Chapter Text
He’s humming as he latches the gate securely behind him and finally sheaths his sword back at his hip, safe back within the boundaries of his little oasis amid strange and dangerous lands. He strolls leisurely down the path towards his home, pausing here and there along the fences to rub a horse’s nose or scratch behind a cow’s ear. He fixes the strap of his satchel and sighs as he breaks off towards his shed where he slowly removes logs from his satchel and stacks them up against a wall.
He had wanted to do a thorough weeding of the fields today. But a storm had blown through overnight and torn a hole in the roof of his barn and left him with quite the problem to deal with. He’d spent more of the day fighting off monsters as he tried to collect the wood he needed to repair it than doing literally anything else he would have preferred more. He would have rather spent the day watching paint dry.
Well, not really, but it would be about as boring and tedious, is the point he’s trying to make here.
He finishes unloading his bag and deigns to work the logs into more appropriate planks after he’s taken a moment to unload the rest of the junk he picked up along the way. He’s pretty sure that even without the logs clogging his satchel up, it was still halfway to bursting, but isn’t that just the way of the world?
Back down the path he goes until he steps up onto his porch. Where he stops and contemplates his door, ajar and swaying gently in the breeze, hand shifting back to the pommel of his sword with hard earned instinct. “Interesting…” he murmurs, his other hand grabbing his mask from his bag, he’d never stopped carrying it with him even when he stopped wearing it all the time, and it fit just as well as it ever had. Though he does have to shift some of his hair out of the way, as he has much more of it now than he used to.
He considers what he might be walking into here. Wasn’t likely to be monsters unless he had a perimeter fence down somewhere, which would only cement his surety of having the worst luck a human being could. And even if those monsters didn’t go for the animals first, they certainly wouldn’t have left the door on its hinges. At the same time, there isn’t much else around, save for those monsters, that might invade a home.
He’d picked the middle of nowhere for a reason.
Finally, he shrugs and shoves the door open, not like he’s gonna find out by standing around-
And he dodges a crossbow bolt that would’ve been embedded in his throat had his muscle memory not been so deeply ingrained. Decent shot, all things considered. Not good enough, but decent.
His sword is in his hand but he hesitates to attack when, across the room from him, a prime spot to defend from, a boy crouches, crossbow in hand and already reloaded. Quick hands. His face is twisted up in a snarl and there’s a nasty slice across his cheek. But that’s not what really catches Techno’s attention.
He tilts his head hoping to get a better look at the...body the boy was apparently guarding. Based on the blood and the bandages, whoever it was was beat up even worse than the kid. He waits a beat, sees the shallow raise of the body’s chest and is relieved that at least it isn’t a dead body the kid is guarding.
“Don’t come any closer!” the kid shouts and Techno wants to tell him to take it down like ten notches but he’s got the feeling the kid wouldn’t appreciate that.
Techno glances from the kid to the bolt that’s made a hole in his wall and back. “Message received, kid-”
“I’m not a fucking kid!” The kid snaps and Techno just stares at him for a long moment. He’s not sure what he’s done to deserve this.
“Okay.” he agrees. “Would still like to know what you’re doin’ in my house.” The kid doesn’t lower his crossbow and so Techno doesn’t feel bad about still wielding his sword. He doesn’t think the kid would have a chance even if he did sheath his sword, but he won’t insult the kid like that.
“And who’re you?” the kid demands as if he’s in any position to be making demands, lacking armor and guarding deadweight as he is. “How do I even know this is your house?”
Techno sighs. “Sure you could look around and find pink hair just about anywhere, might be evidence enough.”
The kid frowns at him, vaguely confused, and Techno uses his free hand to tug forward his braid to make the statement a little more clear. Of course, the kid isn’t satisfied with this alone. He was really asking a lot of Techno here. “That still doesn’t explain who you are.”
“Feel like I should be the one asking that,” he says with a shrug, purposely dodging the question again, “seein’ as I’m not the one who’s doin’ the intruding here.”
The kid squints at him. “Tommy.” he finally mutters and his crossbow lowers the slightest amount. “We weren’t going to be here this long, but Wilbur passed out on me.”
Techno tries to get a better look at the body but Tommy shifts to keep the majority of this ‘Wilbur’s’ features out of his sight. It’s a long silence before Techno makes the very hard decision to be the bigger man and sheath his sword once more. “Need some help with that?” he asks, gesturing towards Wilbur with his chin.
Tommy squints at him and Techno starts planning out how to get the two out of his home if the kid refuses to cooperate. Like some sort of infestation. The cats in the barn had gotten rid of his mice problem from a couple months back, he wonders if there’s any animals that could chase off children.
Maybe he should get a dog.
The staredown lasts for long enough that Techno gets all the way to figuring out the coordinates to getting to the nearest village and what sort of training a dog on a farm might need. And Techno tenses at the sudden movement from Tommy but it’s just him unloading the bolt from his crossbow and dropping it to the floor, scrubbing his free hands through his hair and groaning. “I’ve already tried patching him up, but he still won’t wake up and I don’t really know what I’m doing!” He laughs but it isn’t happy, more grating than anything.
Techno creeps closer, closing the space between them slowly until he’s more confident that the kid won’t pull out a knife after all of his effort. When Tommy seems to be fine curled up, arms wrapped over his head and not moving, Techno lays a hand on his shoulder, ignoring the kid’s flinch because long as there was no attacking, this was fine. “Happens to the best of us.” he says, unsure whether that was comforting or not. He gently nudges at the kid, urging him to move from his defensive position. Couldn’t help if he couldn’t get at the man. “Now, move aside so I can get a look at your friend. Won’t help anyone if he’s just over there bleeding.”
Tommy inches to the side, giving Techno room to get in alongside him and the wounded man, but not leaving his side entirely. Techno kneels down beside him and Tommy shifts to sit at Wilbur’s head which he decides to take as a good sign. Well, that and his crossbow had vanished somewhere along the way, back to wherever the rest of his stuff was probably. Though Techno had yet to spot any sort of bags on the kid.
Techno turns his attention to where it was really needed now. He takes a cursory glance at what he was working with. Though the bandages are patchwork and would likely need changing out for cleaner ones, chances are the man isn’t currently bleeding to death, despite what the dark stains on his blue coat might say about it. So, Techno figures he can focus on his head to start. Got to make sure the man didn’t pass out from a head wound, scrambled brains aren't easy to come back from.
Though, he does have a few healing potions he might be able to spare if things really went bad.
He brushes the man’s matted and curly hair aside to get at his eyes and freezes when he gets his first good look at the man’s face. “Huh.” he mumbles and nearly sends Tommy into cardiac arrest with that one little noise.
“Oh, he’s dying, isn’t he?” Tommy moans, covering his face with his hands. And he flips 180 fast enough to make Techno’s head spin. “Those bastards! I’ll never forgive them for this, they’ll pay in blood-” Which is a whole lot of very interesting information, but he doesn’t need the shouting in his ear along with the blood feud.
“Nah, chill out.” he says, continuing with what he was doing, pulling his eyes open one after the other to check his pupils. Both of which look fine to him. No serious head trauma. Cool. “Just didn’t realize exactly which Wilbur you’d dragged into my home.”
That seems to stop Tommy dead in his tracks as Techno continues searching for any less obvious injuries, pressing carefully but firmly across Wilbur’s ribs. “You know Wilbur?” he asks and it’s the softest Techno’s heard him yet.
“Knew, yeah.” he confirms, not like he’s got much to hide on that front. “Used to work together on the occasion, till he got injured and all but vanished.” He shrugs as he moves on from checking for broken bones to tugging his first aid kit from his bag and starting to peel away the makeshift bandages.
“Why do you have so much history with scary masked men?” Tommy mutters to the unconscious Wilbur, poking a finger into the flesh of his cheek. It takes all Techno’s willpower to keep moving as if those words didn’t make dread shiver down his spine.
Isn’t like it’s anything to worry about anyway. Dream and Wilbur had always been chummy with each other. It isn’t exactly a surprised to hear that they’d kept in touch even after Wilbur’s retirement.
Even so. “Should I be worried about someone following you two out here?” Isn’t much other reason for them to be out this far. These were wounds made by sharpened blades and arrows, not the crude junk you found on monsters. And anyone running from monsters doesn’t run away from civilization.
Tommy seems to really think about it and Techno takes that time to get himself a bucket of water and a washcloth. “Don’t think so. They’re likely looking for us on a horse but I ran it nearly an hour in the other direction before letting it loose and doubling back.” He sighs and slumps some, tugging idly at one of Wilbur’s curls. “They’ll figure it out eventually, but hopefully we’ll be out of your hair by then.”
Techno pauses in his task and looks at the kid, an eyebrow raised behind his mask but mostly worthless with the majority of his expression hidden. “And where are you planning on going next?” he says, casual as he returns to Wilbur’s side and begins working off the jacket and making the executive decision to just cut his shirt off because he doesn’t feel like trying to move him around that much. When Tommy sees what he’s doing, he moves to help.
Tommy shrugs as he holds up Wilbur’s shoulders so Techno could tug the fabric out from under him. “Not sure yet.” he mutters and his hands jerk towards his pockets when Techno pulls a knife from his boot and starts slicing. Leave it to the kids these days to get experimental with where they keep their items. What was wrong with a good ole bag?
Then again, Wilbur had already been pushing the envelope with his belt pouches. And he’d never really managed to figure out where Dream kept his items either, swallowed by excessive green fabric as he always was.
Huh. Maybe he’s the odd one out here.
...nah.
“Wilbur’s usually the man with the plan.” Tommy continues, relaxing once more and pulling the sliced and soiled fabric out of Techno’s way. Techno focuses first on the arrow wounds littering the right side of his chest and arm. “I’m sure he’ll have some ideas, once he wakes up.” Oh yeah, Techno remembers Wilbur’s scheming. Sometimes moving too fast to even keep up with himself. Techno’s willing to bet good money on this being one of those situations.
“How’d you pull these out?” he asks instead of continuing to grill the kid, wiping the wounds down and checking for any wood splinters that might have been left behind.
“I cut off the fletchings and pulled them the rest of the way through.” So, the kid has some experience, that’s good for his chances.
They both lapse into silence after that, Tommy helping where he could but mostly with Techno doing the majority of the patching up. And the sun is just starting to set when Techno ties off the last bandage around Wilbur’s abdomen.
“Okay then.” he sighs, sitting back on his heels and shoving everything back into his bag before he could forget about it. “Gonna have to move him.”
Tommy looks between him and Wilbur and frowns. “We could probably just leave him here, couldn’t we?” Techno doesn’t even justify that with a response, just staring at Tommy until the boy slumps and mutters, “Yeah, fine.”
The hardest part of moving him isn’t even how much he weighs, which isn’t really that much for a grown man. But rather the height difference between him and Tommy and the fact that Wilbur was all unruly limbs.
And never say that Techno doesn’t know how to be charitable as he settles Wilbur into his own bed before going hunting for the winter blankets he’s got tucked away. He tosses the blankets on his ratty old couch and turns on Tommy, who’s been following him like a duckling, and catches his chin in his hand. Tommy flinches and hisses out a breath but Techno focuses on prodding at the slice across his cheek, more likely an arrow than a blade. A blade likely would’ve taken out his eye that high up on his cheek. “You need to clean this.” he says firmly but isn’t too worried as there aren't any signs of infection for now. He pulls his hand back and narrows his eyes. “Got any others I should know about?”
Tommy puts some distance back between them and Techno feels a little bad, but he’s sure it’ll pass. “No, just-just that. Wilbur...he took the worst of it for me.” Doesn’t sound like the Wilbur he’d known, but they had years between them now, and he isn’t quite sure what to make of the connection between these two yet, so who knows.
Techno nods and says, “Take the couch, get some sleep,” before turning on his heel and heading for the door.
A grip on the fabric of his sleeve stops him in his tracks but when he looks over his shoulder, Tommy’s fully out of grabbing range. Quick on his feet too. Kid really does have something going for him. “Where’re you going then?” he demands, a little too brave considering his circumstances.
He hums. “Out.” he finally says and Tommy’s too busy being offended by his answer to stop him from walking out the door.
Not like he’ll be getting any sleep under the same roof as two strangers.
Guess he can get those logs sorted sooner rather than later.