Baby Steps

                                    

                                          

"Okay. What's this one?" The letter 'A', was boldly printed onto the page. Tommy looked at Phil, and back at the letter.
                          
"Ah?"
                          
"A-e."
                          
"A?"
                          
"That's right, that's right. Good job Tommy." Phil smiled at the boy. Phil flipped to the next page,
Tommy glared at the letter. 
                          
"B-ee."
                          
"Beh."
                          
"No, no, b-e-e."
                          
"B-ah!"
                          
"Perhaps we should try something." Phil closed the book and hurried off to the kitchen. Tommy heard the slicing of apples and followed him.
                          
"Ah-pple?" Tommy looked up at Phil from his lowered height. Phil hummed and continued to drop the bite size slices into a bowl.
                          
"But, I'll have to make a deal with you. If you want to have any. Now, go on and sit back at the couch, I'll be there in a bit..." Tommy nodded, Phil chuckled at his noise of his feet putter pattering along the wooden and tile floor. Phil finished slicing them and joined Tommy, and gently set a large bowl and a smaller one on the table. He hid the small one until he gave his lecture.
                          
"Okay. Here's the deal. For every letter you get right, you get an Apple. If you don't get an Apple, you said it wrong. The goal is to get all the apple's. Plus, I added a special feature." He pushed the small bowl which had scoops of peanut butter in it.
                          
"If you get three in a row, correctly. Then you get three slices dipped in peanuts butter. Deal?"
                          
"Mhm!" Tommy nodded quickly and straightened his posture. Phil noticed that the red tail limply curled behind him, but the red spike waved side to side, like a rattle snake.
                          
"Okay. Let's start again."
                          
"B."

                          
Meanwhile...
                          
"What are they doing?" Techno poked his head out of his door and watched the little boys carefully repeat Phil's voice.
                          
"Learning the ABC's." 
                          
"Phil and I were supposed to train today." Techno murmured and Wilbur chuckled.
                          
"We could train. You could use an refresher." Techno looked at Tommy once again. He grumbled and followed Wilbur outside, Wilbur firstly threw a wooden pole at Technoblade. Techno instinctively caught it and looked at him.
                          
"C'mon we have to go to the path..." Wilbur and Technoblade took the path down towards the water. Wilbur kicked his shoes off and pushed his pant legs up and above his calf's. Techno only gawked at him as he slowly climbed into the pond, he stopped half way in. He turned around to look at Techno who hadn't done anything since they arrived.
                          
"Well? Get in!"  He found his balance and had his back turned towards the rushing but particularly small waterfall. He held the stick in both hands and grinned when Technoblade was finally in front of him.
                          
"What is this Wilbur?"
                          
"Phil never taught you about this? Well, it's the training me and him would do."
                          
"No he didn't...what do we do."
                          
"Well, I dunno." Wilbur threw the stick into the rocks, it landed only a few centimetres away from one of Technoblade's hooves. He leaped through the water and grabbed the stick, regaining his balance once again.
                          
"Woah-"
                          
"The trick. Is to fight, without falling. Finding balance for only a short while before you go to attack again. Think you can handle it?" Techno huffed and looked at Wilbur.
                          
"Think I could handle it?" He mocked, but Wilbur swiped the stick through water like an knife. He directly hid the back of Technoblade's hooves, and the boy fell over into the shallow pond.
                          
"Ahahah! Looks like you have something to learn!" Techno shook the water off his cloak, he threw the heavy fabric onto the ground and picked the the stick that wandered in the water. 
                          
"Let's go again." 
                          
...
                          
The bowl of apples was halfway empty. Phil looked at the barely touched bowl of peanut butter with a  frown.
                          
"Okay. That's all for today. We'll visit Puffy's in a couple days or so." He closed the book.
                          
"Ah-an..gve..Apple?"
                          
"Apple?" Tommy asked again more clearly.
                          
"Right, you worked hard today. You deserve it." He passed both bowls to the boy who lunged at them, and hurried to devour them.
                          
"Woah, woah! Slow down, you wouldn't want to get an ache."
                          
"Ace?"
                          
"Ache. It's like when your body hurts..some times all over."
                          
"Ache.." Tommy dipped three into the peanut butter and ate them one at a time.
                          
"Good, now I'll be back. We'll work on these tomorrow as well, okay Tommy?" He went to the kitchen and looked out the small window, Technoblade and Wilbur left the path drenched in water and chuckling. The training sticks Phil used for Will and him when they were younger were in the boys hands.
                          
"God dammit." He opened the door and watched them hesitate.
                          
"Well Phil I ca-"
                          
"You went to the pond." 
                          
"Yes..."
                          
"I'll get you clothes. But your punishments. Wilbur, tomorrow morning you'll work with Tommy on his studying. And at dusk Techno. You will help Tommy." Wilbur frowned and Technoblade looked at the grass. The door slammed behind Phil as he disappeared into the house.
                          
"Hm!" Tommy flinched from the noise and dropped the bowls immediately, he crawled underneath the table and watched Phil open the boy's bedroom doors.
                          
"Here." Phil ushered the clothes into the boys faces, they lamely thanked him and Phil closed the doors in their faces again.
                          
"Ugh..." Phil went back to the main room to see no Tommy.
                          
"Tommy? Where are you?" He went into everyone's rooms and called out again.
                          
"Tommy? It's okay...I'm sorry if the noise frightened you." Tommy crawled out from the table and ran over to Phil. Phil helped and was startled from the boy and hugged his leg.
                          
"Woah! Oh- hey, hey...it's alright." He bent down and hugged the boy himself.
                          
"It's time for you to go to bed." He picked up the boy who's arms which tightly were wrapped around Phil's neck. 
                          
"I've got you, there's no reason to be afraid now." He softly said to the boy and patted his back.
                          
"It's okay Tommy."