"The Case Of The Fire Inside."

And im your best friend 7

Secrets did not stay secret very long when you were three people crammed into a house with only each other to talk to. Rumours and gossip were some of the only things fueling their conversations. So when both of his sons met the same strange child, he knew about it.

He thinks it's a bit strange, a child wandering around on his own. There wasn't supposed to be anyone around for hours. The nearest town was miles away and the agency he got the job through said no one lived in the houses nearby for years. The perfect place for privacy.

Then again the previous keeper told them to never go near that one house, implying that someone had lived there. Or maybe not. He just said that whoever owned the house didn't like people poking around. Phil had never seen anyone go in or out of that house.

But it made sense. Some cushy millionaire raising their kid that didn't want anyone going near. Maybe they were some sort of celebrity raising a scandalous lovechild they couldn't let any reporters see. Maybe someone came to to live out their dying days and brought their child with them. Phil had never been one for speculation like that though. That was more Techno's thing.

Either way, his son's stories are still odd. A lone child out in the middle of nowhere, acting somewhat strange. He was apparently very jumpy, easy to frighten and prone to running off if things went south. It leaves a bad taste in Phil's mouth; the child apparently being left alone without a guardian. But then again Phil doesn't really have the right to be judgemental about absent fathers.

And he doesn't know for sure the kid is alone. Just because they didn't see anyone didn't mean there was no one was there. How long had they gone without seeing this child hanging around? He clearly had been there; they just hadn't seen him. It wasn't uneblivable to think that some adult was hanging around behind the scenes.

Besides, Phil's own sons were enough of a handful, he really didn't have time to be worrying about some other random child who lives close to them. He has enough to worry about with his own kids. Wilbur was still being aggressive towards him, barely letting Phil say a word without some pissy comment following it. And Techno had pretty much shut everyone out. Phil didn't know how to get through to either of them, but he was trying. Really he was. They just needed time.

Phil needed to focus on his kids, but that doesn't mean that when he's doing his late-night checkup on the light and sees a kid standing over a twenty-foot drop off the rocks with no care in the world he doesn't panic. He does panic, because Wilbur already fell down there once while in broad daylight, and if that kid tumbles down there in the dark who knows what's going to happen. Phil's still a father at heart, and most of all he was a decent person.

So he rushed down the steps almost instantly, nearly falling down in his haste to get outside and towards the kid. The boy was leaning over the rocks to get closer to the ocean, feet half off the edge of the cliff as he stood there completely relaxed like he wasn't standing over a very painful death.

"Hey!" He called out gently, not wanting to startle the kid into falling. The boy turns to him, impossibly calm for the situation at hand. Phil thinks his heart might give out, he's way too old for this shit. "Hey kid, why don't you take a step back from the edge?"

God he didn't sign up for this. He didn't even know this child, what was he doing here? Shouldn't the kid be asleep? Should Phil be pulling him back? He didn't want to push this kid into jumping off. Wilbur said that he was flighty and didn't like being trapped, what if he decided braving the water was better than facing Phil?

Luckily, the kid steps back easily, not seeming in the least bit worried or concerned at Phil's panic. He doesn't even seem alarmed at Phil's sudden appearance. Phil breathes easier when the kid takes another step back, no longer so close to falling off. Thank god.