t know how to make that better,” he finishes quietly. 

Puffy and Sam exchange a glance.

“I… don’t know that you can, necessarily,” Puffy says, sympathetic. “This is tough for him. The situation altogether is pretty difficult.”

“Give him time. Give him space, when he needs it,” Sam tells him.

“Okay,” says Phil quietly, feeling no less helpless than he had ten years ago.

Up until about an hour ago, the separation between Phil and his youngest son had spanned thousands of miles and a decade. Now, it spans a closed door and a ten-foot hallway, but the distance hurts more than it has perhaps since the beginning.

“Let’s see if I can remember Wilbur’s phone number by heart,” Phil says, playful to mask the way his heart is beginning to race. “It’s written down somewhere, if not. Can’t trust this head of mine. Getting older and all that.”

Tommy is quiet. Phil has to say, he’s a bit terrified for the outcome of this phone call-- Sam had woken his foster son in time for dinner, and Tommy had come out of his room seeming more tired than he had even before napping. He'd hardly picked at the meal he requested and had barely spoken a word the entire time, slumped and distant, while Puffy and Sam made meager conversation with Phil. He seems... he seems worse.

Phil swallows his feelings and begins to dial.

The other adults have retreated to the kitchen, now, in order to give Phil and his son a semblance of privacy while still keeping close. Close enough to listen. Swoop in for a rescue, if need be. Truth be told, the hovering would’ve irritated a version of Phil from this morning-- a version who had partially expected to sweep his son into a loving, tearful embrace and carry him home into the sunset, who had expected to pick up from where he’d left off with Tommy, for Tommy to be shaken but mostly alright, despite all of Puffy’s warnings. For them to still feel like a family, against time and circumstance.

Tommy hasn’t even smiled, since Phil’s been here.

They haven’t even hugged.

“You ready?” Phil asks, looking at Tommy with what he hopes is a reassuring smile.

Tommy just nods. Phil’s finger hovers over the talk button for only a flash before he presses it down, putting the phone on speaker mode and setting it on the coffee table.

It only rings once before there’s a click and a harried, “Hello?”

Tommy is hunched over, small and frozen. Phil clears his throat.

“Hey, mate, it’s me. Uh--”

“Phil, oh my god,” Wilbur exhales, all in a rush. “I've been waiting by the phone for three hours.”

“How’s Tommy?” demands a gruffer voice, urgent, passing on the opportunity to make fun of his brother’s worrying. Likely, Technoblade has been hovering near the phone just as much as Wilbur. Phil coughs.

“Well--”

“Is he okay?” comes Wilbur again, voice bordering on frantic. “What’s he like? Is he--”

“He’s right here, actually,” Phil cuts in, and the line goes silent.

Worrying, Phil glances at Tommy, who’s pulled his sleeves over his hands and is trying to tug them down even further. He won’t look up. Phil can’t get a read on him other than anxious.

“You-- you’re on speaker,” Phil quietly tells the older boys.

There’s silence for a moment longer, and then comes Wilbur’s voice, tentative and weak.

“Tommy?”

“Hi,” Tommy breathes, impossibly quiet. He shakes his head, huffs out a breath, and forces himself to be louder-- “Hello.”

For every new beat of silence comes an extra layer of tension upon Tommy’s expression and body language. Phil’s mouth is dry, but his throat keeps working anyway. He’s about to say something; prompt one of his boys to speak up, but then there’s a sharp intake of breath from the other side of the line and Phil realizes that Wilbur isn’t speaking only because he’s crying.

“Tommy,” he gets out, voice trembling. “My— oh my god. Hi.” Wilbur inhales sharply, and when he speaks again, his voice is wet with tears. “Hi, darling.”

Tommy stares off. He struggles for a moment, but it’s clear that he’s got something to say, and Phil won’t interrupt his thought process, even to try and help.

“...’Ow do?” Tommy asks awkwardly, and Wilbur bursts into teary laughter, and it is the first moment since stepping off the plane that Phil thinks, oh. There’s our Tommy.

He huffs in surprise and amusement, nodding encouragingly when Tommy meets his gaze. Far be it from him to interrupt with such a silly, obvious realization as that. Of course it’s still Tommy. Of course it is.

Phil clears his throat to stifle the wave of emotion welling up behind his eyes.

“We’re doing just fine, Tommy. How are you?” asks Technoblade, and briefly, minisculely, Tommy relaxes.

“Alright,” he says. “Is that-- are you--”

He glances to Phil for help. “That’s Techno,” Phil explains kindly. “The other one is Wilbur.”

And-- god, Phil is thirty again, holding a red little bundle in his arms and murmuring close-- “They’re your brothers, Tommy, and they’re going to love you so much--”

Tommy nods, staring at the phone, rubbing his sleeves together. “Okay,” he breathes.

“We--” a hiccup-- “we miss you! We can’t wait to come and see you!”

Wilbur is clearly trying to be cheerful and upbeat, but the tears are remain obvious. We miss you, he says, like Tommy’s coming back from holiday with a friend.

“Grab some tissues, mate,” Phil is comfortable enough to joke. “We’re excited too.”

“Sorry,” Wil snuffles, “I…”

There’s some murmuring on their end. Then, “Did you have an okay time getting there, Phil?” Techno asks, seemingly covering for Wilbur while he collects himself.

“I-- yeah,” Phil tells him. “Smooth plane ride, no delays. Sam and Puffy have been kind. We’ve mostly just been hanging around the place, right, Tommy?”

There’s a small pause.

“Yeah,” Tommy agrees, quiet and neutral. Phil smiles.

“How about you boys? Are you getting along okay? Sounds like you haven’t killed each other; not yet, at least.”

“We’re good.” Technoblade’s tone is casual in a way that is forced, hiding an emotional undercurrent, but Phil can only pick up on that detail from being the one to watch Tech grow up; having the privilege of seeing underneath his walls in a way that many don’t. “Been hanging out. Eating a lot of take-out.”

“Sounds alright,” says Phil.

There’s a sniffle. “Did Phil show you the pictures, Tommy?” Wilbur asks, still with that wet cheeriness, but he isn't on the verge of sobbing, anymore. “You know what we look like, now?”

“Yeah,” Tommy murmurs.

“Good,” says Wilbur, “so Technoblade’s hair won’t be a complete shock--”

He’s cut off, and there’s some laughter.

“Nothing wrong with pink--” Tech grumbles, but Wilbur interrupts, “I don’t know how his school lets him get away with it.”

Tommy giggles and Phil’s heart skips a beat as his gaze shoots to his son, wide and hopeful at the sound. Tommy’s little smile stifles itself as soon as he meets Phil’s eyes, but Phil can’t stop his own grin from spreading.

“Settle down,” he playfully tells the boys on the phone. “Technoblade’s hair color is an age-old debate that won’t be getting solved any time soon.”

“I think it’s alright,” Tommy whispers. “Kind of cool.”

“What’s that, Tommy?” asks Wilbur, genuine and friendly, but Tommy looks at Phil apprehensively instead of answering.

Phil softens his expression. “You’re alright,” he murmurs. “Just speak up a bit.”

But Tommy retreats, curling into himself and shaking his head. Phil disguises a sigh and tries not to feel bad-- they’ve made more progress during this phone call than he could’ve hoped for. Trust is going to be a process, Puffy had explained, and Phil heeds those words as much as he can, now.

“Are you boys all packed, then?” Phil asks, changing the subject.

There’s a bit more conversation between Phil and his older sons before Puffy pops her head round the corner. She smiles at Phil before looking at Tommy, a question on her raised eyebrows-- all okay? Need anything?

Tommy perks up a bit upon seeing her, and he begins to sign something before he glances at Phil and stops himself.

“Hold on a moment, boys,” Phil tells his older sons.

Sheepishly, Puffy steps further into the room.

“Sorry to interrupt,” she whispers. “Tommy, are you…?”

Tommy stands up, meeting her halfway across the room. He’s got her full attention as he takes her wrists and whispers something, Puffy leaning in and tilting her head to hear him better.

She nods, leaning back, still letting him hang onto her. “Okay,” she tells him, “that’s perfectly fine. Hey, Phil--” she leans around Tommy-- “I think Tommy is ready for a break, now, if that’s alright.”

It’s a bit disappointing, but Phil still has Tommy’s laugh stuck in his head, small as it may have been. He nods.

“It’s fine,” he says. “Want to say goodbye to your brothers?”

“Tommy’s leaving?” Wilbur laments.

“You’ll see him soon,” Phil assures him. “Here--” he holds the phone out to Tommy, who steps forward and takes it.

Tommy glances anxiously at Puffy before turning back and uttering, simply-- “Bye.”

“Take care, Tommy,” says Technoblade. “We’ll see you in a couple days.”

“We love you,” Wil adds, a bit wavery again. It seems so easy for him to say.

Phil glances away.

“Tell us if there’s something you want us to bring you,” Tech tells him.

“Anything,” says Wil, serious and eager.

“Okay,” says Tommy quietly.

He hands the phone back.

Puffy puts her arm around him and leads him out of the room, to where they begin to talk quietly with Sam. Phil takes the phone off of speaker and sighs.

“Alright. Just us,” is all he needs to say before there is a clamor of speech on the other end.

“He seems so nervous,” on top of, “Is his foster dad treating him okay? Has he been safe?” on top of, “Does he look healthy?” on top of, “Have you talked to the social worker about what happened to him?”

“Calm, please,” Phil cuts in, and the boys hush up quickly. “I… hang on.”

He takes the phone into the kitchen, where Puffy, Sam and Tommy are all standing around. They look at him when he enters, Sam peering around the fridge door from where he’s been rummaging.

“Is there somewhere more private I could go?” Phil asks, one hand covering the phone speaker.

“Oh-- yeah, sure,” Sam tells him, stepping out with a stout bottle of something unfamiliar in one hand, which he places on the counter beside Tommy. “Drink. Please,” he tells his foster son, looking Tommy squarely in the eyes, and he waits for Tommy to nod before turning his attention back to Phil.

“I haven’t shown you your room,” he says, unsmiling but polite nonetheless. Phil is learning to expect that demeanor from Sam. “Come with me.”

Sam leads him upstairs to a guest room, where his suitcase waits for him, already having been lugged up. “Uh, bathroom is across the hall, one door to the left,” he explains. “I’ll let you talk, just bring the phone back down when you’re finished.”

“Thanks,” Phil tells him, and Sam smiles tightly before leaving and shutting the door behind him.

“Wilbur? Technoblade?” he asks into the phone, once Sam is gone.

“Still here,” Technoblade answers.

“Alright,” says Phil, sitting down on the edge of the bed. “I’ve got a bit more privacy now. Uh--”

He rubs at his eyelids with one hand, stressed. How to begin this? Phil needs to vent, and if this were only Technoblade, he’d take the opportunity. But Wilbur is on the phone too, and more sensitive about this than either of them. He needs to stay rational.

“How does he seem?” Techno prompts.

“A bit terrified out of his mind if I’m being honest,” Phil laughs. It’s the worst kind of laughter, sort of a cry for help taking refuge in shitty humor. “I-- I don’t know. You boys got a laugh out of him earlier, so that’s… something, isn’t it?”

The feeble attempt at optimism crashes and burns. Both boys are silent.

He tries again.

“I think this is going to take time,” he tells them. “And a lot of effort on all our parts. He’s clearly not okay, but--” Phil sighs. Allows his eyes to slip shut for a moment. “He’s alive, and he’s coming home. So.”

“So we go from there,” Technoblade finishes.

“But what about his safety?” Wilbur worries. “Is his foster dad alright? Has he been taking care of Tommy?”

“I think so,” Phil answers. “Tommy certainly seems to trust him. Respect him.”

“No red flags?”

Phil hesitates. “Well,” he begins, “Tommy is awfully thin. And quiet. But I’m not sure we can pin that on Sam.”

“I want to know what happened to him.” Wil’s voice is hard. Phil’s eyes squeeze shut, maybe hoping that he can disappear for a moment if he keeps perfectly still.

He doesn’t want to know, is the thing. Bearing knowledge of the horrors and traumas his baby went through for eight years of his young life is the last thing Phil wants. Phil wants to thank Puffy and Sam for all they’ve done and then get on a plane and never see them again, he wants to take Tommy home, cook for him and make him smile, wrap him in blankets while Wilbur strums his guitar, never letting him feel sadness again.

He wants to go back in time and keep his six year old from ever going to his third week of first grade.

“I’ll talk to the social worker about it tonight,” he says. Holds it all in. Holds himself together.

It isn’t late by the time Phil hangs up the phone and heads downstairs, but Puffy informs him that Tommy has already gone to bed. The kid is unbelievably elusive, as it turns out. Phil was hoping to… well. He isn’t sure. But he misses Tommy-- which is funny. You’d think that ten years of missing Tommy across space and time would shirk the feeling of this small separation into nothing, but no.

Puffy asks, “Are you tired?” and Phil tells her that he’s alright.

And then Puffy says, “Good, because I’d like to have this conversation sooner rather than later.”

And Phil thinks, oh, about three seconds before he feels his stomach drop.

“...Right.” Slowly, he moves further into the room, sitting down on the edge of the same armchair he’d taken earlier. He can hear water rushing in the kitchen where Sam is, and the light clinking of dishware.

Tommy’s room is quiet. But he’s got a light on.

“I don’t want to cut corners,” Puffy tells him, still kind, but there is a new level of firmness to her tone. “Not with this. If you aren’t ready, we can do it tomorrow. And… I assume you understand what I’m talking about, yes?”

“Yeah,” Phil utters. “I do.”

“I have copies of his case files.” She nods to a binder on the table in front of her. “I was hoping we could go through them together.”

Phil reaches one hand towards the binder, tentative. It is white and unassuming with Sharpie letters scribbled down the spine, but there is something horrible about it, now that he knows what lies inside.

“Is there anything… particularly confusing?” he asks quietly.

“No,” Puffy answers. “Maybe some legal jargon. I’m-- I’m not really worried about you getting confused, Phil. The files detail some pretty upsetting situations--”

“Situations you wouldn’t talk about over the phone,” he cuts in softly. A reminder for himself.

“No,” she agrees.

Phil stares at the binder. 

“I’d like to give you a clear picture of what happened,” Puffy explains, making it clear that she will not water this down for him. Chop his son’s trauma into little pieces and spoon-feed the stories to him, like he’d prefer she do. “Not that the files aren’t straightforward, but they mostly only talk about physical abuse. Broken laws.”

Phil swallows. “Okay. What else is there?”

“Verbal abuse,” she tells him plainly. “Mental manipulation. Emotional damage.”

The kitchen sink shuts off, but Phil doesn’t hear Sam walk away.

“Phil?” Puffy asks softly.

“Yeah,” he manages.

“How old was Tommy when he disappeared?”

“Nearly six and a half,” he answers easily.

“And he’s been away for nearly twice that, yes?” Puffy grabs the binder and begins to flip through.

“Last September made ten years.”

“Were there ever any leads on who took him?” She stops; looks at Phil, using her finger as a bookmark against one page.

“A few, but…” Phil shakes his head helplessly, “I mean, obviously we never…”

Puffy watches him for a moment, and then she lowers her gaze and slides the binder towards him. It’s open to a copy of a police report beside a mugshot of a man, young-looking with a clean face. He’s smiling.

“Does he look familiar to you?” she asks.

And maybe this moment should feel like a bigger deal; maybe Phil should be staring at this photograph with spitting rage and disdain for the man who took his son and ruined his family, with a triggered vengeance now that he has a face to blame. But he just feels sort of sad.

“No,” he answers honestly.

“His name is Clay Samson,” she explains. “But we don’t-- see, Tommy doesn’t like to-- well. We call him Dream.”

“‘Dream?’” Phil repeats, eyebrows raised.

“Tommy refuses to call him anything else. We think maybe he got in trouble if he ever used Dream’s real name?” Puffy shakes her head. “He seemed to know who Clay Samson was when we first spoke to him about it, but that name makes him uncomfortable. So. Dream.”

“Dream,” he repeats, once again. Phil takes a shaky breath. “Alright.”

“As far as we’re aware, Dream was the only one ever involved in the abduction,” Puffy continues. “He and Tommy both deny that there were accomplices, and both their stories line up with our evidence. He plead guilty for everything. The abduction, the abuse; everything. Tried to plead insanity, but…”

She glances up at him. “He’s away for life.”

Phil exhales heavily. “And Tommy was the only one?”

“That’s what he told us. There are no trails connecting him to any other missing persons cases, so we’re inclined to believe him.”

“Why’d he do it?” Phil asks, voice beginning to tremble. The baby photos are still strewn in a loose pile next to where the binder sits now. The one on top is of Wilbur and Tommy reading a children’s book together on Wilbur’s bed, and Tommy’s face is hardly visible, eyes just peeking over the top of the book. He’s holding an apple that is bigger than his hand.

And there is the mugshot beside it, a reminder of why there are so few of these photographs. Phil closes the binder.

“That’s… difficult to answer. According to Dream, he... he liked Tommy. He felt like they shared some kind of bond on a spiritual level. No one could get a more thorough answer out of him than that.

“We have theories, though.” Puffy takes the binder back and flips all the way to the end. “Some of them support the insanity plea. That he saw it as a game. Maybe wanted to see how long he could go before getting caught. But… I don’t think so.”

She runs her finger down one page as she checks her notes. “We looked into it. Dream was a father, technically.”

Phil frowns. “What? What do you mean, ‘technically?’”

“Teenage mishap. We tracked down the mother. According to her, Dream completely signed over custody when his son was barely a year old. She moved away after that and hasn’t heard a word of him since.”

Puffy sighs. “See, Phil, the son was Tommy’s age.”

It takes a moment for the wires in his head to connect, and then Phil flounders. “I-- so what was Tommy, then? The replacement?”

“I know,” she tells him calmly. “Keep your voice down. I know this is difficult.”

“Is that it, though? That’s the idea? That Tommy was-- that Dream just wanted to pretend--”

“It’s a theory,” she reminds him.

“Right. A theory.” Phil leans back, frowning heavily. “My son--”

“Keep your voice down,” she begs him, “please.”

The story now has a loose beginning and a concrete ending. But the dreaded middle is still missing.

“What happened in between,” he asks. Rip off the bandage. Do it. “What did Dream do with him? Tell me.”

“If you want to keep going tomorrow instead--” she implores.

Phil shakes his head. He repeats-- “Tell me.”

“...Okay, Phil.”

So Puffy tells him.

Puffy tells them all that they have garnered, by Tommy’s account as well as Dream’s. How they traveled for a week in order to cover up the trail before reaching a trailer in the woods on the other side of the country. How a month went by before Tommy got to go outside for the first time. How Dream quickly ingrained into the six year old that if his family were looking, they would’ve found him by now, because it wasn’t that hard to track down missing kids with all of the police technology these days. That they would be here if they cared, and were probably just glad to be rid of him. That Dream was his family, now. That Dream would take care of him.

That screaming for help only earned him bruises, and that no one could hear him, anyway.

According to Tommy, “it was good some days. He’d bring me chocolate and Legos and stuff. Sometimes he’d scream at me when I cried, but sometimes he’d just hug me or play his guitar. And we had campfires, and he taught me stuff about nature, and there was a lake nearby and he taught me how to swim. That was good.”

Except, he’d use the same lake to hold Tommy’s head underwater as punishment. Threaten to throw him in and drive away. And Tommy would scream and beg not to be abandoned until he couldn’t breathe anymore, and then Dream would sigh, and relent “for now,” and make Tommy apologize by cleaning the trailer.

He made sure that Tommy knew this-- that he deserved every little thing he got. Every time his toys were thrown away, or his meals were withheld, or his nose was bleeding, or his ribs were purple, it was his fault. Dream didn’t want to punish him. He had to. Because Tommy needed to learn. And nothing else would teach him.

No one was coming, he’d said. And no one did come. For eight years.

Well, even then. It had been kind of a lucky accident. Apparently, Phil owes his son’s future to two crackheads who were wandering the woods at night and found an empty trailer to raid. Except, it wasn’t empty-- it was occupied by a skinny fourteen year old and his abductor. Dream shot one of them. The other one got away.

After that, he escaped with Tommy for only a few miles before being pulled over and arrested. Initially, he was in trouble just for killing the one guy, but it wasn’t long before police unraveled the entire situation.

Puffy explains how Tommy had spent a month pleading on Dream’s behalf before giving up and going silent for a year. He gets panic attacks, now. Chronic pain from a broken leg that didn’t heal right-- they haven’t weaseled that story out of him, yet. She tells him how Tommy acts really young on some days and really old on others. He can’t eat sometimes. He wakes up screaming from nightmares.

Phil sits calmly and listens to everything Puffy has to tell him. When she’s finished, he stands up, heads for the bathroom, and throws up.

“Phil?” Puffy asks, from the other side of the door. He ignores her.

Tommy was dying, he thinks. And where was I?

Truly, Phil wishes he could pinpoint it. Where exactly was he, during the acquisition of each one of Tommy’s new scars? Each time a hand was raised against his son, every word spat; every click of a lock, barring Tommy from all the rest of humanity. What exactly had Phil been doing, at every one of those moments? Comparing produce? Tying up his shoes? Nagging Wil about his grades? Napping? How many times had Tommy cried for his family before giving up? How many times over has Phil failed his son?

Phil retches.

“Oh,” says Puffy, softly, “Phil.”

Somehow, this will all need to be translated for the boys. He'd like to make it more bearable for them, but he doesn't know if he can.

Phil takes a few deep breaths. Spits into the toilet bowl. He’s probably finished, so he uses the sink to rinse out his mouth before he opens the door for Puffy.

“I’m okay,” he croaks.

It’s Sam who swoops in; sits Phil down at the table, grabs him a blanket and a ginger ale.

“You’re okay,” he points out, even though Phil has already said that. “Breathe. Drink that.”

He points to the glass of ginger ale and Phil takes an obligatory sip.

“Are you with us?” Puffy asks from the chair beside him. Sam is across from them. Phil nods.

“You have to understand, Phil. Dream is never getting out of prison,” she says firmly.

Does that help? Phil isn’t sure. “Right,” he says. A pause, and then, “What’s this about Tommy’s leg being bad? He was walking fine today.”

“Chronic pain,” Sam explains. “He gets flare-ups. Not every day.”

“Okay.” Phil drinks more.

He doesn’t have very much to say, is the thing. Puffy and Sam sit with him and wait for him to speak more, to ask more questions, but he simply doesn’t. There’s sort of nothing left in his body. He feels… shell-ish.

They sit together in quiet solidarity, a few rooms over from the kid who is theirs to protect-- theirs, all of them, because any resentfulness Phil had felt towards Sam has now been wiped out by unbearable gratitude.

Tommy has been away for a very long time. The only reason he’s able to come home now is thanks to Puffy and Sam. Phil can’t do this without them, and that fact is becoming increasingly clear.

Puffy does need to go home eventually, and she leaves them with the promise of coming back bright and early the next morning. She gathers her files and makes to leave, but Phil stops her in the driveway.

“I was wondering if you… well. Just if you happened to have any-- any books, or.” He clambers through the request, awkward and thick. “Information on--” he swallows-- “trauma. If you’d bring it around tomorrow.”

Puffy fixes him with a gentle smile. “I’ll see what I can do,” she tells him.

“Thank you,” exhales Phil.

“...I can tell you right now,” Puffy begins softly, “that walking on eggshells around him isn’t going to help. Not that you have been,” she continues, raising a hand when Phil opens his mouth to interrupt, “but it’s something to keep in mind. Okay? He’s a teenage boy. He likes video games and junk food and complains about doing his schoolwork, like any other kid. There is more to him than what he’s been through.”

Puffy hugs him before she goes. "You're doing good, Phil," she whispers.

Phil closes his eyes.

Not long after he goes back inside, he and Sam bid one another goodnight and head to their respective rooms. It’s while Phil is rummaging around for his toothbrush that he realizes what he forgot. Tommy’s books are still at the bottom of his bag.

He pulls them out slowly. None of them are in perfect condition, worn out by all three pairs of his sons’ little hands.

He resolves to leave them on his nightstand. Deliver them in the morning. Except, while he is getting ready for bed, and lying in the darkness soon after, there is a ball of anxiety stuck in his chest-- those books are for Tommy. Phil needs to get them to him, before-- before--

He doesn’t know what. But the anxiety is only growing, and he can’t sleep like this.

Tommy’s light was still on when Phil went upstairs. Maybe he could just-- pop in. Drop them off. Say goodnight. Would that be okay?

Phil collects the books and carefully heads downstairs.

To his disappointment, Tommy’s light is already off by the time he arrives. Phil won’t disturb him. Still, something stops him from going back upstairs, so he resolves to sit down on the couch instead. Just for a few moments. Until he feels better.

He opens one of the books. Where the Wild Things Are-- Tommy loved this one. Phil used to let the boys jump up and down on the bed during the wild rumpus part. Before he got too old for bedtime stories, Tech would pretend to be a wild thing, and roar in his brothers’ faces, making Wilbur scream with delight. Tommy would roar right back, the small thing, with his squishy cheeks and crinkled nose and footie pajamas. It made Phil laugh every time.

That night Max wore his wolf suit and made mischief of one kind and another, reads the first page. Phil glances at Tommy’s door.

“His mother called him ‘wild thing,’” he whispers. “And Max said, ‘I’ll eat you up.”

Silence. He looks down at the book. “...So Max was sent to bed without eating anything.”

Phil swallows. Carefully, so carefully, he stands up with the book in his hands and makes his way to Tommy’s door. He slides down against the wall to sit beside it. Waits a few moments, listening for any noises that might signal his son being awake.

“That very night,” he continues softly, when he hears none, “in Max’s room, a forest grew. And grew,” he murmurs, “and grew. Until his ceiling hung with vines and the walls became the world all around.”

Tommy’s room remains quiet. Phil exhales.

“And an ocean tumbled by with a private boat for Max, and he sailed off through night and day,” he whispers. “And in and out of weeks, and almost over a year, to where the wild things are.”

He closes his eyes and swears that he can feel little Tommy crawling under his arm and into his lap to see the pictures better. It makes the pages harder to see and the book more difficult to hold, but for a moment it makes Phil smile.

And then it breaks him.

“When he came to the place where the wild things are,” he continues, choked, through tears falling, aching, “they roared their terrible roars, and-- and gnashed their terrible teeth.”

Tommy is not how he was. The child, with his small fingers gripping the edges of the book, with his lilting giggles in response to his father’s growly character voices and his warm weight against Phil’s chest, will not exist again. Across time, that child is wailing for his dad through terror and tears and panic, and Phil won’t be there. Phil won’t come for another ten years. This book won’t be touched until Phil is digging through storage bins upon years of living alone, frantic for something of Tommy’s that he’s held onto. It won’t be read to him again until he is too old to listen.

Across time, Tommy gives up on Phil, and Phil gives up on Tommy.

And yet… now they are here.

“Max said ‘be still,’" he utters, ruined and shaky, "and tamed them, with the magic trick of looking into all their yellow eyes without blinking once."

He hasn’t seen Wilbur in nearly a year despite living in the same city. Technoblade calls, but he lives hours away and is too busy to visit often. None of them have guest rooms. The phone call today was the friendliest he’s heard Wilbur and Techno be with one another in years. Tommy hasn’t been home in so, so long.

Phil doesn’t know if he can come home anymore.

The concept might be lost on all of them by now.

“And they were frightened,” he utters, through a violently trembling whisper.

And so would recite Tommy, with fingers shaped into claws and teeth bared, head tilted back to growl right up at Phil,

They called him the most wildest thing of all!

A sob rises in Phil’s throat, but he clamps his mouth shut and chokes it back. There is heavy sadness dangling suddenly from his entire form, the mass of it bowing against his neck, forcing his head to hang low; tears dripping onto his lap. He shudders and bends forward.

He’ll wake Tommy if he keeps reading now.

Phil closes the book and allows the cover to keep his face hidden from the dark hallway, head bowed, chest and shoulders shaking with the cries that he can’t release for fear of disturbing his son.

Soon, he’ll go back upstairs with his stack of children’s books. Maybe toss down a sleeping aid. Go to bed. For now, he cries for the toddler with the footie pajamas, jumping around on the mattress, falling and landing on his padded bottom, making his brothers laugh by snapping at their outstretched hands when they try to help him up. The little boy on his lap, insisting that he be the one to flip the pages. For the teenager a few feet away from him now. He thinks about Tommy being six years old and screaming for his family, who could not hear him from two thousand miles away. Tommy being held underwater and getting punished for speaking.

Phil doesn’t know how to stop crying.

But, for Tommy, he takes a deep breath and finishes the story.