One More Step Out of the Pit

Chapter 2

This house was a nightmare, Phil thought for very much not the first time.

"Phil, please make him stop," Techno pleaded through a mouthful of pancake. It was about 7am in his household and things were progressing in an unfortunately normal manner.

"Will, stop," Phil ordered.

Wilbur did not stop. He continued to strum his guitar while spewing out sing-song words that inhumanly echoed against Phil's skull. "Is it annoy-oy-oying?"

"Yes," Techno groaned, and it was. It was the most annoying thing in the world the way his voice skittered and crawled up and down Phil's back, like he was being poked with icy cold fingers repeatedly. It was painless, but Phil still wanted to slam his own head into the wall. Or, better yet, Will's.

"Can we not have one breakfast without light torture?" he asked his son.

"No, Phil," he continued to sing, and invoking Phil's name made the annoying sensation of his voice dig deeper into his skin. "I need to practice, and you are a captive audience because you love me." Unfortunately, this was fact.

"Shut up, shut up," Phil begged. "Put the pancakes in your mouth and shut up." He slammed down the last platter of pancakes he'd been making and put two on the boy's plate. Wilbur ignored this, continuing to make the low-pitched warbling sound as he stummed on his guitar.

"I'm going to kill him," Techno said. "I don't even care anymore. I'm 98% sure it wouldn't be permanent, but it would be so satisfying."

Phil knew that was a lie, of course, (though he wondered when he'd gotten numb to those sort of jokes) and so did Wilbur. "Technoblade will not kill me because he is far too soft," Wilbur sang even louder.

"Wilbur seriously," Techno snapped, wincing at the increased volume. "I have a headache."

Wilbur's mouth snapped shut immediately and Phil let out a sigh of relief. The fingers on the guitar paused, letting the last strummed chord fade. Phil watched as those fingers shifted and rearranged themselves to strum a different chord. "This is Technoblade's headache song," he sang along with the new tune. "This is Technoblade's headache song. Techno has a headache, so we'll sing it all night long. Oh, we'll sing it all night long."

The tension that had been lining Techno's shoulders all morning slowly leaked out of him. "How are you both the worst and best person in the universe?" Techno asked as Will repeated the chorus again. He let his head sink down onto the table and Phil had to act fast to keep his not yet braided hair from falling into the syrup. "You're a lyricist. You'd think you could come up with something less stupid for it," he grumbled. Phil patted his head with a soft laugh.

Wilbur just smiled through his song without pausing the "verse" of 'ba da da da's that came faster with a slightly different tune from the lyrics. It was a familiar song in their home, its origins from the first week they all lived together, though the tune had changed slightly as Will perfected it over the years.

The pattern repeated: two run throughs of the chorus and a string of 'ba's and 'da's' three more times before Will paused. "Better?" he asked, just a touch smug.

"Yeah," Techno grumbled reluctantly. He peeled his face off the table and grabbed his fork to stab another piece of his pancake.

"Good," Phil said, rubbing his back. He turned to Wilbur. "Now shut up and eat your god dammed food before it gets colder than it already is."

Wilbur grinned at him. "Don't you want a song, Phil?"

"Shut it," Phil said, pointing a warning finger at him. "Shut."

"But..."

"Shut."

Will rolled his eyes and finally, blessedly began to butter his pancakes in preparation for eating them.