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Wilbur hates living with his father. To say the man was never home was an understatement.
Phil had been gone for five years now, on his stupid hardcore quest. The asshole had left Wilbur alone at seven years old, and people praised his journey like it was acceptable. Some kind of sanctioned neglect, Wilbur thought, but people didn’t like that kind of thinking.
There was the cottage, sure, dad Phil had built it with his own two hands, and made Wilbur the softest mattress, and a kitchen to accommodate his young height, and a back garden with written instructions to follow. The bank gave him an allowance of 5 gold coins from Phil’s bank a week. 20 in a month, 260 in a year.
That covered food and, well, it covered food. It didn’t cover soap, or clothes, or shoes as he grew. It didn’t afford toys, or birthday presents, or warm bread. It didn’t account for the prices going up after a poor harvest, and dozens of dinners of fried carrots from his own garden, and the occasional roasted potato. It bought day-old bread from the bakery, and a wedge of cheese if he was lucky.
Wilbur could survive, if he lived frugally. If he worked hard, and stopped going to school to work in the farm for harvest with the country kids. He could live reasonably, but he would always have wants. Wilbur didn’t like having unfilled wants.
He was eleven the first time he stole a warm loaf from the bakery window, when the woman running it was busy with the oven. It tasted buttery and amazing on his tongue, and filling in his stomach. Not only that, it saved him the money of the loaf he would have bought.
Wilbur suddenly found himself with money to spare. He was able to buy a new pair of boots before it was a necessity, one he could wiggle his toes in. His schoolmate Tommy had been rightly jealous. His dad, Sam, bought him new boots, but he was a frugal man. Tommy had to truly outgrow the last pair first, and he hadn’t gotten new ones this year yet.
For a moment, Wilbur felt like one of the rich kids.
If Phil was here, working in the mines like that, he would be a rich kid. He wouldn’t have to work, and budget, and weigh his needs. Wilbur felt, not for the first time, angry at his father. Wilbur swore to never again call his father anything but his name.
Wilbur became a Soot. Phil would end the Craft name, as he deserved. Wilbur had disowned him, even if he still had to rely on him.
Phil had been dense enough to congratulate him on the name change. Wilbur burned the letter.
It’s fully creeping into winter now. The frost is coming at night, and sometimes the snow, Wilbur’s crops die.
Wilbur gets 5 gold coins a week from the bank. Wilbur-
Wilbur is supposed to get 5 gold coins from the bank. Wilbur gets 7 emeralds.
The account is empty.
Wilbur swears this is what despair feels like. He can’t budget this.
Wilbur is going to have to beg, to steal. He’s going to be one of those kids on the streets, he-
Wilbur can be a paper boy. None of the boys want to do it in winter, they pay 7 gold a week.
Wilbur has to quit school this semester too. It’s okay, they make him take the books. He reads them at night, writes in cheap notebooks. He’s getting his education.
He still steals.
It’s easy. It gets even easier, to use his tongue like it’s dipped in silver. To swindle people into cooing at him, how cute he is. Buying him a roll or an apple because he happened to leave his money pouch at home, and it's only two copper isn’t it? He gets good at it.
He gets good with his hands too. Lifting things from shops while distracting with compliments to other items, a promise to come discuss the origin of something another day. A polite gentleman, he hears mothers whisper about him marrying their daughters. They don’t know that if Phil were here he’d surely be wearing dresses too.
Wilbur gets greedy.
He spends more time swindling and stealing than he does working or learning. He flirts with girls until they blush, and annoys their fathers. He adopts a rebel style, with overgrown hair not tied back, and vests without jackets over them. They call him a silver tongue.
He takes more than he needs, he takes what he wants. Wilbur feels successful, Wilbur feels like he’s on top of the world.
Phil doesn’t come home.
Winter carries on. December creeps into view, the first few days of it ticking off his calendar. Shops start preparing for Yule, the final harvest comes in. The fancy sweets are in the bakery window, and lights are being hung in the windows, little candles burning at sunset.
Girls with crushes on Wilbur, who think they have a chance, are very willing to buy him sweets. He doesn’t regret leading them on, he blows them kisses and promises to bring them a rose on solstice. He has a rose bush in his yard. December is a promising month.
It’s the fifth of the month when it happens. After he’s been bought his third sweet of the day by a shy girl, who he kisses on the cheek. She runs off entirely flustered as he takes the first bite.
The baker rolls her eyes at him, firm arms crossed over her chest. Thick from kneading bread, she’s intimidating in a quite motherly way. Black hair twisted up in a bun and tied back with a bandana. He makes a curious chirp her way, feathers rustling a bit.
“You’re not treating those girls well, boy.”
“I promise them nothing that I don’t deliver, they get what they’re paying for.”
She chuckles at him, dry but a bit genuinely amused. “You’ll pay yourself tonight, foolish boy.”
“Is that a threat?” He asks, carefully. Trying to appear casual as he takes a bite of his tart, as if she doesn’t have all the authority in the world to put him over her knee. He debates making a run for it.
“No, not from me.” She says, and wipes her hands on her apron, posture relaxing as she turns around to pull a loaf from the oven. She puts another loaf, a bit cooler but still warm into a paper bag, and hands it to him.
“I know you’re struggling, boy, but those girls don’t deserve that. Have bread for dinner, but know you will regret your choices tonight. Krampus is coming.”
He lets out a surprised laugh at that, but takes the bread anyway. He likes the idea of going to bed with a full stomach. “Krampus isn’t real, ma’am. But I’ll leave a candle burning just in case, alright?”
She grumbles something, and shoos him off, telling him to make room for real customers. He still knows she’ll leave a bun a little too close to the edge of the window in the morning, and she’ll only give him a swat as he passes by.
She won’t say she understands, that Phil is an idiot. But she’ll make sure he doesn’t starve, the same way she gives leftovers rolls to the boys cutting wood this winter after she closes. He knows the threat of Krampus is a joke, a story to tell younger kids, and snickers his way home, tearing bits off the fluffy loaf.
He goes to bed with a full stomach, warm with the new blanket he was able to afford this winter. He giggles to himself as he leaves a candle burning on his nightstand, within a lantern for safety of course. He feels content.
He feels much less content when he wakes in the middle of the night. Jolting upright at his name, said clearly and sternly in the room.
“Wilbur Craft.”
He doesn’t even think before he responds, still praying his heart to beat properly in his chest. His brain to process what's happening. “Soot.”
The creature- no. The man huffs in a vaguely amused way. He shifts on his… hooves. Big, sturdy hooves, on legs with long, silky pink fur. Even longer silky pink hair spills from around his mask, and whatever kind of hybrid he is, he’s possibly the most equally split hybrid Wilbur has ever seen. Equally player and… goat, perhaps? Some kind of Piglin, or offshoot of Hoglin?
Regardless, he’s massive, as a big hand reaches up to the mask. More of a skill than anything, as he pushes it up to sit between his horns. His eyes practically glow red, it’s like Wilbur can feel him stare into his very essence. Prime above, this man was terrifying to have in your room, his horns nearly scraping the ceiling.
“Wilbur Soot, then.”
Wilbur swallows, and nods. Doesn’t say the asinine comment about how this man can have his chosen first name right, but not last. “You’re… Krampus then?”
The creature chuffs, a distinctly Hoglin noise that Wilbur recognises as an agreement. Hoglins don’t live around here, it’s too cold. The crea- man. The man steps forward, and Wilbur can smell the sulphur stench of magic on him. He’s aware that the flame in the candle isn’t moving, time stands still around them, this is real.
“You’re going to spank me then, is it?” He asks, leaning back on his hands and forcing himself to grin. If some nightmare demon is going to whip him, he’s at least going to deserve it.
He doesn’t deserve this, really. It’s all Phil’s fault, leaving so little money. Not preparing for the future, the money is fucking gone, Wilbur is surviving.
“You are not being punished for filling your needs, despite the methods.” Krampus says, dropping his basket to the floor, his heavy cloak following. He’s leaner than Wilbur expects, despite his sturdy legs. He still looks like he could break a kid like him like a toothpick. It’s a little more terrifying than he already had been. Bells on golden jewellery jingle almost ominously as he moves.
“You are being punished for acting in greed, at the detriment of others. There is a difference, and you are aware of it.”
Wilbur can’t help but falter at that, a bit of an angry blush climbing his cheeks. It might be right, but it isn’t fair! Other children get Yuletide gifts and birthday cakes, and new winter cloaks every few years, and a warm dinner on a cold night. Other kids don’t cry themselves to sleep. It’s not fair.
The creature crouches before the bed, and places a hand on his knee. When he speaks, his voice is softer, but still that firm monotone. It leaves no room for argument, but it isn’t cruel.
“Doing the right thing isn’t always about fairness, Wilbur. Sometimes, we have to give things up for others, because they deserve things too.”
Wilbur doesn’t care.
Wilbur knows he’s going to be punished anyways.
“Just get it over with.”
The man nods, and pushes off his knee. He stands a bit too quickly, apparently, forgetting to angle his head, and his horns scrape briefly on the ceiling. Wilbur almost laughs.
He gestures for Wilbur to get up, and guides him to lay over the bed, handing him a pillow to hold. He tugs Wilbur’s sleep pants down to his knees, and the boy shifts in discomfort.
When he reaches for his undergarments however, Wilbur panics, throwing a hand back to wrap around the creature’s wrist.
The creature just chuffs again, the silence stretching for a moment. Finally, “Boys get their switchings bare.”
It’s blunt, simple. Something in it feels so deeply valid, reassuring. This is discipline, he’s being disciplined how boys are. Boys who get scraped knees, and play kickball, and get crushed on by pretty girls. Boys like Wilbur.
He lets out a slow breath, and lets go, putting his arm back up to his pillow. His undergarments follow his sleep pants, and he coughs awkwardly.
He forgets it immediately, with the first terrible SMACK. Thin lines of what feel like fire lighting up on his bottom. He yelps, high and pathetic, but the pain fades quickly. Down to a biting itch, not quite a burn. It’s not as bad as his brain wants to tell him it is.
He digs his fingers into the pillow, and forces himself to breathe through the next swats. He’s never felt more than a single switch at a time before this, not like the bundle of them Krampus uses. He never wants to feel this again, tears pulling at the corner of his eyes by the fifth swat. His toes kick against the floor, almost trying to escape the punishment.
When he does shift too far, genuinely trying to run in a brief moment of panic, a hand pressed to the middle of his back, holding him in place. “We’re halfway finished, Wilbur.”
That’s a bit terrifying, in its own way. Wilbur has already taken ten swats, a tear dripping messily off his chin, cheeks ruddy with embarrassment. Ten more might kill him, he swears.
Krampus doesn’t agree, clearly, holding him back in place and snapping the switches down again. Wilbur makes a noise somewhere in his upper throat, something avian and angry , and the next lash lands on his upper thighs. Where he’ll feel it tomorrow.
“You must treat others with respect.” The man lectures, continuing to aim at the sensitive strip of skip at the very top of his thighs. “They will respect you in turn.”
Wilbur thinks that’s bullshit, he kicks his legs again in frustration.
The fifteenth swat pulls a sob from him, legs kicking in a way that makes Krampus hold him down more firmly. Keeping him from falling to the floor dramatically.
The switching doesn’t stop though, not until he finally collapses against the blankets, sobbing out pathetic apologies into his pillow as the final terrible swat lands. His bottoms are lost somewhere to the floor, and he can’t imagine the feeling of fabric on his bottom now anyways. He’d rather die, thank you very much.
The man seems understanding of this at least, though not terribly comforting. He lifts him up, tucking him back into his bed on his stomach, blankets warm over him. Pets a hand awkwardly through his hair as he cries himself out, telling him to sleep.
“You are still to be gifted this year. Your father sent money, I will deposit it. Do not act in greed, young Soot.”
Wilbur nods, sniffling wetly into the pillow.
He feels grateful to Krampus he realises, for going to his father. He ignored the question of if his father also received a swat; certainly adults didn’t. He doesn’t feel grateful to Phil. Acting in obligation alone, he’s certain.
“Thank you, Krampus.”
“Techno.” The man huffs, patting his head awkwardly.
“Thank you Techno.”
He falls asleep easily.
When he goes up to the bakery the next morning, shuffling a bit with his ass aching, the baker throws him an amused smile. She gives him a free fruit tart though, and the other two boys (Tommy and Quackity, his brain provides) who wander up looking well-switched too. They walk to the school together, chatting, and Wilbur forgets he hasn’t been in class until he’s seated at a desk.
He keeps going.
Wilbur steals twice, his twelfth year.
Once, on Tommy’s birthday. Because he knew that Tommy’s dad hadn’t had much work this year, not many houses had needed repair in the winter. As it crawled into spring, Tommy’s lunches got smaller, and Wilbur knew that his friend wouldn’t be receiving any presents. His aunt Nikki might bake him a cake.
Tommy deserved a present, and Wilbur got him one. A little wooden toy horse, that Tommy was a bit old for, but still smiled like the sun when he got. He had been ecstatic, and thanked him repeatedly, walking it across the lecture benches with stupid horse noises, like he really was the small child it was made for. They all laughed, good heartedly, until the teacher came in.
Wilbur was invited over for Nikki’s cake. It was decorated with dandelions, and tasted like lemons. Tommy had gone to bed with a smile, and Wilbur felt like a good brother friend.
The second time was his own birthday, as the height of harvest hit. He tried to minimise the damage, at the least.
He worked the harvest that season, finally old enough that they’d let him work more than bundling for copper coins. Put in the work and sweated with the other boys, until the work was done, and the moon hung orange in the sky, and the bonfires were lit for the gods. They drank in celebration, cider for Wilbur and the other boys too young for honey wine. Payments were given, a handful of golden coins to put in their pouches.
Wilbur didn’t have quite enough for the cloak he wanted, that the seamstress had just displayed in the window for winter. He pilfered a few coins from drunken older boys, and threw his loaf of the bread into the bonfire in sacrifice. He bought the cloak the next morning.
Mabon and Samhain crawled past, Wilbur harvested. The frost crept into the air, and the grass, and shook the leaves off the trees, and December came again. Wilbur went to bed easy.
Wilbur didn’t anticipate waking up again, to the creature-man in his room. No mask this year, it was tied to his basket instead. There was a pair of this glasses over his eyes.
“NO!” Wilbur yelled, before he could stop himself. Grabbing a pillow and throwing it at the man. “I was good! I was good this year!”
The creature sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose like he was a father. “Wilbur.”
Wilbur’s eye caught sight of it, the emerald. Pierced through his ear and glinting in the frozen candlelight. He bubbled with anger.
He jumped at the man, fingers clawing uselessly at his cloak, thick tears streaming down his face. He screamed, and fought the unmoving man until his energy ran out. Until he fell into the man’s arms, sobbing desperately, the creature holding him however awkwardly in his arms.
He cried for what felt like hours before he could stand again, rubbing his eyes.
“I’m sorry.”
“I know.”
“You still have to punish me?”
The creature paused for a moment, but nodded. “Not for stealing.”
Wilbur blinked at him owlishly, curious, and Krampus- Techno sighed. Reached under his mattress, and tossed a bag of clinking coins on the bed. All of his money from the last month, saved carefully to buy yuletide gifts for his friends. Even if they couldn’t return them.
“You aren’t eating. You cannot starve to fill another man’s plate, Wilbur Soot.”
He didn’t switch him that year. He tucked him to his side, landing a quick flurry of heavy-handed swats to his clothed bottom, and holding him when he cried again, until he fell asleep.
When Wilbur awoke, and time was moving in the right viscosity again, there was a loaf of bread, two fresh eggs, and a squash to bake on his desk. He ate three meals that day, and two the next two days. He manages to buy small trinkets for his friends. Tommy gives him a card, and Quackity plays a game of cards with him after class. He gives him the deck at the end, and Wilbur places it in a special place, the drawer in the bottom of his closet. Safe.
At thirteen, Wilbur tempts the man.
He makes it all the way until December third, before he steals again. Until his last chance, before he’ll miss the creatures visit.
He doesn’t know why it feels important, why he needs him to come.
Phil still isn’t home. The bank gives him 10 gold a week now, and he receives a letter from his father telling him in no uncertain terms to stay in school. Wilbur drops out for the harvest again, but he knows Kra-Techno won’t care about that. The creature seems to have certain standards, at least.
He steals a 2-copper pie from the baker, and leaves a note that he’ll pay on the sixth. Part of him hopes its enough, part of him wishes it isn't.
“You are self-destructive, Wilbur.”
Wilbur sighs at the creature's voice, rolling away from the wall. He hadn’t even managed to fall asleep this year, had felt the disgusting pull of time pausing, becoming more viscous around him. It dissipates in mere seconds though, before he feels normal again.
“Because I made you come?”
“In part.” The creature agrees. “But that merely shows your need for correction. This is hardly your only self-destructive choice, child.”
Wilbur shrugs. He’s still in one piece isn’t he?
“Stand up, Soot.” the man says, dropping his cloak. Wilbur blinks at him, before following the command. The earring is gone from his ear, replaced with a ruby. He doubts its permanent, the ruby looks freshly polished, he appreciated the gesture. It makes something in his stomach soft.
His stomach immediately twists, when Techno removes a bundle of switches from his basket. Clearly his mental health was important to this, then. Who knew?
He follows the direction to lay across the bed, only complaining a bit when his bottom is bared again.
Techno lectures him as he switches him, listing off specific decisions Wilbur had made in this year to his own detriment. Landing twenty-five terrible swats to his bottom, leaving him sobbing into his blankets once again. Heavy tears rolling down his cheeks, and harsh sobs wracking his shoulders as the man holds him afterwards.
He falls asleep like that, and wakes up on his stomach again. He goes into the Yuletide with a renewed sense of energy, and a lighter conscience.
Wilbur knows he fucked up this year, but he can’t be fucked to care about it. He’s fourteen, and Quackity is no longer his friend.
A decision that came about at the end of harvest, after a nasty fight during the bonfire. A fight that spawned several more fights, over the next few months; one that pulls Tommy in and leaves him with a split lip.
When December rolls around, Wilbur is nursing a black eye. If he’s ever deserved a visit from Techno, it’s this year. Techno delivers, of course.
He wakes him up with a shake to his shoulder, already without his cloak and sitting on the side of the bed. He looks like a dad, Wilbur thinks.
“He deserves it.”
“Theseus didn’t.”
Wilbur can’t help a laugh at that, light and genuine despite the punishment he knows he’s in for. “Is that all this is about?”
Techno chuckles too. “No, you still shouldn’t fight your allies like this. You know it’s a silly argument, and you’re only hurting you both. You need to apologise.”
Wilbur rolls his eyes, but he can’t find himself to really be angry anymore. It’s been two months, he’s over it. That doesn’t mean he wants to talk about this, or hear advice from the magical ass-beater.
“Are you spanking him too?” He asks after a moment, voice still light.
“Get up, Wilbur.”
He gets 30 swats that year, and makes a terrible realisation. It goes up every time the man visits him, and he finds himself shifting in his seat at school more than usual this year. Quackity is shifting in his seat too though, and they both sniffle when the teacher snaps at them to sit still and focus.
He apologises to him over lunch, and they tease each other about standing for the meal.
Everything feels okay.
Wilbur is fifteen, and he doesn’t think Phil is ever coming back.
It’s not a particularly startling or painful realisation, but it still makes him angry. His own father abandoned him, for something completely unnecessary. He knows Phil wants a good life for him, wants to bring him back the world.
Wilbur doesn’t want the world. Wilbur wanted his father.
He’s finished with school now, working an apprenticeship he hates. He wants to craft instruments, but he spends day in and day out cleaning floors and windows, cooking, and washing laundry like a maid. He hasn’t even touched a guitar.
His mentor excuses him for the harvest, and in the light of the bonfire, he gets his first tattoo over his sternum. Nobody looks at him as any less a teenage boy with his shirt off. Wilbur feels free, when he accepts that he is.
Phil is gone, and Wilbur doesn’t care.
Except that he does, he does care. He’s so angry some days he's boiling with it, when he’s scrubbing floors and cursing in every language he can pronounce. When he gets a little too aggressive, and his mentor gives him five smacks with a sturdy strap.
When he’s cooking dinner at night, and he’s getting frustrated at the water taking so long to boil.
When he starts picking fights, in the middle of town with other teenage boys, losing more than he wins. Walking home with bruises, and pissing about work the next day.
He’s ready for the man this year, when the day rolls around. Sitting in the corner of his bed against the wall, a dusty book in his lap that he’s barely reading.
The man takes off his mask as soon as he steps through the door, dropping his cloak and basket, and sitting next to the boy on the bed. They stay like that for several long not-moments, time sticky and still around them.
“You need-”
“Don’t.” Wilbur doesn’t want to hear it. He can’t hear it, he wouldn’t be able to handle it. Wilbur is only so strong.
Techno sighs but nods, and tugs him over his lap. It’s a new position, but Wilbur isn’t mad about it. His legs are warm and sturdy under him, and he feels safe.
He still bares and switches him, and Wilbur still cries and apologises, but something is different. Something is new in the winter air, curling in the air thick like the cold. Something changes.
“I’m sorry, dad!” Wilbur cries on the last swat, and something breaks. Some wall between them shatters, something shifts. Wilbur isn’t just a child anymore. Techno isn’t just his title of Krampus.
Techno carries him somewhere that night, before finishing his task in the in-between time.
When Wilbur wakes up in a new bed, in a new home, in the cold arctic the next morning, his heart sings ‘home’. Phil is gone, but that’s okay. Wilbur has a dad, however odd it might be, and he’s safe.
Techno, as it turns out, is a pretty soft parent. He cooks eggs for breakfast, and reads in the living room in the evenings. He polishes his hooves before prayer, and braids his hair to sleep. He teaches Wilbur astronomy, and the words of the gods.
He’s firm when he needs to be, like on Wilburs sixteenth birthday, when he comes home drunk on honey wine. But he comforts him after, and rocks him to sleep, and makes him extra sausage the next morning.
Wilbur feels safe, and calm. He writes music, and studies literature. He feels like a teenager, no longer forced to feel like an adult shoved into a too-small body. He warms up to Techno. No, his dad.
He still finds himself angry, when the fifth comes around that winter.
He knows he won’t really miss his dad. The night will feel normal to him, moving with time. He’ll wake up after a few hours, and have a banana for breakfast because dad won’t have the energy to cook.
They’ll sit and read together with the fire burning, and let the day pass slow and calm.
Wilbur doesn’t care, because its wrong. Suddenly this all feels wrong, his chest feels tight.
He screams at him, again. Screams and pounds his fists on his chest because it isn’t supposed to be like this. Wilbur is supposed to be alone, and scared, and abandoned.
Wilbur is supposed to be angry at life, and sabotage his relationships, and hurt himself. He isn’t supposed to be safe, and warm, and happy.
Things are changing, and he doesn’t like it, and he’s faced with the every heavy threat of adulthood. He isn’t ready yet, he won’t be ready. He wants to be warm and safe forever with his dad, but he isn’t supposed to.
Everything is confusing and too much, and dad holds him through his meltdown carefully, time pulling to a stop around them. Cradles him until he feels calm and safe again. Until his head is clear.
He puts Wilbur over his knee, and gives him five swats with his belt. It barely hurts, but it makes something in Wilbur’s chest feel better. It makes him feel okay, at least for right now.
At least now, in his dad’s arms, thoroughly exhausted from his cry, he can feel safe.
They visit his friends the next day, with fresh baked cookies and hand-carved sculptures. Quackity fidgets awkwardly at first sight of the large man, but they laugh it off as a group eventually, and everything feels okay. Wilbur feels okay.
Wilbur is okay.