TW: Anxiety attack, swearing
Phil was streaming when he got a text from Tommy.
"Oh chat, Tommy just texted me! Let's see what he said."
Tommy: i don't think i can do this college thing phil everythings too loud
Of course, Phil didn't read this on stream. His first reaction was to furrow his eyebrows but he quickly saved it by barking out a laugh.
"Ah, it's the usual. College is apparently full of women. Sounds like Tommy is very happy right now, boys."
Only Phil knew that Tommy was quite the opposite, and he wasn't going to leave the poor boy alone with his thoughts.
"Let's get Wil in here!"
He quickly PMd Wil to ask him to join the stream.
Phil: Hey Wil, would you mind joining my stream for a few minutes to entertain them? An urgent matter came up and I need to talk to someone. It should only take a few minutes
Wilbur: Of course Phil, I'll be right in
The sound of Wilbur joining the Discord call was a relief to Phil's ears, as he greeted Wil and hurriedly faked getting a call.
"Oh shoot, chat, I've got a call. I'll be back in a minute, sorry!"
As he muted himself, he could hear Wilbur start the heavily-demanded explanation for his sand addiction. "It all started when I went to the beach when I was 5..."
He deafened just to be able to give his full attention to Tommy. As he looked to chat he could see them calling bullshit; after all, he had "coincidentally" brought Wilbur in moments before "taking a call". But Phil didn't care at the moment; he'd spent long enough not calling Tommy to check up on the boy.
Ring
Ring
"Hey Phil," The elder had to strain to hear Tommy's voice through the phone speakers, the boy was speaking so quietly.
"Hey, Tommy! Is college not going too well, then?"
"Well, it was but then my professor chewed me out in front of my new friends. It was so hard to go up and talk to them, and I was so proud of myself for being social and now it's all ruined."
Tommy's voice progressively sped up and got louder, like he had less control of his thoughts. Phil suspected he was on the verge of an anxiety attack and did his best to calm the boy down.
"Aw Toms, I'm sorry that happened. But I have an idea! Talk to your new friends about how much the professor sucks. Trust me, you're hilarious - if you turn it into a joke they'll forget all about it! Also, I'm sure they don't care and don't think of you differently. And Tommy, I'm proud of you for being brave enough to talk to them. It must have been pretty hard, especially on the first day." Phil meant every word he said as he did his best to comfort the boy.
"Thank you," Tommy's sniffly voice came through the phone and Phil was worried. Why was he crying?
"Hey Toms, is something else wrong? Why are you crying?"
Tommy let out a strained chuckle and responded, "No, there's nothing wrong. It might seem kinda sad, but I'm just happy you said you were proud of me. I don't... hear that very often."
Phil's heart ached for the boy, as he learned so much about him from one conversation. Loud, confident Tommy was a teenage boy and dealt with emotions and anxiety just about as well as any other teenager, and Phil kept it in his mind to be gentler. Of course, Phil was already a kind man and rarely antagonized Tommy, but he did always adapt a harsher persona on the Dream SMP and only now realized the potential effect people's scripted behavior had on Tommy's mental health.
"Hey man, it will be alright. I'll be here if you need to talk more, and you can call me at the end of the day to tell me how it went!"
As Tommy thanked Phil, the embarrassment was heavy on the boy's tone, but Phil knew just how much his words meant to him and was glad to help his son out.
(A/N, skip if you're not interested)
Dadza go brrr. I think Phil's character on the SMP is a pretty shitty dad, but I think Phil himself is a cool guy. In Tommy's college video I'm pretty sure he mentioned talking to Phil and it made my heart happy so this was a oneshot inspired by that. I'm going to try to write more Minecraft AU oneshots because I tend to drift towards IRL but it always makes me feel a tad bit weird writing about the real Tommy rather than Tommy's SMP character. I've got a weird Dadza phoenix idea that I might do. I haven't written it yet, but it might be up in a few days. Anyways, hope you enjoyed!