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It starts with Tommy screaming.
But it’s not the type of screaming that he usually does, the loud shrieking oh-my-god-how-dare-you kind, which is usually less out of shock and more for the annoyance factor. And it’s not the angry, roaring i-can’t-fucking-believe-you sort, either, which makes sense, that’s mostly reserved for when he’s a sore loser during family game nights.
No, this scream, the one that echoes down the hall and rings in Wil’s ears, is something of actual terror and fear. It’s the kind that is someone-help-me-i-need-help and is actually deadly serious.
So, Wilbur, being the oh so amazing big brother he is, launches himself off from his bed upon instinct, and runs out of his room to answer the call. He nearly slams into the doorway when he reaches Tommy’s room, but he focuses on scanning the place for any obvious threat, hovering by the door with his arms raised out.
“Tommy!” He yells, looking upon a mess of things on the carpet, scattered papers and pens and a toppled chair, like someone jumped away from the desk against the wall and nearly took the damn desk with them. “What happened, what’s-!?”
He stops upon seeing Tommy is not in any imminent danger, and is instead pressed up against the wall in the corner of his room, a shoe held out in his shaking hand, his eyes wide open and glued to the floor, searching around for something.
“...what are you doing.”
“It’s here.” Tommy answers cryptically, like a character in the opening to a horror movie. “It’s fucking here, I saw it.”
Wilbur tries to follow Tommy’s line of sight, glancing over the rug and kicking a paper to the side, which makes Tommy jump and shrink back against the wall even more. “What’s here?” Wil asks, crouching down to pick up one of the papers. “Is this your homework?”
“No don’t, don’t-!” Tommy snaps his hand out as Wilbur is halfway to the ground, and Wilbur freezes, stuck in a weird squatting position as both him and Tommy are locked into an intense staring contest. “You’re gonna fucking die .” Tommy informs with his finger pointed out, with all the weight of a prophet who’s seen terrible, terrible things.
Wilbur is starting to wonder if this really is the start of a horror movie. It better not be. All the boxes are checked off for it; Phil’s not home, it’s late at night, none of them have self-preservation. He doesn’t want to star in a horror movie. He doesn’t think he’s got it in him to outrun a serial killer.
“What am I going to die from?” Wilbur questions slowly, as to not spook Tommy any more than he already is. “And also can I move?”
“Move away, move- go towards the door.”
Wilbur does so gratefully. He may be decently fit enough to not lose his breath when going up stairs, but he’s not really one for squats. Tommy’s shoulders drop with a bit of relief as soon as Wil is closer to the hall, and his eyes go back to scanning over the floor, the shoe held out like a shield. Wilbur observes the clues for a bit-- looking for something on the ground, shoe being used as a weapon-- and he comes upon a reasonable conclusion.
“Did you scream right now because of a fucking spider?”
“No!” Tommy spits out, taking a step forward, and then immediately squishing himself back into the corner of his room. “It’s a cricket.”
“A what.”
“It’s a fucking cricket!” Tommy yells, a little hysterical with it. “I saw- It was on me, it was on my papers, and it was gonna try and bite me, I could see the evil in its beady little eyes-”
Wilbur struggles hard to not let a laugh leave his throat, his lips pressed together for a long moment before he says anything. “I don’t think crickets bite people.”
“This one does.” Tommy mutters under his breath, distrust and hatred flowing through his eyes. “I bet you this one does, it evolved and went against its nature to grow teeth and it’s gonna bite me because it hates me-”
Wilbur clears his throat to cover up a snort. Judging by Tommy’s withering glare, he did not hide it well enough.
“Don’t fucking laugh!”
“I’m not!” Wilbur says, over a short chuckle. He clears his throat again at Tommy’s deep frown. “I’m not.”
“It’s not funny, man!” Tommy lowers the shoe, head thumping against the wall as he tries to back into it again. “I don’t know where it went.” There’s an honest distress creeping into his voice, and Wilbur’s heart has a little shred of sympathy.
“Okay.” Wilbur reaches for the lightswitch, letting the room go much brighter, since the only light source in the room before was a single knocked over lamp on the desk. “Where did you last see it?”
“On my desk.” Tommy says hesitantly, cradling his shoe to his chest whilst keeping an eye on the carpet around him. “But it jumped off when I tried moving away, and now I don’t know where it is.”
“Well, it’s not like it’s gone far.” Wilbur tilts his head and tries to keep an ear out for the tell-tale sound of chirping, but the room is as quiet as it can be, save for Tommy’s complaining groan in the corner. “Are you sure it’s a cricket?”
“Yes!”
Wilbur listens again. “I don’t hear anything.”
“It’s a cricket, I saw it with my own two eyes. It wasn’t a grasshopper, it wasn’t green, it was all brown and ugly and evil.”
“The cricket isn’t out to get you, Tommy.”
“That’s what it fucking wants you to think.” Tommy holds the shoe up again, warily looking around like said bug is going to lunge at him any second now.
Wilbur sighs through his nose and looks up to the ceiling for a split second in an effort to gather his bearings. He can’t tell if the feeling in his chest is fondness or exasperation. Maybe it’s both. Tommy usually inspires both at the same time.
“Here, why don’t you just come over here and give me the shoe, and I’ll- look for it right now.” Wilbur offers, and Tommy’s eyes go comically wide at the thought of leaving his corner. “It’s not gonna kill you if you move.” Wilbur tries to say reassuringly, but it comes out more deadpan if anything. “Are you actually this terrified of a cricket?”
“I’m not.” Tommy hisses, all upset and snappish like a feral kitten. “I’m not!” He repeats, when Wilbur makes a skeptical look. “It’s just a bug, I’m not scared of it.” Tommy insists, but it sounds more like he’s trying to convince himself of that than Wilbur.
Wilbur doesn’t say anything more and only lifts up a beckoning hand, for both the shoe and for Tommy to stop trying to become one with the wall. Tommy stares at the gesture with his brows furrowed together, his lips pressed into a twisted frown, then he spares one last glance around his feet and practically throws himself across the room, trying to move with little steps as possible.
He more-or-less slams into Wilbur’s side in his haste to get to safety, and Wilbur stumbles for a second as Tommy shoves the shoe into his hands and twists around him, pressing into his back with the relative safety of the hallway in reach and Wilbur now being a shield between himself and the possibly cricket infested area.
“Okay.” Tommy whispers, as if the cricket will hear them. He stands on his toes with his chin on Wil’s shoulder, eyes peeking over. “Okay, okay. Now kill it.”
“I have to find it, first.”
“Find it, then kill it.” Tommy says, lowering himself back down and creeping over to the doorway, hugging it whilst he sends his beloved older brother to war. “Show it no mercy.”
“The crickets will come to fear me and the lethality of- this shoe.” Wilbur drawls as he shakes the shoe midair. He steps over the papers on the ground and starts to look for this supposed cricket, as Tommy begins to recount his traumatizing experience of coming across the creature when he was doing his homework at his desk.
“-and I didn’t even see it jump, I didn’t see shit, I just blinked and it was suddenly there, trying to eat my skin-”
“Still pretty sure they don’t bite people.”
“It was gonna eat me. It was hungry, starving for human flesh- Tommy flesh. It’s out for me. It’s gonna haunt me until the end of my days.”
“It’s a cricket.” Wilbur stops searching for a second to glance up at Tommy with a judging look.
“End. Of. My. Days!” Tommy emphasizes, leaning forward with his chin jutted out. Wil rolls his eyes. He drags the chair on the floor back up to its proper position, and pauses when he sees something sticking to the side of one of the legs.
“Hey, I think I’ve found it.” Wilbur says, words before disaster.
“Did you? Honestly?” Tommy asks, eyes wide with terror. “Kill it, kill it, fucking kill it-”
Wilbur goes to listen, to bravely carry out this ever so important mission given to him by Tommy. He lifts the shoe up, the crickets antenna lifting up just the shortest amount-
Then it jumps.
---
Faintly, from upstairs in what is presumably Tommy’s room, Technoblade hears screaming and the sound of someone crashing into furniture. As the sibling who was put in charge when Phil left the house for his date earlier tonight, he’s probably obligated to go check that out.
However, he’s also the brother with the most self-preservation. And he is not going to be the first to die in a horror movie. He reaches for the remote and turns up the volume of the TV, ignoring the sound of Tommy swearing profusely in a high pitched tone.
That’s not currently his problem.
---
“-Just kill it, kill it, fucking get it-!” Tommy cries out again, watching Wilbur being wrangled up in an epic showdown against a house cricket. The cricket is winning.
Wilbur’s lost the shoe, he’s dropped it somewhere that’s currently out of reach, and he’s left stumbling around like a madman as the creature from hell keeps jumping into his direction, as if trying to land directly onto him and use his face as a resting spot for the night. Wil falls backwards into Tommy’s desk, topples over the chair he just righted, rolls across Tommy’s bed, and then finally slams into the ground, papers flying up as he frantically kicks his feet to get up and away.
“Move, move-!”
Tommy shrieks again, Wilbur tumbling out into the hallway as he slams the door shut, keeping the cricket effectively locked inside. Wil sits sprawled out on the floorboards with a panting breath, his life flashing before his eyes, and Tommy grimaces against the wood of his door, whining loudly like he’s about to burst into tears.
“You didn’t kill it!”
Wilbur blinks up at the ceiling. He turns onto his side, curling up into a ball. He groans for approximately 22 seconds. Then he raises his head to Tommy with a grim look.
“We’re gonna need Techno for this.”
---
“Technooo!” Tommy’s cry echoes out down the stairs, and Technoblade makes a futile effort to pretend like the TV is louder than it. “TECHNOBLADEEE!”
“This is a life-or-death matter!” Wilbur yells with him, and Techno narrows his eyes towards the screen of the TV, debating if that’s good enough qualification for him to get up. “If we die, Dad’s never gonna leave you in charge again!”
A threat to his power. Now, that’s a good reason to mobilize.
Rising from the couch with all the grace of someone who’s ready to get shit done as fast as humanly possible so he can get back to watching something that definitely wasn’t a rom-com, Technoblade climbs up the stairs with slight wonder over what Tommy and Wilbur have gotten up to this time.
“TECHNOOO-!” Tommy screams.
“I’m here. I’m right here.” Techno cuts him off, coming down the hall with Wilbur still curled up in a ball on the floor. “What’s going on? Why is Wilbur dying?”
“He’s a casualty.”
“Tell my wife I love her.” Wilbur croaks out, reaching out a hand.
“You’re woefully single, and it’s gonna stay that way.” Technoblade deadpans. Wilbur turns his plea for help into a glare and a middle finger raised high. “What’s killed him?”
“There’s a cricket in my room.” Tommy informs gravely, fist held to his chest with tears in his eyes.
“...That’s it?”
“It’s an evil cricket.” Tommy elaborates, nodding intensely. “It tried biting me and it attacked Wilbur’s face.”
“I’m gonna have nightmares about this.” Wilbur says, mostly to himself, laying flat on his back with his hands clasped over his stomach. “I’m gonna have to bring up a cricket in therapy and work through the trauma of losing a fight to a bug.”
“I see.” Techno says, ignoring his twin’s ramblings. He clicks his tongue, as if in thought. “Well.”
“You need to kill it.” Tommy says, moving the torch of responsibility to the eldest in the house, by only two minutes, but two minutes more regardless. “Wilbur dropped the shoe we were gonna use, but it’s in there, and if you can just find it-”
“I’m not going in there.” Technoblade shakes his head, holding his hands up like a surrender and making the tiniest step back.
“What?!” Wilbur shoots up from the floor, a baffled look on his face. “It’s a cricket.”
“You kill it, then.” Technoblade points a finger towards him.
“No! It killed me, we’ve gone over this!”
“I’m not going in there.” Techno repeats, trying to turn away, something of panic rising up in his voice. “You couldn’t pay me, couldn’t afford me-”
“No!” Tommy clings onto his arm, yanking him back. “We can’t just let it stay in my room!”
“That’s not your room anymore.” Technoblade says over his shoulder. “It’s the cricket’s room. You’re gonna have to move into the kitchen or something. Sleep on the couch. Take one for the team.”
“You take one for the team and fucking kill it!” Tommy yells.
“You’re not actually fucking scared of a cricket, are you, Technoblade?” Wilbur teases, a grin daring to pull at his lips.
Technoblade keeps his head high and doesn’t even glance at Wil. “I know you’re not saying that when I heard you both screaming and someone breaking the whole room over that same cricket not even five minutes ago.”
Wilbur’s face goes a little red. He lays back down and resumes being a poor recovering victim of the cricket.
“Listen, Techno, please, please, no, I don’t want it to stay in there, I have fucking homework to finish!” Tommy begs desperately, pulling at Techno’s sleeve and sliding down to the floor so that Techno has no choice but to drag his weight if he wants to retreat back downstairs. That’s all fine with Technoblade. He can and will bring Tommy down the stairs with him to get back to the couch.
“If you’re not killing it… and I’m not killing it… and Tommy is absolutely not killing it, then we need someone who will.” Wilbur reasons, waving his hands through the air in thought. “I’m calling Dad.” He goes looking through his pocket.
“Nope, no, wait-” Technoblade quickly makes a 180, dragging Tommy down the hall again as he goes to stop Wilbur from finding Phil’s contact. “Do not. He’s busy, do not call him.”
“Well, we’re busy fearing for our lives!” Tommy yells, hanging off of Techno’s arm with his knees skimming over the floorboards. “We need his wise wisdom.”
“No, we don’t. We have google.” Techno says. Wilbur hums with approval and opens up the search bar.
“Google says,” Wilbur pauses, waiting for the page to load. “Bug spray is the solution.”
“There, see? Where’s the bug spray? Tommy, go get the bug spray.”
“I don’t wanna get the bug spray, it’s just gonna breathe it in and get stronger.”
“That’s not how bug spray works.” Technoblade shakes his arm, trying to shake Tommy off. Tommy stubbornly clings on. “Go get the bug spray.”
Tommy has a solid minute of continuing to whine and weep over the concept of a bloodthirsty cricket and how his life is bound to be ended by the bug in his bedroom, but he eventually gets up and retrieves a can of good-ol-reliable bug spray from the cabinet underneath the kitchen sink.
He forces it into Techno’s hands as soon as he’s close enough, and then makes the biggest step known to mankind away from his door. He gives two supportive thumb-ups to Techno. Technoblade quietly appreciates it.
“Okay, you’re all good to go, you've got your lethal weapon to bring the monster to its knees.” Wilbur says, now back on his feet, having gotten over his death from the cricket. “Go put the fear of god into it.”
“You’re coming with me.” Technoblade says, grabbing Wilbur by the arm and going for the doorknob.
“Wait-” Wilbur stumbles, his voice rising up in pitch as he gets dragged in through the doorway too quickly to process. “Wait-!”
The door closes behind them. Tommy stays where he is, listening closely to the quiet murmur of his brothers talking to each other inside his room. He feels quite confident that this will be the kicker. No way will the cricket stand a chance against the Craft twins, mighty and strong-
“Oh, god!” Wilbur’s muffled voice comes through the walls, and there’s the hiss of bug spray being frantically used. “OH, GOD!” The hiss does not stop. It keeps going, alongside the sound of things crashing. “OH MY FUCKING GOD-!” Wilbur swears, and Tommy places his hands over his mouth, sweat dripping past his temple.
Or maybe this is just going to be another round of victory to the cricket.
---
“I sprayed it.” Technoblade pants, Wilbur sprawled out on the floor again, this time face down with an incoherent sobbing being given into the floorboards. “I swear I did, but it just took it, it didn’t even-” Techno leans his weight on his knees, head tilted down. Tommy thinks he might be shaking.
“You didn’t kill it.” Tommy chokes out, horror dawning over him. They’re all doomed. If Techno and Wilbur can’t do it, then the house is doomed. Their days- no, hours are numbered.
“It killed Wilbur.” Technoblade points a finger towards his twin.
“It was in my hair-” Wilbur cries, words muffled against the floor.
“I think we’re overpowered here. It was a good run, it can have the house-” Technoblade makes a gesture like he’s waving a white flag, head tilting forward again in defeat.
“It’s my room!” Tommy screams.
“We can burn the room?” Wilbur suggests through tears, lifting his face up from the floor. “Then it thinks it won, only to find fire.”
“That’s a good idea.” Techno stands up straight, rejuvenated by the idea of fiery revenge. “Tommy, go get the matches, I’ll get the gasoline.”
“You’re not burning my fucking room!”
Wilbur hums against the floor. “True. The fire will probably spread to the whole house. We’re burning the house.”
“Eh, specifics. The cricket will die anyway.” Techno shrugs.
“I’m calling Dad.” Tommy announces, reaching into his back pocket.
“No.” Technoblade slaps at Tommy’s phone in his hand, letting it clatter to the floor. He ignores the death glare he gets in return. “He’s on a date. We cannot bother him over a cricket, of all things. His date is going to judge him over the capabilities of his children.”
“It’s a terrifying cricket, to be entirely fair-” Wilbur tries to reason.
“It’s trying to kill us-” Tommy adds on.
“It’s a cricket.” Technoblade insists. “He’s going to laugh at us.”
Tommy scrunches his nose and crosses his arms over his chest, not wanting for their father to cackle at them over not being able to overcome the hurdle of facing a singular bug. “Okay. What the fuck do we do, then?”
“We endure.” Technoblade takes a deep breath in, then places his hands together. “We’re gonna kill it ourselves.”
“Ourselves? We? No, you. You two. You’re killing the bug.” Tommy refuses, waving an arm to his room that is heavily filled with bug spray. “That thing tried to kill me!”
“It’s a cricket.” Technoblade grits out. “It’s like this tiny.” He holds his thumb and pointer finger up, measuring out the size of it. “It’s not gonna kill you.”
“It killed Wilbur!”
“Wilbur’s weak. He doesn’t have the metal stability to win a fight.”
“I can fucking hear you.” Wilbur mutters out from the floor.
“But we do?” Tommy asks skeptically. “You sprayed the whole can at it. It didn’t do-”
Tommy pauses, his head turning oh so slowly towards the bottom of his bedroom door, eyes going wide with sheer horror sinking into his expression. Both Technoblade and Wilbur blink at the sudden silence and his reaction, and they also slowly follow his gaze to find a tiny little cricket standing by the crack of the bedroom door, having squeezed under to escape the room filled with bug spray.
“Oh, no.” Technoblade breathes out.
Wilbur’s screaming his lungs out and backing away before the cricket even makes its first jump. Tommy’s already running down the hall. Technoblade regrets ever coming up the stairs in the first place.
---
Somewhere, in a fancy little restaurant where fancy little lovebirds go to eat fancy food while looking lovingly into each other’s eyes, Phil freezes mid bite through his meal. He lifts his head like his name was suddenly called, looking around the place for anything unusual. Kristin stares at him with a curious raise of her eyebrows.
“What?” She asks, searching around with him to see if something interesting has caught his eye.
“I feel like… something’s just happened.” Phil answers. Kristin blinks, then turns back to Phil with a slight frown.
“...What?”
“Something just happened?” Phil repeats, but now he’s not even sure of it. He goes to reach for his phone, half-tempted to send a text off to Techno to see if anything is presently on fire, but he decides against it. His boys can take care of themselves, he’s sure there’s nothing wrong. “I don’t know, just a weird feeling.” Phil laughs it off, and Kristin laughs with him, the two of them returning back to their meal.
---
“So, the upstairs is compromised. The doors and windows are locked. It’s either us or it, and I like living, so it’s going to be it that dies tonight.” Technoblade declares, placing his hands down on the kitchen counter with a burning desire for victory in his eyes.
“Exactly, I like living!” Wilbur agrees. “So it can have Tommy’s room, it can have all our rooms! If it touches me again, I’m going to go live on the front lawn.”
“Won’t the front lawn just have more bugs?” Tommy asks.
“I’m moving to Niki’s house.” Wilbur quickly changes his mind, pulling out his phone. “I can sleep on her couch for the next-” He googles for how long crickets live. “Eight to ten weeks.”
“And how are you going to explain that to Dad?” Technoblade deadpans.
“It’s my rebellion phase. I’ll say he doesn’t understand me and put on eyeliner. Then he’ll just want me out of the house by that point.”
“Oh, god, stop talking, or I’m going to sacrifice you to the fucking cricket.” Tommy huffs, his expression twisted into a face of disgust. “Technoblade, battle plan. Please tell me you have a battle plan.”
“Okay, so, we’re out of bug spray.” Technoblade starts, already making Tommy lose hope in ever getting his room back. “We can either shoo it out, or squish it. I vote to squish it, for the sake of Wilbur’s honor.”
“Yes, please.” Wilbur mutters out.
“We have to get close to it to squish it.” Tommy leans forward on the counter, shaking his head. “That’s a bad idea!”
“What else, then? You said we can’t use fire.”
“Because then we’d burn the fucking house down!”
“But we would also kill the cricket in the process.” Wilbur reasons, like that’s an alright trade to make. Tommy drops his head into his hands, groaning loudly.
“What if we throw something on top of it and trap it, then we can squish it with something heavy? We can outsmart it.” Techno suggests. Surely, the three of them have more brain capability than a singular cricket. Surely.
“Yes, yes! That’s a great idea! We trap it.” Wilbur agrees, nodding his head.
“How do we trap it?” Tommy asks.
“A blanket? A net? A cup?” Wilbur guesses.
“Cup is too small, we’d be within range of getting murdered. We don’t have nets. There’s a blanket in the living room.” Technoblade points a finger over to the next room, and the three of them all share glances to each other, nodding solemnly.
Upstairs, the cricket makes a leap towards the stairs.
---
Somewhere, in the same little fancy restaurant with the lovebirds and the meals and all that junk, Phil stops midway through taking a sip of wine. He puts his glass down, and stares at Kristin for a few seconds, lips pursed together to try and prevent a frown.
Kristin raises her eyebrows. Phil opens his mouth, then chooses against whatever he was gonna say.
“It’s nothing.” He chuckles, fingers tapping against the table, fighting the urge to take out his phone and call his boys. He drains the rest of his wine.
---
“I’ve lost visual.” Technoblade announces from the top of the stairs, a blanket held in his hands.
“You’ve fucking what.” Tommy chokes out from where he’s standing on top of the living room table with Wilbur. They’ve both holding hands. They’re refusing to talk about it.
“I do not know where it is.” Technoblade rephrases.
“You WHAT.” Tommy repeats.
“It’s not on the stairs. Or in the hallway. Or in your room. Which, by the way, that’s gonna take a while to air out.” Technoblade glances back towards the hallway, his nose scrunching up with the smell still lingering on him.
“You lost it.” Wilbur says incredulously, now looking around at the floor with a more present type of fear.
“We lost it.” Technoblade holds a hand to his chest. “This is a team effort. Team failure.”
“We’re gonna die!” Tommy cries, crushing Wilbur’s hand so tightly that the bones creak underneath his panicking grip. Wilbur makes a barely held back expression of pain.
“We’re not going to die!” Wilbur insists, yanking at Tommy’s arm. “All we need to do is stay calm and figure out where it went-”
“Uhm-!” Technoblade suddenly slaps a hand over his mouth, both Tommy and Wil focusing their attention onto him. “Uh…don’t…don’t look behind you.” Technoblade whispers, like the terrible words of a horror movie character.
Wilbur and Tommy, of course, ignore this advice and look behind them.
The cricket sits on the TV, high and mighty. It jumps towards the table. Wilbur pushes Tommy to the ground before jumping towards the couch with a shriek.
---
In the same restaurant again, with the food gone from Phil’s plate and the wine gone from his glass, both him and Kristin sit patiently for their bill with a mellow sort of energy floating over their heads.
Phil’s leg keeps twitching from underneath the table. He’s been valiantly ignoring it for the past ten minutes. Surely it is nothing. He also ignores the fact he’s been touching his pocket, waiting for the buzz of a text message for the past ten minutes as well. Surely, everything is alright, and the house is not in flames at the current moment.
Kristin seems mostly content with how the dinner has gone. She smiles warmly towards Phil, and against the calm, dim lighting of the restaurant, Phil thinks she looks quite lovely. He smiles back, the two of them sharing a kind, soft moment, and then his phone starts ringing.
He blinks. Kristin blinks. Suddenly, the mood is no longer calm, and rather, it’s more dreadful, like the storm is about to hit. Phil pulls his phone out to answer it on speaker mode, not wanting for Kristin to be left in the dark.
Technoblade’s contact photo smiles at Phil with a content sort of mood. His voice when Phil actually starts the call is anything but.
“DAD, I NEED HELP.” Technoblade immediately yells, a deep panic in his words as the sound of Wilbur screaming hysterically echoes out in the background.
“Wha- what?” Phil asks.
“I MESSED UP.” Technoblade explains, which really elaborates on nothing. Something crashes loudly on the other side of the phone. Now Tommy is screaming. “I MADE IT MAD.”
“OH GOD, IT’S ON THE COUCH!” Wilbur cries out, sounding on the edge of tears. “TOMMY, IT’S ON THE COUCH!”
Tommy’s shrieking echoes through the phone. Kristin looks intensely worried for his well-being.
“EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF! YOU’RE BOTH ON YOUR OWN!” Technoblade yells, the sound of shuffling coming over the mic, Techno presumably trying to make a run for it. “I’M LEAVING THE PLACE AND MOVING TO NIKI’S HOUSE!”
“That was my idea-!” Wilbur complains. “OH GOD-!” Something crashes loudly again, Tommy swearing words so vulgar that a few of the tables in the restaurant are glancing over with concerned looks.
“Move, MOVE, WILBUR- !” Technoblade screams.
The phone call suddenly ends. Both Phil and Kristin stare at the screen, a baffled yet horrified look on their faces.
Phil quietly swears to never ignore his fatherly instincts again. Kristin quietly pays for the bill.
---
The drive to the house is slightly awkward. Phil half expects for the building to be in ashes by the time they get there, but much to his surprise, it’s still standing. His boys are all sitting on the porch, in different levels of distress. Technoblade is sitting on the steps with his head in his hands. Wilbur is curled up into a ball on the concrete path. Tommy is leaning against Techno’s side, knees pressed to his chest.
“Hi, Dad.” Tommy greets as both Phil and Kristin exit the car, his eyes looking hollow and staring off into the distance.
“What the fuck happened to you three?” Phil asks.
“Cricket.” Wilbur mutters, but it sounds more like the ramblings of a madman, the way he says it. “Cricket, it- there was a cricket.”
“A what?” Kristin asks.
“Ohhhhh.” Tommy groans despairingly, pressing his face into his knees and trying to sink into Techno’s side. Technoblade still hasn’t lifted his head. Phil wonders if he’s still conscious.
“A cricket.” Wilbur repeats. “There’s a cricket in the house.” He looks up from the floor to stare wearily at his father, and pauses when he sees Kristin standing beside him. “Please don’t dump our father.” He pleads. Kristin makes a sympathetic smile.
“It’s Tommy’s fault.” Technoblade says, the first words he’s said since Phil’s got here.
“What the fuck, man.” Tommy mutters, softly, with feeling.
“So, there’s a cricket in the house.” Phil says slowly, trying to figure it out. “And you guys…couldn’t get rid of it?”
“It kept jumping.” Technoblade says tiredly.
“That is what crickets do, mate.”
Technoblade lowers his head further down with a groan.
“Is the front door unlocked?” Kristin asks, pointing a finger up. All three of Phil’s boys make a vague sound of yes. With that confirmation, Kristin makes her way up the front porch, stepping around Wilbur’s body and Techno and Tommy mourning on the steps, and she goes into the house.
“Sorry for killing your girlfriend.” Tommy says to Phil, already accepting Kristin’s death to the cricket.
“She’s still alive, Tommy.”
“Not for long.” Wilbur weeps into the floor.
A short minute passes with Phil giving his best effort at comforting his children after their harrowing experience with a single cricket. Kristin steps back out onto the porch with her hands cupped together, a nervous little smile on her face.
“Uh. Where should I put it?”
All three of the brothers immediately snap their head up.
“Just put it onto the lawn.” Phil waves a hand, and Kristin nods, moving over to the grass with careful steps. Techno, Wil, and Tommy all watch with wide eyes as she gently puts the cricket back into the wild, and then pats her hands against her sides, done with the deed, the monster defeated.
“Alright. Well. It won’t be bothering any of you anymore.” Kristin nods, turning to the boys with a grin. She gets three exhausted, hopelessly relieved stares in return. Wilbur might be crying again.
“Can you marry our Dad?” Tommy asks. Phil chokes on air.