Archive of Our Own ^beta

He hasn't entered the basement in weeks.

Techno has purposefully avoided going into that specific part of his house. The stone bricks remain neatly piled on the entrance, the lanterns stay dim and unlit.

From time to time, he'll run his hands over the smooth polished stone, and consider it; all he has to do is move it aside and climb down the ladder. But his cynicism gets the better of him, and he eventually jerks away and distracts himself elsewhere.

But today, Phil visits for tea.

When Techno had opened the door, Phil looked at him carefully as he swept past him into the threshold. He'd busied himself with boiling some water and steeping lavender as Techno apprehensively watched the sun approach the horizon. The silence was stiff and tense, and when Phil brought a steaming pot of tea to the table, Techno had simply nodded his thanks.

Usually, in these situations, Phil has a certain level of understanding, and this quality presents itself in situations such as now. When Techno doesn't touch his tea at all, the sugar cubes fizzling at the edges, Phil regards him with an inscrutable look.

"Techno," and Techno fights the urge to snap his head up and pay attention. He presses his lips in a thin line, nails digging into his palms.

"I don't want to talk about it," he spits out after a few minutes of uncomfortably charged silence.

"It's hard," Phil amends, lacing his fingers together. His gaze bores into Techno unsettlingly. "I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault," Techno replies dully, mechanically. So far, Phil has been the only person he's properly talked to about Tommy's passing. "I just wish he'd made more of an effort to ask me for help. To talk to me."

Shocking blue eyes and an impish smile flash before his vision. He represses the image back into the recesses of his mind as quickly as it came, rubbing a hand over his face.

Some of the tension in Phil's shoulders loosens. "Asking for help hasn't really been our family's strong suit."

His words hold no real malice, Techno knows, but it stings.

"You're acting awfully calm about this."

Phil leans back in his chair, swilling around the dregs in his tea. His gaze is faraway and mournful, passing straight through Techno like he's made of glass.

"What's the use of being angry, or being horribly depressed?" Phil says quietly, more to his tea than to Techno. "I loved them. I loved them both. I won't pretend I'm not hurt, or that I'm not grieving."

Techno drops his gaze to his teacup, shame rising in him.

"But then, it's not what they would've wanted for us, to lose our direction in life over them. I can mourn. But I'd like to stay grounded, to keep going, even with that burden."

A profound silence stretches between the two for a while. Techno watches his tea cool; Phil watches the sun dip below the horizon, dyeing the sky shades of pink and orange.

"He was just a boy," Techno says, when the sugar in his tea has mostly dissolved, and it surprises him how steady his voice is. "An embarrassingly annoying boy, yeah, but..."

Phil cradles the cup in his hands. "It feels like I brought you three to grow up too fast." He looks up at Techno and something flashes in his eyes, perhaps a kindling of recognition that Techno is no longer the young boy who used to ask for mashed potatoes for dinner every night, the boy who insisted on dyeing his hair bright pink in elementary school.

Everything has changed now.

Now, his middle son is the man who learned about a destiny of violence and embraced that same destiny at only twenty-one, and retired from that same destiny the same year. The clock ticks too fast, its pace barely controlled.

Techno searches his father's face. It's guilty, ashamed; a soft part of Techno's heart squeezes with remorse.

When the sky is tinted with purple, Techno stands abruptly. "It's getting late. You should get back."

Phil watches him, a melancholic smile playing on his lips. "Do you need help clearing out the basement?"

Techno shakes his head. "It's okay. He didn't have that much stuff. I was planning to do it today, anyway."

That's a lie. He doesn't want to so much think of Tommy today; he tells himself he's woken up on the wrong side of the bed. But, he decides maybe he'll make do on that part of his to-do list.

He takes a sip of his now-lukewarm tea. The cool liquid churns in his gut.

He's going to be sick.

Phil doesn't stay for long. He chats for a while, offering small talk and discussing Tommy's funeral as he helps clean up. Techno adamantly refuses to attend, bitter metaphorical venom filling up his lungs. Phil only offers a faint, sad smile.

They say their goodbyes and Phil departs, footprints disappearing as snow falls gently in place of the imprints of his steps. Techno closes the spruce door.

After lying on his bed and pacing restlessly for over fifteen minutes, he finally makes his decision. He withdraws an old lantern from his chest, lights it up, and clambers all the way down to his basement.

Techno exhales, the silence of his home comforting yet deafening at the same time.

He moves the stone slowly, brick by brick, until torchlight peeks through the gaps in the rock. He grabs hold of the first rung with one hand, hesitates, then climbs down.

He jumps down, netherite boots echoing as they come in contact with hollow stone. He sets the lantern down on the floor. It flickers for a moment before it lights up the room.

The basement is just how he's left it; Tommy's sleeping bag still spread out, his chests in disarray. The prime log is still intact, although it has gained quite the number of cobwebs and dust, and it's splintering at the edges. The prime bell is starting to rust, just barely. The yellow of his walls has dulled to an odd bronze.

Techno doesn't like how much it looks like it hasn't been in use for years.

Tommy's backpack catches Techno's eye, however. It isn't in very good condition; maroon, with patches of mismatched fabric sewed clumsily over rips and tears. It's stained brown with what might be dirt, or blood, or old food. Techno's stomach twists even more with the realization.

However, even though dirtied and frayed, it's still the brightest thing in the room.

He leaves the backpack for last intentionally. He goes through Tommy's chests - stale golden apples that have lost their shine, old splintering wood, invisibility potions past expiration. He weighs low-durability armor in his hands, debating whether to melt and scrap it or to keep it as a replacement. In the end, he decides to deal with it later.

He rolls up the sleeping bag and tucks it away in a corner. Finally, he lifts the pack from the side of Tommy's chests.

It's light for a backpack that he'd assume to be Tommy's. A piece of crudely shaped coal is curled at the hook of a spare wire, a keychain of sorts.

Upon closer inspection, Techno realizes it's supposed to be Mellohi.

He purses his lips in discomfort.

Briefly, the realist part of him considers that this may be an invasion of privacy. Techno holds the pack in his hands like it's a nuclear bomb, gritting his teeth.

Respect the dead, a thin sliver of his conscience murmurs.

But his curiosity for any reasoning, any hint of context behind Tommy's decisions, that curiosity pushes him to zip the backpack open and empty the contents on the stone floor.

He sifts through Tommy's items. A golden compass sits at the top of the pack, gears clacking and spinning wildly. The words "Your Tubbo" are engraved on the side in Wilbur's - no, Ghostbur's - elegant cursive, and Techno feels an unpleasant tingle pass down his spine.

Wrinkly spare clothes, a leather notebook, four pieces of nonperishable beef jerky, two band-aids, a poorly brewed invisibility potion (chunks of golden carrot still float in it), a half-full bottle of water, one of Techno's old warped bows, and a Swiss Army knife Techno recognizes as Wilbur's old knife follow shortly after. Techno attempts to flatten out the backpack to fold it up when his hand hits something hard and oddly shaped.

He zips the front pocket open and a dark rectangle falls out, clinking against the rough floor. Techno blinks.

He picks it up and examines it. It's a compact camera, and when he brushes away the grime he realizes it's in fairly new condition. He gently wipes away the grime on the camera lens.

It's clearly treated very well; no dents or bruises, no sticky fingerprints pasted all over it like most of Tommy's other belongings. Techno turns it on, half expecting it to be dead, but it lights up effortlessly, battery practically full. Techno frowns in confusion.

He looks back in the bag pocket and finds a crumpled note stashed in the corner. Techno smooths it out and reads it by the lantern light.

Ranboo, Techno thinks, folding the note up and flicking it back on the backpack. That explains it, then. Was Ranboo with Tommy at his time of death?

Ignoring his last thought, Techno messes around with various buttons until he opens the gallery.

He clicks back until he reaches the first picture on the camera, which is a surprisingly good-quality photo of Tubbo excitedly showing the camera a moth on a notebook.

He flicks through pictures, pausing momentarily every now and then.

There's a picture of Tommy screwing his face up in a pained expression at the camera, as Techno grapples with his hair, trying to tie it into a bun. It's from back in their tudor family home, when they lived off of wildlife and went camping every other night. Techno's own hair in the photo is done up in a neat braid that goes down to his waist. It's still naturally brown at the roots. Techno looks at the screen longer than he would've liked.

The lantern at his feet sputters.

He dials it forward a few notches, the click, click, click of the gears echoing on the cold stone walls.

There's Tommy's old horse - the one he'd ridiculously named Juorse ("Nobody can pronounce that," Wilbur had laughed over a dinner of rabbit stew when Tommy announced what he was naming the animal).

Then there's Tommy's cow, the one Sapnap killed - Techno distantly remembers a name starting with H; after that, nothing more.

Photos flash before his eyes, pulling memories he thought he'd forgotten from the back of his mind, like ghosts dancing in an empty ballroom.

A photo of Tommy, who’s holding a batch of carrots he'd had planted and grown by himself for once, grinning like an idiot and holding up a thumbs up-

("Look, Tubbo!" Tommy says, pulling up each carrot by the stem. He smiles toothily, waving the carrots around clumsily and missing Tubbo's face by a hair. That elicits a laughing fit out of them both; Tubbo complies when Tommy asks him to take a picture. Those carrots went into salad and sandwiches for tea, and Tommy proclaimed he had single-handedly made the meal so much better and sighed about how they wouldn't have this life-changing experience again. Wilbur and Techno had shared an exasperated look.)

- a photo of the star-patterned night sky from Tommy's bedroom window in the tudor cottage (second room to the left, Techno remembers) -

(Phil had caught Tommy up past three wandering around in the yard taking photos when the former went downstairs for a glass of water. Techno fondly recalls the screaming and laughing as Tommy booked it, up the hill on the opposite side of the house and back.)

- and a photo of an unlit carved pumpkin propped up on a tree stump, which Tommy declared was his girlfriend. Techno recognizes it from their last Halloween together before Wilbur moved out. Techno smiles - well, it's one of those smiles when his lips twitch just the slightest - at the absurdity of Tommy's priorities.

He pauses on a photo of Tommy's old home in L'manberg - or at least, his first home, when he'd officially moved out - in its early days, with a grass floor and dandelions, torches blazing at the doorway. The sun is setting in the photo, tinges of orange and pink blurring together. It's actually a surprisingly well-composed photo.

Techno wonders when Tommy got so good at photography. None of these photos are blurry at all; all of them clearly taken with care, with soft edges and smiles, with warm buttery colors, with focus on the details.

Regret pools in his stomach like acid, filling each crevice, threatening to spill over and engulf his entire being. He swallows, adjusts the camera in his hands, and keeps clicking. At some point in time he sinks to the floor, swathed in a blue king's cape much like Phil's, the harsh snowstorm's muffled pattering on the upstairs windows a quiet thrum in his ears.

He starts to recognize the context of the photos as he clicks on further into the gallery. The family home; the L'manberg flag swaying wildly in the confines of the blackstone walls; the grapefruit tree by the bench near Tommy's L'manberg house. After this, the photos progressively get darker in atmosphere; there are no photos at all of the Manberg/Pogtopia era.

Well, no photos except one - a picnic of fresh bread, sponge cake, and sparkling water next to the lone L'manberg tree, a soft sunrise over the silhouette of dark hills. Techno subconsciously feels his grip tighten on the camera.

What's he angry at? What's he dreading?

A feeling of apprehension starts tiptoeing around him. Techno clicks on.

Shots of small, superficial things pop up next. The happy, soft atmosphere fades back in, bit by bit, until the warm ambience is fully restored.

A sandy coloured rabbit, a rushing stream of freshwater, sunlight streaming in through a forest canopy. Niki smiling in front of her bakery, Tubbo on the platform as president, Tommy pogging in front of Schlatt's funeral ceremony venue. Techno breathes a soft laugh at Tommy's brazenness.

And then he lands on a photo of George's house, the mushrooms withering, fire swirling and escaping throughout the windows. Techno frowns.

Of course he had to get photographic evidence of the crime scene. He exhales, an exasperated puff of breath.

He can't believe how rash his brother can be.

But he doesn't put down the camera just yet; instead, he keeps pushing the button, going forward determinedly.

This is after exile, Techno assumes. Photo after photo of a sparkling ocean that stretches out as far as the eye can see, all at different times of day. White tents set up on camping ground. The beginnings of Logstedshire, the camping van Wilbur used to own just barely in frame. A campfire, marshmallows strewn all over the ground, charred at the edges-

("That is so not the correct way to roast a marshmallow," Tommy gags when Wilbur waves his crispy-on-the-outside, gooey-on-the-inside marshmallow, still on the stick, in the former's face. "It even smells bad."

"No it does not," Wilbur says, blowing on the marshmallow carefully. "It is the perfect marshmallow, and you, Tommy," - and here Wilbur pitches his voice to a Scottish accent - "yer deluded, arenae ye? Yer seein' shit if that's-" Wilbur gestures contemptuously at Tommy's own marshmallow, which the latter has accidentally set on fire - "yer version ay 'correct', ya little shit."

Phil snorts. Techno rolls his eyes and pulls his own, in his opinion, perfectly toasted marshmallow off his stick. Keep it over the fire for about four minutes, and it's arguably superior to Wilbur's marshmallow.

"I do not like your accent," Tommy crows, jabbing his finger in Wilbur's face. All the same, he withdraws his own marshmallow and tries to swat away the flames while bullying Wilbur. "Also, that looks gross."

"And yours is practically ash. You can't call mine gross!"

"Yes I can, mine's just flaming because I was distracted by how bad yours looks!"

"You shut your mouth, TommyInnit-"

And Wilbur, poor, poor Wilbur, fed up with the argument, pulls his presumably hot marshmallow off his stick and shoves it into Tommy's mouth.

The shriek could be heard for miles around.

"He tried to kill me!" Tommy spits the marshmallow out, spitting wildly and gasping. The marshmallow rolls crisply under a log, as Tommy tries scrambling away from Wilbur and ends up falling onto a pile of dead leaves. Wilbur and Techno are both roaring with laughter; Phil is suppressing a smile. The campfire rises in height slightly. "Phil! Phil, he tried to kill me!""

"Sorry, Toms," Phil says, stifling a chuckle. "The phrase "you asked for it" comes to mind.")

Life was so much simpler, so much quieter then.

Techno hums, clutching his cloak tighter. He flicks through more pictures, of shining bells and mooshrooms, of a beach party, of sponge cake with sugar glaze.

And there's one of Friend in Ghostbur's lap. Techno's lips twitch, endeared by the blithe expression on Ghostbur's face.

A picture of a scrapbook spread loads slowly on screen when he moves on to the next photo. It's a set of prints pasted carefully on a poster board, all of which are most of the old photos from the start of the camera's gallery.

The soft part of Techno's heart is especially vulnerable today.

He doesn't stop clicking. It's like an invisible force holds him, controlling him to push the button, to keep seeing flashes of the past.

The next picture seems to be an aerial shot of Logstedshire. Techno knows that Tommy doesn't have a drone, so this must be from the cobblestone tower. It's carefully shot so the tops of the log walls look intact, but anyone who knows what Logsted looks like knows better - the bottom half of the walls are completely gone, blown away.

The sandy beaches and grassy hills are then replaced with snowy tundra and gentle shades of gray. There's a picture of Techno's bee farm, weak sunlight glinting on the glass; another of the prime/channel member bell, and of course one of Tommy's basement room, only brighter and warmer than it is now.

It ends there.

Techno tries to dial it forward - nothing. It ends on a mellow picture of the room he's sitting in right now.

A chill tingles down his spine, but all the same, he thinks,

No clues here.

Techno grew up with a pretty hard exterior. Quiet, calm - he didn't let sadness affect him that much when he was younger. He likes to think he can withstand quite a lot, and he definitely can. He's pretty good at shutting himself off from emotion; a part of him unleashing with a reaction, the other simple indifference.

But somewhere in his heart, maybe the soft part, knows that what he's feeling is not sadness. It's something that runs much deeper, much more painful - grief.

No matter how annoying his youngest brother may have been, the tender love they all shared for him was there. Briefly, Techno considers if Tommy thought about it.

There's no way he could have, though.

Tommy wasn't in his basement that fateful Thursday morning.

He didn't arrive on time, either, which effectively foiled Techno's plans of world domination.

(He's only half joking on that last part.)

He'd sent a letter to Phil asking about Tommy's whereabouts. Phil hadn't responded, but Techno wasn't worried; he could be busy fending off government officials trying to arrest him, or worse. But Phil could take care of himself.

It was only when Ghostbur stopped by, about three days later, to check up on Techno that he realized something was wrong.

He hears the commotion, a soft rustling of hooves against snow, and echoes of a familiar voice, before seeing the man himself.

"...Alright, Carl, right this way," Ghostbur's fragile echo of a voice whispers.

"...And Ghostbur's outside my window," Techno says mostly to himself, unlocking and pushing out the frame. "Hello, Ghostbur. What business do you have here?"

Ghostbur, who is currently attaching a lead onto Carl (must have gotten loose, Techno dismisses), looks up at the landing from about six feet away from the steps. "Oh, hello, Technoblade!" He stands up, dusting the snow off his translucent knees. "I came by to pass a message."

"Well, come in for some tea, you'll melt," Techno says dryly, but not unkindly. He makes to open the spruce door, but Ghostbur shakes his head.

"No...no, I won't be long," the latter says, the rest of his sentence trailing off in sotto voce. Techno frowns in confusion. This sort of behavior from the ghost is unusual.

"It's fine," Techno says, already sweeping away from the window to open the doors. Had he been looking, he'd have noticed Ghostbur's face was torn between discomfort and chagrin.

Apparently neither won, because Ghostbur comes in anyway, fidgeting with the hem of his obnoxiously yellow jumper.

"So," Techno says, stirring a cup of black coffee (with two sugars; he's not heartless). He sat down at his table. "What brings you here?"

"Uh," Ghostbur says, looking out the window. "Nice day, isn't it?" He rushes on, cutting off the beginnings of Techno's snarky response. "I'm glad you're sitting down, and uh, I- I'm not sure if you know yet, but I stopped by because...well, we got news that Tommy..."

His brother - or, the ghost of his brother, Techno is quick to correct the difference - his brother's voice cracks on Tommy's name. Ghostbur blinks furiously, hands still tugging the hem of his jumper.

"What did Tommy do this time?" Techno says, with a touch of apprehensive concern.

A melody starts pumping softly in his heart.

A warning of sorts.

We keep dancing around the innocent truth that we're just...

"Techno - oh, Techno-" Ghostbur bites his lip. "Tommy's dead."

Out of time...

Techno blinks in disbelief.

"Oh," Ghostbur's face falls, "oh...you didn't already know..."

Silence hangs in the air. The only sound is the crackling of the fire and Edward's humming.

Must I die before you feel alive?

The first thing that springs from Techno's lips when he finds his voice again is, "How?"

"Ranboo - Ranboo found him," Ghostbur explains, rubbing his knuckles. "Floating in the ocean by Logsted. We - we think he tried to drown himself-"

He swallows, takes a deep breath, and continues.

"We know Dream doesn't know, and if he did he wouldn't even care...uh, we didn't tell Tubbo, since he thought Tommy was already dead long before this..."

Ghostbur's voice gradually fades to a soft whisper in Techno's headspace. The former's hands are shaking with the effort to keep his emotions in check, to not have a full-blown meltdown in Techno's house.

Techno had a feeling about this.

He wasn't prepared, though.

A curse in a graceful disguise...

"-chno? Techno?" Ghostbur says, looking at him with a fragile, shattered shine in his eyes. The sight is enough to pull Techno out of the beginnings of a reverie.

His hands are numb.

"Can't-" Techno struggles for words. "Isn't he a ghost too? Can't he-" Techno can't seem to speak. "Can't he come back?"

Why does he care so much?

Ghostbur sighs, not out of annoyance, but more out of restlessness. "I'd know if he did," he says sadly, lilting on bitter.

He doesn't say it, but it hangs in the air. "I'd prefer it if he did."

Techno realizes they both don't know what to do with their hands.

A thick silence buffers the air.

After about five minutes of Techno refusing to fill it in, Ghostbur's form shimmers nervously. The latter pats his younger brother's shoulder awkwardly, the feeling reminiscent of ice gently touching skin. Techno sucks his breath in through his teeth.

He sees Ghostbur out, murmuring a soft thank-you and some well wishes under his breath. Ghostbur half-smiles in understanding, eyes crinkling slightly at the edges.

That was all of two weeks ago.

Techno clutches the camera like a lifeline, not daring to let go, to turn it off. It's still on the shot of the basement, Tommy's smile practically radiating from the image.

Great was our love, it was one for the books,

His vision blurs gradually. It takes him a second to register that it's not snow as his hand comes back wet with tears.

We gave it the best that we could

He hasn't cried since he was ten.

But I won't recite all my lines just to watch you and I lie

And if nobody saw him weep over his brother's death, sobs wracking his body until he couldn't breathe, tears dripping on the cold stone floor, clutching a camera like a stuffed bear, then he didn't.

...I'm so proud I got to love you once.

He finally shuts the camera off, shivering from the cold surge of grief and the feeling of winter plastered to his face.

He gets out of the basement, leaving the lantern and the backpack. He goes out into the open snowy fields.

Because maybe this time, he'll watch the sun rise instead of watching it set.

It calls for new beginnings.