Archive of Our Own ^beta

Tommy wasn't dumb, alright? Even a nine year old knows the nights are risky in the deceptively small town of Brumman, and Tommy was fourteen. He knew, yeah? He knew not to be out in the streets when the moon was up, new or full, and he knew that this town wasn't normal. He knew the dangers that lurked in the woods and he knew damn well that the reason the town seemed so small despite being objectively large (a population of twenty thousand was Not Small) was because people didn't wander.

Knowing these things doesn't really do much when you don't have a home to stay safe in. 

"I'm tellin' ya," he grumbled to his best friend in this shitty fucking town, "I gotta be fuckin' cursed." 

Tubbo snorted at him, the audacious bastard. He was clean and well fed, only in this alleyway because Tommy was there because they'd been friends for years when Tommy abandoned the shit smears that had barely raised him. He'd done that two years ago, and then said shit smears croaked eight months ago. Now Tubbo was the only person in his life that knew Tommy's life in truth. "You're not cursed."

"I could be!" Tommy protested from his comfy leaning spot. This alley was the gap between a bakery and some kind of business office, and the wall he was leaning on was made of brick, but it was also old as balls so it had been worn down by rain and time and there was a nice smooth spot just his size. "You don't know!"

Another snort. "Is this really how you want to start a conversation? How about some context for me, boss man?"

That nickname was a bit of an in-joke between them; when Tommy first ran away, Tubbo had tried to make his dad let Tommy live with them. Schlatt was an alright person but he could barely manage being a single father of one, so that got shut down. Then Tubbo had run out, too, saying Schlatt wasn't the boss of him. The second he finished explaining himself to Tommy, he got shouted all the way back to his house. Tommy wouldn't have it, and since Tubbo listened, that made him the boss. 

"I've seen some shit, man," Tommy said seriously. Maybe a little too seriously, but the shit he'd seen was worth the change in mood: shit got weird in Brumman at night. "But last night took the fuckin' cake, yeah?" He shifted in his little leaning spot, shuffling his feet and fidgeting. This only made Tubbo more nervous, but Tommy couldn't help it. "I saw the Boar Witch."

There were several notable ‘people’ responsible for the Weirdness at night. Even if everyone in town could and did stay inside all night, some people would still be awake and would look out their window. Curiosity was unquenchable, after all, so despite the danger there was a LOT of information in the rumor mill. 

Pretty high up on the list of entities you absolutely did not want to run into was the Boar Witch. Maybe a man, maybe a demon, built like a shit brick house and always always wearing a mask fashioned like a boar’s skull. 

Although the mask wasn’t actually the reason for the name: people called him the Boar Witch because of the reanimated boar monster skeletons always flanking him and grabbing what he needed during his night-time visits to town. Usually it was other entities the town attracted, but sometimes it wasn’t. The skeletons had boar skulls, but a human pelvis was really distinct and more than one of his monstrosities were sporting one. 

“Either you’re lying,” Tubbo said with a pale face and hoarse voice, “or you’re not, and either option is really bad. You need to get off the fucking streets, man!” 

Not the first time Tubbo had said that, and Tommy’s response was the same as always. “Find me a place to stay and I’d be happy to,” although this time he didn’t roll his eyes. It wasn’t as much of a joke this time. 

“So what the fuck happened?!” Tubbo demanded. “You’re not DEAD, so he wasn’t after you.”

“Maybe I hid from him, bitch,” Tommy snipped back, “I’m good at not being seen.” 

“You’re good at not being seen by humans,” Tubbo pointed out with an actual pointing gesture, “but you’re shit at not being heard and, y’know, there’s the whole bit where THAT WAS THE BOAR WITCH!”

“Guy’s a witch, man,” Tommy shrugged, “that’s human enough to count. But fine, fuck you by the way, yeah he wasn’t after me. I was sleeping under the gazebo in the park over by the ruins of the mall, or trying to, when I saw him a bit in the distance.”

“The mall hasn’t even closed down yet,” Tubbo said, “it’s not ruins. But, what, he was there for plants?”

Tommy sighed and pushed off the wall. “I dunno, man, but he was in the park and when I saw him I just dove into my sleeping bag and zipped it up around me. Ended up passing out eventually, woke up and had a panic attack. Think I had a nightmare I was buried alive.” 

Tubbo actually shuddered. “At least you’re okay. Hell, at least it was just a witch.”

Tommy just nodded solemnly at that. As dangerous as the notorious and terrifying witches could be, they were just individuals who did their own thing. Even if sometimes that ‘thing’ was hurting people, they were all at least recognizable. Something you could react to. 

Sometimes the sky dripped down to the ground at night. Sometimes holes opened up in the air, invisible and undetectable but easy to stumble through and never come out of. Sometimes stuff moved, houses swapping places with their neighbors. Harmless enough if you were inside them, but if you were sleeping underneath someone’s car in the driveway or in a playground set… Well at least it didn’t kill people. 

They just weren’t really people after that.

“I’m starting to think maybe the woods might be safer,” Tommy admitted. Tubbo’s neck cracked he turned his head to stare at him so fast. 

“Why don’t you just shoot yourself in the face?!” Tubbo yelped. “That’s a fucking death sentence, Tommy! At least town is safe during the day! At least we’re safe inside our buildings! The woods are never safe, you know this!” 

“At least the woods are predictable!” Tommy shouted back. “At least it’s just got monsters and fuckin’ nightmares, I won’t have to worry about waking up inside out or with my fuckin’ eyes stolen!” 

“I’m gonna find you a place, Tommy,” Tubbo hissed. “I will, I promise you.” 

All of Tommy’s brief anger left him at that. “I know,” he said softly, eyes to the alley floor. His shoes were getting worn out again. “I know you will. But it’s not about that anymore.”

Something in his tone must have hit Tubbo in the core, because his entire demeanor changed. “What do you mean?” The waver in his voice told Tommy that his friend already knew. 

To survive outside at night, you had to be very vigilant, very cautious, and clever. You had to know what safe looked like, and you had to know what risky even meant when being alive was risky all on its own. That meant short, restless bouts of sleep. It meant that sleeping was too dangerous to do unless dawn was near.

Eventually it meant that you didn’t sleep at night at all, and that meant you couldn’t integrate into town life again. That meant you stopped trying. That meant ‘night folk,’ and that meant you didn’t last long. Not as a person, anyways. 

Night folk always ended up as another thing people had to fear when the sun went down. 

“I’m trying, Tubs,” Tommy said with a morose little shrug. He was getting tired of talking, so he just- left. It was one of his favorite things about his horrific life situation, actually; he lived nowhere, which meant he lived everywhere, and he could just walk away from something, from anything. “I’ll see you tomorrow at the comics shop on seventh street.”

“Tommy, wait-” Tubbo said as he tried to follow, but Tommy was gone. 

For better and for the worst, the streets of Brumman were Tommy’s home, and that meant he always had the home advantage in escaping. 

A few days later, Tubbo swaggered up to their monday meeting spot and handed Tommy a small packet of papers. No matter how many times Tommy read through the five pages of paper, the words refused to stop making sense. They just kept being true. 

“How?” he eventually croaked at his friend, who was entirely too proud of himself. Not that Tommy could see that, his eyes were glued to the pages he continued to leaf through over and over again. He wanted to memorize every word. If he did that, then maybe he could believe them. 

“Don’t worry about it,” Tubbo smugged smugly. “All that matters is I found a guy willing to shelter you, and he was willing to put it in writing. Knew you wouldn’t believe me otherwise.” Accurate. “Just bring those to the address on the first page, and bam! You’ve got a place!” 

“With a total stranger,” Tommy pointed out as he finally looked up Tubbo. The very salient point he’d just made didn’t so much as budge the smug smirk off Tubbo’s face. If anything the smirk got even smugger. Tommy was losing grip on the word itself at this point.

“He’s not a stranger,” Tubbo kind of sang, “he and my dad know each other. He’s weird, so you’ll love him.” 

“His name is Wilbur,” Tommy said. Derisively. “Wilbur Soot. He had to have legally changed it to that himself, is that really the kinda person you want me staying with?” 

“If it helps my dad can’t stand him anymore,” Tubbo shrugged, smirk firmly intact, “so he’s got that on the upsides column.” 

“I’ll give it a shot,” Tommy whispered. 

Five pages, with a shitty little staple. Not all that much, but as they fluttered in the mild wind in his hands Tommy couldn’t deny that they meant the world to him. 

He’d avoided the shelters for a lot of reasons; in the beginning it was because they’d just return him to his parents, and by the time that wasn’t an option then it was to avoid getting forced into a foster home. This little arrangement would dodge those issues, as it counted as a foster home, and most importantly- it explicitly said he was allowed to sleep during the day. 

That was more than just a taboo in Brumman. That was close to if not outright knowingly harboring nightfolk, and while they were still people, still citizens, nobody treated them that way. Certainly nobody wanted them in their house, in case one day they decided to do something freaky.

Obviously Tubbo saw right through him and knew what he was thinking about, because he said, so very gently, “You’re not the only person in town to sympathize with nightfolk. Say what you want about necessity,” which Tubbo knew was Tommy’s go-to defense whenever someone tried to confront him about it, “you’ve always sympathized with them. Just cause I’m a bit nervous about ‘em doesn’t mean I don’t understand. This guy is the same.”

“That’s not-” Tommy grumbled to himself. “The problem is nobody’s ever mentioned the guy before. Nightfolk talk, big man, they’re the source for like half of the town’s rumors and lore and shit. But they also have shit they only talk about to other nightfolk, like safe people and places, and I’ve never heard of him.”

Neither of them brought attention to the implications there. They both wanted to believe Tommy hadn’t spent too long on the streets to belong to the world of the sun. He was awake now, for instance. It was like ten in the morning! 

“That’s ‘cause he’s not housing anyone who needs it. He only fosters nightfollk, but adults can’t be fostered. And nightfolk kids are. You know.” Tubbo frowned, finally letting go of his smirk. 

Tommy did know. He wasn’t stupid, he knew he was different in a lot of ways. Fiercer than most kids his age, than most people in general. His paternal shit smear used to joke that Tommy was an acquired taste that hadn’t grown on him. One of many reasons he ran, and why he celebrated instead of grieved. 

Most kids and teens who slept in the streets at night didn’t survive the strangeness and the dangers, and the ones who did so long enough to adjust and become nightfolk like Tommy was on the cusp of usually ended up in the woods. For all the talk of it being a death sentence, there were several people who lived out there and they did just fine. 

They were all Witches, though. 

“Well,” Tommy said as decisively as he could, “I guess I’m moving. Wanna help me pack?”

The strangest thing about the man who’d answered the door and taken Tommy on a whirlwind tour of his honestly spacious and lovely home was that he was so fucking normal. It was downright suspicious how normal the guy seemed. 

Aside from his lankiness, nerdiness, and shit-awful fashion sense, at least. 

“Now that you’re all moved in,” one weirdly normal Wilbur Soot said with a happy clap of his hands, “let’s just go over the ground rules from the papers so you can ask questions and what-not.” 

Tommy almost snorted at the shitty joke. All he’d had was a duffel bag of clothes and his sleeping bag. He’d tossed them into the room Wilbur said was his during the tour, and that was that. “Sure.” 

Seemingly immune to Tommy’s lethal sarcasm, Wilbur just smiled again. “So, you’ll get the full dad treatment from yours truly, which means clothes and food and trying not to spoil you too much,” there was a headache forming behind Tommy’s eyeballs, “but that doesn’t mean I’m gonna try to control you. You survived on your own for years, I’m gonna be offering support, not demanding compliance.”

Hm. That was kind of refreshing and relieving, actually, even if it was probably riddled with caveats. “So I can go out whenever?” Tommy figured it was best to get the biggest one out there first. Or, second biggest. 

Since he expected a no, Tommy was genuinely shocked when Wilbur just nodded. “Yeah, of course. Your days are yours, and as far as schooling goes there hasn’t been truancy in Brumman for decades. If there’s anything you need to learn, I’ll just teach it to you myself during meals.” He chuckled and flashed Tommy a wink. “Since those are the only times you won’t just leave to be free of me.” 

Damn. This guy was smart. 

“I’ll get you a phone, though,” Wilbur said with a more serious expression, “and one of very few things I want to insist on is that you text me to come get you if you’re scared.” 

That was nice, actually, especially because it was the perfect opportunity to toss out that actual biggest problem. “That’s not gonna do much at four in the morning when you’re asleep.” 

This time Wilbur’s response shocked Tommy so much his jaw dropped. “Oh, my brother’s nightfolk, I’ll give you his number too.”

“What?” Tommy’s voice was perhaps a bit harsh. Just a smidge. Only lightly sprinkled with fury. “You’ll foster a random kid but leave your own brother in the streets?” 

Instead of looking chagrined like Tommy expected, (although frankly it was becoming apparent that none of his expectations for Wilbur were accurate) Wilbur just chuckled with a soft little smile that may have had some sadness to it. Some pity flavored sadness, more specifically. Which it better not have.

“Despite everything you’ve been through, Tommy, you’re still a kid.” Wilbur’s voice was very gentle, but that didn’t stop it from pissing Tommy off. “Techno has a house of his own. He just sleeps during the day. You must have met people like him, right?”

Well. Yes, actually, but Tommy knew they wouldn’t last long because everyone knew that. “Once someone’s a nightfolk there’s a timer above their heads, everyone knows that. How long until your brother goes loony?” 

The sad little smile only got sadder. “As a nightfolk yourself, you should know reality doesn’t perfectly align with common knowledge.”

At that, Tommy scowled. “I’m not a fuckin’ nightfolk, asshole, I wake up before sunset and go to sleep after dawn.” 

The smile finally left Wilbur’s face. Now he looked kind of concerned, which had some other emotions bubbling up along Tommy’s anger that he didn’t know what to do with. “Tommy, ‘nightfolk’ isn’t a whole separate thing, it’s just a word. One used to refer to people who prefer the night to the day. It’s normal all around the world, it’s only towns like ours that it’s seen as strange. Truth is, there’s a lot of people that would count as ‘nightfolk’ around here, they just stay indoors at night. The reason people think nightfolk go strange is because spending all night outside forces you to adapt to it.” 

Tommy did not want to accept or think about that. He did not want to because that very well described him; even as far back as kindergarten, he liked to stay up as late as he could and nap as much as possible during the day. It was fine, back then, nap time was a Thing. But then adults wanted him to stop. Wanted him to ‘grow out of it.’ 

Personally, Tommy thought some people needed to grow out of their own closed mindedness and bullshit. 

“So I’ll text your brother then,” was all he said, and he said it flatly. “You’re not even gonna ask why I’m still gonna go outside? Seems irresponsible.” 

Wilbur laughed, once more doing something Tommy was one hundred percent sure he wouldn’t have because this was just fucking unreasonable now. “Tommy, my favorite time of year is winter because it gets dark early enough for me to walk around at night without fucking up my sleep schedule too bad. I know perfectly well how calm it usually is.”

Usually. That was a very honeyed sort of word to use when talking about, through its absence, the chaos of the world of darkness. 

“I’m going to bed,” was all Tommy had left to say. “I’m tired and- I wanna like, process. And stuff.” 

That Wilbur let him do so was so weird that Tommy forgot to notice that Wilbur had all but told him that he’d had to adjust his sleeping habits before. 

Meeting up with Tubbo was easier than ever, now, primarily because Tommy had an address. Super convenient, those things. The only problem was Tubbo was still nervous and concerned as the weeks passed because Tommy’s sleep cycle wasn’t changing. 

“It’s just concerning,” Tubbo said from Tommy’s new, actual bed. Tommy himself was sitting cross legged on the soft, carpeted floor with a bit of tarp in front of him, upon which rested his current project: an old video game controller he was taking apart. 

“Wassat now?” Tommy mumbled distractedly. He’d started doing this kinda shit several days ago. He’d mentioned that he was curious about electronics and how they worked at his dinner and Wilbur’s breakfast, and then at 7pm breakfast the next day Wilbur had handed him a case of stupidly small screwdrivers and a busted controller with a tattered old manual. 

Apparently the guy actually meant it when he said he’d help Tommy learn things he wanted to. Best of all, he understood. Tommy had no idea how the fucker could read him so well, but the string bean in human flesh had figured that letting Tommy get into it by himself first and just come in to help later on would like. Let Tommy actually get into things instead of abandoning them immediately out of frustration over being coddled. 

That was a good way to put it actually, Tommy made a mental note of it: Wilbur knew how to support without coddling. That was one thin fucking tightrope to walk on. 

“I came by after school and you were sleeping,” Tubbo said. “It’s almost been a month.”

Unwilling to get into an argument, again, Tommy just rolled his eyes and said “Took me two some years to get it this out of whack,” that was a bitter lie he’d only recently come to terms with, this was his normal and he’d never been taught that was possible, “it’s gonna take more than a single month to get it back to normal.” To sabotage and torture himself into an unnatural sleep cycle for the comfort of others. 

It’d been a month now, near enough, of Wilbur’s constant casual support of his personal differences. Tommy wasn’t afraid to admit he was a nightfolk anymore. Left to his body’s natural devices, he woke late in the day and slept early in the morning. That was just how his brain worked. 

Mostly it was the way Wilbur just refused to act like it was strange. He acted like it was normal for Tommy to sleep through the day and enjoy the night, and at some point Tommy had internalized that. 

“I guess,” Tubbo sighed. “At least you don’t go outside after sunset anymore.”

“I’ve been busy,” Tommy said nonchalantly, which was true. He had a TV in his bedroom, sat upon his dresser against the wall opposite his bed. The window was on the wall opposite the door, with his bed and dresser (and his other stuff) flanking them. It was the worst place to put a TV for most people, the glare from the window was unavoidable. 

But Tommy didn’t have to worry about that. 

“I’ve missed out on like two years of late night television Tubs,” Tommy said around his tongue, sticking out of his mouth as he tried to pop the transceiver microchip off the board without shattering it using the smallest screwdriver he had access to. Tommy was 100% sure it was just a spare from the maintenance kit for Wilbur’s dorky fucking glasses. Still had no idea how to feel about that, actually. 

“What kinda shit is even on at like two in the morning?” Tubbo seemed genuinely curious, which was very nice actually. In the past, Tubbo asked about Tommy’s nights out of worry, but now it was out of curiosity. The difference was pleasant, in ways Tommy couldn’t quite name yet. 

“Tons of stations have night blocks where the whole lineup is totally different, actually,” Tommy explained around his tongue again because this fucking chip was being rude. “Lot of foreign shows, actually. Lost an entire fucking week to telenovelas.” 

“What’s a telenovela?” Tubbo quirked his head. 

“It’s some next level shit is what it is,” Tommy grumbled. “Think soap opera but twice as dramatic, if you can believe that. There’s tons of jokes about people learning Japanese from anime but I’ve heard ‘puta’ so many times it’s starting to sneak into my vocabulary.” 

“Alright, what’s that mean?” Tubbo asked a little impatiently. He never was a fan of being led around a point. 

“Whore.” Tommy looked up at Tubbo with a smirk. “Say it in hearing range of your dad and tell me what his expression looks like.” 

“He’s not dating that guy!” Tubbo huffed defensively. ‘That guy’ was one mister Quackity Lastname, because Tommy either hadn’t ever been told it or forgot already, and he spoke Spanish and had a suspicious amount of money for someone who’d moved into this cursed town by himself and didn’t have a job, and he was so visibly down bad for Tubbo’s dad that even Tommy knew about it. 

“Las putas no te aman,” Tommy chuckled. “I had to google that one but man is it accurate.”

“This is discrimination,” Tubbo pouted, “I’m gonna sue you.”

Tommy just cackled, letting the half dissected controller plop onto the sheet holding the screws and buttons and other screwdrivers. “You think I have money?!”

Then Tommy had to bolt out of his room before Tubbo could actually hit him with his own pillow. 

A few days later, Tommy was getting antsy. It was nearly midnight and the sky was so clear outside his bedroom window and nothing good was on TV and he was bored of doomscrolling the internet on his shiny new phone. Wilbur really didn’t skimp with this whole ‘supporting and supplying’ thing. It was weird. Not in the least because Tommy didn’t know where Wilbur was getting money for everything; the man definitely didn’t work enough, unless he was getting paid like thousands of dollars an hour considering he was only out of the house like three hours a day at most. 

Nothing to do. No-one to talk to. Tubbo was asleep, and Tommy didn’t have any other friends. And he couldn’t really make new ones since nobody was awake at these hours.

Although that just wasn’t true, was it?

Tommy did his best to be quiet as he pulled on a jacket and put his shoes on and just walked right out the front door. He locked it behind him, and then he was off. 

Brumman was a big town, in all honesty, it just felt small. For most people. Tommy was wising up to some of the carefully hidden truths of Brumman life, though, realities nobody wanted to explain to children because they wished these truths would stop. 

A good part of why Brumman felt so small was because there were a lot of people living there that slept during the day. Not most, not much, not even a ton, but definitely a lot. Maybe ten, fifteen percent of the population? It wasn’t the number of them so much as it was the percentage, plus all the other factors, that made it seem smaller than it was. 

As Tommy rounded a corner and came in view of the park near Wilbur’s house, near Tommy’s house, the lamp-posts were enough for him to see a small gaggle of people. So he walked over, a smile growing on his face with every step. 

“Hey there!” one of them waved at him as he approached. “Never seen ya around here before. You new to this?”

Tommy chuckled as he came up to the picnic table the four others were milling around and on. Two of them had just glanced at him before returning to their conversation about the best chips in town, which was more of an argument so heated Tommy knew the people were best friends. The other one was reading a book and basking in the company. 

“No, been over two years now. I just moved into the neighborhood last month and finally got settled.” Tommy reached out a hand. “Nice to meet ya, though!”

The friendly stranger shook his hand with a smaller but genuine smile. “Right back at ya. You’re a bit young to be out unsupervised though, aren’t you?” The smile had faded into concern. 

Tommy sat down on the bench and sighed, and then rested his elbows on the table. “You guys aren’t roamers, I take it?” 

The one reading a book glanced up at him in alarm, but the other two were screaming at each other too loudly to have heard him. It was still just the waver who responded, though. “No,” they said sadly and softly, “we’re not.”

To the day people, nightfolk were a hegemony of homeless people made strange by exposure to the chaos of night outside safe walls. As Tommy had come to learn, however, the reality was that plenty of people just weren’t wired for a daytime focused sleep cycle and they comprised the overwhelming majority of nightfolk. 

Amongst themselves, there were distinctions. A lot of them, actually, entire social cliques and structures unknown to the people sleeping away the night, but there were two primary groups. One of them comprised every other kind of nightfolk, and the other was the hegemony day people thought of; the roamers. 

It turned out that a lot of nightfolk had stable homes. There were nightfolk raising nightfolk, although that was rarer because finding jobs with night hours was not easy, let alone ones with stable full time night shifts. Point was, a lot of them were never taught and forced to be day people. They were comfortable with themselves. 

Then there were the others, the roamers, the people tossed out of their homes by people who couldn’t bear their perceived strangeness anymore. The homeless, the stranded, the rejected and scorned. 

“Anyways,” Tommy changed the subject as fast as he could, “what’s the local scene like around here? I never really made my way over to this part of town back before I got taken in by my foster dad. Mostly I roamed around the library district.” It was a mostly business filled area of town but there were also residentials. It was about a twenty square block chunk of town, good enough for Tommy’s purposes. “The park over there is bigger than this one but not as, like. Calm?”

“That park is over decorated as hell,” the waving stranger huffed, “but uh. That neighborhood is really risky. How the hell did you manage out there?”

The stranger shifted nervously, and the light of the four bulbed lamp-post in the center of the park that they were sat near glinted off something clipped to their belt. Tommy realized it was a water bottle. 

One of the yellers had a massive backpack, and the other one had a smaller but decent sized bag slung over a shoulder. The reader and the waver didn’t have such things, but there were a lot of pockets on their trousers and they all looked full. 

Tommy was suddenly aware of the fact that they had supplies. They were prepared.

They had to have been armed, too. Guns didn’t work very well on most of the nasty creatures and nightmares you could run into, but the main reason nightfolk used melee weapons was because guns woke up the day people, and they did not like it when that happened. 

Noise ordinances were bullshit, but the fact they were far harsher at night was especially shitty. They didn’t give a shit about disturbing nightfolks’ sleep, after all, you can run a lawnmower whenever you want if the sun’s up, but if you have a laugh with your mate at 2am then you’re being inconsiderate and disturbing the peace. ‘People are trying to sleep!’ People are always trying to sleep. 

Either deal with being a bit inconsiderate in favor of the things you need done, which is understandable, or just fucking admit you don’t care about people that are different from you. Tommy couldn’t stand the double standards and hand wringing and double-speak. 

“I made do,” was Tommy’s response to the actual statement that’d been made. “I knew how to run and hide from the shit I had to, and how to smell the difference in the air that meant there were gaps in it.”

“I’m sorry you had to learn that,” the reader said softly. Their voice was a lot more feminine than Tommy had expected. “But at least it explains why you aren’t equipped.” 

“Plus my house is literally two blocks away,” Tommy snickered. “But yeah, I don’t plan on encountering things I don’t want to. I saw you guys from a ways away, just wanted to mingle for a bit. Been kinda lonely.” 

The waver smiled again. “It was nice to meet you, kid.”

Tommy stood up and laughed a little. “Yeah yeah, nice to meet ya! Hope your pals over there,” he nodded at the arguers, “settle their debate before you go deaf.”

“We’re used to it,” the reader said with a snicker of their own. “Goodbye, bouncer.”

Shit, he thought he’d hidden the happy bounce in his step at meeting people. He was almost tempted to just tell them his name so he wasn’t stuck with ‘bouncer,’ but he knew better. 

You don’t give your name to strangers at night. If you make friends and grow close, you can share them when the sun is up, but never at night. Speaking the names of others is fine if you know them, but you must never share your name with someone who doesn’t know it at night. Never. 

The moon’s light was borrowed from the sun, but it wasn’t strong enough to keep the darkness from listening. 

So Tommy just nodded goodbye and left, content with the transience of human connection. He’d met some people and talked to them; he was fulfilled for tonight. He was gonna walk around the area a bit more just to get familiar, but he wouldn’t be interacting with anyone else. Not if he could help it.

Three hours later it turned out he couldn’t help it, actually. He’d fucking forgotten that three in the morning was the witching hour, and now he was leaning against a metal fence and trying not to have a panic attack. 

“Move,” was all the Boar Witch said to him. Tommy was just chilling by the gate to a private park, back slumped against the wrought iron poles of the gate. Then the Boar Witch showed up, a half dozen fucking monstrosities of bone and foul magic to his sides and behind him, and told him to get out of the way. 

His heart was hammering in his chest so hard he felt like he was being punched. Tommy could literally feel his heart hitting his sternum. It hurt. He was terrified. The only thing to do was run and text Wilbur’s stupid brother.

But he was frozen, and the gloaming red lights in the witch’s boar skull helmet seemed to narrow at him. “Now.” The man’s voice sounded like it was coming from the bottom of a well. 

Tommy unfroze, but unfortunately his mouth came loose before his thoughts. “Fuckin’ make me bitch.”

Even the shifting clacks of the witch’s monsters of bone stopped. The Boar Witch very, very clearly had absolutely no immediate response to this because nobody could ever be stupid enough to fucking say that.

The horror exploding through his body did a wonderful job of returning his clarity, at least, but he was still motionless, just for different reasons. Awkwardness and shock, mostly. As the seconds passed in total silence, Tommy only grew ever more incredulous that he wasn’t dead. 

Then his clever, clever brain kicked into full gear. He had seconds left to determine a way to push forwards before the Boar Witch came to his own decision. He had no choice; he had to Bugs Bunny this shit. 

“I mean honestly, guy’s just fuckin’ relaxing and you come up to him and say that? Don’t even ask?” Tommy forced as much incredulity into his voice as he could, as well as condescension. “You’re a local celebrity, not god. Have some manners.”

As long as he kept the Boar Witch confused by his sheer fucking audacity, he’d make it out of this. 

“There are resources in that park I have come to collect,” the witch’s voice rumbled deeply from the bottom of that well, the sound of stones grinding so slowly in the water. 

“And I’m relaxing after a nice jog,” Tommy replied. “Are you going to ask me to move like a human person or are you just gonna state the obvious and stare at me? I’m fourteen, mate. Bad optics.”

“I have literally killed people,” the witch’s voice was a little more wavery now. “I don’t care about public opinion.”

“Then it shouldn’t be so fucking difficult for you to say two bloody words, namely ‘please’ and ‘move.’ You even already said one of them.” He gave the murderous and powerful necromancer a look of bemused disbelief, like he wasn’t about to piss his pants and pass out from fear. “How do you not know how to do this?!”

Some of the Boar Witch’s confusion was wearing off. His voice had some extra reverb to it when he said “Move before I make you.”

“Oh you mean literally the first thing I said to your disrespectful ass? You remember, you were there three minutes ago. You said ‘move,’ I said ‘fuckin’ make me,’ and then you didn’t?” Some of the incredulity in Tommy’s voice wasn’t fake now. He genuinely couldn’t understand why the witch was still just talking to him. The guy could disassemble all 206 bones in Tommy’s body in two minutes. 

“Just move.” The Boar Witch literally growled. Tommy was pretty sure he heard an alligator sound effect in there. 

“You mispronounced ‘please’ again,” Tommy pointed out with a raised brow. He crossed his arms and just stared at the fucking BOAR WITCH HOW WAS THIS HAPPENING RIGHT NOW?

Tommy’s panicked confusion got a relief, at least, when the witch spoke next. Unfortunately, what the man said was-

“Please move.”

He’d already stepped to the side before he could even process that the Boar Witch, who literally rose the dead and frequently turned people into fleshy abominations with vile brews and even once actually nailed a demon corpse to the mayor’s front fucking door, had said ‘please.’ To him. To Tommy. 

The Boar Witch just pretended Tommy wasn’t there and forced the solid, wrought iron, sealed and locked gate open with a screech of metal bending and snapping like clay, and then walked in. 

Tommy stood there and numbly watched the boney little nightmares trundle after their dark master, one by one. The last one was a fucking massive shoulder blade, maybe from a goddamn bear, with about thirty pairs of squirrel legs on the bottom so it could scuttle. No skull, no arms, nothing but a huge plate of bone scuttling across the ground. Tommy was 100% certain it looked at him somehow. 

“I refuse to believe you said please,” Techno’s lanky little brother said when they met up for a hangout. Wilbur got to pick this time so they were at an outdoors cafe at six in the afternoon. Sunset was a few hours away so the foot traffic was low. 

“I had no choice,” Techno protested over his overpriced croissant. “He cast aspersions upon me.”

“A literal child,” Wilbur said flatly, hands curled around the hot cup of tea he hadn’t even sipped from once. “One as old as mine. Gave you the business. And you expect me to offer support here?”

“I expected you to laugh yourself unconscious,” Techno said flatly, “and I’m proud of your restraint. Your generosity knows no bounds. Also Tommy’s not your son, you’re just fostering him.”

Wilbur smiled at him, but Techno could see the twitch in his brother’s eyebrow. “He’s already so much like a son to me that I see no reason to refer to him as anything else.”

“He moved in five weeks ago and has already stolen from you.” 

“That doesn’t matter,” Wilbur rolled his eyes. “I’ve stolen more shit from you than I can remember. And we’re not blood family either. Are you saying I’m not your brother just because we met for the first time when you were a teenager?”

“We aren’t brothers by adoption either,” Techno pointed out, “which already isn’t what fostering is.”

“Wait, really?” Wilbur blinked in genuine surprise. “I swear to god I’ve seen our documentation, we’re adopted!” 

Techno just looked Wilbur in the eye without speaking until his brother remembered the concept of forgery. It took forty nine seconds and Wilbur turned so red Techno thought he might actually start smoking. 

“Phil is our father, but hardly through conventional means. He hasn’t even stepped foot outside the woods in thirty years,” Techno drawled, “so I’m honestly surprised he had those documents forged at all.”

“Odds are good he heard me referring to myself as adopted and made it legally true as fast as possible,” Wilbur replied before finally, at long last, taking a single sip of his tea. He smiled warmly at the taste, as if Techno couldn’t tell he hated it. 

“Well I’m always happy to have something else to blame you for,” Techno shrugged. “Circling back to the kid, I am almost certain he was an orphan. Which explains everything, frankly. Orphans are the worst.”

“Literally both of us fit that bill,” Wilbur pointed out, “which I’m sure has nothing to do with that sentiment. Self loathing is so out of character for you.” Sarcastic prick. 

“He didn’t even have a knife,” the hidden Witch said flatly, which did actually get Wilbur’s genuine attention. “He was absolutely a roamer, Wilbur.”

“Which further begs the question of why you said please,” his brother pressed. “Obviously it’s good not to harm children, but children get hurt on their own and that hurt can be important to learn. You could have just moved him!” Wilbur almost put down his tea in exasperation. Almost. “Like physically picked him up and put him down to the side! Or used a spell to do that, or had your-” Wilbur cut himself off with a cough. “Had your familiar move him.” 

While attendance was low at this cafe due to the upcoming sunset, it was not zero and this was still in public. Worse, it was in public in broad daylight, as thin as it might have gotten. Mentioning spells was one thing; magic was a tool most could learn if they wished. Potions were relatively popular as holistic medicine, and familiars were just pets with some extra oomf; pet shows were almost exclusively filled with familiars, treated more like a sport than a pageant. The creation of a familiar was by far the most widespread type of magic, people with no interest in it would raise their pet to one so they wouldn’t die of age before their owner. 

Necromancy, however, was not something you should admit to. Ever. Not even if you only worked with animals, not even if it was with plants. To blur the line between death and life was to upset the natural order in ways one can’t come back from. It destroyed nature on a fundamental level and used the broken pieces like toys. 

Techno was careful, of course. Very careful. He did not lose control of his creations, which was the most dangerous aspect of necromancy by an unimaginable margin: when bringing something dead back to life, the thing was made alive, and living things wanted to survive, it was their most powerful instinct regardless of species or nature. Every living thing on earth, in all its near infinite variations, existed specifically to survive and reproduce.

Death was the only check to balance it. By replacing nutrients and water and biology with magic as the fuel and framework for existence, unlife was also unBOUND. If kudzu didn’t need water, soil, or sunlight to survive, even the clouds would be devoured. 

So keeping unlife shackled was the ultimate priority of necromancy, but whether or not one was successful it was still an affront that could not be tolerated by basically anybody who didn’t practice it. There was no reason, ever, to do it. If you needed constructs, you could make one out of anything. Even bones, since constructs and necromancy were fundamentally different, but that was very risky and looked identical so nobody would dare. If you needed a unique entity outside existing life, you could make your own. Humans did that with dogs and corn before the first spell was even cast. 

To risk such horrific destruction as the undead posed was unacceptable. Everything necromancy could do was achievable by other means and those other means were safer, easier, and more effective. Every single thing that vile art could do was easily done without risking the ruination of entire environments.  

Except for one. Except for the most selfish and irresponsible and disgusting thing of all.

To live forever was to conquer death. 

“They would have hurt him,” Techno replied with a huff. “I don’t want ‘hurts kids’ to end up in my reputation. It’s already scary enough out there.”

That, unfortunately, was the last clue his brother needed to piece it all together. “Oh my god,” Wilbur breathed, “you’re trying to look out for Tommy! You’re practicing! For Tommy! You are literally trying to figure out how to talk to a fucking teenager and you’re doing it as-” he cut himself off again before he mentioned the whole Boar Witch thing but this time Wilbur cut himself off with a laugh. 

Actually Techno wasn’t sure Wilbur had even cut himself off or if he’d just genuinely burst out laughing. Either way the secret was kept and Techno was humiliated. 

“This isn’t, like, the best way to figure out how to talk to my kid, you know,” Wilbur pointed out with a smirk. Bastard. “The best way is to come visit and be yourself.”

That might have been the most subtle he’d ever seen his brother be. Thank god that subtlety meant he had very good reason not to comment on it; he already never would have so it was nice having a built-in excuse. 

“I’m waiting for him to settle,” Techno sighed before finally taking a bite of his stupid croissant. It wasn’t great but it wasn’t bad. Might even have been good, if he was in a better mood. Maybe. “It’s only been a month. He’s probably not even used to the neighborhood at night yet. Pretty sure if I unlocked the door while he was home and you were asleep he’d jump me with your meat cleaver.”

“Okay yeah probably,” Wilbur frowned into his tea. “He’s making great progress, though. I’ll talk to him and set up a day for you to come over sometime next month.” Wilbur beamed. “As long as he doesn’t get scared and text you to pick him up it’ll be a fun first meeting!”

One in the morning was a fun time of day for Techno. At least, it was supposed to be: he had his six best helpers along, out for a hunt tonight. There were a lot of things that dwelled in the city at night, only at night, things that were banished by the sun to a place far away and in the same spot. Monsters, and the like. 

It was ‘the like’ Techno and his hunting hounds (for lack of a better word besides abominations) were after. Specifically, the greasy, oily trail of what might count as a ghost in another world. All it counted as around here was a stuttering and shattered bundle of hunger and malice wrapped up in energies not even Techno could handle.

Much.

Hence the hunt, really: while he couldn’t personally use this fucked up nightmare juice, he could certainly juice this thing’s enraged half spectral tissues and distill it down into a very potent ingredient. Still wasn’t sure what he wanted to make with it but he was leaning towards a weapon.

So yes. A fun time for him. If only. He’d tracked it far and its trail went down a narrow passage between a building’s exterior wall and the neighboring building’s decorative rock garden. Except, just as he’d turned the corner, the wisp-lights of his helmet shimmering with anticipation he’d encountered an obstacle. 

“This is stalking, is what you’re doin’ to me,” the infuriating brat from the other night said to him. The fucker was leaning, again, against the brick wall to Techno’s right and the brat’s left. Casual as can be. 

Obviously, Techno could detect fear. It was one of many wonderful abilities imbued into the boar skull he wore as a helmet; it itself was a necromantic construct tied to Techno’s soul, and because of that it was able to do things itself, things Techno could not. So he’d known, the other night, that the kid had still been terrified of him. He could literally smell it. 

That scent was nearly absent tonight. Wilbur was right, he seriously should have moved the kid by force, god damn it.

“I am hunting,” Techno growled out. Or rather, his helmet did. The Boar Witch was as much Techno as it was the magics and beings he’d collected grown and created. When he spoke as the Witch, it was the corrupted soul of the Boar that spoke for him. “You are in the way.”

“Hunting down your own rap sheet?” The kid asked incredulously. Then his stupid face pinched up in a frown. “Do witches get arrested?” 

“Attempts have been made,” Techno’s scowl was hidden entirely but that was kind of the point of a mask. “My quarry is very dangerous and very powerful. Leave for your own safety, I must eliminate this being.” 

The kid stuck a finger in his ear and wiggled it a bit, clearing some wax or just as a disrespectful gesture. Considering it was the middle finger, Techno was pretty sure the brat was just being, well, a brat. “Looks like an oil slick made of smoke, sounds like distant screaming, smells like rotten fruit? That what you’re after?”

“How are you alive,” Techno deadpanned. The words came out metallic. 

“Hid away, di’nt I?” Little shit was pretending that made sense, for some reason. 

“That is not-” if it wasn’t for his helmet he’d have pinched the bridge of his nose. “This thing doesn’t have senses we can understand. How could you possibly hide from it?”

“Close your eyes for ten seconds and I could hide from you,” the blond little shit declared. “I’m good at hiding, the best actually. Nobody better in the whole world. I dare you to close your eyes so I can prove it.”

The trail was getting ever colder but his previous experience with this child taught him well; the only way he was getting past him without using force was to indulge him. So, with a sigh, the wisp-fires of his helmet blinked out. “You have ten seconds.”

It was entertaining to see the little shit’s smug smirk. Because the lights were ornamental and Techno’s eyes were wide open, he could still see just fine. For all his grandstanding, this kid was still a kid. 

Then the kid hopped over the fence and plopped down by a pretty bush, wiggling part way into it, and he- settled.

Techno had watched him do it. He’d followed the kid every step of the way with his gaze, and he could still plainly and visibly see where the kid was. And yet the second he blinked, he couldn’t see him. 

Since he knew exactly where the kid was, he was able to find him again, but it took some real scrutiny and it was long after the ten seconds were up and his gloam-lights were on before his brain firmly locked in the entirety of the kid’s visible form.

Which was lost all over again when he blinked once more.

“What the hell.” That literally had to be magic. It wasn’t structured spellcraft, and it wasn’t an innate magical proclivity- this was clearly something the kid had learned to do, judging by how he briefly snapped back into easy view from what Techno assumed was delight at his words. Frantically guessing, Techno concluded that the kid learned how to do this the way any skill was learned: he’d just been trying to hide, and over time had gotten inhumanly good at it. 

“Told ya,” the confusing bastard said, and proved that he wasn’t nearly good enough: the second he spoke, the effect buckled, and while he was able to put it back up Techno was finding it easier and easier to maintain sight of him with every blink. 

Even with an incredible skill, one strong enough to avoid the Boar Witch, he was still a kid. 

So Techno sighed and turned away, and cheated. The senses of his followers were very different from his own, and he could share experiences with them as he wished. That camouflage wasn’t nearly as easy to sense magically as Techno expected, it was an incredibly strange working he really wished he had time to study, but it was still there. 

When a waist high, six limbed skeletal creation with a boar skull and a collar made of grasping hands skittered right towards him faster than he could see and grasped him with those neck-hands, the kid bit his mouth so hard he winced just to swallow his scream of fear. 

“Like I said,” Techno grumbled as his follower scampered back over and plopped the terrified little brat on his feet before him, “how are you going to hide from senses you don’t understand?”

As the kid opened his mouth to almost certainly swear at him, Techno raised his hand to cut him off. One of his creations sensed their quarry, and it was coming back to their location. This was good for Techno, it meant he’d be getting this over with much sooner.

It wasn’t so good for the child radiating ‘come eat my mind’ energies standing in front of him. “It’s coming back. Odds are good it did notice you, but was too busy running from me. Now that we’re both just standing here it’s likely chosen to deal with me.”

“How does me being here justify it attacking you if it was running away from you?” In most scenarios, the brat would have had a good point with that. 

“Because minds and souls are powerful things. It didn’t have time to eat yours, but now it has an opportunity to use it to kill me.” Most likely it would just rip the kid’s essence open and let the energy flood out. Since it was from such a different reality, it would be fine; anything from this one, like Techno and the surrounding buildings, wouldn’t be.

Luckily the kid was taking it seriously. His face had gone pale and Techno could smell a thick and cloying fear coming from him. Techno took the opportunity to drive the point home. “If you’re gone, I’m fine and it’s dead. You need to get out of here immediately.”

Frantic nodding was the kid’s immediate answer. Then he started fumbling through his pocket. “Yeah, yeah absolutely, I’m gonna- my dad gave me, a, I have someone to call. He can pick me up from a safe spot if I call him now.” 

That was reasonable, more so than Techno expected the little shit to be capable of, frankly. While the blond brat started dialing on his shiny new smartphone Techno got to work arranging his minions. They were more than just reanimated bone constructs: they had a lot of uses, but what he was doing now was using them as anchor points for a sealing array. Once their quarry was inside it, his creations could lock in place and activate a seal nothing could move through. Then, when he was done, they could deactivate it autonomously. Necromancy wasn’t unique in this utility but it was still notable. 

“Hope he picks up,” the kid mumbled as he hit the call button. 

Every single thought in Techno’s head went sailing merrily away when his flip-phone started ringing inside his robe. 

The kid slowly, very slowly, turned his head to look at Techno. Techno, however, didn’t have any thoughts right now, so he was on autopilot. He reached into his robe, just as slowly as the kid looked at him, and pulled it out before flipping it open with his thumb.

Techno raised the phone next to his helmet. “Yeah?”

Maintaining eye contact with the gloam-lights in Techno’s skullmet (how had he never thought of that before) the kid lifted his phone to his ear and said “You’re, uh. This is Techno, right? Wilbur’s brother?” 

Wilbur had gone over the routine he was supposed to follow if Tommy ever contacted him at night. He had done this many times, to an exhaustive degree. Which meant no thoughts were required for this part, either. “Yeah. You need me to pick you up, right?” Techno could hear the boar’s voice echoing from the kid’s- from Tommy’s phone.

“Yeah.” Tommy’s voice was stiff and wooden. “You uh. You’re right here, so. I’m going to hang up now.”

Tommy hung up.

Techno just held his phone by his skullmet (no he was gonna go back to helmet and mask and such, skullmet was too weird) for several quiet seconds before he flipped it closed and put it back in his robe. 

Another handful of seconds passed in silence.

“ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS?!” Holy shit, Tommy had a set of pipes on him. Fourteen years old (Techno was going to mark this detail for later, he looked fuckin’ twelve this was bullshit) and the scream he’d just let out had Techno wincing beneath his mask. 

“Hunt’s canceled,” Techno rumbled. His minions immediately sprang into motion, all of them converging back on his location. Tommy screamed a bit, it was great. “We’re leaving, now. Either I’m carrying you or one of my minions is, you have twenty seconds to decide because that thing will be here in thirty.” 

It took Tommy exactly three seconds, two of them spent utterly nonplussed, to point at the shambling bone construct that most closely resembled a horse. It wasn’t one, it didn’t have a single horse bone in it, in fact it was mostly cow bones, but it was the one Techno had planned on using to haul tonight’s gains back. “I’m riding Henry.”

They didn’t have time for this but Techno couldn’t help himself. “You can’t just name one of my creations.”

Tommy scoffed and hopped up onto the construct’s back. He even managed to hide the effect the magic had on him, not a single shiver or wince, but Techno knew touching unlife was not a pleasant experience. 

Since his helmet was an undead construct, he knew that better than anyone. 

“She doesn’t mind being named Henry, now do you girl?” Tommy crooned, and then actually tried to pet the bone monster. He just kind of gently slapped the boar skull a couple times. 

They actually didn’t have time for this, or Techno would have let himself Get Started; the shattered thing they officially needed to run from was close enough that Techno could smell it, and it smelled like- 

It smelled like things he didn’t have the time to think about. “Hold on tight, kid.” 

He had to give credit to the kid, Tommy didn’t even sass back until he’d firmly wrapped his fingers around a sturdy set of his mount’s ribs. “This better not hur-”

And then he was gone, although Techno could still hear his screams for a second as ‘Henry’ instantly started running at its maximum speed, which was considerably faster than physics should normally allow for such a thing. It wasn’t exactly running on the ground, after all; it was running In Between, mostly in their world but poking just a bit into another. Or maybe into nothing at all. Who knew? 

Techno knew how to make it work, that didn’t mean he could travel outside of existence to see exactly where his constructs were going when they slipped their bony toes through the universe. 

Out of a mixture of politeness and pragmatism, Techno waited three full seconds after Tommy had vanished to leave the area himself. He didn’t want to tangle up Henry’s path with his own magic, for one, and for two he really very seriously needed his exit to be the only one his quarry could find. If it sensed Tommy’s, it’d know he was alone and easy pickings, but if it sensed Techno’s then it wouldn’t dare. 

That was the politeness: the pragmatism was that if Techno got his brother’s kid killed, he was pretty sure he would not survive Wilbur’s response. While only Techno was a Witch, and a damned powerful one at that, Wilbur didn’t fuck around. If Techno killed his actual fucking child he’d go to sleep one day and Wilbur would come into his house with a shotgun and turn his sleeping skull into a modern art piece. 

They both made their father proud, just in different ways. 

Techno sighed, and left as well. He rarely bothered to do things impressively, he preferred for his efficiency to do the impressing by itself; if someone wasn’t impressed or intimidated by his sheer power and skill, then they’d learn better soon enough. So he simply vanished in a haze, his creations doing the same, and then he was somewhere else. 

Teleportation was very handy, but not very reliable. For one, it could only be done in unstable regions, pockets of reality that had come a bit loose. Brumman at night was one of them, but only at night, and because you could only teleport when existence was a bit wobbly it was also impossible to do it perfectly. 

Which was why Techno had teleported to the park by his brother’s house, instead of Wilbur’s front door. 

Not inside, though; building interiors weren’t unstable. In fact, ‘inside’ was impervious to all things Other and Strange. That was part of why Witches were more feared in town than the myriad types of Things that populated the night: a shivering wraith from beyond the veil or a hulking monster of scales and flesh could not come inside your home because they did not belong in this world. 

But Witches were people, and could simply walk through your door if they had the desire and gumption to do so and get past the defenses etched into the walls and doors and windows of everyone who planned to survive. 

The Boar Witch was one of those terrifying few that were known to do so on occasion. Although when he made it to Wilbur’s door, Techno didn’t have to break a single ward to get in. He just used his copy of the key to unlock it and slipped inside, dismissed his creations back to the sepulcher he stored them in with the exception of his helmet and the wand he had hidden away for emergencies (he couldn’t un-use it once he started and it was far more alive than his helmet could ever be) and then sat down in his favorite armchair. 

It was technically a gift, given to Techno by their dad, but he forced Wilbur to take it so he could bully his brother out of it whenever he visited. 

As fast as teleportation was, his creations weren’t too much slower. The primary reason for this was so they’d be able to catch up relatively quickly if he couldn’t teleport them with him; in this specific instance it was a detriment, because Techno barely had time to settle down before he felt his pack-mule come up near the front door to deliver its cargo. 

Not that he needed his connection to his constructs to know that: Tommy had long since given up on following any of the rules and was shouting extremely violently. Techno heard more curse words in the twenty seconds it took Tommy to unlock the door than he’d ever heard in his life before.

“You.” Tommy gave Techno a glare so full of anger that he started sweating under his helmet. Then he slammed the door behind him as hard as he could, which was hard enough for Techno to feel through the fucking floor. The picture frame Wilbur had by the front door, a photo of them and their dad at a park, actually shook from the force and ended up crooked. 

Techno dismissed his last construct, if only so people didn’t see it if they looked out their windows to see who was making so much noise. “I assume you have questions.” 

There was a fiery glint in Tommy’s eyes. “Oh, you’d better believe it, but there’s something I wanna do before all that.” At least the kid wasn’t literally growling at him. Yet. But there was something in his voice, his posture, that had Techno nervous. Techno. The Boar Witch. Nervous.  

“And what’s that?” At least the boar skull’s voice was ominous enough to cover for his mild nerves. 

Until Tommy opened his mouth, anyways. 

“DAD, HELP!!!!”

Deep in the comfort of sleep, Wilbur might have dreamed. Maybe he was remembering instead. That was why sleep was nice, really, you didn’t have to worry. You didn’t have to do anything, nothing at all. Not even think. You could just float through a welcome void and it would take you places, or it wouldn’t, because it didn’t matter: you were asleep. 

But while the mind floats away, untethered, the body does not- the brain does not. To sleep is not to stop existing, nor is it to stop living, it is only to rest: and rest is easily disturbed. 

His ears heard the shouting outside, but little to none of it trickled its way through his brain to percolate in his possible dreams. But then it just kept going, and droplets of disturbance swirled through his brain to color his mind. He began to drift closer to his own self, as sleep began to thin. 

Then there was a shuddering, a shake of the house itself, small but enough to be felt through his bed. His body felt it, and the sleep began to vanish like mist in sunlight. He was practically awake, now, eyes flickering. 

Wilbur opened his eyes and blinked blearily at the dark ceiling of his bedroom. What was going on? It was so hard to focus. He was only barely awake. 

A blood curdling scream slammed through the first floor ceiling and tore up through Wilbur’s floor. 

“DAD, HELP!!!!”

Wilbur’s blankets thumped ever so faintly against the wall as he threw them off his body with nearly enough force to tear the seams. He was halfway across his room by the time he realized he was standing, heart slamming in his chest like the world was ending. 

Bare feet slid against the carpet of his floor as he came to a stop by his door, his thoughts coming back online just in time for him to turn and tear open the closet door and plunge inside to rip the hidden door in the back off its tiny, secret hinges so he could wrap his hand around the stock of his shotgun. 

Modern guns were enchanted with a blood seal: the trigger would lock shut unless the gun was held by the person who’d bound it, and that bond was deep. Wilbur had a child, now, so he’d never been happier to have that protection, because he kept it loaded in case of situations like this. 

Nine seconds after he heard Tommy scream, Wilbur slammed his door open and hurtled down the hall, pushing off the wall by the stairs so he could redirect his momentum down them. He rolled, keeping the gun to his chest as he flew down the stairs. Bruises didn’t matter. His son had screamed for help and if he spared himself pain to find Tommy dead he would never smile again.

His finger was about to pull the trigger before he processed who he’d instinctually aimed at, and his body froze. 

“What the fuck?!” Wilbur panted hoarsely. He didn’t even realize how hard he’d been breathing until that moment. His chest was heaving.

His brother’s necromantic mask stared at him, but Wilbur knew Techno more than well enough to see through the obfuscation of gloam-lights and bone and tell what expression was beneath it. Tommy’s face, ironically, held an identical expression, but his was unhidden: complete shock. 

Even as his arms shook, Wilbur did not lower his gun: aiming wasn’t much of a concern with a shotgun at this range. Wilbur kept Tommy in his peripheral vision, mind straining to split his focus so totally. 

“Holy shit,” Tommy breathed. 

“Are you okay?!” Wilbur asked firmly. He did not take his eyes off his brother, he knew what Techno could do. He didn’t know what was going on, he didn’t know why his brother was here, he didn’t know anything except for a single fact: Tommy had screamed for help. So, Wilbur was going to. 

Tommy shuffled over to him, nervous but not afraid. Wilbur’s grip loosened, but he did not take his finger off the trigger. “Y-yeah. You can- put the gun down, yeah?” 

“You sure?” The shaking was worse, even his legs were wobbling. The bleached bone of the skull he’d helped Techno clean never left his gaze. 

A soft touch against his shoulder, Tommy’s own shaking hand. “Yeah.”

Everything left Wilbur in a wheezing sigh; his arms fell, hands shifting to move the stock to his left so his right could grasp Tommy’s on his shoulder. Wilbur’s entire body slumped, chest heaving more slowly as he caught his breath. He would have collapsed to the floor if Tommy hadn’t been there, some instinctual part of him recognizing the blood-deep need to stay upright so his child had somewhere to hide. 

And then, with the Moment passed, he was able to process everything else, all the things his brain had ignored in favor of Action. He was in his sleep wear, a soft white tank top and even softer grey sweatpants. His back and sides hurt, his feet were burning from rug burn, one of his fingernails was torn halfway off and three others were cracked. Every breath hurt his overtaxed lungs. 

It had been a minute and a half, and he’d been completely prepared to destroy his own brother to protect a kid he’d taken in a month and a half ago. 

He made a mental note to start the adoption process, and then he stumbled over to the sofa and collapsed into it, Tommy’s hand still held firmly in his own. Tommy sat down next to him, and Techno sat stiffly in the armchair. 

The three of them just breathed for a minute or two. They needed the time to come crashing down from the adrenaline, Wilbur especially. His bleeding index finger, half the nail gone and weeping tissues exposed, was making a mess of his and Tommy’s joined hands. Neither of them really noticed. 

Of all the thoughts burning through his head like wind in a wildfire, none of them were concerns about the impact this would have on his relationship with his family. Yes, he’d definitively chosen Tommy over his brother, but Wilbur and Techno both knew, and knew each other knew, that their father would have been heartbroken but would not have blamed Wilbur. 

Phil would never resent a father for protecting his child. He would sooner die. He’d lived for centuries, his force of will alone enough to beat back the final gasp of death, and yet he would throw all that work away to defend that most holy principle. 

“Explain,” Wilbur croaked eventually. 

“Hadn’t actually seen your kid,” Techno’s borrowed voice wavered in the silence. “Ya told me so much about him but I never saw him. Didn’t know he was the kid that’s been bugging me.”

“I’ve been dealing with this fucker since before you even took me in,” Tommy said, so many undercurrents in his tone that Wilbur couldn’t pick out a single one. Unnoticed by Wilbur, a Look passed between his brother and son, and Tommy huffed and said “Well, I saw him sometimes before you took me in, but I never spoke to him until after.”

There was a tension in the room, unsurprisingly. Techno did not like being surprised or caught unawares, and Wilbur already knew even after only a month and a half that Tommy was incapable of not taking things personally. So it was easy to understand what had led to this situation. 

Unfortunately, while Techno had power in the extreme and their father had wisdom that outshone the ages, Wilbur was clever. His wit was sharp enough to cleave schemes to bits, and there were precious few things he couldn’t piece together if he put his mind to it. 

Since he was completely dedicated to being as good a father to Tommy as possible, he was able to connect the implications behind many of these details into a very, very upsetting picture. 

Techno shifted nervously when Wilbur lifted his gaze off the floor and raised his head. He knew Wilbur well enough to tell that he was about to display just how little he cared for anything other than cutting directly to the heart of matters. 

“What have I done wrong, Tommy?” Wilbur didn’t whisper it, he simply stated it, although his voice was still a bit rough from exertion. “What should I do?”

If there was absolutely anything Tommy had expected him to say, it very clearly wasn’t that. Some distantly amused part of Wilbur thought that Tommy would have been less surprised if all of Wilbur’s skin fell off in front of him. 

“What are you talking about?” Tommy’s eyes were practically sticking out of his head. 

Wilbur sighed, and turned to fully face Tommy. He was going to lay it all out, and he needed Tommy’s attention for that. “I was fine with you going outside at night because I assumed you were being careful, that you would use the supplies I have in the house to be safe. I gave you Techno’s number not for emergencies but so you would have someone to text and chat with for guidance and support when I was asleep and couldn’t provide it. When Techno told me about the kid he was annoyed with he described a child without support, without safety, with nothing to defend themselves beyond their wit and instincts. I thought you understood that you were provided for, now. You’ve taken so well to me, you let me help, you let me provide. I thought that meant you understood how much I care.

But you were shocked to see me just now, with a gun ready to save you. You go outside at night, into dangers beyond understanding, as if there was nobody in the world that you could lean on. You never told me about any of the things you did or saw at night, you told me nothing happened every time I asked but you were being hounded by the Boar Witch! Facing undead monstrosities and hiding from death itself! I’m your dad, now, Tommy. I’m supposed to help you.”

Wilbur couldn’t keep the sorrow out of his voice at the end of that explanation, due in part to seeing Tommy’s expression twist and sour and fill with shame and regret. The very last thing Wilbur wanted was to make Tommy feel any of those things. But sometimes those emotions were appropriate. 

“Clearly you didn’t believe, deep down, that I love you as my son, but that’s how I see you. I need to work on expressing it, apparently.” Wilbur didn’t sigh, if only because he didn’t want Tommy feeling even worse. In a perfect world they’d never have to have this conversation at all, but in a perfect world Tommy would have been his child the day he was born. 

“We met like two months ago,” Tommy mumbled. He was clearly irritated on top of everything, because Wilbur knew him more than well enough to know that Tommy hated to be wrong or mistaken about things. It was one thing to not know something, but it was another to be fooled by bias or circumstance. 

It had made teaching him especially interesting; the amount of times Tommy had sworn violence upon previous teachers were too many to count. 

“A father can love their child the very instant they see them after they’re born. The same is true for people who adopt; the moment they find their child, they love them. Just because it took us a while to find each other doesn’t change that,” Wilbur explained as gently as he could. But not as softly as he could; the last thing Tommy needed right now was to be coddled. 

“Why didn’t you tell me your brother was the BOAR WITCH?!” The simmering irritation sparked into anger at the chance for an outlet, and Wilbur certainly couldn’t blame him. 

“Well, primarily because he’s the Boar Witch,” Wilbur replied dryly. “Not exactly something easy to talk about. Plus,” he added when Tommy opened his mouth, “he wouldn’t have been the Boar Witch to you, he would have just been Techno. Which brings me to-” he turned, harshly, to glare at his brother. “Why the fuck you’ve been harassing my child.”

“Already told ya I didn’t know it was him. You never showed me a single picture, how was I supposed to know?” Techno wasn’t usually this defensive, usually he just owned up to what he did, but, well. Again, Wilbur couldn’t find it in himself to blame him. Not after he nearly ate a shotgun blast point blank in the mouth. That’d make anyone nervous. 

Except their dad, but Phil didn’t count in most comparisons. Man was an outlier.

“Besides,” Techno said once he got himself back under control enough to slap right back as good as he got, “I talked about the kid constantly and YOU didn’t recognize him either. You should have shown me a picture, Wil! What kind of father doesn’t take dozens of pictures of their kids every day?”

“Most?” Tommy cut in. “That’s like, super excessive. The hell is up with your dad?”

“A lot,” Wilbur and Techno spoke in unison.

Suddenly, Techno went completely still. Even the gloam-lights of his helmet stopped flickering, and when he spoke his voice came out unaltered by the soul of the boar. “Hey, Wil?”

Battered and exhausted as he was, Wilbur felt the adrenaline crash back through him at Techno’s demeanor. “What?” His voice was full of dread because, somehow, some way, some part of him was responding as if he, too, knew what was wrong but hadn’t processed it yet.

Tommy was nervous as hell, but Wilbur already knew that he’d be completely spared the consequences. 

Before Wilbur could finally realize the errors of his ways, Techno answered him.

“Have you told dad about Tommy yet?”

Oh dear.

Deep in a forest by a broken town, a crow flew expertly between the trees. It was a normal crow, part of a healthy enough murder, simply looking for something to eat. It had left the murder to scout and also, frankly, because it was irritated by the other members. They were being especially loud and annoying, so this crow had left to search for a solitary meal. If it was feeling especially nice about things, it might even call for the others once it found some food. Maybe.

Maybe never came, because it did not find food. Instead it found a floating mote of light. The crow believed it to be a firefly and ate it right up, and then it wasn’t a crow anymore. Now it was a Crow, and it had a mind far larger than could fit inside of its skull. Now it knew a name never spoken, of the being it now was, with memories of some other place. 

Memories of a place untouchable by this world, but one that could reach towards this one, if properly beckoned. If properly guided. If properly given the opportunity to exist physically in a world so far away that not even their souls could reach. Only their attention could reach across such vast, incomprehensible distances on a plane that did not operate with something as paltry as space or time.

The Crow banked to the right and began to head towards The Base. It knew it was a cabin, of course, but that wasn’t what it was called. It was His Base. 

“What a wonderful morning,” Phil sighed happily over a cup of hand made tea. The cup was handmade, too. Everything here was, actually, even the little helpers. Although in their case, it wasn’t entirely his own hands, but he still did work.

“Nice and quiet, too,” he hummed and took a sip of tea. Delicious, as always. 

Then there was a squawk from his window, above his sink, and Phil glanced up. “Oh?”

It was a crow, perhaps. Then Phil paid a bit more attention to it and realized it was a Crow, actually, and a new one at that. “Oh! We got another one?” He grinned. “Nice to meet ya, mate.”

The Crow cried out again, and Phil chuckled as he heard its voice echo in his own magic. <Your house looks like shit,> it had said. <Needs more knives. And food. And knives.>

Before it could continue, another Crow swooped out of the shadows and pulled the newcomer inside the darkness, where both vanished. A third one hopped out from the shadow of Phil’s chair and pecked at the table leg. <Fuckin’ noobs.> Then it flew right back into the shadows. 

His Crows were so helpful, and also annoying, but Phil needed to be bothered for his own mental health. Otherwise he’d go out and seek something to keep him stimulated, which was not a good idea. That was how Crusades got started. He was on a good streak lately, there hadn’t been a crusade in centuries. 

Not that Crusades worked very well; he’d won all of them, after all. He just had to wipe some minds, change some others, curse a few people, and just like that it hadn’t even been about him at all, it was about some other group of normal humans. 

Watching tens of thousands of innocents die from wrath he’d placed on them to get it off himself had gotten very, very boring, though. Also Phil was, at the end of the day, technically still a human. It got to him, over time, so he’d toned his antics down. 

Now he lived in a forest, instead of a palace. Much less attention to be had in here, but plenty of room for his Work. The Crows were an old success, and new innovations were difficult. He’d already invented everything that was easy to invent.

Plus he couldn’t exactly leave this area until he cleaned up his mess. Which was especially difficult because he had no fucking idea what happened to Brumman, even all these years later. He knew his ritual was the catalyst, but he’d broken something far beyond his or anyone else’s ability to break. He had his theories on what went wrong, or maybe went right, depending on perspective, but nothing concrete. The only provable fact about it was that shit was broken.

So, yes, Phil had a change of heart a long time ago, and now his Work was for the good of humanity at large. 

Speaking of, “I should make some omelets for breakfast,” he mused privately. “Pretty sure I have enough eggs.” 

He was already in his kitchen because he lived in a cabin, not a mansion, and while it was a large cabin you didn’t put a dining room into one. It just wasn’t the done thing. So checking his fridge took like, a minute. Max.

It wasn’t even a fridge, it just kept things cold. With magic, primarily. And an animal skull hidden in a secret compartment at the top of the thing that looked more like a wardrobe than an appliance, but he needed death magic from something! You couldn’t GET colder than that! 

Anyways he was out of eggs. And, if he was being completely honest with himself, which he almost never was, he’d probably get more done if he wasn’t so easily distractible. Although the best way to make more progress on his research was to like, care about it. 

Fact was Phil couldn’t fix the Wrongness that plagued the town of Brumman at night, he was an eleven hundred year old Witch who probably qualified as something much worse nobody had lived long enough to invent a word for, but he wasn’t god. He’d been living in these lands since before that religion even got here. Not that he talked about his old, mortal life anymore. The only people he would have ever bothered to tell were his sons and he couldn’t even start because the words ‘back in my day’ set them off like a small mountain of coke. 

He didn’t know why this all happened, he didn’t know why it was confined to the town’s borders so tightly that expanding the borders just carried the Wrongness with, he didn’t know why shrinking the borders didn’t, he knew very little about it. 

And honestly, he’d more or less given up trying. Only viable solution was to literally wipe the town off the face of the planet and off the maps and even more honestly Phil wasn’t sure that would work, either. 

Brumman wasn’t the only town that was Broken like this. Some of the others known historically were, indeed, utterly destroyed and the strangeness stopped for the area. Some of them just, fixed, one day. Some of them stayed like this forever. 

They were also all broken in different ways. Brumman was high on the scale, but it wasn’t at the top. The most broken city in the world didn’t even have a name anymore, and while there were plenty of people there, people who left and talked with others and went home, they weren’t…

None of the DNA tests came back as human, not that Phil knew too much about how that worked. What he knew was humans were supposed to have brains, not a cobweb of nervous tissue suspended in their skull cavity. 

<Old man needs to eat!> One of his Crows popped out from the shadow his clothes cast on his skin, slithering out of his sleeve before opening its dripping beak. When he glanced down, annoyed, to look at it the Crow opened its beak again and from those shadows another Crow was expelled which flapped in his face before flying up to a rafter. 

<You should have pancakes. Or sausages.> It blinked a single, burning eye at him. <Y’know, something you need a knife for.>

This wasn’t even the same one. “Is this going to be a recurring element from you guys?”

Both Crows dissipated into smoke instead of answering him.

“Why do I even keep you little shits?!”

They were all bound to him, and all hosted strange minds from somewhere Else, but they were all still individuals, and they could all fly, among many other things. They couldn’t do anything, really; but they could leave, and they could see things, and they could tell him those things. He’d created them mostly as an experiment but he kept them for a free information network. Unfortunately he did not remember this at the time, which was a shame, because it would have entirely prevented what ended up happening just a few weeks later. 

Part of why Phil didn’t truly consider himself to be a human anymore was the fact he did not need to sleep. The rituals he’d had to do for it were mind numbing, and took him like three years, but that was longer ago now than even the country that grew into place around him. 

This meant he was completely removed from the cycle that divided so many people into day and night, but it wasn’t like he ever went into town. There were plenty of people who went into the woods every day, so he didn’t have to go to town for them when he needed them. The only things of import in Brumman were his sons, but they came to visit and kept in touch. 

“Wilbur, it’s so nice to hear from you,” he crooned into his phone. It was a landline, but he did have a cell phone: he’d adapted to the modern age as easily as he adapted to anything else he set his eyes on, although he’d only cared to do so because of his sons. 

“It’s a bit late for you, though, isn’t it?” Phil asked gently. “Do you need help getting back on track?” 

“Sleeping pills work just fine for that, dad,” Phil could almost hear Wilbur roll his eyes, “I don’t need your freaky potions.”

“You are bullying your father,” Phil sniffed dramatically, “I’m just an old man trying to love you.”

“Do not say it like that,” Wilbur snapped.

“I don’t even want to know whatever stupid connotations that had,” Phil replied flatly, “I genuinely don’t. Anyways,” he switched his tone from deadpan to happy, “what’s up?” 

There was a pause.

Phil didn’t like the sound of that. 

“I had a, development, in my life,” his son said slowly, “like a month and a half ago? And it’s just been so hectic and busy for me that I haven’t gotten around to talking about it yet.”

That happened, sometimes. Phil loved his boys very much but his sense of time was notably skewed. He’d get worried about them and check in, but only after months of no contact- it was almost entirely up to them to make contact with him, he’d just never remember to in a reasonable amount of time. 

So he was a bit confused. “Well, alright,” he said slowly and gently, unsure why Wilbur sounded so nervous. “That happens, it’s no big deal. It’s not like you had a kid or something, yeah? Did you get a new foster?”

“Um.” Another pause. “I mean, technically he’s still a foster, yeah.” 

The lengthy shadows in his cabin, cast by his magical light fixtures and the few electric bulbs he used for convenience, began to shiver and warp. “Wilbur.” His voice was flat and dead. “Do you have a fucking kid?”

This next pause sent the shadows flying, every single one of his Crows manifesting at once to completely fill his cabin and then spill out into the forest, a whirlwind of black feathers and gleaming eyes, a black tornado with his house at the very root. 

“His name’s Tommy?” Wilbur said as if that would help. “I’ll bring him over this week, if that’s okay?” 

“I have a grandson,” Phil said slowly. “I’m coming over.”

“Wai-” Wilbur’s voice vanished as Phil hung up with a single tap of his now clawed thumb. The bone fixtures in his cabin, lovely little decorations he’d carved by hand, had begun to shake as Phil’s magic poured out of him, necromancy and magics of ice and shadow and fire and so much more blanketing the area. The trees near his windows plucked their roots out of the ground and shambled away. His Crows started burning with grey flame. 

Then he took a deep breath, and all of it stopped. Even his Crows dissipated, and the changes to his body reverted. He hadn’t actually noticed how extensive they’d gotten; he felt the wings he so rarely expressed melt back into his flesh, and he felt his teeth soften and revert to molars and incisors instead of fangs. Also his entire living room smelled of aspic now for some reason. 

It was night, and Wilbur lived in Brumman. His house was warded as all homes were, for protection against Witches. A cunning WWitch with enough resources could break through these protections, but there was almost never a good enough reason to do so. 

Traveling out of the Wrongness of the night in Brumman was not possible, the border of the town looped recursively. It was actually a popular method of crossing the city at night, since you could walk down a street leaving town and come back out miles away on the other side. The trick was finding the right version of the exit you were using, so when you turned back you were coming into town from the right road. 

Traveling into town at night was only possible if done non-magically. By physically traveling into it, by foot. Cars would shut down before crossing the border, and if they had enough momentum to cross without the engine running they would be stopped by… something. 

Cars did not work at night. Not in Brumman. 

Not that Phil had a car, of course. He didn’t have a broom or a cauldron, he didn’t have a flying carpet, he didn’t even use his hidden wings to get around. 

Standing there in his living room, Phil took a steady breath and stepped forwards. 

His foot landed on Wilbur’s carpet. All of the house’s wards burned out instantly from the flux his passage caused. It wasn’t teleportation, and it worked anywhere and everywhere, because all he was doing was walking. 

Larger strides leave deeper footprints, but Phil’s weren’t always physical. 

He didn’t notice Techno was in the room until he ripped the boar skull off his face, panting. Everyone could hear, ever so faintly, the sound of the boar’s trapped soul cracking. It could be fixed easily enough, but since Techno had been wearing it, he had an unpleasant time. 

Now, normally Phil would apologize, is the thing. He hadn’t known Techno was there, let alone that he was in his full gear. Even in this situation, he would have done his best to make it clear that he regretted causing such a thing for his eldest child. 

Right now was not a normal situation: right now, he was looking at his new grandson.

He had a grandson. 

He was a grandfather, now. 

Wilbur sighed heavily at the muffled fizzing noise his tv made as all the circuits transmuted to tin and melted. 

“Hello, Tommy,” Phil said softly. “I’m your grandpa.” His voice cracked on that last oh-so-important word, and the fruit on Wilbur’s kitchen counter shuddered and opened up into glistening, dripping wet flowers of plant flesh, unseen by all of them. 

Tommy looked up at him, face carefully blank. 

Phil extended his hand for Tommy to shake, if he wanted. “My name is Phil. You can call me that too, if you’d like. Your uncle does, but your dad is sentimental.” 

Tommy visibly hesitated. He looked at Wilbur, at Techno. At his new family. Phil could tell that the boy had only just started to accept that into his heart and soul, had only now begun to truly believe this was his family now. Not just his foster father’s family. And that Wilbur wasn’t really a foster father, too. 

Even so, Tommy looked to them, wary of this strange man. Phil could sense his nervousness, taste it in the back of his throat, smell it swirling through the air. 

A proper Witch needed to know how to use their ingredients, and Phil had stood bent over a cauldron, grabbing powerful and potent things from cluttered shelves thousands of thousands of times. He’d long since honed his senses to know what magic was in what, where it was concentrated, and how it would interact and develop what he was brewing. All with barely a glance, because he had so much more than gelatinous bags of nerves called eyes with which to perceive. 

Phil stood there, hand outstretched casually, just giving Tommy a choice, a chance, to decide how to react to this. He perceived and understood Tommy’s feelings; a mixture of concern, born from his sons’ earlier fear no doubt (he was going to bust out a level six sad dad face on them and it would destroy them for months, they were right to fear, he had a grANDBABY AND THEY FORGOT TO TELL HIM) as well as a healthy trepidation over what Phil was doing. He could tell Tommy was a child of the night. 

He understood what Tommy was going through, and he empathized deeply. But he had to let Tommy set the stage for their future as a family; it would not be up to Phil how Tommy would feel about his new grandfather. 

So he was very, very surprised when Tommy opened his mouth, scoffed, and said “God you’re a proper fuckin’ boomer, aren’t ya? Who shakes hands anymore?” 

To be clear, Tommy was still afraid and nervous, albeit much less so after Phil let out a wheezing laugh at his words. It was just that the boy seemed to use sarcasm and rudeness as a sort of coping mechanism, and Phil could respect the hell out of that, frankly. 

Tommy refused to let his fear control him. That was powerful in and of itself, and he knew then and there that this bright eyed, loud mouthed boy more than belonged in this family; he would thrive in this family. 

“Fair enough, mate,” he said with another chuckle. He retracted his hand. “Although I’m not a boomer.”

“Phil is older than he looks,” Techno drawled out. He’d sat back down but had left his helmet off in case Phil got emotional again. Which he was almost certainly going to, honestly. 

“I can’t really say exactly how old I am,” Phil admitted. He snapped his fingers and a chair made of black wood and carved ivory materialized behind him, summoned from his home. Yet another thing that shouldn’t be possible, especially at night around here, but this time Phil was cheating much more efficiently: he’d just bound the chair to himself so it was technically part of him. It was incredible how many things you could fit in your soul, frankly. 

Not that Phil’s soul was standard. 

“To be perfectly honest,” he continued as he sat down and ignored Tommy’s grumpy expression at the casual display of magic, “I’m older than the calendar. So it’s hard to guess where along it I was born.”

Before Tommy could have a fit, which he very clearly was about to, Wilbur sighed and said, with a level of exasperation that can only come from fatherhood, “He was born in September, early tenth century. Somewhere in the nine hundred twenties to forties. Techno and I made a presentation for him but he was still excited about projectors and didn’t pay much attention.” 

“So aside from walking into our house uninvited, super rude by the way,” Tommy stage-whispered in Phil’s direction, “what does he even do?”

“It’s also rude to talk about someone as if they’re not in front of you,” Phil pointed out with a raised brow and faint smile. 

“Yeah I don’t care,” Tommy snickered at his grandfather before turning back to his dad. “Seriously what does he do.”

“I do-” Phil began to answer, but Tommy literally lifted a hand, made a standard puppet mouth with it,  and snapped it shut with a loud yelping noise. 

Phil could still sense Tommy’s fear. It was severely reduced, mind you, but it was still impressive that he could snark this hard in the face of something so overwhelmingly dangerous. Not that Phil would ever be a danger to Tommy, but the poor child didn’t know that yet. 

Of course, Wilbur was the most amused Phil had seen him since… hm, quite possibly ever, actually. The closest would probably have been the first time he saw one of Phil’s experiments fail. It had melted ten percent of the cabin, and not like acid: the solid wood, bone, metal, and every other material present had melted like soft wax. After it hardened again it took Phil three weeks to clean it up out of the forest. 

“He was a Witch,” Wilbur said with a fond, nostalgic smile, “but that was a long time ago. Now he’s whatever is after Witch in the hierarchy from human to. What, a deity?” Wilbur looked up at Phil, who shrugged. 

“I have no interest in starting a religion. A cult, sure, that’s just a fun weekend, but not a religion. But yeah I’d guess the end result of growing your mastery over the world around you is ‘deity,’ if only for lack of a better term.” Phil scratched at the bright blonde fuzz of facial hair on his chin. He stopped calling it a beard a while ago, his sons were utterly ruthless towards him.

“Mage?” Tommy suggested, surprisingly. Still, it was helpful that he was easily distracted and sucked into pointless conversations about nonsense: they had a lot of those in this family. 

“Nah, that’s the other side. Witches are people with powerful arcane arts who use them for dark purposes. Wisefolk are the ones who work on repelling Witches and other stuff,” Phil ignored the roll of Tommy’s eyes at the grandiose mention of one of the most basic jobs in the world, “and then the ones who go really hardcore about it are Mages.”

“Oh, I got it!” Tommy said with a bright, heartwarming grin. 

“Yeah?” Phil was doing his best to encourage the boy, but for some reason Wilbur’s smirk was incredibly vindictive. 

“You’re a Hag!”

There was no fear left in Tommy, now: just a very petty smugness. 

Techno chuckled. “You were right Wil, this is funny from the outside.”

“On one hand, this is cringe levels of over-protective,” Wilbur’s beloved child said matter-of-factly as he looked down at his new pack, “but on the other hand this is also poggers beyond belief.” He happily held up the extremely sharp knife Wilbur had given him for protection. It was still in its special sheathe, because Wilbur didn’t spend two weeks drilling knife safety lessons into Tommy for him to be careless. No matter how funny it would be. 

“We let you make your decisions on how you wanted to go about your life outside,” Wilbur said lovingly, “and you chose to follow my lead and live as a normal man. Well, a normal nightfolk,” he corrected himself with an overly fond smile. He was legitimately proud of Tommy, for many reasons. “That means you need normal, and sufficient, equipment.” 

“Well I was hardly gonna go around with the fucking Boar Witch as an escort,” Tommy pointed out as he slid the sheathe into its clip on his belt. “And keeping grandpa out of town is priority number one. Why didn’t you tell me that would happen, by the way?!” Tommy glared at his adoptive dad. 

“It’s not exactly easy to describe,” Wilbur explained, “and you wouldn’t have believed me anyways.”

“True,” Tommy acknowledged. “Because it’s complete fucking bullshit. Who the FUCK would believe that there was anybody who could manipulate whatever the shit is wrong with this town?!” 

Wilbur blinked in surprise and then huffed, defeatedly. “Okay so I guess there’s a way to describe it if you’re fine with oversimplification,” he grumbled while ignoring his son’s incredibly smug look, “but it’s still something you have to experience to understand.”

Tommy grumbled to himself for a moment but nodded, very reluctantly. “He made the sky eat a guy,” he said glumly. “One of the stars came down and opened, it was fucked up. What’s a star even need bones for?”

“Like many questions grandpa’s bullshit leads us to, the answer is best avoided,” Wilbur replied, “which means ‘don’t ask grandpa because he will tell you and you will regret asking.’ Trust me,” Wilbur huffed, “it’s not a good move. Because either he knows or he doesn’t, and it’s impossible to say which one is scarier.”

“Okay but seriously what the fuck even was that the other night, though? Was that an actual star? An echo of something?” Tommy was worked up, and Wilbur knew his son: he was pissed off he hadn’t been able to ask Phil because he’d been too shocked to think of it. 

“I don’t know,” Wilbur admitted as he double checked the straps on Tommy’s pack and patted him down a bit just to make absolutely sure nothing would fall off or be left behind on accident. The knife was far from the only weapon he’d given the boy, Tommy had a very busy belt covered in pouches and holsters and clips. It was more a bandolier than a belt, frankly, but Wilbur had the capability to supply things and he wasn’t going to send Tommy out into the night without everything his dad could give him. 

Most of them weren’t even illegal. Not that it mattered much; you could do anything you wanted outside at night, because when the laws of physics were broken then who cared about theft or violence? A community as dependent on kindness as nightfolk were would always police itself, anyways. Eye for an eye and all that.

Wilbur frowned and grabbed another switchblade, this one disguised as a vape pen, and slipped it into a leather loop meant to hold such things. “Don’t try to smoke this, it’ll paralyze you. Offer it to someone you want to escape from if you don’t want to stab them.”

“Daaaaad,” Tommy rolled his eyes, “I’m packing enough heat to assault a fuckin’ embassy, I don’t need a poisoned vape knife.”

Wilbur snorted as he stood up. “It’s better to have something and not need it than it is to need something and not have it. Also, never let any one person see all of the surprises you’ve got, there’s nothing as powerful as the element of surprise in a fight.”

“Because the broken fabric of reality and eldritch monsters are so vulnerable to tricks,” Tommy deadpanned. “I’m gonna be late meeting Tubbo! And you need to go to bed soon anyways.”

“It’s not even ten, Tommy,” Wilbur smiled as he poked Tommy lovingly in the shoulder, which earned him an equally fond scowl. “I usually go to bed at eleven, as you damn well know. Now go see your friend.” His smile became a bit more knowing. “I hardly need to tell you that a friend willing to wait around outside after dark just to see you is the kind of friend you don’t let go of.” 

Tommy bristled at the mere idea of him and Tubbo drifting apart. “Me and him are fuckin’ eternal, you lanky bitch, you don’t gotta tell me shit.” Despite his words, Tommy still hesitated, shifting his weight from foot to foot. “Just- you’re sure you’re okay with this?”

It took every scrap of willpower Wilbur had not to coo. “I told you in the beginning that I don’t want to control you, Tommy, you’re free to do what you want. I just wanna make sure you have everything I can give you to keep you safe.” 

The nervousness left his son, but even still Tommy did not turn to leave. “So you’re done, then? Cause if you strap one more fuckin’ thing to me I’m gonna fall over.” 

Wilbur laughed, he couldn’t help it, the little shit was hilarious. “Go see your friend you little prick! Oh my god,” he grinned as he ruffled his boy’s hair, “I know better than to worry about you too much.”

Before Wilbur could poke him, Tommy pulled away and rolled his eyes. Wilbur could tell he was pleased, though. “Fuck, alright old man, I’m going, don’t have a heart attack.” Then he turned, and darted out the front door. 

However, before Wilbur could shut it, Tommy turned back at the sidewalk and looked Wilbur in the eye. “Love you, dad.” His voice was loud but soft, emotions subdued. Like he was being as careful as he could to keep them from breaking. 

Then Tommy was gone, scarpering off out of view before Wilbur could say anything back, not that he needed to. He knew Tommy was well aware, now. 

As the door closed, Wilbur caught sight of a flash of red eyes and black wings, and he couldn’t help but smile. 

Yes, Tommy would be fine. There were Crows out tonight.