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The summer Wilbur first shows up, Bajan wins another Hunger Games out in the Nexus. Techno misses it, because he and Phil have to stay in the village inn as a result of the madman that's decided to take residence in their chimney.
As it turns out, the intruder’s name is Wilbur, and he’s eight. Phil pries this out of him with a stern look and a hand on his shoulder somewhere around the fourth or fifth time he invades their house.
“Everyone needs food and water, shelter, security, respect, and self-activisation,” the kid explains, ticking off the items importantly on his fingers.
“Self-actualization,” Phil corrects, not unkindly. Behind him, Techno rubs his eyes.
“Self-actualization,” Wilbur repeats, testing out the word in his mouth. “Huh. Anyway, I need those things, but I don’t have the wherewithal to get them. That’s why I had to take a few of 'em from you.”
He pats Phil on the arm, even as he's being held in place. "Make sense?"
Phil’s eyebrows climb higher. “Wherewithal’s an awful big word.”
Wilbur shrugs. “I steal books, too.”
Communication is hard on the best of days, but Techno thinks he could probably stand here for ages and not have an appropriate response to that.
“Anyway,” Wilbur bulldozes forward, “I need food, and to get food, I have to jump the baker or get money. And it’s a lot easier to get money than go after someone perfectly willing to chase after you with a rolling pin.”
“You’re an idiot,” Phil replies, plainly.
Another shrug. “Okay, fair enough.”
But Phil isn’t done. “Any other house, and you might’ve gotten shanked. You understand that, right? Lucky doesn’t even touch what you are, right now.”
“Not lucky enough, apparently,” Wilbur murmurs, expression cloudless with all the leisure of someone who hasn’t just been caught with a bag full of gold pieces and three kitchen knobs.
“Why kitchen knobs, by the way?” Techno asks, plainly. Bothering to try and interrogate the kid is a waste. He’s way too eager to give up information, anyway.
“Oh. They’re really easy to take.”
Phil’s frown somehow deepens further. “What were you going to do with them?”
At this, Wilbur mimics his frown, condescendingly. “Um, nothing? I don’t know what I could possibly do with them. I don’t have a house. Decorate my alleyway, maybe?”
“Decorate your alleyway,” Phil repeats, faintly, and his frown morphs into more of a grimace.
Before Phil can turn into the sap the whole village accuses him of being (Techno can pass as a very good sad orphan boy, so long as he’s wearing a hood, and his tusks haven’t popped), Techno butts in: “If you’re not going to do anything with em, why take them? Kinda weird.”
Wilbur bares his teeth. “Love of the crime.”
Phil waves him off. “Okay, go back to the alleyway bit. Are you living on the streets, mate?”
“I mean, I’ve never heard of any indoor alleyways, but-”
Phil cuts him off with a sharp look. “You’re spending the night here, then. Well, you’re screwing back in everything you took out, first. In the morning, we’ll deal with everything else.” It’s a nice gesture - nicer than a chimney thief deserves, in Techno’s opinion - though Phil’s voice makes it sound like more of a non-negotiable punishment than an offer.
Wisely, Wilbur nods. “Can I sleep on the couch?”
“Ew,” Techno adds, because he deserves some rebuke. “You’re going to get it all sooty.”
Phil clicks his tongue in thought, then glances at Techno.
That’s never a good sign. Instinctively, Techno shuffles backward. “No. Nuh-uh, Phil. No. ”
They both stare at him, but it’s Phil who says, “I haven’t even asked you anything, Tech.”
“But,” he continues, because Techno’s sort-of father can’t resist mild psychological torture, “I’d like it if you let Wilbur stay in your room for tonight. Just because it’s easier to wash the sheets.”
Techno yawns at the mention of his bedroom, with its pillow nest and moth-eaten comforter. The motion bounces between Phil and Wilbur, too. Absently, Techno notes that Wilbur unhinging his jaw exposes a big hole where one tooth is missing.
Lucky. Techno’s lost none, and he’s starting to think that Phil soldered all his baby teeth to his jaw in his sleep, just so he wouldn’t have to deal with the hassle of yanking them out.
The theory’s a work in progress.
Before he can get too lost in that, he remembers exactly what situation’s just been levied at him.
He turns to Phil with a whirl. His braid also whips around, and smacks him in the jaw. Traitorous thing. “Where am I gonna sleep, then?” he asks, and it is decisively not a whine.
A tiny smile tugs at the edges of Phil’s mouth. “You can have the couch, or crawl in with me.”
Before Techno can even open his mouth to protest, he continues: “Sorry, mate. It’s just practical. I’d rather not buy a whole new couch just because we’ve got a dirty crime boy who wanted to nap on it.”
Wilbur’s pleased little grin expands at that. Weirdo.
“Fine,” Techno says, after a moment of deliberate hesitation. “But if you smother me with your wings, I’m going to start hitting people.”
One night in Techno’s bedroom turns into a week. That too slips into something new; and one day, out of the blue, Techno is helping Phil slot together another twin bed, and Wilbur is suddenly a permanent third in a former duo. It’s not long before the townspeople reluctantly amend Phil and Techno to Phil, Techno, and Wilbur , squishing Techno right in the middle of their little not-family.
They’re not brothers. Not right away. Techno has a tough time even calling Phil ‘Dad’ most days, even though he’s earned it a million times over. Wilbur is newer and pushier than Phil. He calls Techno his brother even though they’re only half the same species and doesn’t listen at all when he’s met with protests.
And at some point, Techno forgets he’s supposed to be protesting it.
This is where it begins: They’re both on the later end of nine years old, and Techno is the one who suggests the ritual. One of the books Phil had gotten him said something about a warrior bond, and ‘blood brothers’, and Wilbur’s been trailing after him like a sad puppy ever since he’d said that they’re not brothers, not really.
It has no effect on Techno. They’re not brothers, and Wilbur shouldn’t feel upset that it’s been pointed out.
They share the same clothes, have their beds pushed together, and have matching bruises from earlier, when Techno had, in a panic, instructed Wilbur to hit him back rather than tell Phil they’d been squabbling over whose pillow was whose.
But they very much aren’t siblings.
So, Techno had explained, the obvious solution was to become brothers. It’d be that simple, and Phil wouldn’t have to file any paperwork.
Wilbur’s voice is one part antsy, two parts pained, and wholly ecstatic: “Oh, let me do it. You’re part piglin , not pig; you don’t need to butcher yourself.”
Afternoon light glints off the kitchen knife in Techno’s hand. He’s got it poised at his palm, the edge of the blade hovering above his skin like an anxious calligrapher afraid to press their pen to paper.
“I’m contemplating,” Techno defends. “We have to do this right.”
Wilbur hums, but the noise gets caught somewhere in the back of his throat. “Okay. Take your time.” Grass crunches under his heels as he bounces on the balls of his feet. “I’ll just be standing here. Bleeding out, you know.”
This is going to scar. Not emotionally - in fact, Techno thinks this might be one of the happiest days of his life, as saccharine as it sounds.
(He’s just learned that word. Saccharine. Every time he uses it in conversation Wilbur raises his voice an octave and pretends his hand is a puppet just to mock him for reading the books he steals from the unsuspecting village librarian.
It’s very saccharine of him.)
Regardless, it’s going to leave a nasty mark on his hand. Though he’s not particularly fashion minded, he’d still like his first real scar to look nice.
“Does yours just go up and down?” he asks, scrutinizing Wilbur’s outstretched palm.
“Eehh. It’s a little diagonal. Also kind of swoopy, because I didn’t know how big it had to be.”
Techno narrows his eyes, trying to peer at where Wilbur’s waterfall of palm-blood starts.
With a deep, bracing breath, Techno copies the mark. It is kind of swoopy, and it also makes the edges of his vision blur a little.
Beads of blood bubble up from the cut, and without hesitation, Techno mashes their hands together. There’s something a little gross about it, but he resists pulling a face as he threads Wilbur’s fingers through his own.
“There,” he says, breathless from pain. “We’ve just got to hold it there for a few minutes.”
Joy lights up Wilbur’s expression in a way that makes Techno feel guilty for not suggesting this earlier, even if he hadn’t known about the ritual until yesterday. Pressure increases on Techno’s very first battle scar as he squeezes their hands together. “That’s what the book said?”
“No,” Techno admits. “But it feels right.”
Wilbur’s posture becomes stick straight, then breaks, as he offers Techno an amused huff. “Aww,” he coos, voice lilting. “You really do like me, Tech-no-blade.”
And - well - yes, he does. ‘Like’ doesn’t even begin to cover it. There are two whole people in the entire world who have treated Techno like more than a circus act caught somewhere on a tightrope between tragic and monstrous. There are two people in the entire world that Techno likes - loves, if he’s honest with himself - and he’s almost horrified by the idea that one of them doesn’t know it.
This is all too hard for him to express, so he says:
“If I didn’t like you, I wouldn’t have stabbed myself . I would have gotten you instead.”
Wilbur’s eyebrows fly up. “And Phil would’ve taken so, so kindly to that.”
“He might’ve,” Techno shoots back. “I was here first, anyway. It’s my right. Plus, it’d mean he wouldn’t be harboring a wanted thief.”
“You’re a thief too! I know no one lent you your stupid dictionaries!”
This is entirely true, but it also doesn’t matter, because this isn’t about him.
Using his free hand, Techno tucks a strand of pink hair behind his ear. It’s come loose from the braid Wilbur put it in this morning - probably because they were mauling each other over a pillow. “Well, I’m not a wanted one. Nobody knows I took those books except you, Wil. And if I stabbed you--”
“You wouldn’t,” Wilbur insists, and squishes the toe of Techno’s boot with his heel. “Our psychic twin bond would stop you.”
Now this is news to Techno. Being brothers, he can accept. As of barely a minute ago, the same blood runs in their veins, and Wilbur’s been calling Phil ‘Dad’ since before they even knew to set a plate out at the table for him.
Twins, though. That’s different.
Other than dictionaries, Techno’s bedroom library is populated by storybooks. Myths , Phil calls them. Late at night, Techno reads stories of skygods and sea creatures, minotaur and mazes. Some of them prick at the back of his mind in a way that travels through his skin, and pulsate right where his hand meets Wilbur’s.
Romulus and Remus. Artemis and Apollo.
If they’re twins, which set will they be?
Across from him, Wilbur lapses into contended silence. Does he wonder about this too? Or is Wilbur, shoulders canted with a lazy ease, prepared to make this leap without any careful judgement or questions at all?
Maybe Wilbur just trusts him that much - he must, to put both pen and blade in Techno’s hand.
“Twins, then,” Techno agrees, and resolves to trust Wilbur too.
And then, after a moment of wry afterthought: “We don’t look anything alike, Wilbur. Everyone’s gonna ask us all the time which of us dyes their hair.”
“And why my teeth are very nice and normal-sized.”
“ Your teeth are three short of a whole set right now. And I know you’ve got another loose, because at breakfast you wouldn’t stop eating weird.”
“Stop spying on me,” Wilbur admonishes, even though Techno’s done nothing of the sort.
With a kick to Wilbur’s leg, Techno lets the subject drop. If Wilbur keeps it up, Techno can just threaten to gore him on his very normal teeth, or something.
Nearby, a bird chirps. Wilbur cranes his head to look at it as it flies over. “That’s probably an omen , Techno. Do you know what that means?”
He doesn’t, but he’d rather cut up his other hand than admit it, and Wilbur is steamrolling onward before he can stumble his way through a non-answer, anyway. “It’s a sign. And this sign is saying that the blood on our hands is getting all sticky and dry.”
“How is a bird a sign of that?” Techno asks.
“Oh, it’s not. I just wanted to say so.”
Fair enough, really. He’s right about the blood drying, and Techno’s fingers are getting all cramped, anyway.
So, he suggests: “It might be a sign that Phil’s coming home early.”
He casts a glance to the knife in his other hand. They probably ought to get that cleaned off and back in the kitchen before Phil assumes they’ve been robbed by the world’s pickiest bandit.
Wilbur hums by way of answer, and frees his hand from Techno’s grasp.
The sting that follows, irrationally, makes Techno want to grab it back.
“Well,” he begins, his heart all twisted somewhere in the top of his chest, “we’re brothers, Wilbur.”
“Twins,” Wilbur reminds him.
Techno takes a fortifying breath, shakes out his hand, and nods. “Twins.” Then, because he’s got a brand to maintain: “I hope this makes your eyes turn red. That way every shopkeeper can identify you on sight.”
Wilbur’s expression twists into one of dramatized annoyance, and he hooks his (intact) hand in Techno’s sleeve, and begins dragging him back towards the house. In return, Techno knocks their shoulders together, but lets himself be pulled.
There’s really no point in resisting. Their psychic twin bond would probably force him to come along, anyway.
★★★★★
Techno should become a fortune teller. As it turns out, he’s pretty talented at interpreting omens.
“Once you’ve finished washing it, wrap it tightly,” Phil instructs, straw blond hair pulled back in a loose bun. His brows are squished together, like two caterpillars desperate to tear each other apart. It’s kinda fascinating - or it would be, if Phil wasn’t supremely upset with both of them.
Techno’s aware that he’s zoning out.
Phil must be too, because he taps Techno’s head, and continues, “Not tight enough that it hurts, though. Just enough to put pressure on it, and stop any leftover bleeding.”
Wilbur slumps forward, resting the full weight of his head on Phil’s arm. “Why do we have to do it?” he asks, voice caught in the folds of Phil’s cloak.
“You’re the ones that injured yourselves, mate. And I’d feel a bit more at peace if I knew that next time you two stab yourselves, you won’t go bleed out in the backyard.”
This is probably reasonable, but Wilbur’s tone implores backup. “It’s not too late to put a healin’ potion on it,'' Techno adds, half-heartedly.
“I thought you wanted a scar?”
Well, they had a good run. Phil’s got him there.
After a little more instruction serves as the soundtrack for Techno’s imagined caterpillar war, the two of them sit on the edge of their pushed together beds with a roll of bandages and some wet cloths.
(The offered antiseptic lies unwanted on the bathroom sink. Infection sucks, yeah, but Techno’s not even going to pretend he’s got the faculty to hold himself still while Wilbur applies Cut Hurting Juice.)
“Mother fucker ,” Wilbur spits, because he’s upfront like that. “This is worse than the actual slice, I think.”
Techno rolls his eyes, but lessens the intensity of his scrubbing. “You’re almost done. Promise.”
And he is. Within a few seconds, Techno’s wound a strip of clean linen around his hand, and tied it off nicely. After a little more thought, he fixes the end into a lopsided bow.
Wilbur flexes his fingers with wonder, like he’s surprised they even still function. It’s insulting, and Techno tells him so.
“Fine,” Wilbur replies. "Give your hand here, then. I’ll show you real medicine.”
That’s decidedly more threatlike than Techno appreciates from someone who’s supposed to be fixing his wounds, but he places his hand in Wilbur’s lap anyway, and passes him a fresh cloth.
Techno isn’t worried. Not really.
They’re brothers, after all. Twins.
This is where it ends: It’s an anniversary, and Techno doesn’t even know it. He’s twenty-seven to Tommy’s seventeen, and Wilbur will always, always be twenty-six.
“What’s the prognosis tonight?” Wilbur asks. His voice is low and murmur-soft. That’s something Techno’s still getting used to.
“Horrible,” Techno replies. “Awful. Ghastly. You lie down in the turtles’ pen, or something?” He pulls the needle through the small tear in Wilbur’s palm, stitching the only rift he can back together. Wilbur doesn’t flinch.
“No, no. Kitchen accident. Nothing I’ve cooked for you, I swear,” Wilbur explains, absently. “Had an altercation with the countertop, and didn’t realize I was giving myself a new piercing ‘til I glanced down and saw bone.”
Amusement colors his voice, but this Wilbur hasn’t had half as much experience painting personas for himself as the one Techno remembers. It isn’t funny. There’s nothing funny about the fact that Wilbur’s skin feels like wax, and that he only remembers to breathe for their benefit.
Techno grants him a smile, because it’s what Wilbur wants. “Absolutely legendary battle. Getting owned by kitchen furniture’s a real warrior’s death.”
“I’ve had enough of those,” Wilbur murmurs, and there’s nothing Techno can do to soothe that wound.
Techno finishes off the knot, and pulls it tight. Wilbur doesn’t flinch. Only one wound bleeds anymore, and it rests bandaged and stitched on his chest.
“You’re gonna need your bandages changed,” Techno reminds him, like they haven’t had this conversation every night for a month.
“If you must,” Wilbur cedes, like always.
He busies himself with the wound. Potions only work on living skin, so Techno makes do with a basket of wet cloths and a fresh roll of bandages. Antiseptic isn’t needed. There’s nothing left to be infected.
When Techno checks, Wilbur’s gaze is fixed with scrutiny on his arms, scrutinizing them for any missed scrapes and bruises. Injuries seem to paint themselves on him, nowadays. He breaks his wrist being flung off Carl’s back, burns his fingers on the stove, and slashes his palm on the ends of half-sanded tables. And every evening, Phil excuses himself for some reason or another, and Techno sits on the edge of his brother’s attic bed and sews and splints him back together.
Even without nerve endings, Wilbur must be in some kind of discomfort. He’s always looking for a distraction. “Tell me a story?”
It’s late. Phil still isn’t back with dinner.
“I don’t have any more stories,” Techno replies, pointedly.
“Oh, I’m certain you do,” Wilbur says, ignoring him entirely. “Think of one.”
Chat agrees.
all men do is lie
STORYTIME
storytime time
do pogtopia
p
story
Well, as much as they can, anyway. They’re never coherent.
pogtopia is a good story
“Fresh out,” Techno says, because he can’t think of a worse idea than telling Wilbur about the destruction of a nation he doesn’t even remember. “Check back tomorrow.”
Even this Wilbur is determined to see things to the end, apparently. His fingers tap a pattern on Techno’s shoulder, bent low so he can wipe black tar from a wound Phil’s totems could never heal. “Tell me a story about you, then, if we’re all out of fairytales.”
Wilbur doesn’t mean it to be cruel. It’s a simple fact of life, one that’s apparent even to a walking corpse with no knowledge of the world outside his little cabin. Fairytales have never extended their magic to Techno’s reality.
(Myths, maybe.
Tommy might be Theseus, but Techno is forced to play Sisyphus, Tantalus, the Danaïdes. No matter how hard he pulls, the threads pulling together Wilbur’s wounds and Techno’s family will always unravel and come undone.)
Silence makes Wilbur’s skin feel colder.
“Make one up, then,” Wilbur insists. There’s something desperate in his eyes, and doesn’t he deserve this? Isn’t this the least Techno can do? “You’re a good storyteller. I’m certain you can be a little more than a record player.”
Which - okay. Techno is talented enough at replaying records. The grooves on Tommy’s discs are worn smooth and brittle, but Techno has replayed enough memories to make them soft and blurry around the edges.
“Okay,” Techno says. “One story.”
Eager with anticipation, Wilbur leans forward.
“Ages ago, a town was plagued by the most incompetent burglar it’d ever seen,” he begins, and the words pour from his mouth like ink.
“Literally no idea why the old man didn’t throw him out. The kid looked like he’d got into a fight with the fireplace, and lost,”
“You ever swordfought with a nine year old? They’ve got nothing to lose,”
“One of them hated storms, and the other was too much of a little shit to let it slide, but not enough of one to forget to sit with him under the covers,”
“They stole a book. Yeah, I know. They stole a lot of things,”
“Definitely gross. Definitely didn’t make them biologically twins. Didn’t matter,”
“Swore to stick together, never betray each other - you know. The works. Even in the end, they were traitors together,”
Wilbur’s wound is long rebandaged, but Techno still kneels in front of him. His throat hurts, and the chill of Wilbur’s hand is soothing on his face. There’s so much left to say, and every unsaid story bubbles in his throat like bile.
At the end, his voice is raw. He’s breathing heavily, like he’s just run to Snowchester and back.
Wilbur’s eyes are frozen amber. Something swims beneath the ice, too far and too deep to ever breach the surface.
“That was -” Wilbur pauses, like Techno’s the fragile one, “- incredible. That was incredible, Techno.”
And then: “Did you really make it all up?”
Techno stiffens. “You don’t remember,” he breathes; it isn’t a question.
“I - No. Should I?”
Techno’s mouth dries up. It’s not fair to feel angry with him, not for dying, not for being brought back wrong, not for worming his damn way into Techno’s life to begin with. He is anyway, even as the voices cry out against it.
“No,” Techno says, flintily. “No.”
“That was enough of a story to last me the next month, I think,” Wilbur says, peaceably. His hands fidget in his lap - he’s tied the leftover thread of his stitches into a bow.
“Yeah. I think it was.”
“Goodnight, Techno.” Wilbur’s head dips in a nod, but his eyes never leave Techno’s. “And thank you for - well, everything.”
“Yeah,” Techno says, again. “Night.”
After a month, Techno has never stuck around long enough to see if Wilbur still sleeps. Tonight is no different.
He retreats to his room and crawls under his covers, piling on blanket after blanket. The bell on the front door jingles - a telltale sign Phil’s come home, his timing a consistent always-too-late. Nobody else has a key.
Nobody else wants to visit, either. Who’s left, anymore?
The summer Techno becomes an only child, Dream wins back his server. Techno misses it, because he’s stitching up a stranger’s wounds while his last remaining brother dies in an obsidian box. He falls asleep to thoughts of a knife in his hand and a sword in his father’s, and two wounds that will never scar over.