Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The next morning, Phil was up and ready before the sun. He had a big day ahead of him, after all. Pacing around his bedroom, he double and triple checked that he had everything he needed. His netherite armor was on and ready, he had his netherite sword and axe in his inventory, along with plenty of food, potions, pearls, and anything else he might need on his mission. He pulled his cloak on around his wings and over his armor and nestled his green and white bucket hat over his blond hair. 

With a glance out the window to see the sun rising over the trees, he decided it was time to go. He stopped first in his son Wilbur’s room. Wil was curled on his side with a fist resting at his chin, fluffy brown hair covering his forehead. Phil leaned down and placed a kiss on his eldest son’s forehead. The freshly-turned teenager curled into himself further, sighing in his sleep.

Phil then crossed the hall to Technoblade’s room and sat by his bedside a moment longer. Techno was a heavy sleeper, so he wasn’t worried that he’d wake him as he brushed his long pink hair out of his face. Phil couldn’t quite grasp the fact that his son was the same age as the young, abused admin he was going to rescue today. Imagines of his own boys in danger tugged at his heart and he couldn’t imagine what he would do if any harm were to come to them. Parting from Techno with a kiss to the crown of his head, Phil made a final stop to his youngests’ room.

Tommy appeared to have gotten in a fight with his bedsheets. Half were on the floor and the other half was wrapped so tightly around his legs that if he rolled over one more time, he would’ve gone crashing to the floor in a tangled mess. Phil smiled fondly and fixed his blankets, shushing Tommy back to sleep as he whined at the disruption. Reaching down, Phil grabbed Tommy’s stuffed spider off the ground that had apparently lost the nightly war with Tommy’s tossing and turning. Tucking Shroud, a name Tommy insisted on, back under the four-year-old’s arm, he gave Tommy’s head a quick kiss and paced over to the other side of the room. There Tubbo slept, the newest addition to the family. Phil had only adopted him a few months ago, but he fit right in with his other boys. Tubbo got a forehead kiss as well, and then Phil left the room, pulling the door behind him but leaving it open a crack. 

Upon reaching the kitchen, Phil wrote a note explaining his whereabouts (in case the kids somehow forgot where he would be for the day), and left it on the fridge. Leaving the house and locking the door behind him, Phil took to the air and flew to the Syndicate’s meeting spot.

When he got there, Niki and Sam were waiting for him. Both were suited up and ready to go. If looks could kill, everyone in Niki’s path would keel over and die. She had her white-blonde hair pulled away from her face in two short braids, enchanted netherite armor on, weapons strapped to every available surface. Sam wore similar gear, his standard gas mask strapped to his face, redstone dust making his gloved hands glow red. “The other three should be here shortly,” Sam updated him with a nod of greeting.

“Present,” Captain Puffy spoke from behind him, her long, curly white hair pulled into a high ponytail, her hands wrapped and ready for a fight. “I just had to finish with the world tracking, so we should be good now. We’ve tracked all the admins to their servers but the kid. You figure that out, Phil?”

All three turned to face him, to which he nodded. “Bad’s going to take him.”

Puffy nodded in approval. Just then, Foolish and Ponk arrived fully geared and they began the debriefing. They went over all of the plans, making sure that everyone was aware of their missions and the inner workings of what they had to do in order to pull off the rescue.

Once the plans were settled, they all turned to Phil. He took a deep breath and then reached out into the world code, opening a server portal and entering the IP address of the server they needed (credit to Ponk for finding the IP after weeks of searching). The group of them went through the portal and emerged on the other side on a new server.

“Alright,” Sam mumbled, pulling his map out of his inventory. “The compound is a few miles North, let’s go.”

…

Getting into the compound was easier than Phil had anticipated. Then again, he never should have underestimated Sam’s redstone contraption. There weren’t many guards and those that stood in their way were quickly disposed of. The group quickly dispersed, going along their individually marked paths to find and rescue their assigned admins. 

Phil took off down a side hallway to find the room Dream was being held in. He only had one assigned admin as opposed to everyone else having two or three. Following his map closely, he found the door at last. He didn’t bother with a key and simply sliced through the lock with his Sharpness V sword. 

With one last breath to steady himself, he opened the door slowly. He didn’t want to frighten the child. Light spilled in through the open door, illuminating the small room that otherwise had no light. It took Phil a few seconds for his eyes to adjust and find the little boy curled up in a ball in the center of the room. The poor thing was shaking in his sleep, dressed in only a pair of shorts. There wasn’t a bed or even a blanket in the room and once Phil made that realization, goosebumps spread across his skin. No wonder the poor thing was shaking.

Phil knelt next to the kid to assess the damage. He rested his palm on his forehead, frowning at the temperature, taking in his flushed cheeks. Phil was quickly feeling overwhelmed at everything he was seeing. Dream was skin and bones, his pale skin covered in bruises and scars. His cheekbones were stark, dark eye bags under his eyes, and Phil could count each of his ribs. Phil went to rest his hand on his shoulder to shake him gently awake, but the rattling of chains caught his attention.

Apparently, they shocked Dream awake as well and the boy’s eyes shot open, wide and terrified. He whimpered and jumped back, scrambling as far from Phil as he could go. Unfortunately, the chains that cuffed his wrists didn’t have enough slack to get him to the wall. Phil’s heart broke clean in two. He raised his hands in surrender and spoke slowly and clearly to not spook Dream further.

“Hey, Dream. That’s your name, right? Dream?”

Dream was panting, eyes swimming with fever and fright. His whole body trembled, but he nodded in answer to the question. “Good job, Dream. My name is Phil. I’m an admin, just like you.” Dream didn’t offer any response, so Phil scooted just a bit closer on his knees. Dream flinched at the movement, but there was nowhere else for him to go so he focused back on Phil, watching him closely for any sudden movements. 

“I’m not going to hurt you, mate,” Phil said softly. “Can I take those cuffs off you?” Dream just stared back at him. Phil sighed. He could hear shouting in the halls and he knew they were running out of time. “Look, mate, I’m just going to cut the cuffs off your wrists and then we’re going to get out of here, alright? I’m going to bring you far away from here and to a nice place with nice people that aren’t going to hurt you. Does that sound good?”

Dream once again offered no answer, but he didn’t flinch as hard when Phil approached and took his shaking hands gently in his own. “I have a Fire Aspect knife that I’m going to use to cut through the cuffs, okay? It’ll be quick and I promise it won’t hurt,” Phil warned, narrating his actions in the hopes that it would help Dream’s panic. 

As Phil unsheathed the knife, Dream’s breathing audibly quickened, turning to panicked wheezes as he followed the knife’s path to his hands. He started thrashing to get away from Phil, anything to pull his hands away, but there was nowhere to go.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you, remember?” Dream wasn’t listening to him and big, fat tears began to slide down his face as he cried. Phil was quick to set the knife on the floor and gently tilt Dream’s face up to meet his eyes. His eyes were very green, Phil noticed for the first time. Their added vibrancy could only be a result of the fever and the tears. “Dream, can you look at me please? Just focus on my face. It’ll be over in a second, just keep your eyes up here, mate.”

Hiccuping on his tears, Dream did as he was told, sobbing as the searing sound of the knife melting through the metal of his cuffs filled the air. As soon as the cuffs were off, Phil sheathed the knife and pulled the small and trembling little boy into his arms, wrapping him in his arms tightly and shushing him soothingly. Dream clung to him instantly, wrapping his arms around Phil’s neck tightly. Phil spared as much time as he dared to try and calm Dream, but when Sam burst through the door with urgency in his tone to tell him they had to leave now, Phil had no other choice but to stand.

“Sam, help me with my cloak,” Phil barked and Sam rushed forward, tugging the cloak from his shoulders and a bit roughly from his wings, though Phil gritted his teeth and let it slide. “Here, Dream,” Phil whispered, taking the cloak from Sam and wrapping it around the sobbing boy. Sam’s gaze softened and gestured for Phil to exit the little room after him.

Wings bared like a shield around the young child in his arms and Sam ahead of him with his sword drawn, they made their way through the now empty halls of the compound to where the others were all waiting outside. There was no time to talk and they all started making their way back to the portal as fast as they could with the newly rescued admins. The journey back to the portal took much longer than it had earlier and as soon as they reached the portal, Phil made sure everyone went through first before following and closing it behind them.

They stood in silence for a few minutes back on their own server, breathing heavily and letting the admins collect themselves after such a taxing escape. At some point, Dream had passed out in Phil’s arms, limp but still trembling. His tears stained tracks on his flushed cheeks and Phil’s face twisted in sorrow as he adjusted his cloak around the boy’s shoulders and held him just a bit tighter.

Once everyone was ready, Phil began opening server portals for the Syndicate members to bring their assigned admins home. It took hours and was very exhausting work, but finally all that was left was Sam and an admin with fluffy brown hair and reindeer antlers. “Ready to go?” Sam asked the admin, who shook his head and held up a hand in a gesture to ‘wait.’

He walked over to Phil, who backed away protectively. The admin met his eyes and his gaze eased some of Phil’s guardedness and he allowed the man to rest a hand on Dream’s shoulder and gently shake him awake. Dream didn’t have the same reaction he had to Phil waking him earlier. Instead, he blinked awake blearily, reaching out a shaking hand to the admin with the antlers. The man smiled warmly, taking the boy’s hand and pressing a kiss to his knuckles. Dream smiled, the first genuine expression Phil had seen from him that wasn’t terror. Callahan placed Dream’s arm back around Phil’s neck and rested his forehead against Dream’s who had his head tucked under Phil’s chin. The man then pressed a soft kiss to the boy’s forehead, a fatherly action that reminded Phil quite suddenly of his kids back at home, and ran two fingers very lightly over Dream’s eyes. They stayed closed and Dream drifted back off to sleep.

Phil looked back into the eyes of the admin who seemed to care a lot for Dream to see that he had tears brimming in his eyes. Thank you , he signed. Take care of him for me. Phil didn’t know a lot of sign language, but he was able to follow along well enough. “Of course,” Phil answered with a firm nod, watching as the admin, now satisfied with Phil’s answer, turned to leave with Sam back to his home server.

Phil waited in the still night with a sleeping Dream as his only company, lost in his thoughts. Eventually, Sam entered back through the portal and Phil closed it behind him. He wished Sam a good night and set on his way to the home of BadBoyHalo.