Work Text:
The day things changed was the day a little girl with bouncy brunette curls flung open the front door of the Craft brothers' next foster home, shadowed in the doorway by a tall man with matching bangs.
The day he knew things had changed was the day Wilbur Soot took Phil's bloodied knuckles in hand and said, "I'm so fucking proud of you, my little sparrow."
It hadn't started out as anything special. Phil dragged himself out of bed to the tune of Tallulah and Tommy's playful screeches, quickly followed by his foster father calling them to breakfast. A glance at his clock told him it was ten minutes past when he should have been up.
The fearful jolt to his chest wasn't as strong as it had been three months ago, but still enough to jumpstart his adrenaline.
Halfway through pulling on his jeans, a thumping at the door startled him. He stumbled over and opened it to find Techno standing on the other side, his wide brown eyes tugging on Phil's heartstrings.
"Tommy s-said I'm t-too old t' take Mister Porkius to s-school," the five-year-old whined with a wet sniffle.
"Oh, Techno," Phil soothed, reaching down to pluck Techno up. "Course you can, mate. Don't listen to Tommy, he's just jealous he doesn't have a Mister Porkius, too."
Though he didn't seem entirely convinced, the boy nodded and wiggled to get more comfortable in Phil's arms. His red-rimmed eyes disappeared against Phil's shirt, his head nestled perfectly into the crook of his shoulder.
Phil took a moment to appreciate the weight of his oh so small, oh so trusting baby brother tucked into his embrace. It seemed like just yesterday he'd been sheltering Techno beneath his metaphorical wings, putting his own body between the toddler and their raging father. Despite the way the three years since had stretched like taffy between five houses and countless strangers passing the trio from hand to hand, Phil couldn't forget how it felt to cradle such a precious weight to his chest—and that it wouldn't be something he'd be able to do forever.
(They brothers had almost been set adrift from each other twice already. Families willing to take in three boys ranging from—at the time—two to twelve were few and far between.)
Just as Techno would eventually grow too big to carry, so too did Wilbur calling up the stairs eventually break the moment. Phil yelled a quick "We're coming!", then snatched up his half-open backpack and closed his door. After a quick detour to Techno's and Tommy's room for the kid’s bag and stuffed pig—complete with a fabric cape and crown—they headed down to join the rest of the household in the kitchen.
Wilbur was wrangling Tommy into his chair as they rounded the corner. "C'mon, sunshine, at least eat your toast. You'll be hungry by your second class otherwise."
"But Wiiiilby, 'm not hungry."
Tallulah hopped up to her feet on her own chair, bouncing with excitement. "Oh! Oh! Can I have your hash, Tommy?!"
Phil dropped Techno gently onto his seat and slipped into the one beside it. Before Wilbur could scold Tommy again, Phil interjected, "Don't argue, Toms."
(Wilbur hadn't ever reached his limit as far as Phil had seen. Still, he didn't want to chance it. Not with his brothers potentially in the line of fire.
(Even if Wilbur subsequently scolded him for trying to "be the parent.")
Most of the day continued without much out of the ordinary. His math homework bled red like a good soldier and came back with a solid C; his art teacher loved the crow doodles on the back of his landscape project. Tommy begged to sit with him at lunch, and Phil chided him for worrying the adults as he escorted the boy back to the elementary wing of the massive school. When the last bell rang, Phil eagerly stuffed his materials in his backpack and bolted out the door.
Normally, Phil would go meet his brothers (and foster-sister) one after the other as soon as the final bell rang. Wilbur didn't get off work soon enough to pick up Techno usually, so he stayed with an after-school program in the kindergarten.
Techno readily let Phil pick him up, clutching Mister Porkius in one hand and a crayon drawing in the other. Tommy and Tallulah came next, thankfully in the same homeroom class with a couple others who had late pick-ups, as well. They both ran to him with loud greetings and a pep in their step. Tommy jumped into an animated retelling of his and Tubbo's (thankfully harmless, today) shenanigans while Tallulah skipped along beside him, her fingers laced with his.
It was then, as Phil led the youngsters hand-in-hand to the high school pick-up lanes, with gaggles of students still scurrying here and there through the halls, that everything went wrong.
"Oi, would you look at that! Is that who I think it is?"
"I think it is. Old Man Phiw with his wittew daycawr!" The upperclassman cackled at his own joke. "How cute."
Oh no.
Phil grit his teeth at the too-familiar voices, trying to usher the kids along faster. Unfortunately, he only had two hands, and much as he loved Tommy's spirit—really, he did—the kid ran too hot-blooded for his own good.
"HEY!" the boy yelled, turning to the bullies. "Say that again, I fuckin' dare you!"
His heart skipped a beat as he let go of Tallulah's hand to put himself between his brother and the other highschoolers. Panic and fear alike made his words far sharper than intended. "Tommy! Just let it go," he hissed. "They're not worth it."
Phil would regret not already having Tommy's hand in his later.
But by then it would be too late.
"Damn, Phil," Brian taunted. "That's a helluva mouth on that kid. What've you been teachin' him?"
Dave's laughter only doubled. "Yeah, Dadza. Get your little mongrel under control!"
And before Phil could stop him, Tommy shot off toward them in a blur of golden hair.
"YOU LEAVE PHIL ALONE, ASSHOLES!"
The boy honed in on his target like a slug fired from a shotgun—with precision and power impressive for someone his size. Tommy slammed down on Brian's shoe with both heels, almost toppling over as the motion unbalanced him, but drawing a chilling howl of surprise from the teen.
Phil hurriedly set Techno on his feet, pushing him gently toward Tallulah. "Take Techno outside, please, Lullah," he urged her. "Quickly."
Wide eyed, the girl glanced between Tommy and the tinted glass doors, but ultimately nodded and trotted off that way.
Phil wasted no time watching them go. Dave and Brian both had recovered from Tommy's surprise attack, although Phil could spot a suspiciously tooth-shaped mark on Brian's forearm. The junior growled a curse and moved to backhand the triumphant grin off Tommy’s face—
Phil caught the strike before it could swing.
“Don’t. Touch. My brother.”
Tommy cheered. “Yeah! Get ‘em, Phil!”
Dave moved to shove Phil off his friend. Phil let go of Brian’s arm to dodge, and Tommy laughed uproariously as the teen stumbled past without touching Phil.
“Tommy, go find Tallulah,” he ordered, giving him a careful nudge in that direction.
Phil knew too well what would be coming next. He’d been a reluctant participant in enough scraps and schoolyard brawls to be prepared (so neither Tommy nor Techno would have to).
Tommy didn’t need to be here for this.
“Phiiiil—”
“Now, Toms,” he pleaded. His opponents had regrouped; judging by the fury in their eyes, they wouldn’t be waiting for Phil to make the next move.
Something in his voice must have tipped him off, because Tommy didn’t argue further. Instead he ducked away almost immediately. His small form was quickly swallowed up by the growing crowd that had taken notice of the altercation.
And then, as Phil had once seen in an old '80s aviation movie, it was fight’s on.
Phil would later come to learn that it had barely lasted two minutes—but those two minutes might as well have been an hour. It was two on one, and no one else was willing to step in to even the odds and risk getting in trouble along with the brawlers. The only advantage he had was experience; even with two years in height and strength over him, Phil doubtless had been in more fights in his short life than these low-life cowards combined.
Still, that wasn’t enough to compensate for too much open space at his flanks and limited room to maneuver. The blows that struck their marks quickly added up, and it was only Phil’s flexibility and agility that kept them from holding him down long enough to double that quota. His skinny frame didn’t pack the same power that theirs did, so Phil had to aim more precisely to maximize his impact.
Suddenly, above the cheering and booing of the crowd, there arose angry shouts and yelling—adults yelling. Bodies stood between the fighters, hands grabbed at Phil’s shoulders, and the world was spinning with too much sound, too much movement, too much sensation all at once—
“Phil!”
Phil gasped, mentally grabbing onto that voice like a lifeline. His vision cleared, resolving into a familiar face hovering above him in a sea of inconsequential details, then solidifying into a scene that was too gut-wrenchingly familiar.
Teachers, school resource officers, and—gods, no—his foster father.
Adrenaline told Phil he hadn’t yet left the fight. He tried to pull away, but Wilbur’s grip was too firm on his upper arms; Phil bit back a whimper from the still-blooming bruise pressed beneath the man’s fingers.
Somehow, though, he still seemed to notice. Wilbur’s hands jumped off Phil like a scalded cat, hovering nervously over his shoulders. “Easy, sparrow, it’s okay, you’re safe. It’s over.”
Wha—what?
That…that wasn’t the script. He… Wilbur should be furious, should be scolding him for starting a fight, for hurting others even though it was self-defense—
Phil froze as Wilbur’s fingers lifted to hover beside Phil’s eye. “Oh, little bird…”
It took a moment for Phil to realize what he was looking at. The overflowing concern left him more dazed than the black eye had in the moment he got it. He fumbled for words—something to reassure his foster father that it wasn’t his fault, or to plead his case, or—or—something.
"Are you hurt anywhere else?"
Everything simultaneously moved too fast and too slow, all fuzzed together in his rattled mind. He swallowed and licked his lips, tasting copper on his tongue from a split lip. "Um…"
Before he could work up to an answer, or Wilbur could ply him with any other weird shows of concern, a shrill voice cut through the chaos. "He started it!"
Now this, Phil understood. No matter what had happened in the beginning, the aftermath was always the same. (Even if Wilbur's role was an anomaly, an outlier, a planet colliding with the sun.) Whoever threw the blame first held the power; whoever held the power threatened his connection to his brothers and the dubious safety of whatever house he was in.
Phil spun to face Brian, fists clenched as if ready to dive right back into the fight—which, in a way, he was. "No, I didn't! He fuckin' tried t—"
"Liar!"
"I saw it, too, he definitely—"
Phil's teeth ached with how hard he clenched his jaw. Frustration pricked at his eyes and wrapped a hand around his throat. "No! They're wrong—"
The two resource officers stepped between him and the other boys. Long arms slipped around his shoulder and chest, dragging him away from the confrontation. The force on his sternum pressed like an anvil against his lungs and…oh. Oh, he was still breathing way too short and choppy.
Still, he had to keep fighting. He had to stay and make his case. If he let Dave and Brian have their way—
"Hey—Phil." Wilbur struggled to wrestle him back; Phil felt a small inkling of pride for being responsible for that when the man was so much taller than him. "Phil. Hey, c'mon, buddy. It's okay, I promise, we'll get it sorted—"
He gasped past the growing lump in his throat. Hot moisture spilled over his cheeks. "N-No. No, you don't—you don't understand—"
The cool steel of a bench hit his legs. Wilbur pulled them both down onto it, tucking Phil's head under his chin. "Then help me to understand."
Those five words finally did it. All fight left his limbs; Phil sagged against Wilbur, halfway resigned to whatever weirdness this was and halfway just too damn tired to keep up the physical fight. He tried to ignore the way his sniffles made him sound like Techno had that morning, upset over an inconsequential jab about his toy rather than the very real possibility that this was the last day in this house—the last day Techno and Tommy had in this house.
"Breathe, Phil," Wilbur ordered softly. "Deep breaths. It's gonna be okay."
It was so much easier said than done. The chaos of the fight had diminished significantly with the dispersal of the crowds around it, but there was still so much activity. Sharp voices, quiet conversations, the squeak and scuff of various shoes across polished tile and the distant echo of chatter dwindling outside the front doors—all of it ping-ponged between Phil's ears in time to the carousel of anxiety squeezing its tendrils around his heart.
But this wasn't the first time Wilbur had walked him through calming down, and despite the fears still writ large across his chest that familiarity wormed its way deep inside to untether those hooked anchors.
He came fully back into awareness to find Wilbur had shifted him off the man's lap and now sat across from him, Phil's hands held delicately in his own long-fingered guitarist hands. The callused pads brushed across his skin in slow, rhythmic motions, following the same pattern he'd just been using to calm Phil's breathing.
"M'sorry," he blurted out.
Wilbur didn't immediately launch into a lecture or accept that apology, however. Instead he held Phil's hands tighter—not tight enough to hurt, though they still ached enough from the force with which he'd defended himself—and kept him from pulling away.
"There's nothing to apologize for," the brunet said. "The kids told me the gist of what happened."
Oh. Oh no. "It's not Tommy's fault I s—"
A sharp squeeze on his hands did make him flinch this time, despite it not even physically hurting that much. Had he just found Wilbur's limit, finally?
"It doesn't matter right now who's fault it is, or who started it," Wilbur said sharply. "I don't care what any of them say—I just want you to be safe. And I mean that in more ways than one.
"So—" He softened, rubbing a thumb over Phil's knuckles. "—talk to me. What's the matter, sparrow?"
And that…that space he was offering, that lack of judgement, that gleam of unconditional care in warm chocolate eyes shattered Phil.
He could already feel the tears springing to his eyes again; his lip wobbled despite his best efforts to keep his composure. Words poured out of him before he'd quite drawn a full enough breath to voice them all, spilling like a fountain of blood from his punctured and thrice-bandaged heart.
"It's not my fault," he cried. Gravity pulled him into the orbit of Wilbur's chest, shielding his face as if the mustard-yellow cable-knit sweater alone could hide his confession from the sharp-eyed world. "It's never my fault and y-yet no one believes m-me an'—an' I just want Tommy an' Techno t-to have what I n-never did but we have to stay together, I—I couldn't bear to not have them. S-so they're forced to f-follow me aroun' w-when I get in trouble from fights that I didn't start!"
His chest squeezed and wailed for air, then. Phil gasped in an inhale, and all the work Wilbur had just done trying to calm him down was undone in an instant.
And yet… And yet Wilbur didn't seem to care. He hummed a wounded note of sympathy, pulling Phil in closer rather than pushing him away. His arms cradled him like the most precious pearl-inlaid guitar made of the finest wood the world could offer, smoothing his expert hands over Phil's back in a sort of comfort that he'd not felt since—since—
Well, since probably ever. (Or at least since before his mother passed.)
Over the muffled sound of his tears, Phil suddenly picked up footsteps approaching. He stiffened and moved to draw back from Wilbur—to face the music that, for some reason he didn't understand, Wilbur had tried to hide him from—but his foster father only squeezed him tighter.
"Can I help you, officer?"
The chill in his tone felt so shockingly different from what Phil had heard only moments before that it made him jump. Wilbur lifted a hand to the back of his head, pressing gently to keep him from moving again. Phil relaxed into it, practically melting as the man idly played with his hair.
"Gonna need a statement," the officer said gruffly. "Whenever you're ready's fine, just best to get the details while they're still fresh."
Wilbur sighed softly. "Of course. We'll come find you in a minute."
They must have given some indication of agreement, because they almost immediately moved away again.
Phil hadn't even realized he had tensed up again until Wilbur squeezed his arm. "Hey. Look at me, Phil?"
Reluctantly, Phil uncurled from his foster father's arms. Fearing this might all be a dream about to turn nightmare, he steeled himself before looking up.
To his surprise, that same care and concern from earlier hadn't changed.
Wilbur plucked his hands back up from his lap into his own. Phil's world narrowed down to their entwined grasp, every sense keyed in to what Wilbur said next. "No matter what comes out of all this, I want you to know: I am so fucking proud of you, my little sparrow. You're so dedicated to your brothers, and you've not got a selfish bone in your body. Those kids out there have no idea what that's like, and so it's easier for them to make fun of what they don't understand than try to see things from a different perspective.
"But I see you." He carefully, hesitantly lifted a hand, reaching out to smooth an errant lock of hair off Phil's forehead. "I know it's not easy being the responsible one all the time. I know what it's like to have been failed by adults who either didn't have the time or knowledge or care or whatever to give you the Prime damn time of day. When we go in to talk to the school and everyone else, I'm not going to leave you to fend for yourself—okay?"
Stunned by the outpouring of words he'd never thought he'd get to hear—not while he was still a foster kid, not while he wasn't considered old enough to handle himself—Phil gave a tiny nod.
Wilbur's hand fell to his shoulder, squeezing firmly. "I mean it, Phil. Let me shield you, now. I'll handle them. I want you to just be a kid, for a little while longer. And even when they need you to answer anything, I'll be right there with you; I'm not going anywhere. I promise."
That…
It shouldn't have made sense. Phil had been promised so many things from so many people in his short life, almost none of which had actually been kept. But this time—this time Phil believed Wilbur, so strongly that it ached more than the bruises dulled into distant throbbing over his skin. He'd never had a place that felt so unapologetically warm and safe as the Soot house, never been able to put his guard down for a second where it might put Tommy or Techno in jeopardy.
Yet here, in the still-unfinished aftermath on the doorstep of what should have been certain loss for Phil, there was no reason left to disbelieve. Wilbur had not been anything less than inviting and kind to them, and even when he scolded any of them for one reason or another it was never any different from how he would have spoken to his own daughter.
(The fact she, too, was adopted, officially and legally Wilbur's own as much as if she had been born to him, spoke volumes to the Craft boys.)
There would be meetings and reparations and punishments aplenty, of course; many of them would be before Phil sooner rather than later. But for now? For now, Phil could put down his guard, his fists, his burdens.
So Phil finally lowered his shield—
—and fell into Wilbur's waiting arms.
Finally,
home.