I wrote this fic for the OSMP Big Bang Event. It's nine chapters long and focuses completely on Bunnyblade being adopted by SBI because sometimes I need more fluff in my life goshdarnit.
No matter how safe others say the commune is, Phil still prefers to do his own reconnaissance.
It isn't so much that he doesn't trust them to do a thorough job at it. No, they'd all been through hell to find a place where hybrids could live away from human intervention and all the harm it would cause them. None of them would risk what they'd managed to build here by being sloppy. But Phil is also firmly of the opinion that if you want to do something right, you do it yourself. He has two young kids, both of them notorious troublemakers. He can't risk their safety for the world, not to mention somebody else slacking.
One small mistake could cost the commune everything, it could even end up getting them all killed. The Crowfather won't allow that to happen on his watch.
Besides, with his wings, he's the best at scouting further out than anybody else. His literal bird's eye view of the commune and its surrounding areas would alert him quickly if something was wrong, and his elytrian eyesight is especially well-suited for the job of lookout - even in the darkest of nights.
So every day, around dusk when he's sure Tommy and Wilbur are in the nest and know not to leave it, he takes flight and circles the commune. First, a tight ring right above their homes, watching the lights of The Pube and people walking around enjoying their evening. Then Phil flies out further, keeping at it until he's satisfied and can go home.
Today on his excursion he can see a distant cloud of smoke billowing from behind the hilly grasslands over the mountains. Phil isn't too worried - it's so far away it could hardly pose a threat to their commune. But he still glides lower to the ground, smelling the acidic scent of smoke being carried their way by the wind.
There's an undercurrent of sharpness to the scent too - metallic. Blood, Phil realizes. Death. Curiosity might have killed the cat, but Phil still dares to stalk closer. Probably, it'll turn out to be nothing. Probably, it's just some human village attacked by pillagers. Or a forest fire so remote it would never reach the commune without starving itself of kindle.
But that tiny, lingering thread of doubt means Phil can't dismiss it. He can't take that risk.
The forest is rarely quiet. When it is, that's a bad sign. Animals scurrying around the undergrowth, birds roosting among the branches. If those sounds are absent, something is seriously wrong. Then again, hearing a high-pitched whimper full of pain can't be a great sign either.
Phil stops abruptly, his wings flaring out to help him keep his balance. He waits to see if what he heard was just a fluke, or maybe the breeze playing a trick on him.
A few seconds later the same noise reaches his ears, a little louder than before.
It's unmistakably alive, an animal perhaps? Phil finds it hard to tell, trying to follow the muffled whines along the ground. Pushing through a thicket of bushes, what he finds is not what he expected.
A child, he registers dully.
Then with more urgency. Holy fucking shit. A child.
They're small, curled into themselfs pathetically as if attempting to hide. Phil stands there for a moment completely dumbstruck, brain trying to get over the hurdle of how absurd it is for him to find a whole kid just out in the woods alone. But then they whimper again, the pain in their voice now even more obvious than before. Their leg twitches, pulling closer against their body. They're bleeding from a large gash in their thigh. It looks bad.
"Fuck!" Phil's voice makes them flinch. They try to sit up and scramble away but their injured leg drags behind them uselessly, making it so they can't get up and run off. Phil - feeling guilty about startling them that badly - holds out his arms and tucks in his wings, trying to seem less intimidating. "Wow, wait, it's okay mate. I'm not here to hurt you."
They turn their head to look at him with frightened red eyes, indicating they probably understand the common tongue at least. That's convenient since a language barrier is the last thing they need right now. Phil steps closer, kneeling down to their level.
"My name is Philza. I'm going to assume that the burning smell and you ending up here alone are connected somehow. Can you tell me what happened?"
Nothing about their facial expression reads as incomprehension to him, so they definitely speak the language. Yet they don't say a word. Perhaps what they've been through was traumatic enough to render them speechless. Phil can only imagine what that could have been.
"Your leg doesn't seem to be doing so well. Can I get a better look at it?" He's trying so hard to be patient here, despite a growing awareness that they're out in uncharted territory, unprotected and with darkness creeping in.
Thankfully the kid has some common sense. They crawl closer, sticking out their leg to the side and allowing Phil to examine it. The gash is big but shallow - an arrow that nicked them perhaps. It bled a lot and upon closer inspection, they twisted their ankle too so they won't walk on it for a bit. But with proper care, it will recover fully in no time.
That's only one of the two things Phil notices though. The other thing is that their leg has a layer of short white fur growing over it, starting from about two inches below the knee and going down all the way to where their paw is.
A rabbit's paw, to be exact.
With them getting this close, Phil can also see all the other telltales of their physical appearance which betray them to be a hybrid. Their fingers have small claws on them, their eyes are a deep maroon in color. Most unmistakable of all are two long white rabbit ears that peek out from a mess of long pink hair. They're half hidden because they're angled back and down though, communicating their unease over the situation. Phil is sure that they must have a tail too, even if he can't see it from this angle.
A bunny hybrid then.
"Yeah, it's looking pretty bad. Did you run all the way here from over there despite the wound?" he asks, indicating the distant burning.
They look at him a moment longer, considering. Then they nod.
"Impressive. But you won't get any further with it being like this, and you can't stay out here at night. Are you okay with coming with me? We have a safe place, a place humans can't reach."
Because it doesn't take a genius to add two and two together. This has hunter's work written all over it.
Again, they nod. Phil smiles, reaching forward to scoop them up in his arms. Phil has never been great at estimating ages by appearance, but if he were to guess the kid is only a little younger than Wilbur. He picks them up carefully so he doesn't jostle their injured leg in the process.
"Okay, hold on tight now. This can be a bit scary at first."
Phil has learned firsthand from carting Ranboo and a few others around that flight could be a terrifying experience for hybrids that aren't airborne by nature. That's why he tries to make it as easy as he can, holding the child in a way that makes it impossible for them to look down and see how high they're soaring over the trees. Within minutes, they're already at the commune. Phil beelines straight for his nest.
The landing is less than graceful, one of his wings immediately knocks into Tommy who had popped up at the sound of his approach to greet him.
"Dad! Wilbur's being a little bitch ag-AH!" A face full of feathers shuts him up.
"Sorry, sorry," Phil says hastily, rolling his eyes at how Wilbur laughs at his little brother's misfortune. He really doesn't have the time to learn what kind of childish squabble those two were engaged in tonight. "Wil, can you get me some potions?"
Hearing the seriousness of his voice makes the humor evaporate quickly enough. "What, why? Who's that?"
"Now Wilbur!" Phil says a bit harsher than intended. He just doesn't feel like answering questions right now. Wilbur scampers off to get the potions from one of their chests.
He puts the kid down, watching them push up on their elbows and look around curiously. "Stay put," Phil tells them. "Don't try to move too much or you'll make it worse."
They don't really acknowledge him, locking eyes with Tommy. Tommy beams.
"Hello! I'm Tommy, what's your name?"
The kid blinks at him, too overwhelmed to respond. Phil decides to divert Tommy's attention to something else before he scares the poor child into a stupor. That's something that can happen to bunnies, Phil knows. "Can you get me some bandages, Tommy? And maybe some of Wilbur's old clothes, these are kind of filthy."
"Can do big man!" Then Tommy is off with a little salute.
Phil waits for him to be out of earshot before he continues. "Those two you just met are my sons, Wilbur and Tommy. Don't let them scare you, their bark is way worse than their bite." As he talks, he carefully rolls the tattered remains of the kid's pants over their knee, so the wound can be tended to.
"Who is this?" Wilbur asks again, appearing back at their side with multiple potions in hand. Phil didn't clarify which ones he needed, so it looks like Wilbur brought one of each. Clever lad.
"I don't know their name yet, I just found them out in the forest past the commune border."
"And you brought them back here?" Wilbur asks, his voice pinched with disbelief. With worry.
"You'd have preferred me letting them die?" Phil says bemused, knowing Wilbur didn't mean it like that.
"Of course not," his son defends predictably. "It just-" He shakes his head, dismissing the thought. Phil knows he will hear more of it later. "Here's the potions."
"Thank you." Phil takes a healing pot from him. "This is going to hurt," he warns the child. They visibly brace themselfs, preparing for the usual stinging that comes with using a potion to fix injuries. The cut heals almost instantly, but their ankle remains swollen. Sprained, Phil would presume even without getting a closer look at it. Only rest will really help.
"I got bandages." Tommy returns in a flurry of motion and puffed up feathers. "And also Wilbur's ugly old sweater."
"Hey, I like that sweater." Wilbur hits Tommy's shoulder playfully, making him laugh.
"You complain about it being itchy all the time."
"It is itchy, doesn't mean I don't still like it."
"Well, I hope you don't mind if we let our new friend borrow it. I don't think they were prepared for a nighttime stroll." Phil glances at the bunny hybrid's clothes. By the looks of it, they were caught unaware while sleeping. That explains why they are dressed so lightly despite it being only early spring.
They take the sweater, pulling it over their head. After getting it on, they struggle a bit with the too-long sleeves and getting their unruly pink hair out of their face.
"It's Technoblade," they say when they're done, the first words they've spoken since Phil met them. "And you're right, it is itchy." That last part is directed more at Tommy than anything else.
"So itchy," Tommy agrees with a frown.
Phil clears his throat, reaching out so he can start bandaging their leg. "Technoblade, can you tell us what happened?"
"I… I don't know. I woke up to a lot of screaming and burning." Technoblade tugs at the sweater nervously, unable to meet three curious gazes. "It was so full of smoke in the burrow I couldn't really see but I managed to get outside, though even then it was bad enough to sting my eyes. There were angry people, I think. So I ran away. Then something hit my leg and I tripped down the steep end of the forest."
"It was likely an arrow that hit you," Phil says. "You were lucky, it didn't get in deep enough so it fell out again." He'd seen it before a few times, though not usually with children. "If it had stayed stuck, you would have been in a lot of trouble."
Technoblade nods. "I just wanted to get as far away from there as possible."
"What about any others making it out?" Wilbur asks. "Your family?"
"They're probably dead," Technoblade says calmly
Phil isn't sure he likes the casual tone he uses to deliver this news. Then again, he supposes with what little he knows about bunny hybrids, he can't judge. Where elytrians are known for forming close-knit family nests, mating for life, and raising only a few chicks in their lifespan, rabbits are a whole different species. They are born in a big warren, five or six to a litter with no clear family structure. And part of the reason it's like that is because they're prey animals. There's an expectation that not all of them will make it to adulthood.
Phil looks at the child sitting in front of him, hair a mess and still caked in dirt and with their leg bandaged up to the knee. And he knows he will not sit by and become responsible for them dying too.
It wouldn't be the first time a child of unrelated origin to theirs has been adopted into the commune. Tubbo and Ranboo were just like Technoblade once - children with nobody else to look after them.
"You can live with us for the time being," he says. It's not his place to force the kid to remain with them indefinitely, especially since Technoblade hardly knows them. But as long as they're injured, Technoblade can't leave. It would be too dangerous. "Tomorrow, I will ask the other members of the commune for their thoughts, but I can guarantee they won't have an issue with you staying. Does that sound fair?"
Technoblade shrugs. "I guess."
They don't strike Phil as overly enthusiastic about the situation, but that can't be helped. They're probably still halfway into shock.
"It will be like a sleepover!" Tommy says vigorously, making up for any lack of energy on their part. "We could make hot chocolate, and play cards, and tell scary stories!"
"Or we can go straight to bed because little shits like you need their sleep," Phil interjects. He's not about to let Tommy trick him into another sugar high. "And Technoblade too, after what happened. Wilbur, that counts for you as well."
Begrudgingly, Tommy has to agree. Phil tucks all three children in, keeping an extra eye on Technoblade to make certain they can settle in properly. But after burying them with enough blankets and pillows to drown in, they seem exhausted enough to fall asleep within seconds.
Phil sits by and watches them, too preoccupied with this whole 'unexpected guest' situation to consider sleeping himself. Hunters this close to the commune? Phil doesn't like that at all. And there's the matter of where Technoblade will be staying from now on.
There will be a lot to discuss come morning.