Royals (Sbi royals au)

That of clocks and our dreams- Chapter 17

Phil now knew he wasn't the greatest father, in fact there were several pieces of evidence that pointed towards this fact.

Once, he could've gotten away with describing himself as, 'not a bad parent per say', and now he wasn't so sure he could anymore.

Phil chose to turn a blind eye to this.

So what if his youngest child had called him by his first name since he was 7, so what if said child had called his own brother 'dad' on more occasions than he had called his actual adopted father, dad. So what if Tommy mistook who his father was at age 4 and instead gave a father's day card to his guard at the time, who was the main person who took care of the child while Phil was in meetings, (That guard had been fired not long after Phil heard Tommy call him dad) and so what if hearing 'dad' or 'father' come out of his youngest mouth sounded forced or unnatural.

Who cared? Phil certainly didn't. So Phil ignored this reoccurring issue, that he figured would resolve itself with time.

His son's would understand that he had equally important business to attend to in the royal court, and that if he could skip out on the meetings, he would in a heartbeat if he could, but there was simply too much to be done in the political world, something his children would understand when they're older.

They would understand, they would, surely...

...as it turned out, it only got worse with time, much like leaving an open wound untreated.

And so, Phil only added to his problem, much worse than simply rubbing salt in the wound, at this point he might as well have twisted a knife in the wound, and you know what they say, like father like son.

His children had 'accidentally' picked up [read: were conditioned to] some bad habits from both his negligence and overbearing attention, with no in between.

His oldest son grew up learning unhealthy coping mechanisms for stress and lashed out irrationally, giving into peer pressure from voices coming out of seemingly nowhere.

His middle child learnt of favoritism that came with time, overworking himself and lashing out to get attention, not to mention he'd also learnt a great deal about dealing with small children, and finally, he'd learnt of independence, there was nothing more needed to say.

His youngest didn't learn anything from him at all, just as Phil had barely learnt anything about the boy himself in return.

That of course didn't mean he didn't pick up on his families animosity. It was inevitable he'd start working for their own happiness then his own, try to be the glue that holds them all together, slowly deteriorating away, only just barely holding on by a thread...

Regardless of this, it never stopped Tommy from loving him all the same.

Sure, it hurt him deeply when Phil would turn away from him, but he could never find it in himself to actually be angry at the man.

And now, Phil wished he had faced these problems head on instead of turning a blind eye.

There was just something about seeing your child wrapped in bandages with another child in the same state or even slightly better, and not being able to do anything other than just stare blankly with no other way to help.

Still, even with these thoughts, Phil couldn't stop working, not even when Wilbur had glared at him for leaving the room as soon as he saw Tommy awake for the briefest second, not even when he heard excuses being made for himself, despite most of them coming from his rather unsure (prized) bubblegum haired son, not even when he saw the understanding gaze from their neighbor kingdoms king.