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Wilbur would like to say that his dad kidnapping a child in his and his twins' absence surprised him.
But if he did he would be lying.
He was more surprised about Phil lasting two weeks than just kidnapping another child outright, but that was just him. Techno had agreed with Wilbur, saying something along the lines of “called it, Skeppy owes me twenty dollars.”
He was also surprised his dad had been drunk. Wilbur wasn't judging, he had been to a couple of parties in his high school years and had gotten absolutely trashed at a few of them (he stayed away from any type of drug, alcohol was one thing, hard drugs was an entirely different animal)
So to hear that his dad had been wasted wasted was a surprise.
But he was also notoriously light-weight, all avians are. So the lightest alcoholic drinks could make him tipsy.
Wilbur landed in front of his dad’s house two seconds after Techno had rung the doorbell, there was a crashing sound and some screeching, the sound of running footsteps, more crashing and some cursing. The door was flung open with the force of a cannonblast, Wilbur was lucky enough to be outside of the hit zone. Techno however was sent careening the stair railing and crashed into the hedge bushes at the bottom.
Wilbur wasn’t saved, just because the door didn’t hit him did not mean that the opener didn’t barrel into him. The boy ran into Wilbur with enough force to knock the wind out of him.
The boy was adorable.
golden blonde hair, sky blue eyes that were scared but were also staring at Wilbur like he was his savior, and his wings.
Beautiful scarlet and gold.
This child could stab him and Wilbur would give him a headpat and icecream.
“H-help me, help me, please!” the boy begged, clinging to the front of Wilbur’s sweatshirt like it was his lifeline (Wilbur hugged him back because what else was he supposed to do? Not hug him?)
“He says he’s my dad but he isn’t, he kidnapped me yesterday, I don’t know what he wants andhewon’tletmeleaveplease-”
Wilbur’s dad emerged from the depths of the house and the boy was driven to new heights of panic, flapping his wings erratically like he was trying to take flight while he still had Wilbur in a vice grip.
Wilbur kept holding him, carefully wrapping his wings around the boy, trapping his violently flapping wings and sort of effectively containing him.
Techno emerged from where he had fallen, twigs in his hair and in between his feathers (that made Wilbur wince, he couldn’t imagine how itchy that was) and was holding a hand over his nose. A trickle of crimson snaking out from in between his fingers.
“Where did you find this one Phil?” Techno asked, eyeing the boy that was resorting to biting at Wilbur’s shoulders and arms in a desperate attempt to free himself from the snare-hug that Wilbur had trapped him in.
“He found me! I’m not sure if I would have been able to get home if he hadn’t found me!” Phil exclaimed happily.
“What’s his name?” Wilbur asked, almost ignoring the way the boy had stilled in his arms; maybe in confusion, maybe in fear, probably in both. Wilbur tightened the hug reassuringly and tucked the boy’s head carefully under his chin. Despite this the boy was still shaking minutely.
“Tommy.” Tommy gripped Wilbur harder and meekly asked “Please let me go, I won’t tell anybody, I swear.” he pleaded.
Wilbur cut him off with a chirp and Tommy went boneless, like somebody had hit the restart button on his brain.
“Bring him back inside.” Phil stepped out of the doorway, making room for his sons. Techno stepped through first, the blood coagulating on his hand and face. Wilbur stepped through with Tommy who was starting to come around to his surroundings and started to move again.
“Wilbur, can you bring Tommy back to the nest please? I’ll bring him lunch in a minute.” Phil asked.
“Is that how he got out?” Wilbur asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Yes, we were about to have lunch when he heard the doorbell ring and tried to make a break for it.”
“Smart.” Wilbur hoisted Tommy up again and made for the nest room. He was almost through the door when Tommy started to squirm again.
“You said you would help me!” he shouted despite knowing that Wilbur hadn’t in fact said anything of the sort. Wilbur was about to point this out when a lucky kick found his diaphragm. Wilbur released Tommy to protect his midsection from his onslaught.
Tommy hissed loudly in only a way an avian could, it was a far-cry from Phil’s full death rattle but other than that it was pretty impressive for an avian as young as him.
He hissed back, extending his tawny wings as much as he could in the small hallway. Tommy froze, not knowing what to do and Wilbur took his chance.
He lunged forward and seized Tommy by his shoulders and firmly wrapped his arms and his around his smaller form, encasing him in a living cocoon of feathers and brotherly love.
He carefully picked up Tommy, who had started squirming again, and brought him into the nest room where he hit his next problem.
He couldn’t close the door, and he couldn’t put Tommy down without him making a break for it.
“Techno!” he shouted “Techno! Come here please!”
Techno appeared at the end of the hallway and smirked, “is he giving you a hard time?”
“I can’t close the door.” Wilbur said, readjusting his grip so that Tommy couldn’t get his arms loose. Techno huffed a laugh but stepped into the nest room and closed the door behind him as he did.
“Thanks,” Wilbur said, “can you also help me with the shackles?”
“No!” Tommy protested, “No you fucking don’t motherfuckers! I’ll fucking kill you!”
“Sure.”
Wilbur held Tommy as steady as he could while Techno grabbed the shackles that they both knew were buried under the blankets. Tommy fought the whole time, vehemently swearing and kicking as hard as he could.
“Fuck you! Burn in hell, both of you! Fucking die-”
Wilbur moved his wings enough to cover Tommy’s face, he got quieter but just barely. Avians did this with their chicks all the time when they needed to calm down in a hurry.
Techno grabbed one of Tommy’s ankles and quickly closed a shackle around it, which made Tommy start kicking at Techno again despite being blindfolded. He hit Techno in the chest but it barely got a reaction out of him, a soft wheeze of air leaving his lungs and not much else.
Techno grabbed Tommy’s still-kicking foot and wrapped the other shackle around it before he landed another blow. Tommy stopped kicking and instead turned to trying to free his arms instead.
Wilbur was stronger than he was and had next to no problem keeping him in one place now that he was on the floor and had next to nowhere to go. So he just held Tommy, hugging him to his chest like he was a living teddy bear.
A teddy bear that was trying its damndest to hurt him.
Phil walked into the room carrying a small bowl of macaroni and cheese. “How’s he doing?” he asked and was answered by Tommy’s frustrated scream.
“He’s…..adjusting.” Wilbur tucked Tommy’s head under his chin and had to quickly dodge his gnashing teeth that snapped down a little too close to his chin.
“Looks like he’s hungry enough to take a bite out of Wilbur, that’s true hunger.” Techno said with a shit eating smirk on his face.
Wilbur stuck his tongue out at him like a true adult.
“Let him up, Wil.” Phil said, stirring around the noodles in the bowl.
“If you give him a fork he’s going to try to stab you.” Techno said pointedly.
“I’m not going to give him a fork, I’ve learned my lesson since adopting you two.”
“At least you learned something from adopting us.” Techno snarked.
Phil gently touched Wilbur’s wings and Wilbur opened them to reveal Tommy. His face was red with two singular tear tracks illuminated on his cheeks, his wings were pressed solidly against Wilbur’s chest but he could still feel Tommy trying to flap them like he was hoping to fly out of his arms.
Phil held the macaroni laden fork up to Tommy’s face, Tommy flinched back with a sharp hiss. “I can feed myself, bastard.” he snarled, straining against Wilbur’s arms in an attempt to move further away from Phil.
“I know you can, mate,” Phil said patiently. “But I don’t trust you when it comes to cutlery right now. You can feed yourself in the future.”
Tommy didn’t like that answer.
He shrank back against Wilbur even more, a glare that could kill an armada marred his face (it was the cutest thing to Wilbur).
“I’m not hungry.” Tommy said stubbornly, his stomach rumbling as he was finishing his protest.
“You sure about that, mate?” Phil asked rhetorically. “Look, I’m not going to let you feed yourself but I’m also not going to let you starve yourself to prove a point. Let me feed you now and I will let you feed yourself at dinner time. Deal?”
For the first time that afternoon Tommy was silent as he weighed his options. It was almost uncanny to see him this quiet.
Tommy finally accepted Phil’s ultimatum with a small, jerky nod. Phil looked a little too pleased as he fed him one forkful at a time. The bowl the macaroni and cheese was in was small, but it still took a little bit to empty it. Largely because of Tommy’s reluctance to cooperate.
It was near the end of the meal that Tommy started to noticeably slump over, blinking heavily like he was trying to ward off sleep. Maybe he was, Phil might have slipped in benadryl or some other sleeping agent to make him more pliable and cuddly.
And he was cuddly.
Tommy leaned back against Wilbur, using his collar bone as a pillow. Wilbur didn’t know if Tommy was aware of what he was doing, if he wasn’t then he wasn’t going to interrupt him.
No.
He was perfectly fine just cuddling his new baby brother, the fruit of his father’s empty-nest syndrome.
Everything was fine.
Everything was Perfect.