Chapter Text
Technoblade was a hard man to impress.
His day job as Ares ensured it. Villains who could topple the skies, addicts gone rogue with the ability to level buildings, maniacs on rampages that involved far too much destruction and far too many deaths.
He was a hero, and that meant he saw the worst of the world in all its superpowered glory. He’d seen the most harmless of powers turned into vile weapons in the right hands, heard children scream for their parents in burning buildings while he was occupied fighting the arsonist.
The world was cruel, and you could always count on someone to get creative, because ingenuity was what kept his allies alive—and why he needed allies in the first place.
Now, granted, he’d never personally done interviews for the tower before this, but this was also the first time he and Phil would be needing someone at the head of their social media presence. Something about Ares being too scary and Thanatos being too dark and brooding. (Ha, Phil? Dark and brooding? Techno was like a brother to him and the most dark he’d ever seen out of the man was road rage on a Friday night after work)
The other applicants had been the expected.
There was a lot of panic. A few people literally ran into falling shelves, for goddess's sake. A small handful were acceptable levels for civilians, nothing impressive or too out of the ballpark for any adult you could pluck off the street.
But the real gems today had been the two star applicants.
The first had already been impressive enough. A ‘Punz’ who completed the task flawlessly. The man ran through it all so fast that barely anything had time to start once Techno finished explaining it. Some sort of speed ability according to his almost unsettlingly long resume.
Punz seemed like a prime candidate, but something about the guy made his skin crawl a little. He was pretty and quick on his feet AND in his head, like a viper with shiny scales all polished for a show.
A definite red flag all around, honestly, and that was just off of vibes. Techno couldn’t fathom how the guy made it as far as he had in the applications process.
A hero learned to trust their judgment. Techno had survived this long by doing exactly that.
Which is why the next man was so startling in comparison.
He was young, a boyish face and a look in his eye that Techno couldn’t place. He felt it the moment Tommy entered the room for the tryout. The analysis. The boy’s eyes darted around every crevice of the room within the first step.
It was a classic sign of either abuse or some other troubled life. Tommy had spent his entire grand 'casual' entrance frantically looking around the room. Though Techno was fairly sure the search was most likely intended for exits to the room. Not necessarily safety. For escape. On top of that, unless the guy had some kind of age ability he didn’t list on his papers, then no way was this dude actually the twenty-one his supposed ID card vouched.
The only thing stopping Techno from ordering a more intensive background check to search for abuse was the strange curiosity shining in Tommy's eyes.
For all the terror radiating off of him, he had looked more curious than scared of the decimated room itself.
Maybe Techno was overthinking things.
It is always possible that he, himself, was the cause of Tommy's fear. Not all civilians liked Ares, and sometimes he forgot about that until he was standing in front of a scared child on a battlefield— covered in blood and sweat like a monster built from the fires.
Overall, Tommy had been his favorite choice of the options laid across his desk. Punz was too perfect, in a way that just screamed 'I am secretly super evil' or maybe just 'I am better than everyone else because I am just that cool'. Either way Punz would be annoying to work with and Techno wanted no part of it.
A few other candidates had done well, but Tommy specifically was the only one who came out entirely unscathed. And who knows, maybe he just had some really lucky genetics to still look so young. Techno knew at least a few people who also appeared a bit too young for their age groups.
It would be fine.
Probably.
Less annoying than working with a possible villain or possible stuck-up asshole.
| | |
"PHIL. You gotta understand man. The kid was so fucking weird."
An airy laugh sounded on the other side of the phone.
"Tech, how weird could our applicants be?"
A pause.
"Okay, that girl who could skin herself like a snake and kept getting distracted by the intern with the mouse head was odd."
.
.
.
"I still think we could have kept her, she got me donuts."
"Tech we both know the donuts do not trump almost eating an intern."
"BOTH is a strong word there Philza."
A sigh on the other end.
"ANYWAYS. Phil you shoulda seen this kid. The runt just stood in place for more than half his time and then he just WALTZED his way through! Sam is gonna be so disappointed that all his work didn't even phase the kid."
A curious hum.
"Just stood watching for a bit and then walked his way through? What was the applicant's name?"
"Er— Tommy Danger Kraken something something or whatever. Had a seriously long name that sounds entirely fake but he DID have a real birth certificate with it."
A click of talons and the almost imperceptible sound of ruffled feathers.
"Tommy you say?"
"Yeah, know him?"
Another hum.
Techno was going to kill his hero partner if the damn bird didn't just give it to him straight, whatever he knew.
"He was interesting, I missed his interview though. I thought you might like him so I let him go through the first interview personally."
Oh he was doing some bullshit.
"Okay, Phil, but you didn't see the kid today. It was like the weirdest experience I've ever been in."
"Weirder than that time-"
"Phil if you finish that sentence I am going to spend all your money on potato farming. I'm just saying, he has potential. His brain works in ways I haven't picked apart yet, I think he'll be a good addition."
"I agree, he does have immense potential, he's weird enough that the internet would love him and interesting enough to not make us want to claw our eyes out."
Techno looked at the photo on his desk, Tommy—whatever the fuck the rest of his name was—in the top corner of the resume.
Too young for the age on his ID.
Too good at scanning a room, in a way that points to abuse.
Too adept at combing dangerous territory.
Too openly curious, in a way that might negate the abuse theory.
Too suspicious and inconsistent in general.
Too many other candidates who had minor enough injuries to pass and a lot less possible issues.
Techno stamped the 'APPROVED' slot.
Eh, things would work out, Tommy seemed competent enough.
< < <
"RANBOO THE OVEN HAS TEETH AGAIN. ITS GOT MY GOOD LADLE, THE ONE WITH THE COW STICKER ON THE HANDLE."
"Holyshitholyshitholyshitholyshitholyshit," Ranboo whispered to themselves, reaching up to obtain the aforementioned cookie jar. The green container that said 'kies', not the red one next to it that said 'Coo'. Together they were meant to spell 'Cookies', but tommy had vehemently told Ranboo not to move their current order.
"OH MY GOD RANBOO HURRY OR I MIGHT LOSE AN ARM. I REALLY LIKE THIS LADLE, MAN"
Ah, yes, the oven was still a mouth.
Ranboo scurried over to Tommy, who was in fact fighting the oven for his favorite ladle. It was grotesque, the way the oven door opened to too many teeth and gums and bloodied, pulsing flesh.
But of course there was Tommy, yelling at it for being a 'bad oven' and that if it wanted treats it couldn't keep trying to eat his cooking tools.
This was the third time this had happened today. Apparently, the House was in a bad mood, and Tommy—terrifyingly, at least to Ranboo—did not know why.
With a lot of struggling and maneuvering, eventually Ranboo stuck enough cookies into the seemingly possessed oven to appease it. The gross inner lining going back to hard steel and the teeth receding back into nothing.
Ew.
~ ~ ~
Tommy's day has been going, in the simplest word, BATSHIT.
For some reason, the entire House had been in disarray. The kitchen keeps misbehaving, sitting in the living room means being smothered in blankets and plushies, most of which he didn't even have before today, and a million other random things were going wrong.
It was exhausting.
But he was familiar enough with his own House to be suspicious too.
For being in such a 'bad mood' the House had also been incredibly, suffocatingly, sweet.
The day started with the piano playing one of Tommy's favorite songs, his breakfast ingredients all already laid out for him and it also kept sneaking him his favorite hot cocoa blend when he wasn't paying too close attention to the tables next to him.
It almost... felt like the House was trying to... keep him busy?
Everything going wrong was easy fixes that just took a lot of energy; fighting off the oven until it could get treats, adjusting all the pictures on the branch of his hallway that was upside down, and coaxing the windows to show the actual outside of the building and not god-knows where.
Fuck, it was trying to keep him busy, wasn't it?
That never boded well.
In preparation for not wanting to cook dinner tonight after all of this, Tommy had ordered Chinese food for him and Ranboo. Poor sod looked more and more terrified every time something new went wrong, and Tommy saying "eh its probably fine" each time hadn't been helping.
Not Tommy though. He was a big man and so was entirely unfazed by his House being a little weirdo. No his hair was not a tangled mess. Look somewhere else.
If he had to deal with ONE MORE cranky door today he might seriously consider giving them all a very long talking to.
Seriously, he needed a break from all the chaos.
Looking up at the ceiling and all its waving, changing textures, Tommy had enough.
"I know something is up. Spill."
The ceiling continued its mesmerizing shifting.
"You can't throw bullshit at me and Ran all day without me noticing."
Silence.
"Seriously, I'm getting sick of it, what are you doing?"
The ceiling stopped moving.
"Uhm- Tommy what is happening?" Ranboo questioned, turning their head to face tommy.
"Asking my House why it's playing cat and mouse with us."
"It's- what?"
Tommy rolled his eyes and stretched out a bit more.
"It's fucking with us and I don't know why."
A pensive look from them.
"Will it...answer?"
"Probably not."
A door that hadn't been there on the wall next to them creaked open.
Ranboo, thankfully, hadn't reacted to it.
"Okay we both know that was just petty." Tommy called out to his House.
The walls took in a slow breath.
Now that got a reaction out of Ranboo. What a loser. Couldn't even handle the most basic breathing from someone else's house.
One of the clocks nearby chimed out.
And suddenly everything was right, but in the wrong way.
Tommy sat up and hurriedly checked one of his watches, rolling his sleeve up high to see one of the ones closer to his elbow.
7:00 pm.
Huh.
Usually the clocks didn't announce times that weren't even in number.
Or that weren't significant.
His head snapped around, scanning everything around him and Ranboo.
The hallway to their left was straight—and even from here, he could tell—it was the right length.
The space where the second hallway had been just a moment before.
The ceiling was still paused in a popcorn-ceiling set up.
The floor was back to casual wood grain, not the leafy pattern it had held a split second ago.
Every door was uniform and in the correct order, all closed and locked.
The pictures all around were of smiling, kind families and beautiful landscapes.
The hallway.
The walls.
The floor.
The doors.
The windows.
The pictures.
Hallway.
Walls.
Floor.
Doors.
Windows.
Pictures
HallwayWallsFloorDoorsWindows.HallwayWallsFloorDoorsWindows.HallwayWallsFloorDoorsWindows.RightWallsFloorDoorsWindows.RightWallsFloorDoorsWindows.RightWallsFloorDoorsWindows.RightLeftFloorsDoorsWindows.RightLeftFloorsDoorsWindows.RightLeftFloorsDoorsWindows.RightLeftDownWindows.RightLeftDownWindows.RightLeftDownWindows.RightLeftDownUp.RightLeftDownUp.RightLeftDownUp.
Right.
Left.
Down.
Up.
Over and over and over and over, Tommy's head rounded on all his surroundings.
Something was wrong.
Very.
Fucking.
Wrong.
Not a thing was out of place.
What was wrong?
Something was wrong.
If he could just find it.
WHATWASWRONG?
Tommy couldn't breathe.
DING
The room snapped to focus.
Tommy's head and eyes whipped to the front door.
Someone was outside.
Ranboo was already getting up slowly, staring at Tommy like he was a scared animal while they approached the door.
"That's... probably our food. I'll get it..."
Oh yes, Tommy had ordered Chinese.
Unless this was a trap.
Tommy eyed the space around him, terrified.
He had to stop Ranboo from opening the door, what if something went wrong?
But he felt like he was trapped in a pile of honey, watching himself in slow-mo trying to get up in time to save Ranboo.
And the door clicked open.
And it was, in fact, the delivery guy.
No trap then?
He looked outside the door, Ranboo talking to the delivery guy.
Tommy scanned the House from his vantage point in the middle of the living room again.
His eyes landed on Ranboo.
To Ranboo.
To the teenager outside his apartment and the delivery man handing over the Chinese food.
To the teenager outside the apartment.
Holy. Fucking. Shit.
Tommy's pretty sure the entire world stops working as his brain stalls.
Ranboo is heading back inside with the food in hand, face still a picture of worry for Tommy.
Apparently Tommy still looked scared to all shit.
Tommy checked his watch.
Oh.
"You sneaky fucker."
Ranboo's face morphed into confusion.
They didn't think about what just happened, did they?
Tommy stood up and walked up to them. All traces of imaginary honey now gone. He removed the food from Ranboo’s frozen hands and placed it on the table that wasn't there a moment ago.
"Ranboo."
"....yes Tommy?"
"You got our Chinese food."
"...yeah?"
They were stupid, weren't they?
Tommy paused, to let them think about it for a moment.
He knew the exact instant it clicked.
"I GOT OUR CHINESE FOOD."
They rushed to the door.
Their foot hit the boundary line of the doorframe.
And kept going.
And Ranboo was outside Tommy's House for the first time in a month.
They turned back to look at him, tears flooding their eyes.
They opened their mouth, but only a sob came out.
Tommy rushed out to meet them in front of his apartment, they collided into a hug as Ranboo's tears made their way into Tommy's hair.
"Holy fuck man, you can go home." Breathless.
"I-I can- home." They couldn't even speak right.
"You can leave big man." Tommy said in a hushed tone.
Ranboo could go home.
~ ~ ~
It is almost an hour or two later that Ranboo actually leaves.
First, the two sit in front of the newly appeared fireplace and eat their Chinese food. Tommy steals from their plate and they pretend not to notice up until they steal part of Tommy's in exchange.
It gets some laughs from both sides.
Then, Tommy helps Ranboo pack. They only came in with their vigilante costume, but Home had long since stuffed their the guest room with trinkets, random items that Ranboo said they didn't want to part with, along with a shirt or two that had been in the tailored closet because apparently they fit too well to not be worn often.
The first time Ranboo is about to leave, Tommy tells them they forgot something, and holes up in his own room for a moment, scouring it for the perfect goodbye gift.
It ends up being a pocket watch, black with a sleek white chain.
The second time they're ready to step out the door, Tommy insists they bring some food 'for the road' despite Ranboo saying they're just going to teleport home.
The third time, Tommy has no excuse but just asks if they want to watch one last movie.
Ranboo laughs fondly and says they can watch it another time.
Tommy almost has it in him to believe Ranboo might want to come back.
Ranboo steps out of the door for the third time since they first entered, and faces Tommy one last time.
"You don't need to act like you're fine, I know this is hard on you too." Kindness and being aware of Tommy's feelings? Ew. Gross. Get this fucker out of here.
"I am a big boy. I will be alright."
Ranboo stares for a moment, hesitant.
"See you later?"
"Later, king."
Then they are no longer there, a dusting of purple particles vanishing into thin air where Ranboo used to stand.
The first time they'd tried to teleport out of Tommy's House, they'd ended up in the open dryer.
Tommy walked back into his apartment and closed the door behind him.
He scrambled into his bed and was instantly coated with a weighted blanket and the smell of alliums started to flood his room softly.
Everything was quiet.
"Do you miss them too?" He whispered, heartbroken.
When he got no response, it was okay.
He already knew the answer would be yes.
Tommy fell asleep with red-rimmed eyes and a damp pillow that the House quietly swapped out once he'd been done crying.
~ ~ ~
The next day, the House was mostly back to its usual self.
No wild, inexplicable scenarios going down to keep him and Ranboo occupied one after another.
It was just his usual House.
But
It wouldn't let him sit in Ranboo's room. The door stubbornly moved when he got too close to it, and the doorknob revealed it was locked when Tommy got the jump on it and clasped its silver (formerly brass) handle.
He thought, for a moment yesterday, that Ranboo might not want to leave.
But even he knew it was a selfish thought, that Ranboo might want to stay behind instead of going back to their family, their friends—the friends they hadn't made because of forced proximity.
When he checked the dining table for something new to do during the day, he was met with a place setting for one and a serving of fish on his plate.
He ate it this time, too tired to think about making his own food.
The fish was perfect, and Tommy wasn’t met with any strange sensations or hidden ingredients.
It was almost insulting how softly he was being treated. Like he was a fragile thing to care for.
And maybe that is precisely what he was today.