“Tommy?”
The silence is all too familiar. It shouldn’t be, and yet Phil remembers the way it stretched on and on during those long, cold nights. The nights where the wind howled outside and a draft crept underneath the door, and it was all they could do to curl up beside the crackling fireplace and weather the storm. Technoblade, with a book in one hand and a cup of tea in the other, squinting down at the pages through thick spectacles balancing precariously at the end of his snout. Phil, splayed out right in front of the fire with his wings spread out like sheets on a clothesline, warming his aching joints and thawing out old scars. And Tommy, curled up against Steve, his bruised face pressed into soft white fur like he might melt away into the warmth altogether.
Those nights were always quiet. It’s funny how Phil never really appreciated the silence before. The calm before the storm—the deep breath before the plunge. Those brief, aching moments he wishes he could preserve in a little glass jar for the rest of eternity. He’d put them up on his shelf, just as timeless as himself, and maybe they’d be enough to melt the ice from his old bones.
Things were loud after that. But… for just a moment, they were quiet.