Chapter Text
“What will you do when this is all over?”
Techno tilts his head lazily to the side, not taking his eyes off of the vibrant sunset. “I’m not sure,” he says in the lower, flat voice he’s been perfecting lately. People scare a lot easier when their opponent seems perfectly at ease.
“I’ll probably find somewhere new,” says Phil, coming to stand behind him and resting a gentle hand on his shoulder. Techno lets him.
The gold of the setting sun makes the snow ablaze with color, and it’s enough to keep the two in a respectful silence. Sometimes you have to just look at things in the quieter moments. And they can look at it with the knowledge that it’s theirs, their beautiful little world that they fought for, that they won.
“There are other worlds,” says Techno at last, standing up. “Other places to conquer.” The moment is broken, but he can hear the smile in Phil’s voice when he responds.
“And I’m sure they’ll be needing someone to put them in their place.”
Techno grins outright at that, adjusting the thick blue cloak Phil had made for him in the earlier days of the empire.
“They’ll be needin’ someone like me,” he agrees, and begins to head down the mountain, hooves crunching against the snow.
“Blood for the Blood God!” calls Philza from the top of the mountain, and Techno smiles.
Blood for the Blood God indeed, he thinks, and doesn’t respond.
It’s almost two years before they meet again.
Techno is older now; faster and stronger, and with a reputation for being one of the deadliest warriors the worlds have seen in decades. It’s a title he bears with pride and a sort of lazy smugness. He’s earned this, he knows. Blood is what brought him here, and blood is what will keep him on his throne, and so he enters the tournaments and competitions with all the laid-back vigour of a master at work.
He and two other teammates go against 21 of the best and win, once. It’s a bloodbath in the best way possible and Techno relishes every drop of scarlet staining his armor, the looks of terror in his opponent’s eyes.
“It’s him!” He hears someone scream as he breaks through the treeline and bears down on the group of four, gleaming sword in hand. This is the life.
So when Philza sends him a message asking him to meet up, Techno isn’t exactly sure what to make of it. As he heads away from the arena, striding past a young man with dark hair and a beanie who’s cringing away from him, Techno wonders if the timing is a coincidence.
He and Phil had made a name for themselves with the empire; mercilessly cutting through the opposition, but Techno’s undeniably got far more notoriety now than he had back then. People’s gazes linger now.
Techno barely notices the gentle crunch as he lands in the snow, absently dusting his scarlet cloak off. Easier to hide the blood that way.
Well, he decides as he begins to make his way up to the little house perched among the trees. If Phil is just doing this for— for clout or something, Techno could fight him. Fight him and win, probably.
For some reason, the idea makes something in his stomach twist unpleasantly, but he doesn’t have time to dwell on it, because the door is being opened by a tall man with a mildly curious expression and wild dark curls.
“Technoblade,” he says, looking more surprised than anything else.
“Wilbur,” Techno greets, tamping down his own surprise to dip his head in a gentle nod. Wilbur stares at him for a few more seconds.
“I— We didn’t know if you would come,” he fumbles awkwardly, opening the door.
Techno hums noncommittally and steps in, trying not to get snow on the shined wooden floors. It’s...cozy in here, and hard not to stare too openly at the towering bookshelves and precarious stacks of plates and papers as he follows Wilbur further into the house.
“In here,” says Wilbur, stopping in front of an oak door with deep horizontal scratches in it, one of which almost perfectly matches up with the top of Wilbur’s head.
Techno nods in his direction again. He has to tilt his head back to look at Wilbur now, which is...irritating. Wilbur shoots him a fleeting smile, adjusting the dark blue beanie he wears and following Techno into the room, to flop down in a chair by the door.
He’s already there when they enter.
“Phil,” says Techno slowly, suddenly feeling very out of his depth at the sight of his old friend. He doesn’t look very different, aside from slightly longer hair and the dark circles forming under his eyes. His customary bucket hat looks more worn than it had that evening on the mountaintop too, a small rip near the brim. He looks older.
Philza grins crookedly at him. “Growing your hair out, I see?” he asks, twirling a strand of his own blond hair around one finger.
Techno lets himself grin lazily, slipping his bow off his shoulder and placing it down by the door. “I figured it was too much work,” he says, sitting down in the chair next to Wilbur’s and crossing his legs. “S’not really my priority, is it?”
“Lazy,” chides Phil, but there’s a laugh in his voice, and Techno finds himself grinning in spite of himself.
“I do like it though,” says Phil, opening a cabinet and pulling out two glasses. “The pink suits you. You gonna braid it or something? You can’t just leave it at that length. It should look intentional.”
Techno snorts, toying with a lock of his hair, which is indeed a pale pink. “Sure,” he says, watching Phil’s movements as he reaches into the cabinet again. “If you can convince me, I’ll grow it out and braid it. Hell, I’ll even leave it pink if you want me to.”
Both Phil and Wilbur laugh good-naturedly, and Phil finally seems to realize that the two have company. “I thought I told you to start setting the table,” he says, setting down the glasses and coming over to ruffle Wilbur’s curls. “You remember Wilbur, right?”
Techno’s eyes narrow slightly. “I remember,” is all he says. Phil grins, reaching into the cabinet again to pull out a bottle of amber liquid, pouring into the glasses.
“He’s quite young you know,” says he says conversationally as Wilbur grumbles and readjusts the beanie.
“Oh?” says Techno, absently watching the liquid slosh around. Phil nods, a faint smile on his face as he comes back over with the glasses in hand.
“Yeah,” he says, grinning fondly when Wilbur leans away to avoid more hair-ruffling. “Only fifteen.”
When Phil hands one of the glasses to Techno, he just stares at it blankly for a few seconds. Technoblade is the Blood God, the slaughterer, the one feared across the worlds for his hand-to-hand skills and deadly speed.
And Technoblade is currently not of drinking age.
“Techno,” says Phil gently when he doesn’t take it, but Techno barely hears him.
Because what had Phil said? That Wilbur was only fifteen? Did Phil consider fifteen to be young?
“ I think something’s wrong with him ,” says Wilbur in a loud whisper when Techno remains motionless.
“Just thinkin’,” he says, accepting the glass from Phil’s hand. Phil smiles at him, hesitant enough that Techno knows it’s more of a question than anything.
You okay?
Techno dips his head in the tiniest nod and lifts his glass up.
“To the blood god,” says Wilbur. It’s quite hard to parse whether or not this is a joke, but Phil shakes his head.
“To Techno,” he says firmly, and drinks.
Techno stares down at the drink in his hands for a few seconds. This is definitely not legal, he decides, then almost laughs out loud, because he’s Technoblade, for fuck’s sake. He’s fifteen, and he’s committed more war crimes than he can count, spilled more blood than he can possibly measure, and is about to drink alcohol for the first time in his life.
What the hell, thinks Techno, and drains the glass.
When he’s done coughing, Philza laughs and pours him another, and Techno accepts. It doesn’t burn too badly. Besides, nobody would take him seriously if they knew he could barely drink a glass of unidentifiable alcohol.
By the fourth drink, Phil is there— when did he get there?— gently prying the glass out of his hands.
“I think you’ve had enough, Techno,” he says, interrupting a long, rambling tangent about how gold is so nice and how it’s just so pretty. Techno lets his head loll to the side.
“If you say so,” he says agreeably, and Philza sighs.
“Get him to the guest bed.” Wilbur says something in return that Techno can’t quite make out, and there are hands gripping his arm and pulling him up.
“Stop moving,” hisses Wilbur, sounding irritated as he maneuvers Techno over to the staircase.
It takes about 15 minutes of Techno tripping both himself and Wilbur before they finally make it to the second floor, and Wilbur wastes no time dragging him down a hallway and past a closed door. They’re almost at the end of the hallway when there’s a loud creaking noise from the closed door behind them. Wilbur freezes.
“Wilbur!” calls a loud voice. Its accent curves over the syllables like Wilbur’s does, but with a slightly sharper edge; less rounded-out.
“Go back to sleep, Tommy,” says Wilbur warningly, loosening his hold on Techno and letting him slump against the wall.
The door rattles ominously, and Wilbur lets go of Techno entirely to leap back across the hallway and block the door with his body faster than Techno would have thought possible.
“Oi!” comes a very indignant voice. “Oi, Wilbur!”
“Go to sleep!” yells Wilbur, leaning his full weight against the door to keep it closed. Techno loses interest when the person in the room— Tommy, he assumes— starts shrieking that Wilbur is ‘nothing but a little bitchboy,’ and, ‘probably really a Merican,’ whatever that means.
He fumbles his way over to the room at the end of the hallway and opens the door as Wilbur’s voice begins to raise as well.
The room is small and sparsely furnished, with a desk and chair in one corner and a bed on the opposite wall, just underneath the window. Techno doesn’t bother with the light, just clumsily strips his cloak off and crawls underneath the red blanket. There’s no curtains, but the silvery moonlight streaming down onto his face is calming, in a weird sort of way, so he just rolls over. As he hears a loud thud from Tommy’s room, followed by an incoherent yell, Techno closes his eyes and lets everything drift pleasantly away into static.
Several hours later, Techno wakes up to discover that the moonlight, which had been so pleasant the night before, is now sunlight, sharp and abrasive. He groans and covers his face as familiar stabbing sensations begin to assault his eyes. Good morning indeed . After a few more minutes, he realizes that he probably has some mild healing potions in stock, so he sits up, letting the blanket trail to the floor and--
Wait a minute. This is definitely not his house. For a moment, Techno looks around frantically, panic and anger seizing in his chest. Kill them kill them who was it find them find them hurt them--
It seems to be getting worse, these days.
“Oh,” he says out loud, hearing the faint voices drift up from downstairs. “Phil.” There’s an odd mix of relief and apprehension in his gut as he starts towards the door, because Phil’s here, really here , and yet Techno has no idea what to do, especially with two almost-strangers in the house.
He pauses by the mirror and examines his reflection for a moment. Phil was right; his hair has been getting longer. When the two had traveled and fought together, Techno had kept his hair close-cropped and dyed it darker whenever the pink became really noticeable. Now, though, it hangs down over his forehead and nearly to his chin, the pale pink gleaming in the morning light. Techno scrunches his snout doubtfully at his reflection. It doesn’t look nearly intentional enough, Phil was right about that as well. It looks unkempt.
And Techno isn’t so sure he likes the pink, anyway.
With a sigh, his gaze tracks down to his wrinkled clothes, and he plucks at the blouse with a finger. Oh well He supposes it can’t be helped. With a sigh, he heads down the stairs, hooves clicking softly against the wood.
Wilbur spots him first. “Hello Techno,” he says, his voice dubiously friendly.
Techno stops by the doorway. “Hallo,” he responds, drawing out the syllables, as if it’ll make his hands stop shaking.
Shaking.
Why are they shaking?
The third person at the table whirls around, chair legs scraping against the floor. His hair is blond, although several shades darker than Phil’s and fluffs up into messy waves as he moves.
“You!” he yells. If Techno didn’t know any better, he’d say Tommy was angry with him, but there’s a spark of excitement in his eyes.
“Me,” agrees Techno calmly, still hovering in the doorway.
“You’re the blade!” says Tommy, his hands flailing around and nearly overturning a pitcher of milk, which Phil swiftly steadies.
“I’m the blade,” agrees Techno, slightly less calmly, because Phil hasn’t said anything.
Is Techno supposed to leave? To slip quietly out of the front door and leave Philza to this...new life? The bitterness that rises in his chest at the thought is unexpected. He shouldn’t need to care about this kind of thing, not with the fear and blood and collection of gleaming weapons.
“Hey,” says Phil with a familiar grin, featuring towards the empty seat on the left side. “I made pancakes. No blueberry left, though.” Tommy pointedly glances away.
Techno nods, and his throat feels tight. “I like chocolate better,” he says quietly, the words slightly strangled. Phil’s smile is just so gentle .
“Sit,” says Phil.
Techno sits.