Dream SMP Oneshots

favorites [sbi angst]

an au where tommy is phil's favorite son

"Up, Phil. You have to eat. It's been three days." Techno placed the plate of food on Phil's nightstand and opened the curtains, letting the dazzling sunlight into the stuffy room.

Phil didn't answer, staring at that same spot on the wall across from him.

"Eat, you idiot. How long are you going to act like this?" He sat in the chair next to the nightstand and ran a hand through his hair, trying to untangle the mess of knotted braids. Wilbur had always done his hair for him, since he was the one who insisted on him growing it out, but Wilbur wasn't here anymore.

It had been three days since the raid, three days since Techno had felt something amiss and looked across the blood-soaked battlefield to see Wilbur with Phil's sword buried in his chest.

It had been three days since Phil ate, or got out of bed, or spoke. He didn't seem to care about anyone or anything at all, just Wilbur.

"Phil, please, I did this for you, all of it. And you knew you'd have to kill Wilbur but he's gone, all right? And now we move on, because we can't afford to be upset over stuff like this. It makes us weak, it makes me weak. Now is when we go take revenge on Wilbur, that's what he would have wanted, we can't just sit around!" Techno was almost yelling now, but tears burned the back of his eyes.

Phil slowly turned to look at him.

"Can't take revenge for Wilbur if Im the one who killed him."

"Can you do it for me, then? I put everything on the line, put my brother  on the line and I lost it all, okay? Can you just get up for me?"

"This is unlike you, Techno. You're not usually this selfish."

Phil's words cut him to the core, and Techno took a step back. Phil had rejected him, was he not enough? Did he not do enough for Phil? If he wasn't worth living for, then who was?

An idea dawned in his head.

"Tommy's in danger, you know. Dream is alone with him in exile."

Just like that, life flooded back into Phil's eyes, and he sat up in bed, alarm written all over his features.

"In danger? What do you mean? Why is he exiled?"

Techno half-smiled. He wouldn't even look up when Techno spoke, but the mention of Tommy was enough to rouse him from the walking nightmare Phil had been stuck in from the past few days.

It was obvious that Techno wasn't worth enough to Phil, but it didn't bother him. If he had to be second to Tommy, that's fine, as long as Phil was happy.

For you, Phil, the world.

It took him a while, but Wilbur soon learned the art of becoming invisible.

It wasn't exactly difficult, since he was a semi-translucent ghost, but the hard part wasn't not being seen, it was not being noticed.

He had a bubbly personality, and had a bad habit of inserting himself into other people's life, so that was the first thing he fixed. Instead, he would make a library, and spend his time there, alone with his books, where he couldn't hurt anyone.

The second thing Wilbur changed was how he spoke. When he stumbled across a group of people when he had to leave the library, he kept his voice quiet, smiled more than the talked, and made sure his words were carefully neutral. He didn't ask questions, didn't answer them, just smiled, offered some blue, and pretended he wasn't there.

Emotions were constantly building beneath the surface of those empty eyes and expressionless smile. Pain, betrayal, and intense longing clawes at Wilbur, a wash of blue covering everything he felt inside of him, but he didn't complain.

He never told anyone about how it was so tempting to just stand under the rain and let everything be washed away, never talked about the constant burning in his scar or the heaviness in his heart.

And it was perfect.

It was just as he had planned.

To everyone else, he was a invisible, a side character, something unimportant that could be used and tossed aside.

But Wilbur had a good reason for all of this.

One time in the far past, he had been someone, he had meant something. And all he had brought was suffering, most of all to Phil.

Alivebur used to be Phil's favorite, so it made sense that when Phil killed him he wanted nothing to do with his ghost.

Phil was never good at being invisible, always struggled to hide the regret in his eyes when he looked at Ghostbur. He never bothered to mask the open aversion he had to Ghostbur, so he decided to make it easier for Phil by disappearing.

If being visible brought Phil so much pain, then Ghostbur was fine with not being seen.

For you, Phil, the world.

Everyone knew Tommy was Phil's favorite, and he hated it.

Tommy was only sixteen, but he knew death, had experienced it twice in the past year. He had accepted the reality that he would probably die within a few months.

For gods sake, he was living in a warzone. Withers, bombs, arson, and murder were considered common occurrences.

There were only a few ways to work through these situations.

First, you could become an emotionless killer like Techno, just shut your emotions away and swing your sword until you're standing in the middle of a massacre of your own creation.

Second, you could conquer the madness, make it your own, like Schlatt did.

Third, you could manipulate and lie, find the little kindness left in the world and exploit it for your own purposes, like Dream did.

But Tommy couldn't turn off his emotions like Techno, wasn't smart enough to rule over everyone like Schlatt, and don't have the heart to truly hurt anyone like Dream did.

But still, even though it was painfully obvious that Tommy was too naive for this world, too weak to live long, Phil had decided that Tommy was his favorite.

They had many arguments about that, but all of them led to the same answer.

'You're my favorite because you're vulnerable, Tommy. I need to protect you. It's too late for me to protect Ghostbur, and Techno is certainly fine on his own, so it's my job to keep you safe since you obviously can't do it yourself.'

Tommy had experienced other people's death, too. He knew what it was like to lose a friend, a brother, a teacher, a president. He knew the loss that tore at your heart, and wouldn't wish it on his worst enemy.

(On second thought, considering Dream's past crimes, he might wish it on his worst enemy, just a tiny bit.)

Tommy didn't want to mean something to anyone, not after he saw how much it tore people apart to lose someone close to them. He don't want Phil to care about him, because he didn't want to hurt anyone else.

But there was another option, other than Technos or Schlatt's or Dream's or even Wilbur's.

He would fight, fight as best as he could. Even if the day he died came tomorrow, he wouldn't go easy. Because Phil was watching, and the blasted idiot had made the mistake of getting attached to Tommy.

He would make his own option, carve his own path, to spare Phil the pain he had felt so, so many times.

For you, Phil, the world.