Work Text:
By the time Techno wakes, the sun is already on the opposite side of the sky. Joints worn weary from years of battle and bloodshed creak as he stretches his arms above his head, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. The peaceful silence in the small bedroom permeates as Techno dresses and prepares for the day, though that doesn’t mean all is quiet within his own head. The voices screech and chatter the way they always do, calling him late the instant he opens his eyes, counting relentlessly as he laces his boots, and screaming a single letter as he descends the ladder.
Techno is hardly able to care. It’s a headache, but a pressure squeezing around his head he has gotten used to over the years the voices had grown and stayed with him. Only a few voices rise above the rest, especially aggressive shouts to check on Carl and his hound army. Techno obliges, but only after pouring himself a cup of tea and drinking it leisurely at the window seat, watching the sun creep across the sky. Things are peaceful, now, and there isn’t much to be done while he waits for Phil to finish his part of their work within the newly-formed syndicate.
Techno seriously contemplates just going back to sleep, but he’s already dressed and the voices are already up in full force, so he figures the least he can do is make a little bit out of today, if nothing else.
Phil is out, Techno remembers him saying last night that he would be leaving early in the morning, so Techno leaves his house with no familiar greeting reaching his ears. Turning, Techno stands on the bridge between the two houses for a moment, looking out at Ranboo’s part of the property. Out there, cows wander in a small field, cats run around the front of stone brick home. Techno doesn’t crack a smile at the sight, but he can’t lie that it warms his heart ever so slightly to see how well Ranboo is settling in. His student is a good kid, strange voices and freaky main character powers aside. Briefly, he wonders where Ranboo is.
But, the kid has his own schedule, so when there’s no sign of him around his house, Techno turns and lets it be, walking down the front steps to refill Carl’s feed and give his steed a few pets on the muzzle. Carl snuffles as Techno runs his hand over the front of his nose, gently bumping the side of his head against Techno’s. Techno smiles gently as the voices cheer at Carl living another day, and, at the endless insistence, he pulls an apple from his bag to feed to the horse. “No more, Chat,” he says aloud for the first time that day, vocal chords slightly scratchy as they continue to wake up. “Carl doesn’t need to be getting spoiled, now, he’s a well-bred machine for a reason.”
The voices clamor as they always do, but Techno knows better than to give in to them at every bit of whining. Instead, he looks to the saddle hung on the side of the stable, and frowns thoughtfully. “Maybe we’ll go riding today, how about that? Could go explorin’ somewhere, and stretch Carl’s legs a bit with it.”
He waits to hear what he assumes would be an affirmative from his Chat, but they have already switched tracks entirely.
“Ranboo?” he asks as the voices continue to endlessly yell. “What, is he around now? Fine, we’ll go- stop yellin’ at me, we’ll go say hi.”
The stable gates swing shut behind him, and Techno looks out at the snow-covered land before him, and the two-toned figure walking ever closer. Techno raises his hand in a greeting, opening his mouth to shout at him, only for the words to die on his lips.
Ranboo stops, head turning to him with wide, wobbling eyes. In his arms he clutches a myriad of flowers in his arms: red tulips, white tulips, poppies, daisies. Ranboo’s mouth opens, wider than any human, and he lets out a warbling croak, the kind that Techno has come to learn only means bad things.
“Uh, you alright, Ranboo?” he asks, as always, unsure how to approach the teen in his emotional distress. This has never, would never, be his thing. He wonders if Ranboo ever regrets coming to live out with two of the most apathetic people on the server.
“Techno-” Ranboo’s voice cracks, and flowers spill from his arms like a waterfall, tulips and poppies scattering and staining the snow red. “Have you- you- I mean, you know, right?”
Techno’s forehead wrinkles, and he raises an eyebrow. “Know what?” he asks, genuine confusion in his voice.
“It was on the- all the communicators, I- you haven’t checked?” Ranboo’s voice weakly pleads, like he’s trying to get something across to Techno without actually saying it plainly.
Techno shrugs. “I haven’t checked my communicator since I woke up, eh, forty minutes ago. Don’t usually check it either way. Why? Did somethin’ happen?”
“I- I have to tell you then,” Ranboo says in a shaking voice. “That’s- that’s okay, I can-” He inhales deeply, the last of the tulips dropping from his fingers.
Techno laughs, short and nervous. “Ranboo, what did- what do you know that I don’t?” The voices scream at a crescendo, gleaning the information the same second Ranboo speaks to confirm the truth.
“Tommy’s dead, Techno.” Ranboo’s eyes shine with fresh tears, jaw clenched and trembling. “Dream killed him. He’s- he’s gone.”
“Heh?” Techno takes an involuntary step backward, hand drifting to the sword in the scabbard at his side. “No, no, Ranboo- Dream’s in prison, how the heck did he get to Tommy? You’re tellin’ me he broke out?” His senses kick into overdrive, hyper aware of every sight before him as Chat repeats what Ranboo had said. Wailing fills his ears with such a piercing noise that Techno can barely make out Ranboo’s next words.
“No, he- Tommy was- Tommy was stuck with him, there was a security issue and Sam couldn’t get him out, you didn’t- Techno, he’s been in there for nearly a week now, how did you not- not know?” Pity fills Ranboo’s eyes, and Techno’s stomach turns.
“What? I- I don’t exactly keep tabs on Tommy, or- or anything about the prison, how the heck would I have known what he’s up to, gettin’ stuck in prison with- with Dream, you’re tellin’ me he died?”
Ranboo nods solemnly. “Sam came and told me, Tubbo and Jack. That’s- yeah. He’s dead.”
Ice crystalizes over Techno’s chest, or perhaps it’s merely cracking. Something shifts. “He’s dead,” Techno repeats. His tongue feels thick against his mouth, the texture of sandpaper rubbing against the roof. “After all that, he died- how- how did Dream even get the ability to kill him?”
Ranboo presses his lips together thinly, and for a moment Techno thinks he just won’t say anything at all. “Dream… according to Sam, he beat Tommy to death. Sam didn’t… he didn’t give us the details.”
The clouds spin around Techno, the beginnings of a winter storm. “I see,” he says, forcing his mind to organize and match the affectless tone of his voice. “Thank you for tellin’ me, Ranboo.”
“Of- of course, I figured- I mean, I know you guys aren’t-” Ranboo’s throat makes a strangled noise, and Techno’s heart twists in his chest. “-weren’t- on great terms, but-” Ranboo bends down, picking up the flowers, and Techno inhales sharply at the familiar color scheme. “Um, I- I planted some flowers for him. Outside his house, since- since we don’t know when there’s going to be a grave for him.” He takes a few steps toward Techno, shaking arm outstretched. “Do you- do you want-”
“Nah,” Techno says roughly. “You can keep ‘em.”
Ranboo nods jerkily, chin nearly touching his chest in the sharp movement. “Yeah, that’s- that’s fine. I’m just- I’m just gonna-”
“See you, Ranboo,” Techno says, and he’s the first to turn away. He walks a few paces, and stares at the horizon until he hears Ranboo’s footsteps disappear entirely.
The air hands heavy in the silence. Even chat has blissfully, inexplicably, gone silent, as the reality of the situation sinks in for them all.
Phil had taken down that ugly cobblestone tower months ago, but Techno can still see its outline blotting out the horizon. A marker on a map, a screaming signal of life that had been built up stone by stone. At the time, it had been a danger, an annoyance that Tommy was so clearly projecting his existence when he was supposed to be faking his death and hiding his location. Now, a hole begins to crumble open in the center of Techno’s chest as he comes to the abrupt realization that he would never see one of those monstrosities again.
He turns sharply from the empty horizon, throat catching on something that he turns into a cough. His hand grips the railing tight as he makes his way up the staircase, pointedly not looking toward the house that had once stood half-constructed. A horrible memory snapping insults and gleeful, unconstrained laughter that now only echo on the wind in the dead of night, now something he will never hear again.
Techno opens the door to his home, and slams it shut behind him fierce enough that the frame of the whole house rattles. He exhales heavily, clenching his jaw, pressing his hand to his face hard enough that it almost feels like a slap, pulling him back to a sharp focus on reality.
Tommy was nothing anymore, and with this final page in his story, Techno could actually move on now. No more coming home to find Tommy stealing his potions again. No more opening his mailbox to find an invitation to his newest creation. No more breathless laughter from a well-received exchange of words.
Now there are only tulips and poppies staining the snow with the memory of his blood, and a grave that Techno will never visit, because he does not care to.
Belatedly, Techno wonders why this felt nothing like a victory. He had been right, after all. Heroes don’t get their happy endings, and Tommy has never been an exception to that rule, until he had.
But heroes at least get to have an ending, Techno muses. Heroes die honorably in battle, or they die tragically, dramatically betrayed. To perish, after all that, simply through a defenseless beating stuck in a prison he didn’t belong in? That isn’t honorable. That isn’t tragic. It isn’t anything at all, and that fact leaves a bitter taste coating the inside of Techno’s mouth, frighteningly close to an emotion he doesn’t want to give a name.
Body moving on autopilot, Techno opens his chests one at a time, hands searching for something his mind draws a blank for. He closes one chest, and moves on to the next. The voices begin to speak again, but they only repeat the same words that Ranboo had already spoken. Despite that, each new voice confirming it is still another barb sinking into his skin and twisting, pulling at his seams.
“I know, Chat,” he growls, slamming a lid shut. “I know. He’s dead. Tommy’s dead. You don’t need to keep tellin’ me.”
They do not stop, and he does not stop his movements, not until he opens a chest, reaches in, and pulls out one dusty, long-forgotten golden apple. The fruit has long since shriveled, and it barely glows with the sheen of magic that accompanies the fresher fruit. Techno clutches it to his chest all the same, a shaky exhale leaving his lips as he bows his head over the lifeless fruit.
“Dammit, Theseus,” he chokes as grief and fury crashed down upon his body in equal measure. His eyes burn, his clenched hands tremble. “Not even you could outrun a hero’s fate in the end. God, Tommy-”
He doesn’t want to hear Tommy’s grating voice again. He doesn’t want to get notes written in messy chicken-scratch inviting him to any gatherings. He doesn’t want to see any of Tommy’s builds and their mess of cobblestone and tenacity and life breathed into every stone that lingers long after he abandoned each build.
The voices wail in grief, and Techno pretends that his own is not among them.