Chapter Text
Wilbur was ten years old when his father sat him down to have the talk.
Not the talk, mind you. But a talk. An important one. Phil stressed how important it is, actually, and how Wilbur needed to take this conversation seriously, as it would affect both of them.
“This is about fostering, isn’t it?” Wilbur asked. He sat across the too-large kitchen table, looking up at his father, who looked right back at him. For once, his dad’s blonde hair was pulled into a ponytail, away from his face. A usual sign that he was thinking.
“Yeah, Will. It is.” Phil sighed back at him.
“Did you not get approved?” He couldn’t help the concern that crept into his voice.
Phil had applied to be a foster parent six months ago, and as far as Wilbur knew, he hadn’t gotten much of a response since then. Wilbur knew vaguely that the system was hard to get into, but Phil had so desperately wanted another kid (and Wilbur wanted a sibling), so they tried anyway.
“No, no.” Phil seemed to consider his words for a moment. “Gosh, no. I was approved.”
A grin spread across his face. “That’s great! So I’m going to get a new sibling, then?”
“It’s not that easy, Will. We’ve been over this, haven’t we? Fostering is temporary a lot of the time. But that brings me to my next point, actually.”
Wilbur raised an eyebrow.
“They want me to become an emergency foster parent.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s… Basically, I take in the kids who need immediate placement. It means that we can get a call at any time to take someone in, and usually won’t have much time to prepare, or information to prepare with.”
Wilbur thought about it for a minute. “So… Did you say yes?”
“That’s why we’re talking. I want to make sure you’re alright with it.”
“I am.” He nodded.
“You won’t have a lot of warning, if any. You could come home from school one day and a kid will be here because I won’t have time to tell you.”
“That’s okay.”
“The kids might be scared. They probably will, actually.”
“That’s fine.”
“They won’t stay very long. It can be anywhere from a few hours to maybe a month.”
That surprised Wilbur, actually. He thought that fostering always led to adoption. But… It would be helping kids. Kids who needed help. That’s what his dad always said, anyway, and he trusted him.
“That’s okay.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, yeah. Tell them you want to be an… Emergency… Guy.”
Phil grinned. “I’m glad you’re okay with this, Wilbur.”
-----0-----0-----0-----
They got their first call barely a month later. At two in the morning, Phil shook Wilbur awake to tell him the news. They had a new foster child showing up.
According to Phil, it’s a five year-old boy who had allegedly entered foster care an hour prior. They didn’t get a name, interests, anything.
His name was Ranboo and he was almost eight years old. He fell asleep mere minutes after arriving at the house, almost as soon as Phil showed him a bed.
Wilbur didn’t know what to think about Ranboo, and really didn’t get the time to form an opinion. They ate breakfast together as a ‘family’, and Ranboo awkwardly rambled on as Wilbur ate his cereal.
Ranboo liked rabbits and video games. He had memory issues, and was so sure that his parents would come and pick him up soon, he just needed to wait a little longer.
A social worker came and picked him up shortly after that, and Wilbur never actually learned if what Ranboo said about his parents was true, or if he was just whisked off to another foster home.
-----0-----0-----0-----
The next foster child showed up while Wilbur was at school. He was six years old, his blonde hair was matted and covered in mud and dirt, and he scrunched his nose up when Wilbur mentioned it. He sat in Wilbur's chair at the kitchen table.
“Your hair looks like a rat nest.” Wilbur had said, and maybe that wasn’t the best first introduction, but he was ten years old.
“Your hair looks like a mole den.” The kid spit back. He looked up at Wilbur, and that’s when Wilbur noticed it.
This kid looked ridiculously similar to Phil. He looked more like Phil than Wilbur did, and Wilbur was his biological son. The kid had blonde hair, closely cropped to his scalp. His eyes were blue and shining, and even some of the patterns of freckles on his face seemed to match his (emergency) foster father’s.
“I’m Wilbur.”
“Tommy.”
“When did you get here?”
Tommy glanced at the clock. “An hour ago.”
“Where’s Phil?”
“Dunno.”
Tommy was the most talkative child Wilbur had ever gotten the displeasure of knowing. The child was loud and talked what had to be all the time.
“Have you seen Moana?” Tommy asked after barely two seconds of silence.
“I… Of course I’ve seen Moana. I’m a cultured man, Tommy.”
“I’m a big man.”
“You’re… What?”
“You’re a cultured man, I’m a big man. The biggest, actually.”
He looked Tommy up and down, unimpressed. “No offense, kid, but you’re like thirty pounds.”
“Still could take you in a fight.”
The next day, he followed Wilbur around like a lost puppy, asking him ‘what are you doing’ and ‘can I try out your guitar’ and ‘where’d you get your beanie from’ and a hundred other things, before Wilbur finally snapped.
“Do you ever shut up?”
Tommy’s eyes went wide, before narrowing into an angry expression. “Never.”
By all accounts, it didn’t make sense. Wilbur should have yelled at him, told him to get out of his room, but instead he found himself endeared. He found himself laughing. “Want me to play you a song?”
Tommy looked at him for a long moment before nodding. Apparently he did shut up sometimes.
Tommy stayed for two whole days before his social worker came back to take him somewhere else.
-----0-----0-----0-----
Emergency homes were almost exclusively for children who had just barely been placed into foster care. Kids who couldn’t afford to wait until they could get a (slightly) more permanent house could stay for a little while, just until they could find a more long-term replacement.
Emergency homes were for… Well, emergencies.
Eight months and two more placements after Tommy left, Phil shook Wilbur awake once again, this time at the much more reasonable hour of… Midnight. Okay, so maybe it wasn’t more reasonable.
Phil was told they had ten minutes until the kid arrived, and that they had no information about them. No age, no gender, not even a name. Wilbur straightened up the guest room- which wasn’t really a guest room anymore, it was a room for foster children- as Phil dealt with the mess that was the living room.
Wilbur answered the door when it was knocked on, and it was a true surprise to see Tommy again. Tommy, who…
Wow, okay, he looked worse for wear.
His hand was in a neon green cast, going from halfway down his forearm all the way up to the tip of his hand, part of it wrapping around his pinky and ring finger, too. He had a black eye and was missing a few more teeth than Wilbur remembered, but he was a kid, so Wilbur didn’t question it.
He was questioning the blooming bruises across Tommy’s arms, though, as well as the large bandages covering his knees.
“Uh… Come in. Phil’s-”
“Right here, mate. Hi, Miss Puffy. Hi again, Tommy.”
Wilbur brought Tommy to his room while Phil and Puffy talk ‘grown up stuff’.
“You’re back.” Wilbur noted.
“Thanks, I didn’t know that.” Tommy bit back (though it didn’t have any real sting), tossing the trash bag filled with his belongings onto his bed, before clambering onto it himself.
Wilbur made a face. “At least take your shoes off first.”
“You’re not the boss of me.”
“You’ll get mud on the sheets.”
“Good.”
They stayed like that for a painfully long moment. Tommy lying on the bed, Wilbur standing at the edge of the room.
“What happened to your hand?” Wilbur asked. He knew it was a rude question, but he was curious.
“I broke it.”
“How?”
“Foster brother pushed me down the stairs.”
“Oh.”
The topic changed quickly after that, as Tommy rambled on about some video game he was playing, as well as this weird kid he met at school recently.
“His name is Tubbo and he likes bees,” Tommy explained, “And he won’t leave me alone in class, so I guess we’re friends now.” He paused, face falling. “Am I going to get to go to school while I'm here?”
Wilbur didn’t know the answer.
The answer was no, apparently, because Tommy was gone the next morning.
-----0-----0-----0-----
The thing about being an emergency foster family is that you don’t really get time to be attached. They come out of nowhere and they leave quickly. Wilbur can’t keep track of all the kids who come in and out of the house.
Well, he can’t keep track except for one.
Because Tommy showed up six more times over the next two years. His shortest stay was three hours, and his longest was almost a full month.
“We’re like brothers, you know.” Tommy, barely nine years old, said one afternoon. He had a mouthful of pizza and Wilbur had to bite back the urge to remind him about manners.
“Don’t say that, I’ll cry.” Wilbur deadpanned, and Tommy burst out laughing.
“We basically are, though. Think about it- you’re like my big brother.”
Wilbur snorted. “I am not your big brother, Tommy.”
“Sure you are. Think about it, you do all the things big brothers do.”
“Oh?” He leaned back in his chair, taking a bite of his own food. “And what’s that, exactly?”
“You walk me to school, scare away bullies. Scare away girls, too, thanks for that-”
“You scare them away yourself, Tommy.”
“Shut up, Wilbur, that’s not true!”
“It is! Even when you’re not here, girls are scared of you.”
“They’re not scared of me, I’m the biggest man. Girls love me.”
“Oh, really, name one girl?”
“Clementine.”
“Who’s that?”
“She’s… Uh…”
Wilbur laughed again. “Did you make her up? Oh my- Tommy, you’ve got to be joking with me.”
Wilbur proposed the question to Phil that same night, long after Tommy went to bed. Wilbur was supposed to be asleep, too, but the twelve year-old had more important things to do. Questions to ask.
“Phil?” He stood in the doorway of Phil’s room. Phil, who was hunched over a desk, going through some sort of paperwork for his job. He had been so busy lately…
“Come in, Will.” Phil sighed. He placed the pen down on the desk and looked over. “You’re not sick, are you?”
“No, no. I had a question, though.”
“Yeah?”
“Can we… We should adopt Tommy.”
Phil smiled a little. “Do you want that?”
“I do. Can we, Phil?”
“Well… I’m not sure, exactly. It’s a lot of paperwork, but I looked into it before, and we might have a chance.”
“Wait, really?”
“Of course. I’ve been trying to get his information since he last visited. He’s practically a part of the family already with how often he’s here already, isn’t he?”
Wilbur couldn't help but grin in response. "I think so. Plus, Tommy Watson is a pretty cool name."
Phil chuckled. "Well, he might want to keep his original last name. It's up to him."
"Why wouldn't he want to be a Watson?"
"We don't know his story, Will. Some kids had great parents."
"Why don't we ask him, then?"
He already at least partially knew the answer.
Most kids in the foster system have experienced trauma, especially the ones taken to emergency foster homes. Usually they struggle with things like PTSD, and no one wanted to trigger something by bringing up a family they didn’t want talked about.
"Not yet. We'll talk to him about adoption when we're more sure about it, but for now it's best not to get his hopes up, just in case."
"We will adopt him though, won't we?"
"I hope so."
-----0-----0-----0-----
They didn't. Tommy had several meetings with potential adoptive parents scheduled already, and the system (whoever that was) said it would be enough for him for now.
So when Tommy left a week later, Wilbur gave him the tightest hug he had ever given. He ruffled the kid's (now overgrown) hair and leaned down to whisper in his ear.
"Good luck, little brother."
"Don't say that," He mocked, "I'll cry."
"Okay, shut up, that. I'm trying to be nice."
"You're not-"
"Tommy," his social worker, Puffy, cut in, "it's time to go. Come on."
"Tommy?" Wilbur whispered, not letting go quiet yet.
"Wilbur?" He whispered back.
"If you ever need anything… if you're unsafe, or need a place to stay or whatever, you can come back here, okay?"
Tommy smiled, finally managing to get out of the hug. "Okay, big man."
And then they left, just like that.
It was the last time Wilbur saw Tommy.
-----0-----0-----0-----
Three years and countless emergency foster kids passed by. Sometimes he wondered if the next one would be Tommy, but it never was.
Wilbur was fifteen years old when he met the enigma that was Technoblade.
Phil led the kid- not a kid, but someone Wilbur's age. Later, he would discover that they shared a birthday, but that was neither here nor there- Phil led him inside.
Technoblade's hair was longer than any Wilbur had seen, and it was pulled into a messy ponytail, though most of it had fallen out of the hair tie.
Technoblade was also covered in blood.
"It's not mine," He said with a grin, prompted to speak only by Wilbur's expression. “It’s an orphan’s. You’re not an orphan, are you?”
"Uh… No." Was all Wilbur said in return. Most of the kids were nice, if not standoffish, but this one..? Wilbur was certain that Phil had brought a psychopath into their home.
“D’you have a shower?” The guy asked in a heavy accent that Wilbur couldn’t quite place. Not southern, but… Something.
“Yeah, yeah. Come on, then.” Wilbur led him to the bathroom. “We have a basket all ready for you. Toothbrush, soap, shampoo and conditioner, basically everything you need.” He explained. “The towell on the left is yours, by the way. Oh, and if you want a razor to shave, you have to ask Phil.”
Technoblade nodded at that, pushing past Wilbur, but pausing once he crossed into the bathroom. “Are… Can I close this?” He asked, unsure.
“Close… What?”
“The door.”
“Oh. Oh! Yeah, yeah, of course. Close it, lock it, whatever. Just don’t barricade it- not that there’s anything to barricade with, anyway.”
Technoblade hummed at that, shutting the door. Wilbur heard the heavy click of the lock, and he stood there outside almost dumbfounded for a moment.
Tommy was the reason they didn’t have any barricade-able furniture in there. During his third visit, he tried to lock himself inside every room possible, hiding from them. Phil had to borrow a ladder from a neighbor and get in through Tommy’s window at one point.
Huh. Wilbur hadn’t thought about Tommy in a while.
-----0-----0-----0-----
“What do you do for fun?”
“Sports.”
“What kind of sports?”
Just because Wilbur didn’t remember every single foster child, it didn’t mean that he didn’t try to get to know them. Even if he forgot, he knew it made the kids feel special, like someone cared. Phil said that was exactly what they needed.
He sat on the couch next to Technoblade, some TV show neither particularly played about playing on a low volume in the background.
“All of them.”
“Even football?” Wilbur raised an eyebrow.
“American or European?”
“Either or.”
Technoblade smirked just slightly. “Yes. Both of ‘em. Mostly American football, though, that’s really fun. You get to tackle people an’ people cheer you for it.”
Okay, so this kid was… Dangerous, probably. “You… Like to tackle people?”
He shrugged. “I enjoy fighting.”
“Have you tried karate and that stuff?”
“Could never afford it, so no.”
Wilbur thought for a moment. “The school has a fencing team. It’s not exactly the same, but you should try it.”
“I don’t know if I’ll be staying long enough to do that, but… Thanks, Will. I appreciate it.”
“No problem,” He paused, thinking through the nickname before he said it, “Techno.”
He didn’t expect Technoblade to beam at the nickname, but he did.
He turned his attention back to the show for a minute, surprised when Technoblade- er, Techno initiated the conversation next.
“What about you?”
“Oh, I’m not a big sports guy. Kind of too noodle-armed for that.” He laughed.
“No, no, what do you do for fun.”
“Uh… Play music. Read.”
“Nerd.” The way Technoblade said the word felt endearing. Safe. As if this kid wasn’t a psychopath after all, but… Just that. A kid.
“You know, that trash bag you brought doesn’t hide items very well. Don’t act like I didn’t see all the books you brought.” Wilbur replied, making sure to lean heavily into a teasing tone. He didn’t want Technoblade to panic.
“I never said I wasn’t a nerd, I just said you were one, too.”
Wilbur snorted. “So you’re a nerd and a jock? Can’t you just pick one?”
“Shut up, Wilbur.”
“Make me.”
Techno grabbed the pillow next to him and hit Wilbur in the face with it. Softly, definitely, but enough to shock him. At least, until Wilbur got it in his head to grab the other pillow and hit Techno back.
It evolved into a war. Similar to a pillow fight, except they were grown (fifteen year-old) men, and it was taken much more (less) seriously.
Phil howled with laughter when he walked in on the sight.
-----0-----0-----0-----
He didn’t expect to get so attached to Techno so quickly, but somehow, their personalities meshed well. Technoblade’s monotone, deep voice paired well with Wilbur’s ever-expressive one. Where Techno was muscular, Wilbur was lean, where Wilbur was tall, Techno was… Also pretty tall, actually, but Wilbur was still taller.
Techno was also incredibly protective. Wilbur was never one to get bullied, but Techno would still send sharp looks to anyone who made fun of him in the hallways. It was surprisingly nice, like having a guard. Except that guard was your brother.
Not brother, he had to remind himself.
Still, when he and Technoblade went to the old arcade, it was hard to remember they weren’t related.
When they went to get ice cream, and Techno insisted that Wilbur try his, it was hard to remember they weren’t brothers.
When Techno won his first fencing match, and Wilbur shot up from the stands and screamed his praises, it was hard to remember.
Huh. Wilbur really wanted them to be brothers.
-----0-----0-----0-----
A month after Technoblade first entered the house, he and Wilbur sat on the roof. Phil would likely have a heart attack if he knew they were up there, but what he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.
Willbur and Techno had gone back and forth for a while, talking about nothing and everything at the same time. School, the meaning of life, the song Wilbur was working on, aliens, and a dozen other random topics. He could blame it on Techno’s ADHD, but that would be wrong, because Wilbur was changing the topics just as rapidly as the other.
There was a lull in the conversation when Techno brought it up.
“I talked to my social worker on the phone the other day. He says that the house I’ve been waiting for finally opened up. He wants me to go.”
Wilbur bit back a complaint. He didn’t want Techno to go. He had gotten attached, even though he knew he shouldn’t. He knew Techno would go, and he hated it. He forced himself to ask his question casually. “Do you want to go?”
Technoblade lay on his back, staring up at the stars above him. He had confessed a week ago that he grew up in a city, and every time he looked at the night sky here, it was like a whole new world. “No.”
“No?”
“No. I don’t want to go to that house.”
“Because you don’t want to be adopted,” Wilbur tried. Technoblade had often mentioned that he didn’t really want a family, and was planning on being emancipated as soon as he hit the legal age to.
“No. Well, yeah, but not really. I… I think I like it here.”
“Then stay.”
“Huh?”
“Stay. Phi would adopt you.”
“I don’t want to be-”
“Phil would foster you permanently, too. Whatever you wanted.”
Techno turned over to face Wilbur. “Really?”
“Really.”
-----0-----0-----0-----
Through some miracle sent by the gods, Phil managed to switch from being Technoblade’s emergency foster parent to his long-term foster parent.
Techno tried to hide his smile, but it didn't work.
They went on a family road-trip (which Techno insisted wasn’t a family road-trip, just a regular one) the Summer after, and it was the best time of Wilbur’s life. Even if they did get lost more than once. Even if Phil did almost leave Wilbur at a gas station two separate times. Even if they had to backtrack three miles because Techno left a book at a rest stop.
It’s great, and it’s wonderful, and Wilbur can’t be happier.
Sometimes, he felt like the family wasn’t complete, but he did his best to brush it off. They were happy, they were a family. They were whole.
The years went by like seconds, and before Wilbur knew it, Technoblade was off to university. At seventeen instead of eighteen because the kid was nothing if not a try-hard. But no matter Techno’s insistence, he’ll always be family, and that’s proven by the fact that he came back home each Summer.
Phil had stopped doing emergency foster care after Technoblade. It wasn’t that he didn’t love it, he simply didn’t have enough room for another kid. Besides, he wanted to take care of the two that he had at home first, and Techno needed a stable environment, anyway.
-----0-----0-----0-----
Wilbur took a gap year between college and university, starting school at nineteen instead of the typical eighteen. It was fine, though, and he honestly appreciated having the extra time to mentally prepare for it.
His university was far away, and he ended up living with a bunch of friends in an apartment near campus. He still called home every week, of course, giving Phil updates and gossip and all the drama.
And of course, the boys visited every Summer break. Which was why Wilbur found himself sitting in his childhood bedroom one warm evening (if one could call it that, considering how late it was), reading one of Technoblade’s old books. The sound of rain was calming, and he had even opened his window just a little so he could smell it, too.
A glance at the clock would confirm that it was a little past one in the morning. He wondered vaguely if Technoblade was awake- no, of course he was, because he was Technoblade and the man didn’t believe in sleep schedules.
Wilbur, however, did. Which was why his book had fallen onto his lap and he was barely drifting off into sleep.
He heard the quiet sound of something… Scraping? He wanted to ignore it. He wanted to sleep. Sure, his window was open slightly, but his room was on the second floor. No one would-
There was a loud thump followed by whispered words that would make a sailor jealous. Wilbur’s eyes snapped open.
Underneath his window sat a gangly kid. He wore a sweater and ripped jeans despite the weather outside, and looked soaked to the bone. His overgrown dirty blonde hair was matted and stuck to his face, obscuring his facial features.
Wilbur looked down at him, and he looked back up at Wilbur.
It would be difficult to list injuries, as they all seem to blend in with each other. Wilbur couldn’t count the bruises because of how close they are, as if his face was one whole bruise that stretched down to his neck and into the line of his shirt. Blood dripped from his nose onto the (now wet) carpet. It trailed from his mouth, his ear, and somewhere on his forehead. His arms are covered by the sweater sleeves, and Wilbur would expect them to be just as bad as his face. But even if he could see them, Wilbur couldn’t take his eyes off of the teen’s face.
Because this kid looked more like Phil than Wilbur, his biological son, ever did. His eyes were more dull, now, and his freckles were all but gone (maybe just hidden in bruises, though), but it was unmistakably him.
“Tommy?” Wilbur all but whispered at the child- teenager- in front of him.
Tommy flashed him a smile. “Sorry, big man. I thought this was my window, guess I went through the wrong one, huh.”