Chapter Text
A year had passed since then.
A whole year since Wilbur and Techno stumbled in late, bloodsoaked (none of it theirs) and completely spent. With Phil and Tommy already asleep, it had been all too easy to doze off on the spare cots, only at ease with the knowledge that everyone was safe and accounted for.
A lot had happened. For starters, quietly absorbing the whole of the Esempi district into their territory, buying out Dream’s businesses, and hiring his operatives that they’d put out of work was a hefty job. He didn’t exactly have a successor with how blatantly Techno vowed to annihilate anything and anyone still tied to that wretched organization, so it was less difficult than you’d think.
That found them standing outside a tall building. Keeping the project under wraps for this long had been tedious, but it was safe to say they did. For all Philza knew, they had been settled in a different condo and were going to stay there for the foreseeable future.
And don’t get him wrong, the new-ish house was fine, and probably better protected than their last, but it just wasn’t the same. What they had at the old place was a slice of Prime. It was well crafted, aesthetically pleasing, and Techno had always loved it as a symbol of his success, but all that turned rotten the moment he saw Theseus bleeding out in there. The music stopped and it became one more thing in a line of many that had failed him. Poor security, lack of control, outdated systems, the inadequacies added up until none of them could go back there and feel secure. Hence, their first move as a complete family.
But the second one was always the replacement. It felt like a replacement. So much so that they often spent time in Phil’s old home whenever they wanted to feel truly at ease in a space.
Their plan had come into motion less than a week after moving, but some things took time. Even with the money, it was a long process to renovate a building and if Techno was pulling out all the stops, it was worth doing right no matter the time. That required architects, engineers, specialty contractors, several different sets of blueprints to be safe, security tech startups that were still in the niche and ludicrously expensive stage of availability, you name it. Every cent they made out of cannibalizing and upcycling Dream’s empire went into this thing (and a little pocket change to keep people quiet about it).
Hiding the nature something on that large of a scale was hard to do to the feds, nevermind your dad. It was a miracle the three of them even kept Phil away from it for so long, but in a city that big, a single skyscraper was easily overlooked. And, well, it also helped that he and Kristin had recently decided to get together. It was only a matter of planning their contractor meetings around the couple’s unfathomably long dates that Phil still would be gushing over for days after.
With many many months worth of meticulous design and construction, Technoblade found himself genuinely excited to say it was ready.
“Mate, I’ve never been here in my life,” Phil said, skeptically as he stepped out of the car.
Wilbur shrugged, placing a hand on Theseus’s shoulder to subtly conceal the way the boy was almost vibrating with the weight of the surprise, “It’s a new office. I promise we’ll be quick. We just wanted to show you around.”
That was partially true. When you own an entire building, it turns out you can get just about all the zoning you need (albeit with a little encouragement to city officials). Close friends like Tommy’s rag tag group were obviously given a floor or three, and Techno had every intention of bringing Kristin in so that Phil would never move away, but the rest of it would be used for the Syndicate and whoever they rented to.
Stepping through the glass revolving doors and into the lobby, he was reminded of how long it took to settle on the final schematic. Technoblade loved gold and it all too literally reflected in the approved design choices. Every ceiling was trimmed, every light fixture was plated and the walls had enough mirrors that Wilbur would take a day to admire himself in each one. What he essentially made was the largest fuck you to anyone who didn’t think he and his brothers were going places.
“No, shot,” Phil looked around with a knitted brow, “Is this like a staycation thing? It’s a nice fuckin’ hotel if it is.”
None of them could stop Thesus from releasing a strangled laugh at that.
“What?”
“Nothing! Nothing.”
Exasperated, Phil looked to the ground floor secretary, who was smart enough to avoid eye contact with him. “Dude, this is so weird. You’re fucking with me, now.”
Another hallway of needless— well earned flexes of wealth later, they came to the main line of elevators. In their last place, everything had been far too easy to get through. There was having the lobby on your payroll, and then there was owning the whole building. Now they had a single elevator centred between the others with a few more flecks of gold here and there to show its importance. The only place it went was to and from their new home. Coincidentally, it was also the only elevator that could withstand an RPG, had thermal imaging, and required both face ID and fingerprinting to open (but who was he to gloat?).
“Dibs,” Tommy declared, making a show of holding down the button to hide the second or two it took to read his print.
The cabin (already on the ground floor from the last time they’d left) simply opened its doors to them in a smooth glide. On the interior, the walls were lined with mirrors that concealed numerous cameras behind the reflective surface that ensured no one off the list of recognized faces were coming in.
“There’s no fuckin buttons?” Phil deadpanned, scanning the walls.
Wilbur grinned. “It’s voice-activated,” he lied, just as the doors slid shut, “Watch this: Elevator. Take me to the forty fourth floor.”
Another lie, it was a bit higher than that. Not that Phil could tell with how seamless Wilbur’s timing was. The ground underneath them moved in the invisible way you could only feel through your body rising, which correlated with going dozens of floors into L’Manburg’s skyline. There were no other destinations to slow down for, so it was a straight shot to their new penthouse.
The elevator slowed to a stop and the doors slowly opened on their new apartment.
“....Motherfucker.”
Techno grinned.
— — —
Taking in the notably barren entrance, any and all believability of them visiting an office went down the fucking shitter. The doors opened into a stunning lounge, daylit by massive windows that had to span two floors worth of space. Actually, he was certain that was true because of the literal fucking staircase leading up to an indoor balcony overlooking the open area.
This was a house.
This was a fucking penthouse.
Phil turned around, understandably confused. They already had a place uptown that was good enough (or so he thought?). A creeping suspicion hinted that they brought him to an open house or something, but Phil didn't quite believe that either. There was no overly suave real estate agent waiting to breathe down their necks and sell them the place. It was just huge, nice and… empty.
But maybe they were past the viewing stage.
“Did you seriously just randomly decide to buy a new house?” he asked, trying his best to sound admonishing about that financial decision while he got over the general shock.
With the worst poker face out of all of them, Tommy pursed his lips and gave a guilty smile. “In theory, if we did more than that…”
He balked. “How could you possibly do more than that? What in the name of all that is rich and impulsive-”
“It wasn’t impulsive!” Wilbur laughed, “You have no idea how long this shit took.”
“Don’t dodge the question!”
Letting out a deep, rumbling chuckle, Technoblade uncrossed one of his arms to make a wide, sweeping gesture. “The biggest hint I can give you is that we never lied,” he shrugged, “There’s also Syndicate headquarters somewhere below us, and… a lot of other stuff.”
What the fuck.
Mentally connecting the dots set out before him nearly floored Phil. If they owned above. And below. And it took a long time. Well, it walked like a duck and quacked like a duck- and probably meant that these chaotic little shits just bought themselves an entire fucking skyscraper.
“Technoblade.”
“Heh?”
“No you fucking didn’t.”
Wilbur spoke with a smile that bled mischievously into his voice, “Where we go, you go, right? Don’t you wanna check it out?”
Ah, so that was how they were gonna play it. Moving in general always seemed to be a massive hassle for someone who lived happily in a small ass apartment for years… But that didn’t make Wilbur any less right. They could be moving into an active volcano and Phil would still pack his bags with little more than a sigh. He’d be worse off without them than inside a volcano, anyway. After all the shit they’d been through it would have been a marvel if Phil came out of it without at least some separation anxiety.
“You sneaky fucks,” he rolled his eyes, stepping into the bright and clear space with a weakly upheld expression of irritance.
Walking in front of him, Tommy made a hunched-over stance of an elderly person and poorly imitated Phil’s voice, “Mimimimi, I’m Philza Minecraft and woe is me, for I have to move into a multi-million dollar home.”
“Oh fuck off!” Phil gave a light flick to Tommy’s shoulder, making him get out of his stupid pose, “I’m not saying I don’t want to!”
Their group dissolved into contagious laughter that bounced nicely off the walls and ceilings. He already knew Wilbur’s music would be spread throughout the place with acoustics that good. Come to think of it, the tall interior walls could hold an entire bookshelf of Techno’s greek mythology and Prime, all that space would be good for Tommy’s rambunctious nature. It was unfair how quickly Phil was ready to project their future onto the blank canvas of a home.
“We still have to find a good wall to hang the bike, so keep an eye out while we do the tour,” Wilbur said, leading them deeper into the house.
Giving him a passive objective was a good idea. There was so much fucking building to look at that the mental image of their old bicycle being proudly hung on one of the fancy trimmed walls helped it feel more real. Usually, even the most expensive fucking apartments didn’t have the actual dimensions of a full on house, house. It didn’t matter what Tory word like condominium or penthouse was applied, but make no mistake, this was a two story house in every way except that it was hundreds of metres in the sky.
There was a terrace that put their old balcony to shame, guest bathrooms- plural, a walk in fucking pantry, two ovens- Who fucking needed two ovens? Them, apparently. And that was just the ground floor!
Phil wasn’t afraid to be taken aback by the space. If anything, he only felt encouraged to lose any sense of filter with the way Wilbur or Techno’s smile would grow a little whenever Phil dropped an astonished cuss over something like a custom-made chandelier imported from Snowchester. When you looked past the almost blinding dollar signs, it was obvious a lot of work and thought had been put into pulling it all together. They had every right to be proud of it.
At the very least, the upstairs seemed easier for him to wrap his head around. Four generously-sized bedrooms alone was a lot for a single floor. The stencil of huge fuckoff bed (you have no idea how often everyone crashed in one room), walk in closet, and ensuite bathroom was repeated fourfold until Phil was sure he’d seen every inch of available space.
Wrong.
“Last room, we promise!” Tommy giggled, adding a flourish to his step down the hall with a small spin.
“There’s more?” he asked, watching the three of them like he was waiting for a punchline.
Techno just shrugged, “Yeah, unless you want to see the building’s other amenities…”
Phil stared.
“...but I get the sense you’re not quite ready for that.”
French doors gave way to yet another room that seemed to have the entire city on full display through the massive windows. The broad desk that sat nearest to the glass hinted it was a home office, which was absolutely fucking ludicrous if the real office was one elevator away. Still, it made perfect sense to him if it meant Wilbur and Techno could stay as close as possible.
Approaching the only piece of furniture in the room, Phil scoffed a light laugh when he saw papers on it, “Have you seriously already gotten to work here?”
“Actually, um,” The nervous edge taken on by Wilbur’s voice drew his full attention, “We were wondering if you could give the go-ahead for those ones.”
He didn’t understand at first. “Mate,” Phil laughed, as he walked up to it and tried to evaluate what looked like a document, “What could you possibly need my permission for-”
The title cut him off fast enough to rob the air from his lungs.
Legal name change. The forms read ‘legal name change’ with three different instances of ‘Minecraft’ following their own.
“I knew for a long time that if uh…” Wilbur wet his lips, looking away for a moment, “If all of us died tomorrow, not everyone would know we were a family, so… we wanted to fix that.”
Something in Phil’s world stuttered. He understood what Wilbur was saying. Logically, all the words made sense together in that sentence- and yet, he still wanted to get his ears checked. Oh shit, and his eyes for reading those papers- actually, maybe Phil just needed a new brain because holy actual shit if that was real he’d probably be crying and-
A warm tear slipped down his cheek.
Oh.
“We thought of adoption… but that’s actually hard to do without the parent knowing, and we didn’t wanna just fudge it through connections, either,” Techno explained, his eyes uncharacteristically glued to the floor, “This is completely legit.”
Tommy saw. He looked hopeful, but hesitated to approach him, “...Phil?”
“Yeah?” he sniffled, blinking a few times to clear his eyes, “Yeah… That’s- Fuck, are you sure?”
Okay, based on their faces it was a stupid question. He knew it, but Phil still had to ask.
“Fuck do you mean ‘are we sure’? ” eyebrows furrowed, Tommy slumped into Phil’s side, “Nevermind. Fuck your permission. We’re Minecrafts now.”
It was second nature at that point to put an arm around him. Phil… he was feeling a lot right now, but it was all good. A lot, but good, he decided. Sometimes it was hard to tell with how squarely the emotion hit him in the gut, bringing him to his knees before Phil could even fully understand what that meant.
Wilbur joined them with a watery laugh, “Actually, that’s perfect.”
“We’re takin’ your name, old man,” the biggest of all of them, Techno completed the circle, “Do not resist.”
He pretended to think about it… drawing out the moment until he could see three sets of expectant eyes blinking back at him, “Ah, what’s one more thing? Go on, then.”
The soft, but nearly delirious laughter that followed diffused the tension from the room until the next breath felt lighter. And the next. As much as their entire situation was unbelievable, Phil couldn’t imagine himself anywhere else in the world than exactly where he was now. He didn’t want to be anywhere else in the world. It just wouldn’t make sense. This was all he wanted.
“Prime, I fuckin’ love you kids, man.”
“We’re not kids,” Techno shrugged, teasingly.
“You’re my kids.”
There was no dispute.