The titles I put on Ao3 were much better, but apparantly they're too long for Wattpad, so you guys get the lamer butchered versions. Cheers!

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The day he showed up started out fairly normal for Tommy.

Philza and Technoblade had showed their faces in New L'Manburg, and while Ranboo was just having a pleasant chat with the two war criminals, Tommy was trying his hardest to send them on their way, promptly being ignored while doing so.

His relationship with Philza was rocky- and that's already being generous- and the fact that the older man continuously ignored that fact was only worsening things. Then again, Tommy wasn't exactly sure how to bring up the subject either.  

It hadn’t been long since Wilbur’s death, and Tommy had barely gotten- actually, scratch that, Tommy very much hadn't gotten over it. You couldn't exactly blame him for that, loss of his brother figure aside, a lot of stuff happened in the span of just a few days.

There was Tubbo's execution, Wilbur's deal with Dream, Schlatt's death, him and Tubbo being put in charge of the country, Technoblade's betrayal (if you could even call it that, but his relationship with Techno was a whole other can of worms he was not willing to open), and finally, Wilbur's death by the hands of the man he saw as a father.

It was definitely a lot to process, and at the end of the day, Philza's involvement seemed like the last thing he could worry about. Obviously, that didn't mean he was willing to forgive that stunt he pulled, it just meant that he was okay with putting that problem to the side for a while.

Although he had to admit, the avian's support towards Technoblade and his constant visits to L'Manburg, in which the man pretty much ignored him no less, only hammered home how much of a rift had formed between them.

He didn't let it show, nor was he planning to do so anytime soon, but it genuinely hurt. Sure, Philza wasn't his actual father, but over time Tommy had grown to consider him that. But then again, it seemed like that love wasn't exactly reciprocated.

The more he thought about it, the more he started suspecting that the only reason why he hadn't confronted him about it was because he didn't one a direct and honest confirmation to his fears. That he was just some annoying kid who constantly hung around his son and nothing more.

So yeah, since the option of having a genuine talk with him was completely out of the picture, the only thing he could do was send some snarky comments their way and hope they wouldn't fall on completely deaf ears.

But then, he showed up, and what a dramatic entrance he pulled off.

A lightning strike suddenly bolted down from the sky, hitting right in the middle of the spawn. A brief earthquake shook the server and the sky turned purple, only for it to turn back to blue almost as quickly as it had mysteriously changed.

The players exchanged surprised glances before turning their attention to their communicators as they all buzzed in unison. "What the fuck…" Tommy murmured, squinting his eyes to make sure he was reading the text correctly.

It seemed to be one of those messages that popped up whenever someone joined the server, except that time around the letters weren't yellow, but purple. It might sound stupid, but Tommy thought that it held somewhat of a powerful presence, even if it was just a simple phrase.

Grian joined the game. That's what the text said.

Tommy was pretty sure he didn't know anyone with that name, yet it somehow sounded familiar. He looked back at the others with an inquisitorial stare, but all he got in response was a head shake from Ranboo and a shrug from Technoblade.

Philza hadn't even bothered to answer, he seemed too busy staring unblinkingly at his communicator with a pained expression. The boy opened his mouth to question his behavior, but he wasn't able to get anything out before the ground shook once again.

He quickly turned around towards the spawn and he saw a small dot shooting into the sky like some sort of projectile. It stayed still in the air for a few moments before it started approaching them at an alarming pace.

"Uh, guys, what is that thing?" Ranboo asked in an alarmed tone.

Tommy mentally debated if it would've been wise to pull up the stakes before finding out, but Philza's surprisingly chill voice put a stop to his fantasies. "Don't worry too much about it," he said, "that's probably just the worst scolding I'll ever get." He sounded resigned more than anything.

"Then I'm gonna assume that is for you…" Technoblade replied, uncertainty plaguing his usually calm and deep tone. He then raised his hand and pointed towards the Prime path. "and if that's the case, I think the rest of us should g-"

Before he could finish his sentence, the thing came crashing down onto the direction the anarchist was pointing, rendering their only escape route useless, and well, it turned out that the thing wasn’t just a thing after all.

"Nevermind then. I'm telling you, if we get attacked, I'm using Tommy as a shield." He added, gaining an offended gasp from the boy in question. Tommy thought about making Techno hear a piece of his mind, but he decided that the alien ufo that had just landed in front of his house was probably a more important situation to take care of.

So, for the first time in ages, he bit his lip and actually reevaluated his priorities. You better write that somewhere cause this ain't ever happening again. Now let's get back to whatever the hell landed on the Prime Path.

There stood a blond player, with two majestic lilac wings spread open behind his back, and a pair purple glowing eyes. It was also worth noting that the stranger was on fire, figuratively, since if looks could kill all the players would’ve toppled over dead, but also literally, as tiny purple flames flickered over his shoulders.

Tommy couldn’t help but mentally note how cool the entrance had been.

There were a few moments of awkward silence before the weird man finally decided to speak up. "Why did you do that?!" He roared, his voice echoing through the air.

Tommy scanned the man to try and find a clue of his identity: could he be a minor deity of some kind? Maybe a demon? An angel? He wasn't too sure, but the one thing he could figure out about that weirdo was that he was British. It wasn't much, but it was a start at least.

There was a bit of hesitation, but eventually Philza replied. "Look, Grian, I know it looked bad, but I-"

"You bloody well ought to know!" the Grian guy fired back almost immediately, "you killed Wilbur in front of a worldwide audience, 𝘞𝘏𝘈𝘛 𝘌𝘓𝘚𝘌 𝘐𝘚 𝘐𝘛 𝘚𝘜𝘗𝘗𝘖𝘚𝘌𝘋 𝘛𝘖 𝘓𝘖𝘖𝘒 𝘓𝘐𝘒𝘌-"

So the stranger knew Phil and Wilbur, and he seemed well informed about his dramatic demise, but what did he mean with worldwide audience?

"The voices just got so loud all of a sudden, I wasn't thinking clearly."

"Oh, then I'm guessing the voices just magically materialized and stabbed him, yeah that totally makes sense."

"You know I can't exactly control them."

"What I do know is that all the voices in my head ever complain about the fact that I don't make backs for my bases," he growled, "if I can handle them, you can hold yourself back from killing your literal son."

Tommy was confused. So was any other sane person listening in to that conversation, well, as sane as a member of the Dream SMP could be. Obviously, Techno wasn't considered sane in Tommy's eyes.

The pinkette had actually flinched at the mention of those hypothetical inner voices, and it looked like his interest in the conversation had gone up quite a bit. Tommy rolled his eyes: Techno was in it to now, why did he always have to be the one that was unaware about stuff?

"Alright can someone please explain to us what the hell is happening right now?" Ranboo asked. It was nice to know that the Enderman hybrid was as confused as he was.

It was almost like the two blond players had just realized that they were being watched, as they both stumbled backwards upon hearing Ranboo's request.

"What do you mean? You guys know m-” Grian cut himself off before he could finish. “oh, wait, you actually don't know me, do you?" He frowned. His expression had suddenly calmed down, his eyes having taken on a lighter shade of blue and gazing at Tommy firmly.

"No?" Tommy exclaimed, shaking his head. "If I-If I saw a fucker like you around here, I'm pretty sure I'd remember it." He stumbled over his words, he really didn't like the way that guy was staring at him.

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure I don't know you either. Care to introduce yourself?" Techno commented. Wait, when had he stepped so close to Tommy? He could swear the man had been a few blocks away from him before Grian had crashed onto the wooden path.

"You haven't told them about 𝘮𝘦?!" Grian didn't seem genuinely upset about it, his tone made it sound like he was joking with avian more than anything. By that point, his personality had pulled a complete one eighty.

"Because it's just not necessary," Philza replied, "you don't plan on sticking around after chewing my ass, do you?"

The blond blinked, as if what he just heard was some gibberish that he was mentally translating. "You're-you're kidding, right?" He said, the feathers of his wings ruffling up. "Of course I do, who else is gonna bring my brother back?!"

"Brother?" Tommy related involuntarily.

"Yes, my brother, Wilbur Soot. You should at least remember him-"

"Wilbur is your 𝘣𝘳𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳?!" The boy couldn't believe what he was hearing. Wilbur had a brother? How come he never heard anything about it? He had basically grown up alongside him and yet that was somehow the first time he was ever brought up.

The worst thing was that he simply couldn't deny that. As he looked at the two blonds standing alongside one another, their resemblance was uncanny. Aside from the wings and slightly darker hair, Grian was quite literally a younger copy of Philza.

"Seems like it. I thought you guys would've known about this already, but apparently 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘰𝘯𝘦 just didn't want to spill the beans about me." Grian's lips formed a sly smile as he looked over to his father.

Philza sighed loudly. "Boys, this is my oldest son, just call him Grian."

"Well, this is…unexpected." Techno stated as he looked over to Tommy.

"I can't really say I knew the guy so it's not really that surprising to me, but considering how you showed up here, this is still pretty weird to me." Ranboo commented as scratched his head with his clawlike hands.

"Yeah, sorry about that Ranboo," And Grian also knew who Ranboo was, just another weird thing to add to the list, Tommy thought. "but anyway, since this is the first you guys see me, it's nice to meet y-"

“I’m sorry to interrupt this…heartfelt reunion,” A silky voice suddenly spoke up. “but you can’t just barge in here uninvited and do whatever you want. We have rules here, and you need to follow them.”

Tommy took a step back. While they were so busy conversating, Dream had apparently walked over to check out what the commotion was. That was probably the only time Tommy ever saw him behave like a responsible admin.

“Wait, this server has rules?” Grian asked, tilting his head. “Literally all you people do is set things on fire and kill each other for dramatic effect.”

Rude. Definitely not wrong, but still rude.

“Yeah, well, that’s not against the rules,” Dream answered, “however, flying is.”

“Flying…?”

“Yes, and using magic too.”

“…why?”

“That’s just something you can’t do.”

“I’m gonna be honest with you,” Grian stared at the admin with dead eyes. “you sound like you have the biggest inferiority complex in existence.”

There was a low and stifled wheeze, which pretty quickly turned into common laughter. The only one who wasn't laughing, aside from Grian himself, was Dream. The player in question had to breathe in very deeply before being able to speak once again.

"I think we got off on the wrong foot. My name is Dream, I am the admin of this server. If I say that-"

“yeah, uh, anyway,” Grian unceremoniously brushed Dream off and turned towards Tommy and the others. “I’m gonna stick around until I find a way to revive Will. I'm not gonna force you to help me, but if you did you'd make me very happy."

He widened his wings and stretched them out, ready to take off. Dream tried to run up to him to stop him, but Grian was already hovering over them.

“Also give Dream a hug, he needs it.”

And so, as that cunning stranger flew away, and as Dream chased after him, cursing all the way, Tommy decided that Grian was an absolute chad.

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And so, our adventure begins with InsecureInnit and Grian's "fuck the police attitude". The adoption's gonna take a few chapters though-

Also, as all the Grian enjoyers here might've realized, I have 0 clue of how an angry Grian sounds like. That man has legit never felt anger, ever. The closest thing we've got is the incoherent screeching he emits when he gets scared, but I couldn't exactly 𝘸𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘦 screeching instead of dialogue, so instead I made him sound more British for a single sentence.

I know it's not much, but I don't know how British people communicate, hell, I'm Italian, it's already surprising that I managed to put together this whole thing, so this was the best I could do. If you have any juicy British insult to suggest, feel free to leave it in the comments, I'm probably gonna need it in the future anyway since literally 80% of the main cast is British anyway-