Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Techno is twenty years and a few more he can’t remember when he realizes he’s getting tired. It’s a realization long in the making, slow in the reaching, an old-trodden road he only now recognizes he’s been following; that familiar feeling of weariness in his bones, the constant strained anticipation that comes with years of enduring the same old battle-time injuries.

“You know, I think I’m getting tired of all this, Phil,” Techno says one chilly spring morning, after the two of them have finished raiding a pillager outpost and are looking out at the destruction. He’s sitting on the structure's utmost story, legs hanging over the edge, and he can feel fresh blood already drying on his sharpened nails. 

Phil stands somewhere behind him, rummaging through his pack, but at Techno’s words the rustling stops abruptly. 

“Getting a bit old for the old wear-and-tear, huh, mate?” He asks, and below the note of amusement is a genuine kind of curiosity. A real question. 

Phil’s been retired for years. His Angel of Death days are behind him; his weapons are shelved and stored. Last Techno heard he’d gotten a place holed out down south and had settled down with a few other hybrids. Somewhere warm, Phil’d said; somewhere with a lake. Only for Techno does Phil still do this, still draw his axes from the cabinet where they’re locked and take flight to less peaceful horizons. 

He’s here now at Techno’s request - supposedly, to aid in cleaning out a particularly troublesome pillager outpost. (In reality, Techno had just wanted to see him. He hadn’t known how to ask.)

“Maybe I am,” Techno responds, and hears Philza’s boots step nearer.

“Come down south with me,” the man suggests, suddenly and with an odd kind of urgency. “I think you’d like it. My son’s friends are an odd sort of lot, but a good one.”

Techno allows himself a few moments to entertain the notion. A thought experiment, if he will; a hypothesis he never intends to test. Maybe he would like it. Maybe they really are a good lot. He’s never lived around a lake; most ones in the northern wastes are cold-weathered and thick with frozen ice.

Once the minute of allotted contemplation is done and up, he lets the thought experiment slip away; he smirks; he gives a dismissive kind of laugh. “Not today, Philza,” he says. “I am the blood god, after all. Busy man. Voices to feed and people to see.”

And that’s the end of that.

___

But that’s not the end of that, not really. Not when a month later finds Techno wrapped up in a battle he’d never intended to fight, somewhere in the northern tundra of a country he’s forgotten, trapped in a war of unworthy men’s creation. He takes to the battlefield because there is nowhere else to go, not with the hordes enemies skulking about with personal vendettas against the blood god . There are always shadows on his tail, now, in the great northern escapes. They are always nipping at his heels.

But the war gets to be one thing too much and Techno goes down in the middle of a fight. In the midst of a battle makes a misstep and the war itself pounces; dozens of soldiers converging on a singular irregularity. Spotting the weakness and with it the opportunity.

Techno barely makes it out alive. His ribs are cracked and his nose is bloodied and something shivery and painful slides its way down his arm whenever he dares to move a finger. He travels south on foot and later on horseback and later on foot again, and he finds Philza’s little neighborhood inlet with difficulty, but also with the map that Philza’d given him to tuck away in a knapsack pocket for future use. 

Techno shows up at Phil’s doorstep in the dead of night with crickets chirping in the bushes around him and the soft rushing of the lake behind him and blood on his face. 

This time, when Phil invites him to stay, he accepts.

___

They build him a house. Just him and Phil, far enough away from the lake that at Techno’s request Phil is able to shepherd away any visitors - he’s still sore and his ribs are still healing and the idea of being goggled at by a crew of mob hybrids he’s never met makes something twist uneasily in his stomach. So they build it with just the two of them, no visitors but the trees and the sky and a horse Techno tames and names Carl.

It’s a nice enough little house. Made mostly of spruce from a nearby forest, but not so cabin-like as to be out of place in the warm weather. There’s a stove and a porch and a double set of doors that have bars on them, so that on the hot days Techno can open one up and let the breeze in. Phil builds a little bee farm off to the side, for some reason, and they put big windows in the house’s second story to let in the light.

Techno’s most interested in the fields. He likes farming much more, he’s decided, when it’s not accompanied by the frostbitten noses and chilled fingers of the northern wastelands. Here the outdoors are pleasant, if sometimes uncomfortably warm, and after enduring the burning heat of the nether through his childhood Techno can barely feel the sun’s sting.

So he builds a farm. Fixes together logs of oak into a fence and tills the soil and draws buckets of water from the river to irrigate the land. He starts with just a few odd potatoes and carrots lent by Philza’s charitable hand and grows his collection to four, to eight, to twenty, to hundreds.

A week passes. Then two. Techno continues to till the fields.

____

Things are going well up until Techno notices his potatoes are going missing.

For a man such as Techno, these are a difficult thing to misplace. He’s amassed a fair amount of them, piled in rickety old bins in his basement and roasting in pots over his fireplace. He’s got a chest of the ones that come up poisonous on a shelf near where he keeps the spare armor. He’s got rows and rows and rows of them sprouting from freshly-tilled soil out back of the cottage, flourishing in the summer light with an eagerness that never would have taken further north - where the air was chillier and the sunlight always seemed to carry a ice-chilled sting.

He likes it better here, where the sun is warm and the breeze is light around the lake, and even as his house is comfortably sheltered behind a private grove of trees. He’s some way away from the inlet. but he can still hear the waves on quiet days and sometimes glimpse a neighbor or two on the horizon. (He’s come to recognize a few of them, by now, even as they mind their business and he minds his. There’s a tall one with the glinting eyes of an enderman, always flickering in and out of space. He’s seen so briefly Techno only ever recognizes him by the trailing of ender particles in his wake - barely staying still long enough to catch a glimpse. There’s a shorter one with thick purple chunks of armor that float about him in the air, usually seen running in the wake of that familiar trail of end particles. There are others, but they rarely stay still long enough to glimpse.)

Having neighbors is a disorienting experience, different than Techno’s usual - typically when he finds shelter,it’s in briefly visited inns by the wayside of his most recent journey, or bunkers dug underground and filled with weapons or carefully stored supplies.

So it’s a change - but one that Techno tolerates. He tolerates the distant sound of laughter that echoes through the trees, and the glimpses of a green fin and tail that sometimes flicker through the water of the river by his fields, and he tolerates Phil, of course, when Phil comes by to visit and share a baked potato and sensibly chuckle over his own stories about the goings-on of the neighbors Techno doesn’t intend to meet. 

The one thing Techno can’t tolerate is someone stealing his potatoes. And that must be what’s happening, because there are empty holes dug in his carrot fields by clumsy, visibly imprinted hands and the baked goods in his oven vanish whenever he leaves for more than a few minutes and the bins of produce under his house always have a latch or two undone, like someone’s been opening the chests and then squirreling out of sight too quickly to bother properly closing them. A day of this leaves him frustrated and a few of them leave him disoriented and by the time a week passes, he’s got Philza giving him an amused, bewildered look from across the outdoor potato bin and saying “Maybe you’ve just got raccoons in your basement, Techno.”

“I do not have raccoons,” Techno informs him. This is a fact of which he is entirely certain. He knows how raccoons act and while they’re smart little fuckers, they’re not quite smart enough to close the oven after they leave.

Phil just shrugs. “I dunno, mate. I mean, it’s not any of mine. We’re all plenty well-fed down by the lake - speaking of which, come down for a visit sometime. It’s been a week or two, be a neighbor - Niki’s been asking when I’ll introduce you.”

“Niki?” Techno asks, wondering if this Niki character could be the one filching all his crops.

Phil must recognize the glint in his eye, because he shakes his head. “She’s a mer-hybrid, Tech. Can only live underwater. Doesn’t have the stomach for potatoes, I don’t think.”

Techno recalls that glint of green-scaled fin and tail he’d glimpsed in the river and nods.

“I gotta get going, now, promised Tubbo I’d help him make a bee farm,” is all Phil says, before their greetings are exchanged and his departure hastily made. Techno is left to stand at the side of the potato garden, staring out over freshly tilled dirt and green leaves poking up from the ground. There are still messy little spaces at the edges of the fields, finger-shaped notches dug into the soil.

There’s something uneasy about the sight of it; not just the freshly-dug soil, but the farm laid out before him and the picture-perfect cottage with the bee farm off the side and the way that Techno’s only wearing boots and a chainmail chestplate - horribly exposed, horribly underprepared, and they’re better clothes to farm in but he still feels his back itching as if waiting for the moment he turns his back the second too long. His ribs still ache from battle he’d lost up north and he hasn’t touched his weapons since he got here, skirting around their chest on his shelf as if frightened they’ll prove infectious. 

Techno gives a frustrated huff and stomps back inside.

___

In the end, he finds Philza was right about his basement. There aren’t any raccoons, no rodents laying in wait beneath his cupboards, but he ventures into the space below his house a few days later that week to find some bone meal he’d misplaced and notices a broad yellow-gold feather sitting by his surplus produce chest. 

He leans over to pick it up and straightens, holding it to the light of the lanterns above him. It has the shape of a chicken feather, but it’s much broader - longer than Techno’s entire hand - and it spreads from a white center to blushing rose-gold, almost ruddy tips. He’s never seen any bird with that kind of plumage.

Techno drops his hand by his side, feather still clutched therein, and glances around his basement again. He steps nearer the opposite wall - but his movements are slower, now, more calculated; his hand subconsciously comes to rest by his belt, only to be met by open air where the hilt of a sword used to be. He drops it limply by his side and tries not to let its emptiness brother him.

There are no more feathers left floating about the spruce-plank floors. But as Techno steps forward, he feels the wood creak beneath him - giving way with a hollow sort of groan - and he stills abruptly, standing motionless as he stares at the wood below his feet.

It looks normal. It looks perfectly in-place. But he lifts one iron-plated leather boot and kicks at it, lightly, and he hears it again: a hollow, empty tone. Different from the sound of the surrounding floorboards.

Techno backs up abruptly and moves to the barrel on the shelf by the door. There are weapons, there, hastily shoved into storage once he and Phil’d cleared out a basement space. He stands over it, fingers brushing over each weapon in turn - an enchanted golden sword, a thickly-carved longbow, a dagger with worn-out edges - and finally he grabs a netherite axe that feels as familiar as it does unsettling when he lifts it from the barrel and slides it into place at his belt before wheeling back around, all in one smooth movement.

It doesn’t take him long to find the carved-out spaces around the edges of the floorboard trapdoor. Whoever had made it had been trying their best to keep it out of notice, but there are shakily carved edges here and there and bits of wood missing from there splinters must have chipped off in the cutting of the wood. Below the wood, there should be stone; instead Techno finds himself peering down a darkened hollow space, the familiar rungs of a ladder barely visible through the shadows.

There is something living in Techno’s basement. Something desperate enough to mine through stone into some sort of cave beneath and cut through his floorboards and go digging through his fields for carrots to eat. Something that leaves rose-gold not-quite-chicken feathers in its wake and is smart enough to hide its tracks but not enough to close all the locks on the chests from which it steals.

Something is drumming in Technoblade’s chest. He unclips the axe at his side, places his foot on the ladder, and slowly makes his descent; the darkness swallows him whole. There is no light at the bottom of the tunnel but for the glimpse of lantern-light from the opening above the ladder.

Techno grasps the axe in one hand and turns to face the cave before him. It’s claustrophobic, dank and smelling of moldy rock, and he shifts his feet farther apart in anticipation of a fight. He searches the darkness before him, eyes adjusting to the shadows.

His gaze settles on a faded blue pair of eyes, blinking from the darkness like an owl’s. Framing them, a pair of rose-gold feather wings, mantled in anticipation of a fight. Dusty boots braced against the floor. Fists curled in and readied. 

A child, Techno realizes. The creature in Techno’s basement is a child.

Chapter Text

The child is shaking. That’s the first thing Techno notices, because the way he does it is so terribly distracting - rattling like pennies in a can. It’s visible in the chattering of his jaw and the tremor in his hands and unsteadiness to his stance, even as he stands - hands up, arms braced - by the opposite wall of the cave. His shape is muffled by darkness, but Techno makes out a ratty old fur coat that goes down nearly to his knees and the silhouettes of feathers brushing the ground by his feet.

A hybrid, Techno realizes. But not one of Phil’s. ‘We’re all plenty well-fed,’ Phil had said, and the boy before Techno now is too rattly in his bones, shivering too hard in the cold and the mold and the stifling cave air, to fit with that kind of description.

The boy speaks first. “You’re a pig,” is what he chooses to say, of all the things he could have done; “You’re a fuckin pig, bitch! Get away from me.” 

He sounds surprised, but he mostly sounds afraid.

“You’re in my basement,” Techno observes. His hand is still rested on his axe, but while he keeps it there for appearances purposes - one never knows which ratty bird-children in fur coats are liable to pull a knife and shank you - the urgency in its presence is gone. He knows just from the unsteadiness to this kid’s stance that all it would take to bowl him over would be a particularly strong breeze.

The child makes a snarling noise that sounds almost, but not quite human. “And what of it? My basement now, pig bitch. New landlord in town, I’ll need you out by nightfall-”

Techno steps up and rests his free hand on the boy’s forearm, stilling him - he’s met by a light scuffle of resistance as the boy’s free hand swats at him, but he stands his ground and the kid’s shoulders slump in surrender. The kid’s breathing is still heavy, and he’s doing that discomforting full-body rattle of fear, and the muted panic is visible in his eyes even as he quiets down and goes practically limp under Techno’s hold.

Techno ignores this and begins to lightly tug him towards the ladder. He’s not much help to anyone in this stifling, mold-smelling basement, after all. Better to talk it out in the cottage, where the lanterns keep the rooms well-lit and the corners aren’t dusted with recently-shed feathers.

The boy climbs the ladder without much resistance. (Techno gets a better glimpse of his wings and tail-feathers as he does, and rattles his brain for only a moment before he recognizes the patterns in the feather-tufts; he’s an avian hybrid, prone to light falls and vegetarianism.)

Once they both emerge into the golden lantern-light of the room above, Techno closes the trapdoor beneath them. For the first time, he gets a proper look at the kid before him. He’s skinny, all bones and edges, and the muted panic in his eyes hasn’t faded. His wings, sure enough, match the red-gold feathertip patterns Techno had found dusting across his floor. He’s got a broad-feathered tail poking out from beneath that ratty coat, and Techno glimpses feathers lining his ankle in the gap between his pant-legs and his boots. 

“There’s a lot to unpack here, kid,” Techno grunts, for lack of anything else to say.

“You’re a bitch,” the kid informs him, for only the third time that minute. His words are still half-snarls, but Techno’s heard enough frightened people overcompensating to last a lifetime. He knows the signs.

So Techno just hauls the kid behind him up the stairs, into the living room with the sunlit windows and the dirt beginning to line the uncleaned countertops, and parks him at the kitchen table. Sits him down. Steps back to stand across from him, arms folded, head tilted in thought.

He begins with an observation. “You’ve been stealing my potatoes.”

“Yes,” the kid agrees. “And what of it, pig-man? The fuck are you gonna do about it?” 

He doesn’t look like he wants to find out. 

Techno ignores him. “You’ve been living in a cave in my basement. I didn’t even know I had a cave beneath my basement,” he points out. He feels his shoulders slump, a little, at the thought; a hollowed-out danger-space beneath the house that’s meant to be a haven and he hadn’t even noticed till now. There’d been a whole entire child there, for whatever reason, and he hadn’t noticed till now. 

Techno knows what would’ve happened to inattentive soldiers in the wars up north. The axe at his belt suddenly feels heavier.

“I knew. I found it while I was looking for more po’a’oes,” the kid says, purposefully skewing the consonants on potatoes. He looks a little self-satisfied, and even as his eyes flick between Techno’s axe and Techno’s eyes he leans back in his chair a little, falls a little better into place, like he’s beginning to grow certain that Techno doesn’t intend to actually use the axe he carries on him.

Techno gives a long, steady breath out through his nose. “Kid,” he says. “Why the hell would you need po- okay. Just work with me here. Philza feeds you kids fine down at the lake, you’ve got fish and treehouses and I don’t understand the purpose of coming here just to skulk like a raccoon - gods above.”

Techno stops again. Starts over. “What’s your name, kid?”

 “Wouldn’t you like to know, pig-boy,” the child says. The answer comes so quickly it seems automatic, queued up, a gut reaction. His gaze flicks over to watch Techno carefully after he says it, shoulders stiffening just slightly. He’s testing for a reaction.

Techno just looks at the kid, and his shoulders slump again. “Tommy,” he says. “My name’s Tommy. What’s yours, big man?” 

“Technoblade,” Techno says, voice dry as a desert. He half expects some kind of reaction, recognition, the look of hushed awe that such a name would have greeted up north. A whisper of the blood god, a chanting of the blade - but Tommy doesn’t react. Of course he doesn’t. They’re much too far south for the wars of the northern tundra to have made the slightest bit of dent. 

“Tech-no-blade. Teeeeechnoblaaaade. Technoblade,” Tommy mutters to himself, sorting out the syllables in his mouth. “Stupid name, that is. Not half as good as Tommy.” 

Techno sighs. “Tell me why you were in my basement, Tommy.”

“Maybe I don’t want to, bitch boy. Maybe you need to rethink your whole theory here, about my basement, my potatoes, this and that - what if I say it was my basement, what then-”

Tommy just keeps talking. Techno watches him, sees the telltale signs of someone gearing up to go for a good long time. Tangents, he’s noticed, are a particular favorite of Tommy’s. Addressing the topic of why he’s living in a grown man’s basement, however, is not.

He decides to interrupt. “Question, Tommy,” he reminds, and tries to put that element of gravity in his tone - something magnetic, to pull Tommy back to the topic at hand. He can tell that if he gets loud, if he allows his temper to get the better of him, if he shows the slightest sign of aggression - Tommy will only react in turn. Get harder to handle. He has to be gentle, keep his tone soft if still strict.

It works. Tommy meets his eyes and cuts himself off mid-sentence, and even if he looks away to study the table as he replies, his response is still an answer.

“I was hungry,” he mutters, and for once his voice is quiet. 

“You were hungry,” Techno prompts.

“I, um.” Tommy’s hand comes up to scratch halfheartedly at the back of his neck. He continues to avoid eye-contact. “It’s a long story. I sort of recently - not recently, really - I got, er, displaced. From the place I used to live. Nasty deal, it was, all my fau-” he seems to choke, cut himself off, and takes a moment before he can restart. “I mean. No it wasn’t, it was - gods. I don’t know. I left a place I used to live and all the sudden I was a hybrid and I'd got wings ‘n shit, but I couldn’t eat meat,” he says. “made me sick. Just couldn’t keep the shit down.” 

“You’re an avian hybrid,” Techno deadpans. “Mandatory vegetarianism is kinda on the job description.” 

“Well, nobody really bothered to give me the job description, now, did they, big man?” Tommy fires back, and there’s a flash of something in his eyes. “I didn’t wake up one day and go ooh, what a wonderful day to sprout fuckin’ wings down my back that itch like shit and shed dust and feathers everywhere - the hell kind of fuckery would that be, I hate this shit-” 

Techno looks at Tommy’s wings and the way the feathers are all out of line and there’s dust already fallen onto the floor, and recalls the many hours Phil used to spend awake each night straightening out the feathers in his void-blue elytra wings and combing out the old ones and brushing out the dust. Tommy’s wings don’t like they’ve ever seen a proper preening. Just looking at them gives Techno’s shoulder blades an uncomfortable itch. 

“So you needed food,” Techno supplies, trying to route the conversation back on track. “You could have planted some. You could’ve asked me for some. I wouldn’t have given you any, but I might have given you Philza, and he would’ve lent you a carrot or two. Instead you decided to hide in my basement.” 

“I tried planting shit, bitch,” Tommy defends, glaring. “Didn’t work. Farming’s bullshit. Can never get it to work. And I don’t know who this Philza lad is but he sounds like a right rat bastard.” 

Techno sighs.

“I just wanted a place to stay and you had a place to stay so I hid in my basement so you couldn’t find me and up ‘n chop my wings off, big man,” Tommy finishes. He’s looking back at the table, now, and scuffing his muddy boots against the floor. “Your cottage seemed an alright spot. Didn’t figure you’d mind. Didn’t figure you’d notice, really.” 

“You didn’t figure I'd notice an entire child hiding inside my house,” Techno begins, and finds his voice raising somewhat against his will - he cuts himself off, breathes, averts his eyes to stare at the ceiling in prayer to whatever gods might take pity.

Tommy’s gone all still and tense again. It’s Techno’s doing, with him raising his voice, but he’s too thoroughly unsettled by the situation to find himself remorseful. There is a part of him still thoroughly rattled by how close he’d allowed this child to get, this potential hostile; living in his own house and Techno’d never noticed. His breathing starts to feel all right, all the sudden; his fingers clench against his will.

“I need a minute,” Techno grunts, and he doesn’t give Tommy a second glance as he wheels towards the door. Better he let himself ponder things outside, then here under the watchful eyes of the frightened eyes of this half-child. This bird thing with his fearful tremors. 

The day is nearing evening. The sun remains bright in the sky, but dragonflies are beginning to crowd about the fields and the trees on the horizon. Techno hikes out to the edge of the yard and leans against a pile of barrels, absently brushing his thumb across the hilt of his axe as he does. He takes a deep breath in and a deep breath out and steadies himself with the smell of freshly tilled soil.

I need Phil,  Techno realizes. I really, really need Phil.

Phil would know how to handle children. Phil’s had children, befriended children, lived around children. Techno’s only ever seen them in the aftershocks of combat, looking after their parents or siblings or friends; they always have an unhinged look of fear about them. A wide-eyed shakiness. 

Tommy had that look about him. Like he’d spent his life imprisoned in glass houses. Techno knew a thing or two about being trapped in glass houses; once the roof is shattered, all that’s left is freedom and sunlight and knife-shards everywhere you step.

The river winding by the field flashes with a green something. Techno spots it out of the corner of his eye and flinches, reaction moments delayed. When he turns he spots the familiar shine of smooth scales rippling in the water, reflecting the sunlight.

Niki’s been wanting to meet you, Phil had said. She’s a mer-hybrid - she watched us from her river when we built the house.

Techno hadn’t cared, at the time, but. Well. Phil.

He needs Phil.

Techno pushes himself off from the barrels and takes a few steps nearer the river. By the time he’s on the bank, he can see clearer the flash of scales catching the sun - even with the mer-hybrid - Niki - below the murky surface and out of view. He crouches, a little, and moves his hand away from his axe-hilt in an attempt to appear friendly.

There’s a swirl of something glittery and Niki’s head pops into view. She’s got pale pink hair and a line of gills down her cheekbones and throat, and her teeth are a little too sharp to be anything near human, but she gives him a friendly smile and a wave regardless.

“Hello, Technoblade,” she chirps. Her voice sounds soft and a little gurgly. “It’s nice to meet you. Phil’s said a lot about you. I’m Niki, I live here.” 

“I also live here,” Techno says, because he’s blanking for a good introduction. “You say you know Phil, yeah?” 

“Oh, Phil’s lovely.” Niki beams at him. “He’s been helping tubbo with his bees, did you hear? They like to buzz around over the lake all day, I sit and watch them sometimes when i’m feeling tired.” 

Techno blinks at her and decides to take that as a yes. “Bees,” he says slowly, and the thought of Phil trying to wrangle a teenager’s herd of insects gives him pause. “Glory be. Alright. Niki, I need you to do me a favor, is that alright?” 

Niki dips under the surface, and for a moment, Techno thinks he’s offended her into leaving. But then she pops back up again and shakes her hair out a little, and he realizes she was just catching her breath. “Of course,” she agrees, smiling. “What do you need?” 

“I need you to fetch Phil for me,” Techno tells her. “Tell him it’s urgent. Tell him it wasn’t a raccoon.” 

Niki frowns a little. She looks confused. 

“He’ll get it,” Techno tells her. “Just make sure he hurries over, alright?” 

Niki smiles again. “Okay, Technoblade, I’ll pass that right along,” she chirps, “Lovely to meet you-” 

And she’s giving him a cheery wave, and a flick of the tail, and just a moment later she’s been entirely swallowed beneath the river-water surface.

Techno breathes a long breath of relief and sits back on his haunches.

Phil is coming. He’ll be alright.

Chapter Text

Phil lands in the front yard with a gentle descent and a flourish of the wings. Techno sees him out of the corner of his eye, through the cottage window - catches a glimpse of feathers and green-striped things - but does not turn to look.

He does not turn to look because he is enveloped in a stand-off with a shivery child who keeps brandishing his drooping, dust-filled chicken wings like he’s about to take flight. It seems more instinctual than anything, not like he genuinely means to do it, but every time Techno makes a wrong movement the feathered limbs flare out like a peacock making a show, growing him larger even as the kid hunches his shoulders and draws himself in.

Their stand-off is over gapples. About eight of them, to be exact, all of which Tommy has gathered from a chest downstairs in a burlap sack. Techno had returned to the cottage to find him eating one of them while shoving various useful nicknacks into the bag, tumbling about the cottage like a rabid thing - practically frothing at the mouth in his desperation to leave.

Techno had caught him by the shoulder and walked him away from the door. Tommy couldn’t leave, not now, not yet ; not until this was solved, until he returned what he had stolen, until Techno understood where he had gone wrong in somehow allowing this chicken-creature to slip about his house unnoticed.

So the two of them are standing in the kitchen. Tommy is clutching the burlap sack and gnawing at a golden apple like his life depends upon it, snarling and spitting between each bite, wings flaring and gesturing with each new offense. Techno is leaning towards him with his hands braced on the table, demanding something in a voice full of attempted damage-control, and he doesn’t move to meet Philza’s arrival until the door swings open, and there’s a thump of boots against wood floor, and suddenly Philza is frozen mid-motion in the kitchen entryway with a look of absolute bewilderment.

“Techno,” Philza says, and then falls silent as if at a loss for words. Techno looks at him, expectant, and Philza just gestures wordlessly at the child

“Who the fuck are you,” Tommy demands, and that seems to spur Philza into speaking. 

“ Techno ,” Philza says again, and he has a suppressed, muted kind of frantic panic in his voice. “Have you - how did you obtain a child-”

Techno recoils in offense. Tommy perks up again with renewed, enraged vigor. “He’s holding me here against his will,” he spits, shoulders drawing up. “He dragged me up here kicking and screaming - I tried to leave and he trapped me-”

“Down, dog,” Techno growls in half-irony.

The child, to Techno’s bafflement, obeys - in a manner of speaking. He flinches, at the words, and he draws his shoulders up and flattens his wings against his back and gives Techno a narrow-eyed look of pure spite. The feathers over his ears draw back, cat-like. He takes a step back.

Philza looks back and forth and then back at Tommy; his eyes linger on the kid’s tattered, dusty wings, which are shedding feathers here and there across the floor; when he looks back at Techno, his bewildered confusion is visible in the looks that pass between them. 

“Let’s talk outside,” Techno says. “Lock the kid in here so he doesn’t try to scram.”

Tommy bristles, feathers fluffing like a cat’s ruff. “You aren’t locking me anywhere , bitch - I have rights, I’m a human be-”

He falters. There is a ringing moment of absolute silence. 

Philza takes up the silence. “Don’t worry, mate, we aren’t gonna try to pull anything,” he reassures, in that comforting, grounded tone. He sounds so far removed, here, from that fearsome creature that used to cut down droves of enemy warriors on the field; as if the Angel of Death was truly left behind to rot in the wastelands up North. “We’re just gonna have a chat for a minute. You can sit tight.”

“I’m not sitting anywhere, fuck you,” Tommy snarls. Philza gives him a casual, somewhat apologetic smile. And then he leaves.

They lock the door behind them when they reach the porch. Techno bolts and shutters it, double checks it twice; Philza watches patiently, standing on the wooden floor with his arms crossed and his wings tensely folded. He has an intense, graven look about him that Techno only recognizes from years of fighting side by side.

“Mate,” is the first thing Phil says, when Techno turns from the door to face him. “What the fuck did you do. ”

“I found him under my basement.”

Philza just looks at him. “That’s a whole-ass child - a teenager - he looked half starved - found him in your basement, like what, a fucking raccoon?”

“More or less.”

Philza gives a barking, baffled laugh - almost a giggle, if not too sharp around the edges - and whirls around. His wings ruffle with the movement flaring somewhat. Techno can see that they’re bristled a bit, if not properly fluffed like Tommy’s had been.

Techno steps up to stand next to him. He can’t help but be apprehensive, here, in this evening light - but this is Phil , terrible, awe-striking, wonderful Phil, and so he glances to the side and finds on Phil’s face painted with only a tired acceptance.

“Alright,” Phil says. He looks tired to his bones.

There’s a shattering sound from around the corner of the house. An echo of glass splintering.

Techno jumps, and Techno freezes, and - the next thing he knows he’s exchanged a look with Phil and begun to move - a single step down all three stars and a sprint around the cottage wall, towards the source of the sound. 

He sees the bright reflection of glass, first - sparkling across the ground and the walls - before he sees the window. It’s the kitchen one, far above the counter, half-sized and framed in gray-dyed curtains. Tommy currently has one arm over a towel thrown over the rim, and he’s laboriously attempting to pull himself up and through to the other side. Techno sees blood trickling down his hands from the effort of breaking the window.

There’s a pattering of boots and Phil is there, slowing to stand below him - arms up, a look of alarm as his wings flare behind him. “Stay there,” he’s saying. “Don’t move - you’ll scratch yourself on the glass.”

Tommy’s struggles for a moment longer, and then his wings flare a bit and scrape against the pane and he hisses - a semi-human, garbled thing that has Techno’s hair standing on end. But Tommy keeps going, and he pulls himself over, and then he’s slipping over to the other side of the pane and tumbling to the ground with a muffled thump .

Phil couches to help him. There’s blood speckled here and there across his arm and his wings, and he’s now got broken-off grass dusted across his clothes, but Tommy still snarls and scoots away across the ground. Phil stands, backs away, and raises his hands up by his head in a show of good-intent. He does not move forward.

Techno crosses his arms and watches Tommy. There’s clear panic, there, in the way he’s breathing and something in his eyes - but there’s equally a stinging spite in the way he looks at the two of them. 

Techno takes a few steps forward. He kneels. Looks Tommy in the eyes. And then - in a low, steady voice, the one he used to use in soothing startled horses and frightened soldiers - he speaks. 

“I’m not going to hurt you,” He tells Tommy, in a comfortable, clear murmur. “But I need you to come inside with me, just until we patch you up.”

Tommy just watches him and breathes.

“Come inside and I let you keep the gapples,” Techno offers.

And that does the trick.

__

They sit him down in a chair pulled away from the kitchen table. Techno plants himself on the floor a few feet away, sitting low down so as to avoid any perception of threat, and Philza, ever the help, gets the medicine kit. 

Techno, once sat, takes up the task of observing Tommy through laid-back ears and a semi-tilted head. He looks deflated somewhat, here, and he’s watching through suspiciously-lidded eyes as Phil whisks about him - inspecting a cut here, a scrape there, frowning at a particularly out-of-place patch of Tommy’s wings. He doesn’t touch anything, yet. Not yet.

Tommy flicks his gaze over to Techno and holds it. Then, in careful, defiant movements, he slips a golden apple from the sack on his lap and takes a bite out of it - chews - swallows. As if daring Techno to protest, to go back on his promise.

Techno holds his gaze and does not speak.

“I’m going to treat your arm,” Phil says, disrupting the stand-off. He sounds distracted as he ruffles the medkit and prepares some kind of disinfectant, foul liquid against cotton wraps. “It might sting for a moment, but that’ll fade.”

“No,” Tommy says immediately, snapping his gaze back to Phil. “Fuck you. You ain’t stingin’ shit. Don’t touch me.”

Phil looks over the medkit to look Tommy in the eyes, not even flinching as Tommy eats the last of the apple core whole.

“You can apply it yourself, if you like,” he offers. “But we have to clean the scrape, or it could get infected. Here.” 

He kneels, holding the cotton disinfectant pad up for Tommy to hold. Tommy takes it - cautiously, a little spitefully, hands shaking if Techno looks carefully enough - and allows Phil to guide it to press against the slash on his arm.

He winces, but he doesn’t make any noise.

“Good,” Phil says, and he leaves Tommy to hold the disinfectant and turns back to unrolling the bandages. “I’ll need to do the same on your wings, in a moment, before I double check to make sure you’ve no glass in there - and your injured hand. That’ll be a pain to clean, mate. Don’t know what you were thinking.”

“I suspect he wasn’t,” Techno puts in. That earns him a chuckle on one end and a glare on the other.

Phil turns back and takes the disinfectant from where Tommy is clutching it, replacing it with a wrap of white bandages that he cuts and neatly pins in place. Tommy doesn’t protest, here - he’s too busy eating a golden apple from his injured hand, disregarding the specks of blood that are left on the peel.

“So Techno here tells me he found you in his basement,” Phil begins, as he moves to inspect Tommy’s injured hand. He takes it up in effortlessly gentle palms and cleans it lightly, gently - there is care in every movement he makes, even as Tommy - wincing, shuddering at the contact - relentlessly refuses to make any noise that might be indicative of pain. “Something about stealing potatoes. That was all you?”

Tommy glares and glares and glares. Glaring all used up, he slumps his shoulders and scuffs idly against the floor with one boot and gives, at last, an answer - mumbled and halfhearted, but still an answer - “I was hungry.”

“Hungry, huh?” Phil chuckles a little, with that familiar, polite way of laughing. “Couldn’t have grabbed a snack somewhere else? Or were Techno’s fields just prime real estate?”

“I couldn’t find any plants,” Tommy says, still mumbling.

“Speak up,” Techno tells him.

To his infinite surprise, Tommy obeys. “I couldn’t find any plants,” he repeats, almost automatically, and his voice is raised a few notches louder. “After I - er. I got displaced from my home, you see, due to - I fucked up. Well, not - I mean, I got displaced, is the point, and then I couldn’t find any fuckin’ plants.”

“Don’t know if you’ve noticed,” Techno rumbles, “But there are a whole lot of plants in this area.”

The look Tommy sends him is vile. “I mean the edible ones, bitch,” he spits. “With the fuckin - the edible ones.”

Techno looks at him and thinks about this and attempts to piece things together, what little he knows and what much, by Tommy’s design, he does not. He thinks of basement critters and missing potatoes and shedding wings that look filthy and horribly unkempt, and I got displaced - repeated over and over, like a mantra, like that was the least bare-bones description Tommy could bear to give. Something and something and the way Tommy had snapped to attention when Techno ordered him to speak up. Mandatory vegetarianism on the job description . Something and something and I wake up one day and I’ve sprouted wings .

If the way Tommy treats his wings is any indication, they manifested only recently. It’s not uncommon, in hybrids, for those particularly late to manifest to have the transformation triggered by some sort of lifestyle change or major stressor. An ongoing sense of danger forces the more primal defenses to kick in, and the body’s evolution often undergoes a wholesale shift.

Philza’s manifest had been young, and it had been naturally triggered. A product of genetics. Just the last of a series of falling dominoes.

Techno’s transformation had been at nine years old. He had been hungry and afraid for a very long time before the other shoe dropped, and it had not been half pleasant.

“Edible ones,” Techno repeats, his mind returning the present. “I see.”

Tommy looks away, back at Philza - who is still treating his hand, checking the cuts for glass with that always gentle touch. “I couldn’t eat meat,” he explains, studiously meeting no one’s eyes. “I got real hungry, for a minute there. But it’s alright. I found you lot and your potatoes and did alright.”

Phil’s laugh is a little strained as he wraps Tommy’s hand in bandages. “Is this your definition of did alright , mate?”

Tommy looks at him with an expression that says he could spit. But he doesn’t pull away.

Chapter Text

Once Philza finishes bandaging the kid’s wounds, he turns to the glass scrapes that were tracked down Tommy’s wings. He unwraps a strip of bandages and prepares a rag and dish of water, all while Tommy distracts himself by eating the last of yet another grapple. 

Things go downhill the moment he tries to touch Tommy’s wings. It’s yet another instantaneous reaction, a full-body flinch that has Tommy kicking at the floor as the chair skids back several inches. The screech of the chair leg against the floor has Techno flinching, covering his ears. 

By the time he looks up again, Tommy is breathing with heaving breaths and giving Philza a look of startled terror. The look in his eyes mirrors that of a spooked horse.

Phil pulls his hands back, one hand still holding the damp rag he’d been trying to clean the wound with. He shuffles away from Tommy, still kneeling by the chair with his wings folded against his back. He’s carefully unobtrusive.

“I’m just cleaning them, mate,” he reassures. “Same as I did your hand.”

Tommy squints at him, suspicious. 

“See? Just water,” Phil says, holding up his cleaning rag.

“Don’t...mess with them,” Tommy says slowly, distrustfully, but he relaxes his wings where he’d pulled them taut against his back, and doesn’t protest as Phil slowly moves back in to cleaning the wound.

Techno huffs. He’s still seated on the floor, legs folded and arms crossed, but as Phil busies himself dabbing at the feathers around the wound, he gets to his feet again. Stretches his arms above his head. Shivers, then relaxes. 

He glances over at Tommy. Tommy, who has busied himself with the consumption of yet another gapple, does not look back. 

“I’m heading downstairs, Phil,” Techno says. “You got this handled?”

“I got this handled,” Phil confirms absently.

Techno pulls up the rickety metal latch to the trapdoor. The light dims, as he descends into the basement, but the lanterns hanging from the wooden basement ceilings cover up the difference well enough. 

He glances around. Everything is as he left it - the dark wood panelled ceiling, the oak floors, the chests lining the walls the flickering of the lantern-light. Barrels stacked in the corners.

Most notably, the wood panelling he’d pulled aside when he discovered the entrance to Tommy’s cavern, still laying askew. Below it, the shadow of the cavern looks almost void-like in its blankness.

Techno unhooks one of the lanterns from the ceiling as he descends, to ward away the darkness. The ladder feels rickety and scuffed, like if he moves wrong it’ll give him splinters, and it still smells just as dank and foul at the bottom as it had the first time he descended.

The lantern-light casts things into clearer view, now, and through it Techno can make out the cave’s rough stone walls. The opposite end of the cavern is visible, too, and piled up next to it what looks to be Tommy’s belongings.

Techno steps up to them and kneels. There’s a blanket woven from rough cotton, a pillow that looks to be made from a burlap sack stuffed with an old set of clothes (jacket, pants, scuffed-up shirt), and an unlit lantern. Next to these, a barrel is propped against the wall.

Techno sets down his lantern and stands, again, moving to unscrew the lid of the barrel. He drops the lid by his side, ignoring the way the thudding echoes against the stone walls of the cavern, and peers inside.

It’s mostly full of potatoes. There are a few other nicknacks, here and there - a beat-up stone dagger, some stolen gold blocks, and a few iron nuggets. The vast majority of the barrel’s contents, however, consist merely of potatoes, both cooked and raw.

Techno picks back up the barrel lid and screws it into place. He steps back, for a moment, to survey the scene before him - the thin blanket sprawled on cold stone floors, the dirty burlap of the pillow-case, the barrel entirely empty of any personal effects - and as he breathes, the smell of the cold, wet cavern air almost stings his throat on the way down.

He can barely stand to stay in here for minutes. What kind of determination could have driven Tommy to shelter there for weeks, he cannot imagine.

Techno takes two trips back up the ladder: one to return the barrel of his belongings to its spot propped in the corner, and the other to fetch Tommy’s belongings. There aren’t many of them nor much that seem worth keeping, but better they rot in his kitchen then rot in his basement.

__

Techno dumps the burlap sack on the floor in front of Tommy without much preamble. It sends a cloud of dust and what could well be mold spores up into the air, tinting the light from the broken window.

Tommy is still hunched in the kitchen chair. His wing is bandaged, now, the tip of it wrapped in white fabric neatly nestled between the feathers. He’s holding it at an awkward angle like he doesn’t know what to do with it.

Tommy looks at the burlap sack and looks at Techno. Techno frowns, shifts, and glances away.

Phil is rinsing his washcloth in the sink behind Tommy. He’s facing the broken window, but his gaze is directed into the sink - a slight frown occupying his features.

“Got your shit out of my basement,” Techno tells Tommy. “You’re welcome.”

The look Tommy gives him is spitting poison. “My basement, bitch,” he mutters. “Not yours.”

It’s quieter than it was before, but still clearly meant to rile Techno up. He’s poking the sleeping beast, again. Testing Techno’s reactions.

“Outside, Phil,” Techno grunts, not breaking eye contact with Tommy. “We need to talk.”

Phil briefly glances up from the sink and nods. Techno takes a step backwards, towards the door - netherite boots clicking on the wood floor - and casts Tommy one last look as his hand finds the door handle.

“If you try to leave again,” Techno tells him, “I will build an attic just to lock you in it.”

He closes the door behind him before Tommy can respond.

___

“That wasn’t smart,” is the first thing Phil says, when he emerges onto the porch mere minutes later. “You’re putting him on edge. He’s already on a thread, Techno.”

Techno shrugs. “Kid wants to fight me, kid can fight me, Phil. I’m not frightened.”

Phil’s wings flutter. He meets Techno’s eyes. “You’re not. But he is.”

Techno folds his arms across his chest. Outside of the porch, the night hums; fireflies glimmer in the trees. He stares out at the field of grass.

“What’re we gonna do with him, Phil?”

There’s a shuffling behind him of Phil’s leather boots, and Phil steps forward to stand by his side. In the evening lantern light, Phil’s scuffed-up blonde ponytail has a halo around the edges. 

“We can’t just let him leave, Techno.” Phil’s brows are knit with concern. “You saw how skinny he is - and he keeps jumping when I move too fast.”

“I don’t know what you expect me to do about that, Phil.”

“His wings, too,” Phil breathes. “They’re practically mangled. Never once been preened.”

An uneasy feeling snakes into Techno’s chest. “Not like he’ll let you try.”

Phil shrugs. “I dunno, mate. I think I could get there. I think I’m gonna have to get there.”

“If you want so badly to deal with him, take him with you,” Techno urges. “You’ve got a whole lake to plop him down in. Let the friendly mermaid settle him in.”

Phil just looks at him.

The uneasy feeling surges. Techno thinks of the scuffed-up dusty basement-creature currently huddling in his kitchen, and looks at Phil, and shakes his head.

“No,” Techno says, but he waits a moment too long and Phil already has that look about him.

“He’s too jumpy to stay in the lake neighborhood right now, Tech. Too skittish,” Phil says. “He’ll have too much trouble adapting.”

Techno avoids Phil’s gaze even as the weight of it seems to press against the back of his head. “He can manage.”

Phil is quiet for a moment. A pause drags out.

“It’s difficult, you know,” he murmurs, at long last, “To adjust. After all that time in the midst of war. It’s hard to find your place in peacetime. And to tackle that alone, without purpose, without fellowship-”

Techno scoffs. “He’s no ex-soldier, Phil.”

“Technoblade.”

The use of his full name has Techno’s eyes snapping to meet Phil’s despite themselves. Phil holds his gaze. 

“I’m not talking about Tommy.”

There is something acrid and burnt and stinging in the back of Techno’s throat. He blinks, hard, and looks away; his hand, on the axe-hilt of his belt, tenses unconsciously.

“Just think about it, mate,” Phil says, and that easy smile is back. That gentle tone. “No pressure. Just give me a bit to sort things out and you think about it, while I do that. Alright?”

Techno can’t find it in himself to answer.

Chapter Text

There is some kind of mutual, unspoken agreement to which the three of them come while deciding what to do with Tommy next, because there are no protests when Techno lays out blankets across the couch and tosses a pillow at the helm. It is late, after all, and Tommy has shadows under his eyes so big they are nearly engulfing the whole of his face, and even Techno is put off by the idea of letting Tommy spend another second in that cave below his basement. 

So the living room it is, complete the brick fireplace and couch and the barrels piled in the corner. There is dust on the windowsills and old armor in chests that Techno has not moved to the basement quite yet, but he does Tommy the favor of lighting the fire in the hearth, and the room warms fairily quickly

Techno’s own bed - blankets piled on a small dark-wood nook in the cottage’s upper storage room - does not have the space to fit one exhausted, vast-winged Philza. Philza takes this as an invitation to make his exit, returning to sleep in his house beside the lake. Techno watches his exit through the shattered kitchen window, glimpsing the flash of pale feathers on the horizon. As Philza’s shadowed figure disappears into the midnight, Techno catches mirrored glimpses of winged creatures, their forms blocking out the starlight as they circle overhead, sharklike.

Phantoms. 

Techno steps away from the window, moving so hastily his armoured boots clink loudly against the tiled wood. He winces at the thought of Tommy’s sleep in the next room over, but continues to step away - grabbing the rough-hewn blanket that he had found in Tommy’s basement. Techno holds the fabric up to the window, stretching it out across the pane, and drapes it carefully about the windowsill, to block the phantom’s view of the interior of the cottage.

Techno steps back from the window and makes his way to the living room doorway, careful to walk more silently than he had before. The room is a mess, all unused furniture and the smell of smoldering fire; barrels are stacked in the corners and an old war-banner is draped across one brick wall. 

Tommy is sprawled on the sofa, laying on his back - Techno winces, seeing how the position flattens the joints at Tommy’s wings - and staring up at the ceiling, eyes open, a frown ghosting his features. He doesn’t notice Techno’s presence. He also is quite clearly not asleep. 

Techno thinks of the phantoms circling over the cabin. He frowns, but there’s nothing to be done. So Techno takes his leave, and he is asleep before the living room fire has smoldered out.

___

When Techno wakes it is to the cold, pale light of dawn. He dresses quickly, cloak over shoulders and leather-braced boots, and the sun is barely over the horizon when he returns to the kitchen, heading first for the living room entryway; his shadow falls over the couch as he stands in the door.

Tommy is gone.

The realization comes with a sharp rush of adrenaline. Tommy is gone, his blankets with him, and the couch is empty. Techno thinks of the phantoms circling the skies outside, and thinks of spiders and mobs skulking in the shadows of the trees, and he is on his way out the door before he even knows it.

The sun is still rising, and as soon as he steps out the door he is met by the cold chill of morning. He scans the open field stretching out from his house, and finds it empty, the river running peacefully. The trail along the river-bank leading to the lakefront village seems untrodden. 

Techno paces around the edges of the house. He scans the garden, all mesh-wire fence over well-toiled dirt; the barrels of potatoes and the waste-bins of compost. They are all untouched. Finally he lets his gaze drop onto the edge of the house, and he finds a cat, sitting with its tail curled as it diligently watches the brick walls of the house. Techno doesn’t know the cat’s name. Phil had dropped it off when he’d first arrived, citing it as good company for Techno and bad company for creepers; he’d been feeding it from a bowl in the basement and it seemed to have gotten by alright. It stayed mostly out of sight.

But here it is watching something on the roof with sharp, attentive eyes. It barely spares a glance for Techno’s approach. 

He follows its gaze, and there, sure enough - Tommy lays on the wood-tiled roof, sprawled on his back once again, blanket draped over him. He is doused in the chilly light of the sunrise; how he is not frozen cold, Techno has no clue. Why he is sleeping on the roof-top, Techno has equally little idea.

Techno crouches by the cat and holds out a hand. It sniffs him, imperious in its distaste towards his well-worn, clawed fingertips, and as soon as the greeting is done it turns back to its vigil. 

“Phantoms,” Techno voices, the realization coming out-loud. The cat was there to frighten the phantoms away, before Tommy found his way into sleep.

“Good cat,” Techno tells the cat, because he’s not sure what else to say. He leaves it to its vigil.

___

Tommy wakes not half an hour later, and Techno pauses in tilling garden dirt to watch him awkwardly scoot down to sit near the edge of the roof. He looks down at the cat, and up at the garden, and meets Techno’s eyes apprehensively. His hair is mussed about his face and he looks flushed from cold.

“You have a good sleep?” Techno calls. He expects another snappish answer, a snarl or a bitter remark. Instead, Tommy just gives him a somewhat muted nod and attempts to jump from the roof, wings flaring as he makes his descent. It’s a painful landing, one his wings do little to temper - their feathers are still all mussed and painfully askew, and what’s more, he doesn’t seem to know how to use them. He moves them awkwardly, slow to position, and the landing comes with a grimace.

Techno observes this for a moment without moving before stepping forward. He drops his hoe against a compost barrel. “Any particular reason you chose to sleep on the roof?”

Tommy shrugs again, wings shuffling with the movement.

“Cat’s the only reason the phantoms didn’t tear you limb from limb, kid.”

Tommy finally meets his eyes. He frowns. “Her name’s Clem,” he mumbles. “She’s my friend. I fed her in the basement. Are you angry?”

Techno is so startled by the manner in which Tommy delivers the question that he fails to answer for a moment, which causes Tommy to give him a faltering look and step cautiously back.

“I’m not mad. About what, the roof thing?”

Tommy nods.

“Long as you don’t get my house blown apart by creepers, I could care less.”

There’s a relief, in the way that Tommy accepts that answer, but the hesitancy doesn’t fade. He follows Techno’s summons into the cottage with an air that Techno might describe as being almost somber. He seems to be waiting for another shoe to drop before returning to his previous hostility; the bark has been drained all out of him. 

Techno ignores the change in attitude. He’s a warrior, not a child behavioral analyst, and what the kid thinks of him is his own business. Instead he busies himself preparing a pot of soup. The water is almost set to boiling when a knock comes on the door. Tommy, who is sitting at the table with his shoulders curled, visibly straightens, and his hand drops from where it had been picking at Phil’s bandages.

Techno answers the knock to find a man with tousled brown hair standing on the other side. He’s got an oddly floaty look about him of having just faded into being, and he’s hunched under the stoop just in the shade; a thick wool coat falls around his knees. He gives Techno a wispy smile and edges inside before Techno can fully open the door.

“May I come in?” the man says, brightly, as he already stands fully inside the house.

Techno gives him a look. 

“Sorry. I’m Wilbur,” Wilbur says, and sticks out a hand to shake. Techno takes it quite tentatively, and Wilbur enthusiastically shakes his hand - Techno has to stiffen his fingers to keep his claws from leaving scratches. 

“You’re Phil’s son,” Techno recognizes. “The phantom hybrid.”

Wilbur nods and reaches out to take the open door from Techno’s grasp, sliding it firmly closed and thus cutting off the rays of sunlight falling onto the doorstep. “You’ll excuse the intrusion,” he says somewhat cheerily. “I’m somewhat allergic to sunlight. Phil told me you have a visitor!”

“I do,” Techno grunts. “Would you like to see him?”

Tommy had been sitting around the corner, at the kitchen table, but when Techno steps back to get a look at him he sees Tommy’s chair empty. Evidently, the kid had taken the rapping at the door as a prompt to make himself scarce. 

“No, actually.” Wilbur steps further into the kitchen. “I was hoping to have a moment with just you, Techno.”

Techno blinks at him.

“We have a lot to talk about,” Wilbur explains. 

Techno turns towards the table. There is a scuffling, in the living room, and the sound of someone descending a ladder further into the house.

Techno turns to Wilbur and finds the man has busied himself with closing all of the kitchen curtains. His hand falls into a patch of sunlight, as he does, and he yanks it back and shakes it as though he’d touched a hot stove.

Techno takes pity on him. “I’ll get it,” he grunts, and moves to close the rest of the curtains. “Take a seat.”

Wilbur takes a seat. Techno rattles the last curtain closed and leans over the pot at the stove to check its temperature - not quite boiling, yet, but rattling with the heat. 

“You’re here about the kid,” Techno guesses, watching the chopped potatoes bubble at the bottom of the stew. 

“I’m here about the kid,” Wilbur confirms. He leans forward, elbows bracing against the table. “He’s an avian hybrid, isn’t he? Any idea where he’s from?”

“Not a clue.”

“I’ve got a bit of a hunch,” Wilbur says. “I’ll tell you why. I used to live east of here, wandered around a fair bit. Saw my fair share of things. From what I’ve heard, you’re also a man of the land, Technoblade, eh?”

Techno shrugs one shoulder without turning around. “I’ve been here and there,” he confirms, words clipped.

“Phil speaks very highly of you. I’ve been led to believe you’re something of a sensation up in the northern wastelands, in fa-”

“I thought you were here for the kid,” Techno interrupts. 

The patient smile is audible in Wilbur’s voice. “I’m building up to that, man, don’t worry. You’re just an awfully hard man to get ahold of, is all.”

Techno shifts his stance. The soup begins to boil. “I’ve been busy,” he says, and it’s almost the truth - he has busied himself, yes, but he has not quite been busy.  

“Good to keep busy,” Wilbur says. “You ever travelled east, mate?”

“Can’t say I have.”

There’s a shuffling noise as Wilbur rearranges at the table. “There’s a lot of, ah, anti-hybrid sentiment in the east,” he begins. “I used to sort of go from town to town, for a bit, and I found it became quite difficult to get a place that turned a blind eye to hybrid traits and such. That’s where I met most of the people you’ll find around here. I brought them with me, when I came out further west.”

Techno finds the nearest spoon and takes to stirring the pot.

“The last place I came upon seemed to have gone downhill in the past year or so - it was a failed democratic system. Tubbo and Ranboo and sorts used to work with the president’s cabinet,” Wilbur continued. “Schlatt died, though, and things took a bit of a turn. The man who took over in his place got a lot nastier. Wasn’t safe for the kids, any longer, so I figured it was time. Had to round everyone up and get the hell out of there.”

“Wasn’t safe,” Techno repeats. “In what way?”

Wilbur drums his fingers on the counter in an absent-minded pattern. “The man who took over wasn’t overly fond of hybrids. Sentiment grew. He went after Ranboo and I knew it was time. The reason I say, is - from what Phil tells me this kid displays every sign of a similar situation,” he explains. “Doesn’t know how to handle his wings - that’s very common. Might not understand what’s changed about his diet, his sleeping patterns.”

“He slept on the roof,” Techno muses.

“They do that,” Wilbur tells him. “You get used to it. My guess is that his hybrid traits were only recently triggered. He’s clearly running from something. Whether that’s the thing that triggered his hybrid form, or whether it’s a risk posed by anti-hybrid sentiment wherever it was he came from - I’m more used to seeing kids in that sort of state further east.”

Techno pauses in observing the boiling pot and turns to face Wilbur. He crosses his arms, taps his wrist absently against the faded white fabric of his shirt. “You think he’s running from something?” 

“I think he’s running from some where ,” Wilbur corrects. “And if he’s unlucky, some one .”

Techno thinks of all he’s seen of Tommy - the un-preened wings. The uncomfortable skinniness to his frame. The sharp edges at the corners of his tone, contrasted with the subdued, cautious way he’d asked are you angry after descending from the rooftop - almost like there were moments that he was testing something, gauging Techno’s reaction, and moments where he held himself still in anticipation of a backlash. 

“I suspect a someone.”

Wilbur grimaces. “That’s unpleasant, but not unexpected. Did he tell you his name?”

“He says it’s Tommy,” Techno tells him.

Wilbur’s tapping goes still. He pauses, a pained look ghosting across his face. “I knew a kid named that, once,” he murmurs. “But Tommy - well. It’s been a while. I’ve - I’ve stayed too long, Technoblade, I don’t mean to keep you.”

Barely ten minutes had passed, but Techno merely quirks an eyebrow - if Wilbur wishes to leave, Techno’s not the sort to stop him. Even if his escape seems somewhat rushed, and the shift in his mood seems markedly for the worse. 

“I hope what I told you will help, even a little,” Wilbur tells him. “It’s good to know what you’re dealing with. You seem a good sort of fellow, mate. Come down to the lake and pay us a visit sometime.”

“I will,” Technoblade promises. A vow he does not intend to keep.

Wilbur doesn’t take the door. There’s a shimmering, and a faded sort of blue engulfs his appearance - and he’s gone before Techno can blink, dropped through the floor like water dissolving into a carpet.

“Glory be,” Techno mutters - a prayer to nothing that can hear. And then he goes to find the kid.

Chapter Text

The cave is stifling. The smell of stone and moss and mold mix with the traces of Tommy’s own occupation, from scattered feathers to the oils along his wings that have gathered on the rocks from endless nights spent sleeping on the rough stone, and it makes it all the more difficult to find his breath as he huddles in the shadows. His wings are folded around him, arms around knees against chest, and he breaths steadily - quietly - a smooth rhythm. In and out and in and out.

He is not to make any noise. This is not a logical rule, nor one that fits his new situation - that strange new place into which Tommy has crawled, the basement he clawed into via brute force and raw desperation. Everything has changed, and the rule does not apply, and yet Tommy finds himself breathing carefully nonetheless. Quietly. Not a sound to disrupt the gentle ambiance of the cave.

There had been a knock on the door. Most likely it was merely Philza, back with his bucket hat and his bandages and his wings the color of a void. It didn’t matter much to Tommy. Visitors were visitors, and he was forbidden from approaching them. The cave was his only respite. 

I should feed Clementine, he finds himself thinking. Technoblade feeds her plenty, but she grew fond of him for a reason - he used to slip her extra food, veal from the meat barrel propped next to the basement potato bin. She wouldn’t have frightened off the phantoms for him, if not for that small kindness. Tommy, after all, had little to offer her in the way of charm or gentle handling. He had always loved animals, but he was shit with taking care of them; there was a reason Dream had taken any Tommy grew fond of. He was too close to animal for wild things to make good playmates.

Tommy shift somewhat, stretching his wings, and the sound of ruffling feathers echoes. He tenses on instinct, but forces himself to push through the movement regardless. Silence is not called upon in this moment, even if years of Dream’s persistent care had left it imprinted in his mind: when there are visitors, Tommy is to be silent. He is not to be seen.

There is a thumping, far above, and the muted sound of footsteps is audible through the ceiling of the cave. 

“Tommy?” Technoblade calls.

Tommy does not answer. He hunches a little, involuntarily, and the footsteps grow louder. Techno pulls aside the false planks covering the cavern entrance, and light floods the cavern. The descent is careful, his reinforced boots clanking dully against the ladder, and the lantern clasped in Techno’s free hant fills the room with pale golden light.

“Hey, kid,” Techno says, and there’s an gentleness to his blunt tone. “What’s going on?”

Tommy finds himself tapping an almost frantic rhythm into his own calves. He shakes his head, eyes fixing on a point above Techno’s head - above the gleaming white tusks, or the startling red eyes. 

“You look a little freaked out, Tommy,” Techno tells him, and Tommy feels the blood-red gaze boring a hole through his gut. “Talk to me.”

Tommy is not freaked out. Tommy is calm, Tommy is collected, he is doing everything that he is meant to be doing - staying silent, staying out of sight; his wings are folded neatly, as compact as he can make them - but all this is still not enough for Technoblade, whose look of concentrated concern does not fade. Tommy is at a loss for what to do next. He feels his heart rate begin to pick up. The rhythm he is tapping becomes more frantic.

“I’m not freaked out,” he tells Techno. The words come out all quiet, docile, almost muted. Techno’s expression does not shift, and Tommy feels a spark of anger. If acting as is as appropriate will not be enough to satiate Technoblade, Tommy will have to try his original strategy: throw it all to the wind. He is already in a pit; what’s to lose from keeping digging - at some point he’ll have to find Techno’s rock bottom. At some point he’ll be able to map out the cracked points in the fragile floor on which he stands.

So Tommy takes a breath and begins to dig.

“I said I’m not freaked out, bitch,” he repeats, the docility gone from his tone. “Don’t look at me like that.”

The expression Techno directs at him is one of utter passivity. He is wholly removed from emotion, unimpressed at best by Tommy’s snappish tone. “Why’d you come down here, kid?”

Tommy meets his eyes, briefly, and then looks away. He shuffles, a little. His wings ache from the strain of holding them tight against his back, trying to keep them out of sight.

Fuck it, he decides. He lets them sprawl, muscles relaxing as they spread on either side and brush against the walls of the cavern. The red-gold of the feather tips glints in the lantern light.

The sight of hybrid traits such as wings on display used to irritate Dream. He’d been snappish about it with Ranboo more than once, put on edge by the boy’s tail or off-coloured eyes. It was inappropriate, he had explained, to leave garish things such as wings or tails to the open eye. People were put on edge by the reminder that they were dealing with a kind of wild creature. 

Technoblade, however, does not seem to notice; beyond momentarily flicking his gaze to the sides of the cave, he fails to react. His head tilts. The question that had gone unanswered seems to hang in the air.

Tommy drops his gaze to the floor. “I’m staying out of sight,” he explains.

“Out of whose sight?”

“You have visitors.”

Techno seems almost amused. “What,” he says, “that scrawny dude with the sunlight allergy? Spindly as you are, you could take him in a heartbeat, kid. He was nothing to be frightened of.”

The man rapping at the door had not been who Tommy was frightened of. He’s not sure who he’d been frightened of, really, only that voice in his head persistently keeping him from neglecting his proper behavior. Keeping out of sight from visitors was a necessity, for someone like Tommy. It was a rule. It was a requirement.

Tommy does not repeat this to Techno. He shrugs, instead, and blinks to clear the faint stinging in his eyes. Techno doesn’t seem to know what to do with that - he’s still standing there with the lantern in hand, stooping a little to keep the top of his pink hair from brushing the ceiling. He outstretches a hand towards Tommy, who takes a full second to realize he’s meant to take it.

Still, Tommy hesitates.

“The soup is about to burn,” Techno urges. “Hurry up.”

Tommy takes his hand. 

___

Philza arrives when they’ve nearly begun breakfast. He’s still got that insufferable bucket hat, clad in all green-white stripes and flourishing fabric bound at his waist; his entrance into the kitchen goes without knocking. He merely swings the door open and strides in as if he owns the entire house.

Tommy glances at Techno to gauge his reaction, and finds no reaction to be found. Techno is busy spooning soup into bowls. He doesn’t even grace Philza’s presence the honor of turning around to face him.

“Morning,” Philza says brightly, stepping up to the kitchen table. Tommy, slouched sideways in one of the chairs so that his feathered tail doesn’t catch on the back of the chair, gives him a flat-eyed look of distaste and resists the urge to pick at his bandages further. 

Philza is unbothered. “How’re we feeling, mate?” He asks, eyes dropping to scour Tommy’s injuries. “Good to see you’ve not gouged out the bandages quite yet. Appreciate that. Techno, that smells delicious, by the way.”

“I might even let you have a bowl if you ask nicely,” Techno responds drily. Tommy frowns, tenses slightly - is he expected to gain Technoblade’s favor, in return for the food? Will he be called upon to beg in exchange for his portion, as he had before?

But then he sees that Techno has already spooned out the contents of Philza’s third serving, and registers dimly that the demand was not meant to carry any weight. It was merely a taunt. 

Philza smiles at Techno’s comment, and steps around the table to take two of the bowls - one in each hand - and carry them to the table. “ Aaand I’ll take these. Ooh, they’re still hot. Don’t burn yourself, Tommy.”

Tommy stares at the bowl in front of him. Inside it, a stew of some sort steams softly; a thick brown liquid in which chopped vegetables float about like some kind of seaweed. It looks almost like military food in its simplicity and is plainly strikingly northern in its construction, a far cry from the more temperate varieties of food he had eaten as a child in the southeast. The sight of it prompts memories, unbidden, of a kitchen filled with voices and clattering pans and the steam of freshly baked bread - a holiday feast with his first family, years and years before. He had helped bake the bread, Tommy recalls. He had been the one to mix the dough.

There is an aching feeling at his collarbone. An emptiness in place of the familiar metal of a compass, held up  with leather string and an iron clasp. Tommy reaches, almost automatically, to grasp at his neck, only for his hands to come up empty.

The compass, of course, has not hung about his collarbone for a fair while. Reaching for it is merely old habit, second nature, a kind of automatic instinct as engrained in Tommy as the inexplicable need to scale a roof in order to get a proper sleep. Only these days, when Tommy reaches for the compass, in its absence he hears the sound that the compass had made under Dream’s boot when he had crushed it. The same sound as when he had broken Techno’s window the day before, only shifted down in scale; a quiet disintegration as the glass interior cracked into bits. Shards grinding into the dirt - the metal needle cracking and bending.

“You’re gonna eat that, right?” Phil’s voice asks, cutting through the unbidden memories. Tommy glances up. Phil has already pulled a chair, but he’s glancing at Tommy’s untouched bowl with slight concern. Tommy follows his gaze, surveys the portion - richer, better food than he has had laid before him in as long as he can remember - and finds that he has never been less hungry in his life.

“Oh, he’s gonna eat it,” Techno’s voice comes, from where he stands at the sink with his back turned. When he moves to rinse the pan, the dagger he wears at his hip brushes against the chains at his belt and makes a clinking noise. “I didn’t make all that for waste.”

“Fuck you, bitch, I eat what I want,” Tommy mutters, resentment seeping into his tone, but he hears the growling note to Techno’s tone - fills in what goes unsaid, in Technoblade’s obvious expectation of Tommy’s compliance -  and knows that it’s a lie. 

Philza fails to react. He merely smiles. Tommy, once again, has that unsettling feeling of having missed a step going down the stairs: he took an action, was met without reaction, and for a moment, he is free falling. So Tommy takes the only measure of which he can think, and reaches forward to eat his soup.

___

Tommy excuses himself rapidly after dinner. The soup goes down all funny, and he begins to feel violently ill in a way that has him slipping onto the outside porch the moment Philza and Technoblade are out of sight.

He stands there, hunched a little with his wings drawn up against his back in tight discomfort, and attempts for a long moment to dispel the sour illness stirring in his gut. He is unsuccessful, and the remnants of Technoblade’s finely cooked breakfast are promptly removed from his stomach deposited onto the grassy dirt to the right of the porchfront.

The discomfort is replaced, rather than eased. Tommy is left crouching in the dirt with a growing swell of anxiety, deep in his chest. A familiar voice rattles at the back of his head, painful and persistent.

You’re being ungrateful, Tommy, the voice tells him. You are being granted generosity beyond anything you could deserve, and this is how you pay it?

Technoblade had cooked him breakfast, prepared it, served it, without any prior demands of payment nor expectations of deference. He had been kind, unnecessarily so. And Tommy had wasted his food, wasted the entire serving, more than he had eaten in weeks - a loss that sits heavy in his gut as he stares as the mess he’d made. Guilt mixes with a desperate kind of anxiety as he considers how Technoblade will react.

The thought occurs, for not the first time: he could try to escape, again. Attempt as he had when he’d broken out the window, as he had when Technoblade had first drug him up from the basement, kicking and biting like every wild thing Dream had tried to train out of him. But something in him recalls the gentleness with which Phil had patched his wounds, and the softness of the blankets Technoblade had draped over him as he tried to sleep the night before, and that part of him - the selfish part of him, the weaker part of him, the gullible part of him - knows that he will not see such an attempt through. Not yet. 

After all, there is nowhere for him to go - not with the compass broken, not with his wings so very visible and so very detestably animal so as to prevent his being welcomed into any sort of respectable establishment further east. He has burned his bridges with Dream so thoroughly beyond compare that the thought of returning to the arms of the man he’d once considered his only friend only prompts a further surge of guilt, of anxiety, of sick uncertainty. 

Tommy is trapped. He is a cornered animal, through and through. It is everything that Dream warned him he would become.

He hunches, a little, and breathes a stuttered exhale that feels like it’s being squeezed out of him by force. He stands, eventually, and takes a step back, but it does nothing to quell the growing dread climbing his throat. There’s a voice from inside the cottage, audible through the thin panes of the window, and Tommy hears Phil shouting something. 

“He’s not in here, either, Tech,” Phil is calling. “We ought to check out fro-”

The door swings open, and Phil’s sentence dies mid-word. He glances at Tommy, seems to put together what has happened in a matter of moments. Tommy seizes a clutch of feathers, half on instinct, and absently scratches at them as he glowers at Phil.

“Oh shit ,” Phil says. “You alright, mate? Techno,” he calls, glancing over his shoulder - “Come on, get out here.”

Tommy’s gut curdles again. With his free hand, he wipes his mouth on the front of his shirt with altogether too much aggression. 

The telltale sound of boots against hardwood sounds against the panels of the cottage floor, and Technoblade appears in the doorway. He gives Tommy a once-over, as if checking for any immediate mortal wounds, and then spots the mess in front of him and gives a pained grimace.

“Your food’s shit, mate,” Tommy informs him, and manages to return the usual bite to his tone. “I know I’m a bit of a pest, my man, but rat poison’s more effective on vermin than whatever the fuck that was.”

Technoblade looks uncomfortable at the comparison, and he goes momentarily silent. Philza fills in the silence. “You should of told us if you felt sick, Tommy. I didn’t think - but of course, a return to regular meals would be a bit of a process - goddamn it. I should have figured.”

Tommy just stands there, glowering, discomfort pricking at him like a thornbush. He continues to tug, anxiously, at the fluff edging his primary feathers, raking one fingernail absently over the hard bristle of the feathers’ vanes.  

Phil just sighs. “Techno, will you take him to get cleaned up? I’ll deal with the mess.”

Techno gives a nod, piercing red gaze never once straying from Tommy, and he turns his back on the lot of them and gestures for Tommy to follow him into the cottage. Tommy freezes for a moment, like a deer in headlights - and is snapped into action by the thudding of the door swinging shut.

“Go on, mate,” Phil says, and he gives a weary sort of smile. Tommy gives him an unhappy look and bounds the porch steps in chase of Techno.

__

Techno is quiet as he leads Tommy to the cottage bathroom, quiet as he swings open the creaking spruce-wood door, quiet as kneels by the bath to test the temperature of the water. It is only once the water is running and the basin has begun to fill that he first speaks.

His voice is so monotone that Tommy almost misses it entirely. “I didn’t mean it as an order,” he begins, and he’s the look on his face as he speaks the words seems unsettled. “When I said you needed to eat.”

Tommy gives him a long, hard look, and finds no disingenuity written in his features. 

“Very little of what I say is meant as an order,” Technoblade continues, in a rough murmur, “and the longer you stay here - which as it stands, I believe may be for some time - the more important it will be for you to learn that. When I give you orders, they will be rare between, and for good reason. I do not spend them on such things as breakfast.”

“What about ordering people to do shit isn’t meant to be interpreted as ordering people to do shit,” Tommy asks, irritation creeping into his tone. He doesn’t know what to do with this, any of this - the muted lack of reaction on Technoblade’s part, or the concern on Phil’s, or whatever it is that seems to be bothering Technoblade. 

“I understand that,” Technoblade says. “I’ll try to speak with more precision, in future.” 

Tommy just looks away, unease once again prickling under his skin. 

Technoblade switches off the water and rises from the tub basin. “I’ll leave you to it,” he says. “And I’ll put a clean shirt on the doorknob, since the old one needs cleaning.”

He takes two steps and the door swings shut behind him. Tommy is left alone in the bathroom, hunched by the heated bath. He inhales, and finds that everything smells of steam. 

Chapter Text

After Tommy bathes and changes and takes a few hours to mill about the cottage sullenly, Techno decides to take him out back to the garden that evening and show him the ropes. He says Tommy might as well learn how to keep up with a garden, if he’d planned so extensively on stealing from Techno’s. The sun has just crested the peak of the horizon and is settling into the western sky as they exit the cottage’s front steps, and a fresh, crisp breeze ruffles Tommy’s feathers during the walk to the back garden. He shivers despite himself, chilled by the water still soaked into his slowly drying feathers.

Techno’s premise is one Tommy can’t argue with, but he still he gathers his wits about him enough to spit and holler the whole way out to the crops. Techno seems to find the disrespect amusing. This had not been the reaction Tommy had expected, but he finds himself leaning into it regardless; there’s something oddly comforting about Techno’s odd, gravelly chuckle, or the quiet snort that he makes every time Tommy attempts to insult him or make this or that wildly inaccurate declaration. The back and forth feels oddly familiar in a way that Tommy can’t quite place; from a time before exile, perhaps. Before Dream had trained that sort of bark and bite out of him.

But Techno isn’t Dream. He doesn’t much inclined to follow in Dream’s footsteps, either. So until Techno draws his lines in the sand, Tommy finds himself enjoying a momentary return to character.

Techno asks him if he’d like to start by hauling a heavy bucket to the river and back, for watering the crops with. It’s phrased, quite clearly, as an request. There is no order to be found in his tone, this time around.

Tommy obeys regardless. 

“You’re a bitch,” he informs Techno, as he takes up the bucket and with a great huff, drags it up to hold it against his chest. “And your potatoes aren’t even all that great, pig-boy.”

Techno looks down at him through a thoroughly unimpressed gaze and does not respond. He shrugs, turns, and begins walking to the compost barrels at the opposite end of the garden.

Tommy turns and, somewhat stumblingly, carries the bucket down across the grass-filled field to the river. He sets it down with a great thud, and sits down next to it to catch his breath. He’s found, altogether, that he gets winded a great deal more than he used to, these days; his bones feel more brittle, every step a hint more fragile. Exile had left him hungry at times, but the sheer scarcity of food in the weeks since he’s manifested ring in his ears with an uncomfortable sort of dizziness whenever he walks too far or carries a load too heavy.

After he’d gotten out of his bath, that morning, Phil had fed him some sort of potato concoction that tasted more like a horrible paste than food. He’d said it would be more to Tommy’s current capacity than the stew that Techno had made. Tommy had eaten it, although at what cost to his tastebuds, he could never be sure. Now, as he sits by the river and kicks idly at the gravel banks, he finds that he has more real energy than he’s felt in a good long while. I should have given Phil more credit , he thinks. It was mashed-up paste, sure, but an energy efficient paste. 

He scoots forward to get closer to the river-water. He can see, further down the bank, some sort of gravel path leading into the distance, likely directing towards some form of civilization or a proper set of roads. Techno can’t actually live in the middle of nowhere, after all. And Phil probably has a house somewhere, unless he’s just wandering around Techno’s backyard like a stray cat.

The river burbles, blue surface reflecting the clear, sunny skies above. Tommy taps the surface with one hand and finds that it’s startlingly, refreshingly cold.

Tommy shifts into a kneeling position and grabs the bucket, scooping up a suitable content of river-water. He’s about to stand and make the trek back to Techno’s garden when he spots something rippling below the surface of the water.

Tommy stills mid-crouch and slowly sets the bucket to the side. He leans forward, somewhat, and squints in an attempt to catch another glimpse of whatever he’d seen moving.

The rippling returns. It’s a metallic, gold-dappled green, like rusted bronze, and he’s able to make out a clear scale pattern, like on a fish tail. He reaches forward, again, instinctually touching the surface of the water with one spread palm.

“Hello,” A voice burbles through the water, and Tommy startles so thoroughly he falls back against the bank with a hard thud . “Nice to meet you.”

He stares at the water with a feverish intensity for a whole five seconds before he spots the source of the voice. The top of someone’s head emerges, up to the eyes, with thick pink hair falling into their eyes and spreading across the river-surface. If he squints, he can see below that the hints of a neck and a willowy brown shirt that looks to be knitted out of kelp.

“Fuck off,” Tommy says immediately, reacting out of instinct. “What the fuck, bitch. Who the fuck are you.”

“I’m Niki,” Niki says, her voice burbling softly and yet carrying oddly well through the water. “I live here. I’m sorry if I startled you.”

“You’re in a fucking river,” Tommy snaps. “Why the fuck are you in a river.”

“I live here,” she repeats. Then she dives underwater, hair poofing around her as she does, and a tail flicks up above the water - the same bronze-green scales Tommy had seen before, the tips of the tail drooping down to softly brush the water. Below the surface, Niki twists around so she’s looking up at him from below the water and grins; bubbles rise up from her hair.

“Oh,” Tommy says, feeling rather daft. “You live here.”

Niki twists around again so her face is out of the water and tail’s back in. “I’m sorry if I startled you,” she says again.

“It’s alright,” Tommy tells her, because she’s acting so calm about it all that he feels somewhat bad for calling her a bitch. “It happens.”

“I’ve heard about you,” Niki says. “Do you live with Techno, now?” 

Every time she talks he can see the tips of razor-sharp fangs that could probably tear his arm off in an instant. Dream had told him, once, that mer-folk - or aquatic hybrids - were the sort of creatures that weren’t well accustomed to surface dwelling society. They were flighty, and quick-tempered, and treated everything as a threat. All it took was the wrong move around them for things to start going wildly, drastically wrong, and next thing you knew you’d got a stingray tail through the abdomen. 

Niki, however, is looking at him with a pure, levelheaded interest; she’s got her head tilted somewhat, and is smiling at him in a way he hasn’t seen in a good long while. It’s difficult for Tommy to imagine her temper snapping. 

“It’s complicated,” he tells her vaguely, because he’s not entirely sure of a good answer to that question. “I’m helping him with the garden, one might say.”

She smiles. “That’s good of you. Between you and I, I’m glad to see him with company.”

“Oh,” Tommy says, to hide the fact that he has no idea what that means.

Niki swishes her tail back and forth, causing the water to ripple somewhat. “I don’t want to keep you,” she says brightly, “But if you ever need anything, come and find me. I’ll be here. Or-” she gestures vaguely in the direction of the gravel path. “Down at the lake. It’s nice to meet you, Tommy.”

“You too,” Tommy says automatically, biting back the instinct to add a bitch at the end. 

Niki swirls her tail at him and disappears below the water’s surface. Tommy sits there for a long moment, staring at where she’d disappeared to, before he grabs the bucket and stumbles to his feet.

______

Techno shows Tommy how to garden. He starts with planting potatoes - how much soil to use to cover them, how to space them out across the coarse farmland. Everything in the valley smells like wind and freshly tilled soil, in an oddly comforting, earthy kind of way; Tommy, freshly bathed, takes not an hour to re-dirty his entire forearms up to his elbows.

Techno snorts at him when he sees this. Tommy glares daggers in response, which Techno ignores entirely. It feels familiar and foreign all at once, to be coated in dirt the same way he had during the early days of exile - before Dream had helped him settle into a proper routine. And yet for some reason this kind of dirt - the garden soil up to his elbows, wings drying slowly under the warm sun, feeling more full and well-fed then he’s felt as long as he remembers - is infinitely more comfortable than anything from that first year of Logstedshire’s construction.

They work well into the evening - neither of them talking much, beyond Techno’s occasional feedback. It’s not until the sun is starting to set on the horizon, a dull red sheen shining through the trees and across the river, that Techno seems to notice they’ve been working for hours. He straightens and looks at the sky, then at Tommy, then at the sky again.

“It would be best if you went inside, Tommy,” he says. “It’s getting late.”

Tommy gives him a long look. Part of him wants to protest, but the evening chill is starting to seep into the air, and his shirt - the white sleeveless one Techno had lent him, which is now caked in dirt head to toe - is not enough to cut through the breeze. 

“If you say so, big man,” he mumbles. “You’re not coming?”

Techno just shakes his head.

Tommy stares at him for a moment before turning heel and marching around the house. By the time he circles back around to the porch, he can see the lanterns inside lit up. There’s a familiar winged silhouette cast against the fabric that someone had draped over the broken kitchen window.

He knocks on the door, first, and then rethinks that level of caution and swings it open. Phil glances up from where he stands stirring a pot at the stove and smiles at him.

“Come on in, mate,” he says. “You look like you’ve been busy. Do me a favor and wash up at the sink first. And take off your shoes. And, ah - I cleaned your shirt. It’s in the bathroom, if you’d like.”

Tommy lingers for a long moment in the doorway. Again, he feels somewhat addled, out of sync; like he’s been thrown into a perfectly painted portrait of a place he does not belong, and he simply doesn’t fit within the frame. Eventually, he takes a step forward and shuts the door behind him, cutting off the warm scent of the outdoors - grass and riverside breeze.

“I’m just gonna use the bathroom,” Tommy mutters, and he rushes out of the kitchen before Philza can protest.

______

By the time Tommy returns, he has scrubbed the dirt from his arms so thoroughly that his torso stings from the lukewarm water. His shoes have been removed, his shirt replaced; he stands in the entrance to the kitchen with an awkward uncertainty, waiting for Phil to instruct him as to his purpose.

“You can take a seat,” Phil tells him. He’s already dished out a bowl of the same sickly paste from that morning, only this time, there are a few spices thrown onto the top and a sprinkling of salt. Tommy takes a seat and Phil sets the paste in front of him along with a spoon.

Tommy stares at it for a long moment, and then looks up at Phil, waiting for some kind of cue - but Phil has already turned his back, and is rinsing out a pan at the sink. Tommy glances around him, for a moment, unsure what to do.

Were this a proper meal, he would follow in the lead of Techno or Phil and eat when they ate; but here, he is the only one being served. This is an uncomfortable singularity. Eating alone, when under the direction of others who haven’t yet had their meal, is something Tommy knows to be inappropriate.

He doesn’t know how to explain this. Not when Phil turns from his pan and glances at the untouched bowl and gives him a quizzical, uncertain look.

“There something wrong with it, mate?” Phil asks. “I can try-”

“No,” Tommy says immediately, cutting him off. “There’s nothing wrong with it.”

Phil looks at him for a moment. “Oh,” he says, eventually. “Why aren’t you eating, then, mate?”

Tommy meets his eyes and then glances away. He shrugs. “I shouldn’t,” he says, after a long pause. “It’s not - I shouldn’t.”

Phil wipes his hand on a dishtowel and turns fully to face Tommy. “Are you feeling sick again?”

Tommy shakes his head.

“Alright,” Phil says, after a pause. He’s frowning slightly. “I’ll tell you what, then - I need to go and fetch Techno. While I’m out there, see how you feel, eat something if you feel up to it, okay mate? You could use the nutrition. Don’t push yourself, though.”

Tommy nods at him. Phil gives that amiable smile again and heads for the door, feathers fluffing behind him as he steps into the cold evening. 

It takes a few moments - as though he’s wading upstream through a river - but Tommy takes a bite. The paste tastes like paste, as it had before. He takes another bite, and another, and finds that his stomach does not turn as it had that morning. 

He finishes the entire bowl before Phil comes back from the garden. He’s alone, wiping his boots on the doormat with a weary look. Techno is nowhere to be found. 

“No Techno just yet,” he announces. “He’s staying out to garden.”

Tommy frowns. Philza seems to notice his confusion, because he gives a reassuring smile, rubbing his hands together as if to warm them.

“He’s fine,” Phil reassures. “He needs a minute out there, I think. It helps clear his head. Quite frankly, out of all the activities Techno usually takes up to clear his head, I greatly prefer this one.”

Tommy doesn’t know what that means, so he idly taps his spoon against the empty insides of his bowl and does not respond.

Phil notices. “You finished,” he says, smiling. “Thanks for that, mate. I’m glad.”

“Mm,” Tommy says, by means of acknowledgement.

Tommy begins to feel sleepy, all of the the sudden, with his limbs are aching from the work he’d done in the garden. The instinct to climb somewhere and form a nest is starting to prickle at the edges of his mind - he thinks of his spot on the roof, again, and wonders if he would be allowed to return there.

It’s worth a try. He stands, yawns, and goes to find Clementine.

Chapter Text

The days start to trickle by faster, after those first few anxious afternoons and feverish mornings. The hours start to speed up like honey gaining momentum down the bark of a beehive tree, and Techno finds himself watching as the world around him settles into a routine. Everything around him is moving, changing, settling in; Techno feels like he’s standing still at the center of a bustle of activity, watching and waiting and trying to move with a flow he hasn’t quite found the pace of, like a fish turning circles in the middle of a rushing river.

Tommy starts doing chores around the cottage. Techno isn’t sure why; it’s not like he’s trying to make himself likable, as in the moments where he’s solidly grounded - obviously feeling secure in his safety - he still treats everything around him with a constant, callous disrespect. He’s like a parrot taught to speak by soldiers, snapping out insults and offenses at everything that moves. 

Nonetheless, Tommy manages to keep himself busy: he cleans the windows, dusts the tables, and sorts the chests back into shape even as he steals all the golden apples from Techno’s storage, hiding them away in his rucksacks and pockets and the corners of the house.

He sleeps on the roof, still. Phil comes over every evening to help Techno with construction of an enclosed dormer window in the very center of the roof, right above the brilliantly lit second story attic. Construction is made difficult, with the items piled into barrels and stacked along the attic walls. Techno’s own bed, a thin mattress tucked into a dark oak corner nook, is shadowed by stacks of sealed farm produce or discarded old equipment.

“You gotta clean this shit out, mate,” Phil tells him, the dozenth time they’re trying to deconstruct a patch of the attic roof only for the junk to block their way. “You sleep up here, Techno. It’s not sanitary.”

“I gotta keep this shit somewhere,” Techno tells him, leaning down and picking up a sword scabbard. He still wears his armour, most days, at least the less clunky bits - the shinguards and the shoulder spaulders, the armoured netherite boots. It’s good to stay prepared. (Even if he hasn’t lifted a sword in months. Sometimes he grows tempted to try practicing again; to get out the old axe and run through his drills, perfect his swings, relearn the steps he’d forgotten via months of peaceful farming. Something in him doesn’t let that happen. He has this overbearing, deeply unnerving sense that were he to touch the blade of his battle-axe again, he would find it still wet with blood.)

Phil gives him a look. “I don’t think you do, Techno,” he says. “I mean, you haven’t used that sword in years. You don’t need it. I know you well enough to be sure that if we run into trouble, all you’ll be swinging is your fists and your axe.”

Techno frowns. He turns the scabbard over in one palm, carefully feeling the texture of the leather. “Phil, what are you suggesting? That I junk all this old stuff? I’m not doing that.”

Phil frowns. He nudges aside a bundled-up cape with one foot - a sky blue one, likely a leftover garment from their years teaming together in the Northern Wastes - and twirls the hammer he’s holding in his free hand; his bucket hat dips a little with the movement, and he nudges it back into place. “Alright,” he says. “Alright. But at least let me help you all the rest of it down to the basement. The barrels of wine and potatoes and so on don’t need to rot up here.”

There’s a thumping from the ladder as Tommy climbs up it, and a blond head pokes up from the corner of Techno’s vision, watching them both without emerging from the hatch. Techno ignores Tommy, and glances around him - at the sunlight filtering through the windows, the dust hanging in the air, the thick piles of broken hoes and rusted water buckets and stacked-up, sealed barrels - and shrugs. “I’ll consider it,” he says. “But better let me do the heavy lifting. Wouldn’t wanna strain your back, Phil.”

Phil reaches over and swats him sharply upside the back of his head. Techno chuckles - a deep, rumbling thing that rattles through his whole chest - and ducks to avoid a follow-up blow.

When he finally glances at Tommy, he finds the kid hanging half in the hatch, half out; his forearms are propped on the wood floor as he perches halfheartedly on the ladder. He seems to be shrinking back, all the sudden, like he’s intending to climb back down.

“Hold up, kid,” Techno says. “What do you need?”

Tommy stalls. He frowns. Techno glances at Phil, who meets his eyes before stepping forward, all the sudden, to stand an inch nor two nearer Techno’s side; a more comfortable kind of nearness. An earnest demonstration.

“...It’s your horse,” Tommy says. He seems to be glancing between the two of them every few moments, as if watching a particularly slow tennis match. “The bitch got out. I told him to get back in and he won’t listen to me.”

Techno and Phil exchange another look. “I’ll go deal with it,” Techno grunts, after a moment; “Carl does as Carl wants, kid. He’s not gonna listen to orders.”

Carl does listen to orders, really, but not from scrawny little avian teenagers with egos too big for their fledgling wings; aside from Techno, the only person he’s ever obeyed has been Phil. Techno likes that about him.

(The fledgling wings are another issue. It’s been a week, give or take, and Tommy’s wings are still in absolute disarray - every feather is out of alignment, dust falling constantly from the down and his primaries matted with dirt along the tips. Phil confided in Techno, once, that he suspects Tommy squeezes or tugs at them when stressed - a common enough response in avians, if ultimately destructive. Any effort on Phil’s part to convince Tommy to clean them, or accept assistance in preening, has been quite vehemently denied.)

Tommy starts up chatting the minute he reaches the bottom of the ladder. He’s holding a golden apple, taking great big chomps out of it every time he pauses for breath, and Techno frowns a little; he’d asked Tommy, time after time, to try different sources in his quest for edible food. Gapples aren’t cheap, after all - but Phil says that as long as Tommy’s eating, Techno needs to leave it be.

So Techno breathes a long sigh out through his nose, and does his best to leave it be.

“I used to know a cow,” Tommy is saying, quite thoughtfully. “Named him Mushroom Henry. Big fan of Mushroom Henry, I was. Good lad, that cow. Not a horse, though. They’re very different creatures, you know, Technoblade.”

“I’d noticed,” Techno hums.

“I preferred Mushroom Henry,” Tommy mutters to himself. “Your horse is a bitch, big man. Kicked his stall right open and strolling around like he owns the place - as if! I own the place. I run this town.”

Techno looks at him, a skeptical quirk to his eyebrows, and it occurs to him - for not the first time - the sheer range of Tommy’s personality. He can get fired up enough to spit pure venom and then become a cowering, frightened fledgling of a boy again in mere seconds, if you know how to push the right buttons; it’s almost creepy, the way his reactions are so sudden and so absolute. When comfortable, Tommy tends to be loud, and obnoxious, and the kind of kid that used to always get themselves into trouble on the battlefield.

This isn’t a battlefield, Techno reflects. But he doesn’t doubt Tommy could find trouble regardless.

They emerge from the cabin onto the field to be met by brilliant sunlight, and Techno finds that Tommy had been honest in his assessment of the situation. Carl is milling about in the field in front of the house, having wandered a few feet off from his stables, which seem to have been kicked open.

Techno stomps across the field to stand in front of Carl and pats his hand absently on Carl’s long mane. For a moment it’s almost funny, now that Tommy is here standing in front of him, to observe the stark difference in height between him and a mere horse: Carl stands proud and strong, a massive war-horse clearly tuned to navigate battlefields and warfronts. He’s all rippling muscle and sleek brown hair. Standing rather sulkingly a few feet away, Tommy looks like a particularly skinny ostrich, with his hair all ruffled up from lack of brushing.

“The fuck are you laughing at,” Tommy says, glowering at him. “Stop being a - an absolute chucklefuck and get your horse in line, pig-man.”

“Did you just call me a chucklefuck ?” Techno asks, amused.

There’s a pause, as Tommy seems to register the humorous note to Techno’s tone, before he manages to gather the appropriate level of offense. “I dislike you,” he says. “I dislike you, have I mentioned that recently?”

“Now and then,” Techno responds. His gaze catches on something over Tommy’s shoulder - a flash of purple, somewhere in the trees by the riverside pathway. A trail of particles. He straightens, and steps away from Carl. There’s another wisp of thick purple static, and a figure appears in the distance; an unnaturally tall enderman creature with silver horns and thick splotches of white across otherwise void-dark skin. He appears to be wearing some sort of business attire.

It’s Ranboo, Techno recognizes. It’s Ranboo, and he’s carrying what looks like a picnic basket, knit from wicker and wound with flower stems around the handle. Next to him, Tubbo - clad in a tank top and thick, heavy-duty boots, with his shulker armour swirling in the air around him - is grasping to his chest what looks like a very large bottle of golden honey. They spot Techno and start smiling, veering off the river-side path to tromp nearer across the meadow.

Techno has yet to speak to any neighbors except Niki and Phil. He guesses this is some sort of belayed attempt to welcome him and Tommy to the periphery of the neighborhood, after he had declined several invitations to visit the actual lake.

Techno steps forward. Tommy seems to notice that something’s caught his eye, because he stiffens and starts to turn, and -

There’s a moment, before he turns, where Techno can see the cheerful, easy-going look on his face; the slump to his shoulders, the good-natured grin. Then he swivels on one heel and catches sight of Tubbo and Ranboo, and the expression vanishes with such a sudden and abrupt clarity that Techno can track the change even out of the corner of his eye. Everything about Tommy goes stiff, shoulders tense and wings flared, and there is a look of terror on his face so absolute it looks practically austere.

Ranboo looks at Tommy and he stops walking. He looks dizzy. He goes very still, very staticky, particles swirling around him thick and fast and with a frantic vwoop . His jaw unhinges unnaturally, his entire face shifting into a facsimile of utter shock; his pupil-less eyes open wide as they will go, his ears pressed back flat against his skull, his free hand clenched so the claws dig sharply into his hand. His breathing starts coming with a shriek of static on every exhale.

Tubbo’s reaction is much simpler: he goes absolutely pale, head-to-toe, and drops the jar of honey. It lands on the ground with a tremendous shatter and honey spills everywhere, golden liquid seeping across the dirt and into the grass and across his thick leather boots. 

The sound of the jar shattering seems to break Ranboo out of some sort of shock. His entire face morphs, again, into something eerily unfamiliar; before Techno can get a proper look, he’s vanished into thin air with a crackle of static and an extra cloud of purple particles. 

The air is as tense as a tripwire, every movement something to be caught in. Techno shifts his hand, instinctually, to rest on the axe-loop at his belt; but that comes up empty - because of course it comes up empty; he’s in the midst of a field full of thick summer heat and dragonflies and the distant burbling of a river, and there had been no call for heavy weaponry in a place such as this. 

He moves to rest his hand on a dagger-sheath instead. Tubbo and Tommy are frozen in place, each staring at each other with looks of respective shock and fright; he can see Tommy’s wings mantling in a combative manner that reminds him, almost painfully, of Phil.

“Tommy,” Tubbo finally says, and his voice breaks as he says it. Techno suddenly feels as though he’s intruding.

“I’m sorry,” Tommy responds immediately. The humor is gone from his voice, the friendly bite all drained away. He sounds afraid; so painfully frightened his words choke up with it. “I’m so sorry, Tubbo.”

“I don’t understand,” Tubbo is muttering, voice soft. He sounds like he can’t breathe. “How are you here?”

Tommy takes a great, gasping breath, and suddenly there are tears at the corners of his eyes. Techno casts a frantic glance towards the cabin, willing Phil to appear, but the porch remains desolately empty. He shifts, widening his stance.

“I’m sorry,” Tommy says again. His words are frantic, stuttering, forced through tears and thick, palpable fear. “I didn’t mean to - I didn’t think I’d come far enough - I’ll leave, I promise, just don’t tell them. Don’t tell them, please.”

He’s backing away. Techno has to step aside to let him pass; he’s taking nervous, shuffling steps, hands raised halfway as if showing himself unarmed. There’s a moment where Tubbo steps forward, half-reaching after Tommy as if trying to grab him from across their growing distance - and then Tommy turns on his heel and begins to sprint away across the field. He’s fast - faster than Techno had thought - and he disappears so quickly into the trees behind the stables that by the time Techno thinks to stop him, it’s too late.

Techno stares at where Tommy had disappeared. Next to him, Carl gives a nervous snuffle, huffing breath out through his thick nostrils and shuffling his hooves against the grass. Tubbo is still standing there, his hands frozen where he’d been reaching after Tommy, his armour hovering around him in great purple chunks.

Techno turns on Tubbo and surges forward. Broken glass crunches loudly underfoot as he half-charges, pulling his dagger mid-stride. Rage is strumming through his veins like adrenaline, thick and hot as the summer’s heat hanging around them. Tubbo’s reaction is delayed by mere milliseconds, his armour snapping into place against his skin right as Techno reaches him with a knife clenched in one fist.

Techno finds himself with his blade to Tubbo’s throat before he even knows what he’s doing. Tubbo doesn’t react. He’s got his chin tilted up almost in unnerving expectation of the blade, staring Techno down through the thick curls of hair falling into his eyes. He’s still utterly pale.

“Explain,” Techno growls. It’s the only word he can manage. He’s white-knuckling the handle of the knife, a move neither practical nor helpful, but something about the anger strumming into his every movement keeps him from handling the weapon more gracefully.

When Tubbo speaks, his voice has gone hoarse. “I don’t know,” he croaks. “I don’t know. I don’t understand how he was here - please let me go, Technoblade.”

“Why the hell would I do that,” Techno hisses. 

“Because I need to go find Tommy,” Tubbo says.

He sounds like he’s swallowed glass.

There’s a creaking sound from the cabin. Techno doesn’t need to turn to recognize the blur of green fabric and void-dark wings mantling in front of the cottage door. He can hear Phil yelling his name, hear the approaching thumps of footsteps against the meadow-grass.

Techno drops the knife. He turns, sharply, and while he doesn’t look at Phil, he can feel in the air that panicked urgency so familiar from their battlefront years - feel it in the way that Phil practically skids to a halt next to Tubbo - in the way that Phil’s hand is parked, with such familiar surety, on the hilt of a knife - feel it in the way that Phil’s wings are flared about him like a cobra’s hood.

“Phil?” Techno growls.

Phil’s hushed response is immediate, carrying across the meadow with perfect, grave clarity. “What do you need?”

“Go get Wilbur.”

Chapter Text

Slimecicle spends his morning sliming.

Sliming is how he likes to spend most of his mornings. Mornings are good times for sliming; when there’s a chill in the air and the fog hangs low over lakes and tepid puddles, the air thick and cloudy, the light faint and the forest floor shadowed against the green of tree-leaves. There’s always dew on the forest-floor, this time of morning, and the drops of water are pleasant and wet. The dewdrops are what make morning sliming particularly enjoyable. Something about the slime-to-water consistency, Slimecicle thinks, is what really sparks joy.

His morning is a long one. The sun rises slowly, and Slimecicle burbles about on the forest floor for a few hours, until it’s proper in the sky. At this point he starts to wish he had a nice, damp cave for sliming instead - or perhaps for gooping, or glopping, or sludging about - so he starts searching for some rock, while he slimes, or a nice dirt hole. 

Some gravel would do, Slimecicle reflects. The texture of gravel isn’t quite as pleasantly moist as dirt or rock, but it rained sometime in the last year - he can’t quite think of when, only that he crept out of his cave when it happened and happily sludged around in the raindrops and the puddles and the damp forest dirt for an entire afternoon.

(Rainy days make Slimecicle miss his cave. He’d awfully liked that cave; it had perfect soil-to-water consistency in the muddy parts, and the dry parts had been pleasantly musty, with a smell like thick mold. He’d stayed in that cave for a long time.)

(He tries to remember, exactly, how long it had been-)

(Years, perhaps?)

(Or decades, even.)

The sun rises. Slimecicle pushes his thoughts of the cave away as light begins to fill the air, and he finds a pleasantly damp hollow tree-trunk into which to quietly gloop. It’s shady, in the tree-trunk. It’s full of lichens and old spiderwebs and a few toadstools between which he happily nestles. The morning starts to creep by, then, and then noon, and then the evening. By the time night creeps around it has started to rain - first light drizzles, then thick, heavy raindrops plopping down from leaves and trickling through the grass.

A toad hops into the hollow trunk to seek shelter. Slimecicle shifts to accommodate his presence. The rain starts to come heavier, faster, to the point that a shallow puddle starts to rise around the toadstools. This makes Slimecicle give a rather happy burble, which creates a stream of bubbles.

The toad hops onto a toadstool, eats a mosquito, and gives Slimecicle an unimpressed blink.

Slimecicle burbles at him, and receives no response.

There’s a stomping noise outside of the tree trunk. Night has thoroughly fallen, now, and a heavy darkness cloaks everything. The sound of raindrops, deafeningly loud against the forest canopy, is disrupted by what sounds like some sort of animal struggling its way through the ferns.

Slimecicle burbles curiously. He creeps forward to the opening of the trunk, peering out with curiosity; the movement causes a slew of raindrops to patter onto him, and he gives a pleasant little shiver.

There’s definitely something hulking around the forest. He can see the silhouette of four legs and a torso, and it’s clearly struggling. It almost looks to be standing upright on its hind legs like some sort of very large bird.

Slimecicle goops a few paces nearer, to get a better view. The figure comes into somewhat better light, falling into a patch of faint, rainy moonlight. The animal looks like some sort of adolescent, with mussed-up wings and thick yellow-brown fur that’s falling into its face.

The creature is taking great, burdensome steps forward, and it makes an odd, loud choking noise every few moments. Slimecicle gets closer.

The creature doesn’t notice him there - it’s looking off to Slimecicle’s left, into the distant forest shadows - so Slimecicle gathers himself up to his full height, about a few inches taller than the creature itself, and speaks in a loud, earnest burble: “Hello!” he says. “Would you like to borrow my tree trunk?”

The creature screams. It’s a great, horrible, loud scream that causes Slimecicle to give a sad little shiver and curl downwards, a bit, so he’s a foot or two smaller. The creature screams and screams and takes a few frantic steps backwards, until its back bumps into the trunk of a tree and it sinks to the floor with wide eyes and shaking limbs.

Slimecicle pauses uncertainly. He isn’t sure how to continue, in this situation.

“It’s a very nice tree trunk,” he offers. “It has toadstools.”

The creature is taking great, uneven, gulping breaths, and inhaling about as much rainwater as air. Slimecicle doesn’t breathe, so he wouldn’t know, but he gets the sense that there are more productive methods of obtaining air then whatever this creature is attempting to do.

“What the fuck are you,” the creature says. Its voice is shaking. “Get away from me.”

Slimecicle holds still and pauses uncertainly. 

“I said get the fuck away from me,” the creature repeats in a half-snarl. “What even are you?”

“What would you like me to be?” Slimecicle asks, curious.

The creature coughs again. “I don’t want you to be anything,” it snaps. “I just want a human fucking being around here.”

Slimecicle ponders this over for a moment, as the creature’s breathing starts to fall in line. He considers his options.

He finally settles on saying, “In that case, I am a human being.”

The creature gives him a wide-eyed stare and then laughs, loudly and barkingly. “No you’re fucking not. You’re all goop, you bitch.”

Slimecicle tries to remember what alternatives he might be made out of besides goop. He struggles, for a moment, then resorts to asking - “Are you a human being?”

The boy gives him a long, doleful look, and does not answer. Slimecicle decides that mimicry is his best bet, and gives a great, heaving gurgle; he gathers himself up to full height, again, and shivers his goop into something similar to the shape of the creature before him: a torso, a big round head, and four limbs, two of them awkwardly protruding to the side. He gives his new form an experimental little jiggle, to test it, and finds the balance properly solid.

The creature does not seem appreciative of this gesture of goodwill. Instead it gathers a great deep breath and begins to scream again.

Slimecicle frantically tries to fill in the gaps in his disguise. For a moment, he’s not sure what he’s missing, and then - skin , he thinks. He looks at the creature before him. Its skin seems to be very loose and multicoloured, with patches of the torso being white and his feet having great big patches of leather around them. Slimecicle gives a little shiver, and creates himself some matching skin - pale pink for the upper parts, thick fur across the head. 

He feels rather pleased with himself, when he’s done with all that, but the creature just gives him a look of wide-eyed horror and starts rattling like an angry snake-tail. Slimecicle wonders if this is a human being’s sign of aggression. He mimics it, curiously - giving his entire body a tiny, gelatinous little shiver.

It doesn’t quite look the same as it does when the human being does it, so he stops and resolves to work on that at a later date.

“What the fuck are you,” the human being is saying again. Slimecicle detects a very heavy note of fear in his tone. 

“I am human being,” Slimecicle reponds cheerily, giving him a friendly little blink, like he’s seen particularly sweet cats do. “Just like you, right?”

The creature blinks, and doesn’t answer - then it groans and leans forward. It gathers the joints of its bottom limbs up against its chest and buries its head in them, momentarily, before looking up. As it moves, Slimecicle glimpses something protruding from its back - a set of scuffed-up feather limbs.

He wonders if that’s what he’s forgetting, to make the human so wary of his new form. All it takes is a push, and a set of feathered wings form where a human’s back would be; they’re a little bit messy - gloopy, the feathers still dripping green, a little misshapen about the bones and ligaments - but they do the trick. Slimecicle grins and spreads them for the human to see.

The human gives him a long stare. “Did you just fuckin’ sprout wings?”

“I am a human,” Slimecicle tells him, cheerful. “Like you!”

The human makes an incomprehensible sighing noise. “I’m not a human,” he says, through tightly gritted teeth.

“Oh,” Slimecicle says. He tilts his newfound head curiously. “I see. Who are you, not-a-human?”

The not-a-human looks at him for a long moment. “Tommy,” he says, finally. “My name’s Tommy.”

Slimecicle burbles a little closer. Something about the movement seems to upset Tommy, who stares at him again in an expression Slimecicle is starting to recognize as horror. He glances down at his lowest appendages and experimentally tries to lift them and take a step in the manner he’d seen Tommy moving; it’s a little uneven, somewhat off-balance, but he manages to successfully keep himself upright. 

He looks up, beaming with pride. Tommy looks a little shaky, what with the rain now dripping heavy down his face and his damp hair, but upon seeing Slimecicle looking at him he shakily extends his big finger in some sort of gesture.

“Where have you come from, Tommy?” Slimecicle asks.

“Nowhere,” Tommy mutters. “Ay, what’s your name, big man?”

Slimecicle tilts his head. “I have no name, Tommy from nowhere,” he says, cheerful. 

“Aww, fuck, you’ve made it depressing,” Tommy from nowhere groans, and lets his head fall back against the tree behind him with a quiet thump. “Just call me Tommy, mate, please. Seriously, what’s your name?”

“I told you,” Slimecicle says. He bares his teeth in a smile. “I have none!”

Tommy stares at him. “Are you a fucking orphan, or something? Did your parents die?”

“No,” Slimecicle says seriously. “I was born of goop and slime and mold and mildew and water and dirt and love and milk and time, Tommy. And goop and slime and mold and mildew and water and dirt and love and milk and time can never die.”

There’s a pause. “Alright, then,” Tommy says. He looks very damp, and seems to be struggling with the conversation. He’s also shivering quite violently, which Slimecicle is beginning to worry is a negative indicator.

“Would you like some shelter?” Slimecicle offers. “I have a tree trunk, but you might not fit it. If you’d like we can look for caves and gloop in them together.”

“No, that’s alright,” Tommy says, sounding depressed. “Don’t worry about it. I’m just going to wait it all out.”

“Okay, Tommy,” Slimecicle says. “I will not worry about it.”

Tommy looks up at him from his spot by the tree, giving him an ambiguous side-eye. “Do you want to...sit, or something?” he offers, after a moment. “You’re sort of just standing there, big man. It’s getting a little ominous.”

“No,” Slimecicle says, and leaves at that. Tommy, seeming caught unawares, just stares at him for a moment before looking away.

“Really, mate,” Tommy says, wiping the rain out of his eyes, “What’s your name?”

Slimecicle raises one of his upper limbs and watches the rain run down the tips of his fingers. It feels curious, now that he has wrapped himself in a fleshy imitation of human skin - he feels as though his senses are heightened and oddly-shaped, morphed and bizarrely warped.  “I have none,” he says, as he watches his fingers. 

“Dude,” Tommy says, “What the fuck are you?”

Slimecicle looks up, expression brightened. “I am Slimecicle!”

“What the fuck .” Tommy buries his face in his hands. “I fucking asked you for your name, big man, why didn’t you say-”

“I am not named Slimecicle,” Slimecicle interrupts. “I am Slimecicle.”

A pause. “I don’t get it.”

“I am not named Slimecicle,” Slimecicle repeats. “I am Slimecicle.” 

“Fucking hell, mate,” Tommy whines. “Coulda just told me that, slime boy. ”

Slimecicle tilts his head up. The rain is starting to lighten, just a bit - he is glad. Perhaps the rain being gone will lighten Tommy’s shivering, and make him huddle a little less tightly against the damp. “I apologize,” he says, as he peers up through the dark green leaves above him. “I don’t mind what you call me, Tommy. It is very wet and rainy. Do you like the wet and the rain, Tommy?”

“No,” Tommy sulks, and his wings press harder against his back. “It’s cold.”

Slimecicle takes a wobbly step closer. “Would you like me to sit with you?” he offers. “I am warm, given that I am made of very human flesh and meat.”

That is a lie. Lying is a new art, only recently learned, but it is one that Slimecicle feels he could catch onto. 

Tommy gives a sharp, barking laugh, an expression of amusement that promptly fades. He looks away, avoiding eye contact, and gives a sharp shrug. “I don’t give a fuck, man. You do you.”

Slimecicle tries to step forward, and his body gives a curious little wobble, like he’s about to fall over.  “I will do whatever brings you joy, Tommy.”

“You wobbling around like that is not sparking fucking joy, slime boy,” Tommy says. His voice is trembling from the cold rain soaking through him. Slimecicle wishes that he could evolve himself some internal body temperature to share with his new friend. Typically, evolution isn’t to his taste - it’s been trendy among mammals for a while now, but Slimecicle considers himself somewhat old fashioned - but right now, Tommy looks like he could use a good warm-blooded friend to keep him warm.

“Okay,” Slimecicle says, thinking of the frog he’d left back in his hollow tree. “I will try not to wobble.” He doesn’t think that the frog was warm blooded, but biology changes so fast these days he can hardly keep track. 

He holds himself very still and attempts to maintain balance. The attempt is only marginally successful, but Tommy’s attention has already been caught by the leafy canopy above; he’s tilting his head back, eyes losing just a little.

Tommy yawns. Slimecicle remembers what this means.

“You are tired,” Slimecicle says. “You will sleep.”

“I shouldn’t,” Tommy responds, and the words come out almost as a whine. 

“You are sleepy,” Slimecicle points out, tilting his head. “Correct?”

“Still,” Tommy mutters. “I’m supposed to be on the move.”

“Don’t worry,” Slimecicle offers. “I will watch you as you sleep.”

Tommy just gives him an alarmed sort of stare. “What?”

“If anything attempts to harm you,” Slimecicle forges on, “I will goop at them quite aggressively, and they will leave.”

“Bitch,” Tommy responds weakly, “What does that even mean?”

“We are friends,” Slimecicle begins, voice cheery, and - 

there’s suddenly a kind of fragile, almost spooked look about Tommy; he’s gazing at Slimecicle with something indecipherable, and he blinks very quickly and looks away.

“We will stick together!” Slimecicle continues, ignoring this development. “If anything attempts to devour you whole and snap your bones into twigs and compost-piling, I will goop at them, and I will threaten to absorb them into my slime, and they will leave.”

Tommy squints, frowning and looking back. “I thought you were human now. You said your life of slime was behind you and all that.”

Slimecicle falters. “Ah,” he says, thinking; “Alright, I will not goop at them, as I am made of meat and flesh. I will simply - I will bare my teeth at them, very frighteningly, and intimidate them into leaving.”

“Oh?” Tommy asks. He stifles another yawn, and scoots down a little further on the tree so that he’s properly leaning back, head tilted up. “Tell me more about that.”

“I learned it from bears,” Slimecicle explains. “I was friends with a bear, once. We shared a cave. This was back before humans had developed the opposable thumb, so we were fairly undisturbed. I liked those days. The caves were less colorful, back then.”

“Keep going,” Tommy prompts. He’s mumbling, a little, and his eyes are now closed.

Slimecicle keeps going. He talks, for a while, about the nature of cave-painting and the smells of mold and his favorite methods of aquatic evolution, and after a little while he notices that Tommy has slumped over, shoulders falling forward as he curls against the damp tree, and he is thoroughly asleep. The rain is fully stopped, and so Slimecicle takes some wobbly steps over to the shade of a tree and sits to face into the forest, watching the last of the raindrops plot from the trees to the forest floor.

As time passes, and he gazes into the shadowed under brush, light starts to spread out from among the trees, fresh dawn light filling the sky. The air starts to warm, the woods lit by sunrise. Slimecicle zones out, letting himself fall into the rhythm of counting each leaf that falls from the forest canopy.

The sun has almost fully risen when he realizes that the sound of breathing has gone quiet. When he turns, Tommy is gone; in his place is nothing but a few feathers, left to dust along the forest floor, and Slimecicle is alone, again, left with the rising sun and the wake of a rainstorm.

Chapter Text

It’s not until the rain starts late that evening that Techno starts to feel the onset of creeping tendrils of despair. The sky had been sunny all morning, sunny all noon, but as evening sets on and half a dozen people still find themselves hiking through thick forest brambles calling the name of a child who plainly isn’t there to hear it, a thick swell of gray spreads across the sky, and all at once, it begins to rain.

Minutes before it starts, Phil catches Techno in a clearing with his head tilted to the sky. Techno’s piglike nostrils are flared, velvety ears tipped back as he takes in the thick, electric scent of coming rain.

“You alright, mate?” Phil asks, and the gentleness in his tone betrays him; he thinks he already has the answer.

Techno does not do this question the justice of a response. He just watches darkness fill the blue-sky gaps above him in silence.

“We’ll find him, Techno,” Phil says, something prodding in his tone. “Don’t worry.”

Techno is silent for another long stretch of time. Then he tears his gaze from the sky to meet Phil’s eyes. “It’s going to rain,” he says, and lapses back to silence.

Phil glances up, then back at Techno. “Maybe,” he says. “We’ll see.”

They will see. Techno can smell it in the air.

“He can only have run so far, and everyone is out,” Phil continues. “Tubbo and Wilbur, Niki’s in the river, Jack’s out with them - we’ll find him, Techno. We’ll find him.”

Techno turns and begins to walk away. As he does, the sky takes one last great blue gulp of air, and it softly begins to rain. 

______

It’s the next morning and a mile into the forest before they start finding feathers. Phil starts to get frantic about it right away, thinking some oversized coyote got Tommy, but Techno can tell the feathers are naturally fallen because they’re distributed the same as the ones scattered across his kitchen floor. They’re also all muddy and dirty and trodded into the ground below leaves or under bushes, so Techno knows he’s not too hot on Tommy’s trail.

After thirty minutes or so of following the sparsely patterned trail, they find a spot that looks like the imprints of someone’s body embedded in the dirt. There are feathers all around, gold and red and streaked with white, and Techno crouches to feel the ground where they fell. It’s cold, and it’s thoroughly damp.

Phil is pacing, scanning the surrounding area - he’s glancing under bushes, even in the trees, as if Tommy could be crouching in one and waiting to surprise them. Techno watches him investigate for a little bit, standing with his arms crossed by the spot in suspect.

About two minutes have gone by of that anxious checking when Phil seems to spot something in the shade of a bush. He starts frowning at the ground in a peculiar way, and Techno is so startled by his expression that he gets up to check the source of Phil’s concern.

There’s something green in the shade of a bush. It looks thick, and somewhat shiny, and as Techno angles his pointed ears he can hear it make a very faint gurgling sound, like a running brook. He frowns and crouches, reaching out to tap the substance.

The gargling quite abruptly becomes very loud. Techno, alarmed, lurches to his feet and takes several quick steps back, Phil following his lead.

The green substance burbles, and gargles, and makes a hideous squelching sound. All at once it spouts upwards like a geyser, lurching into the air, and begins to solidify before Techno’s eyes into the features of something trying to be humanoid - Techno watches as legs appear, and then a face, and hair, and all of it bathed in a sickly translucent green.

Phil gives a horrified choking sound and stumbles away like he’s going to be sick. Techno is frozen in utter horror, staring as the slime-creature gives a hideous gargling noise and its flesh starts to solidify into a thick, gelatinous humanoid mass.

It’s the worst thing he’s every seen and it looks oddly, pervasively familiar, in a way that Techno cannot quite place.

“Hello,” the slime says, in an abysmally loud, friendly bellow. “I am Slimecicle. What are you?”

Techno feels like he’s been struck dumb. His hand goes to his belt, on instinct, resting firmly against the hilt of his axe, but the creature isn’t moving to attack him - it’s just giving him a wide, gloopy-eyed stare. “What are you,” he manages, his voice sounding hoarse. 

The creature - Slimecicle - tilts its head. “I am Slimecicle,” it repeats. “I am human.”

Phil gives an incredulous laugh. Techno turns on him. “Phil, what is this,” he demands. “You’re - you’re old, right? Do you recognize this? Is it a type of hybrid?”

“That’s no goddamn hybrid,” Phil says. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Techno turns back to Slimecicle. Slimecicle takes a wobbly step forward, one that looks markedly wrong due to the lack of bones in its jiggly, semi-transparent greenish skin. 

Something at its back starts to unwrap like the cocoon of a butterfly spreading out around its back in a wreath-like semicircle. For a moment, Techno can’t see what it is, and then it mantels them high in the air, and he realizes with a horrifying certainty why, exactly, Slimecicle looks so familiar.

He looks exactly like Tommy, down to the swoop of his overgrown hair and the bristles on the tips of his wings. A perfect imitation.

Phil realizes at the same moment as Techno, because he lets out a sudden snarl and surges forward, pulling his sword from its sheath. It’s at Slimecicle’s throat before Slimecicle knows what’s happening, held in unshaken hands. 

“Who the fuck are you and what did you do with him,” Phil growls. His attitude is so completely flipped that Techno can hear the blade to his tone, see the cold glint in his eye - his wings mantle automatically, spread around him in a massive show of intimidation, and for the first time in a long time Techno is reminded in thorough why they call him the Angel of Death.

Slimecicle does not blink. Does not even shiver. Its eyes stay stretched wide, head tilted, gaze fixed - enraptured - on Phil’s. “I am Slimecicle,” he repeats. “I am human.”

“I said, what the fuck did you do with him,” Phil repeats, pressing closer. His voice is ice-cold. Techno feels a growl rising in the back of his throat.

“Him?” Slimecicle asks.

“Tommy.”

Slimecicle gives a little burble, as if of recognition. “Oh!” It says. It sounds cheered, a bit, by the mention of Tommy’s name. “Him. I know him.”

“What did you do to him,” Phil urges, pressing in yet closer, and Slimecicle is looking at him - opening his mouth -

“He died,” Slimecicle says.

Techno feels as though an anvil has plunged through his head and fell to sit heavy, cold in his gut - a thick ringing in his ears, a taste like copper on his tongue. He is surging forward before he knows it, his axe in hand, and shoving Phil aside. He goes to throttle Slimecicle with a hand around the throat, but his claws pierce right through the gelatinous surface of Slimecicle’s neck. He uses the leverage to shove Slimecicle backwards, ignoring the cold, green wetness dampening his fingers.

“What the fuck did you do to him,” Techno growls. There is blood in his mouth, and Phil is saying something that he does not bother to hear. 

Slimecicle is giving him a wide-eyed, curious stare - a look of contemplation. It gives a curious little shiver and before Techno knows what’s happening the slime has dissolved in his grasp, slipping out of his fingers to fall in a great, mushy heap to the ground below. Techno is thrown violently off balance and has to stumble forward, over the gelatinous pile, in order to stay upright.

He whirls. The slime is looking at him with wide green eyes in the midst of a formless blob of nothingness.

“I said what did you do,” Techno repeats. He holds his ground, this time - stands still, making no attempt to further corner the heap of slime.

“I told him a story,” The slime says. “I told him a story, but I told it for too long, and when I finished, he was already dead.”

“Dead how.”

“Time,” the slime says, and it sounds as if were it able to give him a confused look, it would. “Time kills everything that bleeds, fellow human.”

Techno feels almost dizzy. He gives Phil a desperate, helpless look - one that is returned by an expression of cold, solemn confusion.

“He was here,” the slime continues, “And then he was asleep, and then - when I finished the story - his body had rotted and his bones had been scavenged and he was returned to the Earth. It’s alright - his guts are in the trees, now. The birds have been collecting his feathers for their nests.”

“Did you - did you see this happen,” Phil asks. “Slimecicle, did you actually see Tommy die?”

“No,” Slimecicle says. “As I said, I was telling him a story. When I had finished, he was already gone.”

Phil looks over Slimecicle to give Techno a bewildered, overwhelmed look. Techno holds his gaze for a long moment and then tears it away. 

“So he vanished for a little while, and you assumed that he had died, and his corpse had already fully decomposed by the time you turned back around,” Phil interprets.

Slimecicle starts to say something - giving a curious little jiggle as it does - but then falls silent, and goes oddly still for a long moment.

“Well,” it says at last, “Usually, when things disappear, they have died.”

“No they haven’t,” Techno growls. “It’s called object permanence.”

Slimecicle sloshes slowly. “That is not true,” it says. “Objects are not permanent.”

Techno turns on Phil. “This is pointless, Phil,” he says. “Clearly the kid isn’t here anymore. He made a run for it again.”

Phil looks agitated, again, like he wants to keep pacing. He wheels, all at once, and begins striding towards the gloppy, faintly greenish glob that is Slimecicle. Slimecicle sloshes around a bit, but does not protest as Phil squats and picks him carefully up in one hand.

“Phil,” Techno says, clueless.

Phil ignores him and starts striding past him into the dark of the woods. Slimecicle is wriggling with faint excitement in his grasp, but doesn’t seem upset to be along for the ride. “It might be able to help us, Techno,” he says shortly. “We’re keeping it until we find him.”

Techno doesn’t have a comeback - not for that. He gives a long, quiet sigh, and begins to follow Phil into the shadows.

Chapter Text

They follow Tommy to a canyon. It’s one of those shadowed, mossy, vine-infested canyons that jut and snake their way through the sunny southern valleys, the sort that would have been ice-filled death traps further north, but here are merely damp and dreadful. This one carves its way through a valley just southeast of the forest edging Techno’s cabin, and it’s surrounded by green grasses as far as can be seen.

The feathers are what give Tommy’s trail away. Techno and Phil wandering haphazardly, branching out from where they’d found Slimecicle - who seems perfectly contend to let Phil hold him in the palm of his hand like a particularly sticky mass of seaweed - when they reach the valley. They notice little tufts of softness in the burred grass, like a wounded bird had made a great struggle in the greenery. A further investigation finds the torn feathers follow a path; a path that curbs right at the canyon and plunges into shadow.

Techno is good at tracking people down. In the army, hunting had been half the fighting; hunting animals, hunting traitors, hunting spies. Marking footsteps through forest-mulch and loosing hound-dogs in the grassy valleys. There, the footsteps had been marked by ice and the valleys had been whitened by snow; any disturbance could be marked. Blood is a stark sight against ice, after all. Here, he finds the very static of the nature around him shrouds Tommy’s path from clear view.

That’s why, as his gaze falls into the plunging shadow of the canyon, he’s almost overwhelmed by the extent of what’s before him, the sheer mass of information he has to process just to track possible escape routes. The stark grayscale shadows of the rocky walls are marred by creeping green mosses and tangled vines. Trees cling their roots against the ledges of the rock, tilted. Their life-giving leaves hang over open abyss, held by roots that snake their way deep into cold rock. 

He examines the nearest ledge, measuring the distance. It looks rocky, but thick enough to be sturdy, so with Phil and Slimecicle hovering anxiously at his shoulder - a weary-postured guardian angel and his friendly green slop - he steps forward and takes the fall.

He lands in a crouch, his knees almost doubling to absorb the impact. A few rocks go skittering off the edge, and a moment passes before the echoing sound of impact.

Techno looks around and presses his hand to the damp rock for balance. Over his head, the ledge casts shadow, and Phil’s figure looms, shrouded in sunlight. 

Techno gazes around him. He can find no sign of feathers.

There’s still a clear path, here, though; the ledge he’s on stretches along the rock until it’s too thin to stand on, where Techno spots a brief jump to a lower bit of rock, and with a few moments’ examination is able to scout himself a path deeper into the darkness.

“Careful,” he hears Phil murmur, as he carefully edges further down the rock.

“I’ve climbed ice-ridges over rivers in the dead of winter, Phil,” Techno calls back. “Don’t get your feathers in a tangle.”

Phil’s response is inaudible. 

Techno makes a jump to a lower surface, then hooks his hands into the rocky ledge and kicks off until he gets enough momentum to jump a little lower. The rock is getting slicker, now; the moss is thicker. He must be getting close.

He scans the rock below him. His view is blocked by a thick, flappy-leaved tree that hangs droopily and tilted from a small opening in the wall. Techno tilts his head, examining the opening.

There’s blood on the ledge. Techno goes still.

He glances up. Phil is distant, now, but his figure is still fully visible, framed by sunlight. Techno swallows. There’s something familiar beating in his chest; his feet scuff against the rock.

Techno makes the final jump. He’s next to the shadowed crack in the wall, now. The tree looms overhead. Techno hunches to get a better view inside the claustrophobic cave.

The light is so sparse he can barely see, at first, but as he steps further in his eyes adjust, their inhuman pupils picking out and amplifying the bits of light in the near-darkness. It’s hard to fit, but he crouches a little, shoulders bowed, and is able to make it work.

Shadows fall across his back, coldness from the rock leeching through the air the further he gets inside. He can see the rest of the cave arcing downwards,  through a steep and pebble-strewn decline, and he places his feet carefully as he descends. 

Something echoes. A whisper, so quiet Techno’s velvet-tipped ears prick just to catch ahold of it; he holds his beath, but the noise is gone as soon as it came.

The bottom of the cave is almost pitch black. He blinks a few times, and can just barely pick out the edges of the rock. The cold sheen of claustrophobia clings to his skin.

A whisper, again. A noise so quiet it seems impossible that a living creature could have made it, but Techno advances in pursuit nonetheless. Not until he’s much nearer to the corner can he make out the source.

Something is huddled against the back wall. He has to go very still, in order to tell, but the occasional deadly-quiet rustling gives it away, and as Techno stares there he thinks he sees a glint like the faint light reflecting in something’s eyes.

“Tommy?” Techno asks, and the creature breaks. The whispering cracks into a snuffle, a hoarse and choked breathing that Techno realizes the creature must have been holding for far too long. The eyes blink, and they are shinier than before.

Everything begins moving very quickly. The creature draws to its feet, hulking and small, draped in thick feathery limbs. It shrinks against the wall. Techno steps forward, and - 

“I’m sorry,” Tommy says suddenly. His voice is cold and pale.“I’m sorry I’m sorry. Sorry, sorry-”

His words are practically slurred. Techno feels something cold and uncomfortable creep painfully along his spine. “Tommy,” he says. “Tommy, calm down-”

“Sorry, sorry, sorry sorry sorry-”

“Just take a breath, now, everyone’s fine-” 

“I didn’t mean to, I didn’t mean to, I’m sorry Dre- Techno- sorry-”

“Tommy, stop,” Techno finally says, and the panicked uncomfortable feeling puts a growling note in his voice. 

Tommy goes absolutely quiet. Techno could hear a pin drop.

Techno is abashed for having snapped, but something in him is relieved. He puts his hands up - not that he thinks Tommy can see - and lets his next words come in a soothing murmur.

“You’re alright,” he rumbles. Steps forward. “Everything’s under co-”

A scuffling noise from the far end of the cave. A glint of the whites of something’s eyes. He only notices that Tommy’s making a dash for it by the breeze as the kid whips past him at a dead-sprint for the cave beyond.

Techno spins on his heels and leaps his way into pursuit, taking great jumps over piles of pebble and dust and rock. Tommy’s feet kick sand into the air as he runs, and Techno finds himself struggling to breathe through the grime in the air.

Sunlight blinds him as he nears the cave entrance. The tree beyond shades the ledge, but with a moment’s blinking he can still see the colossal expanse of flat gray wall beyond, the great dark deep below. Tommy skids to a halt by the edge; he has to grab a tree branch above him to keep his balance as he teeters at the edge.

Techno slows at the cave’s entrance. Tommy turns - swivelling his head, but still facing the edge - and looks him dead on. The whites of his eyes are glinting in the sunlight. A beast at bay.

Techno goes still. There’s no point in further pursuit; he can see the drop, and so can Tommy. It’s between the two of them and the rock-walls, now.

“Don’t come closer,” Tommy says, and there’s a toughness in his voice that he has plainly constructed from scraps of fear and nails of desperation. A coffin of bravery; a shelter of courage.

Tommy’s wings flutter. They’re still scuffed to the bone, feathers misaligned, unkept and raggedy; Techno aches just to look at them. Patches of flesh are visible where it seems Tommy has recently been yanking at the feathers. They’re not half in fit shape to fly; Tommy spreads them out and holds them ready anyways.

“You won’t make the jump,” Techno says, and attempts as well he can to hold his voice level. He tries some of Tommy’s false-confidence on for size, to mask the desperation thrumming in his chest. 

Tommy’s fist tightens on the branch, but it’s shaking. Techno thinks of Phil, high above, and wonders - but Phil’s no peregrine. Even he couldn’t dive fast enough.

“Just don’t come closer,” Tommy says. He says it like a compromise, this time. Less of a threat. Something hopeful surges in Techno’s chest.

“I won’t,” Techno vows.

Tommy fixes him with a long, intense, frightened stare. “Do you trust me?”

Techno pauses in his response - from confusion, not hesitancy. “I do,” he says, after a moment.

Tommy shifts his feet against the rock. “You know I didn’t know Tubbo was here.”

“I knew - what?”

“Tubbo,” Tommy repeats. “I didn’t know he was here. I wouldn’t have stayed, if I knew - you’ve got to believe that, out of everything. I’m not that selfish. I’d have left, if I knew.”

“I don’t understand what you’re saying, kid-”

Tommy’s looking a little wilder, now. Techno regrets having spoken. “I’m sorry, I’ll - I’ll speak clearer,” he says rapidly. “I’m trying - I’m trying, Techno. I promise. I swear. I just mean to say - I didn’t know I’d actually meet him, Tubbo, I thought - well, I wanted to see if he was alright, is all. After they all left, and-”

He’s speaking quite quickly, now, and blinking rapidly, and Techno suddenly - and with fervor - misses the snarling, spitting, angry thing he’d been when Techno had pried him out of the corners of his basement. 

“Breathe, Tommy,” Techno interjects, when it seems like Tommy’s running his air all dry. 

Tommy lapses into silence for a moment - quiet, heavy breaths - and stares at Techno some more, as if trying to decipher what he’s meant to say next. Techno tries desperately to think of what Phil would do.

“Let’s start from the basics, kid,” Techno begins, intentionally keeping his voice at a soft, casual monotone. “I’m not mad at you. Phil isn’t mad at you. That kid - Tubbo - isn’t mad at you. We just want you to come back to the cabin, alright?”

“I don’t have to,” Tommy says desperately. “Really, I promise I’ll be good. I’ll stay away. You don’t have to - to - please don’t.”

Techno shifts. “Don’t what?”

“Don’t-” Tommy lets go of the branch above his head. Techno flinches, but Tommy just drops his hand to his side and begins wringing his hands absently. “I don’t know.”

Techno reroutes. “Tommy, you don’t need to stay away,” he tries. “We want you back at the cabin. Genuinely. Phil and I are worried.”

Tommy stutters. “I can’t,” he says, after a moment. “Can I? Tubbo, Wilbur, they wouldn’t want it, would they-”

“Tubbo just wants to see you okay,” Techno tells him, as gently as he can manage. “I don’t know what history is between you two, but it’s in the past now.”

Tommy’s hand-wringing falters. He goes quiet for a moment, tilts his head. “So... Tubbo, he wants me at the cabin,” he says after a pause that feels infinite. “He told you?”

“He’s out looking for you right now, trying to bring you home.”

Tommy’s face melts, for a moment, into something terribly twisted and sad. His gaze falls to the floor.

“I don’t want to hurt them,” he says slowly. “Are you sure he doesn’t mind - if it’s just the cabin?”

“He doesn’t mind at all,” Techno confirms. There’s a dull roaring at the back of his head, like he used to have in the midst of battle - but here, there is no battle. Just an oddly frightened child and a set of interpersonal tensions so rife Techno can’t even begin to try to unravel them all.

There is a pause that feels infinite. Tommy goes very still for most of it, then finally lifts his gaze again to meet Techno’s.

“All right,” he says at last. “Just to the cabin, then.”

Muscles in Techno’s shoulders unwind with such vivid relief he feels the ache of it between his shoulderblades. He feels dizzy with the lightness of it - lighter than anything he’d felt as far as he can remember.

A coldness even with the lightness, something cold runs down his back; an uncomfortable prickle at the back of his neck. He steps forward, helps Tommy back from the ledge, guides him with quiet affirmations and wordless gestures up the rough terrain of the valley, and the two of them emerge to the grassy valley above to find that they are not the only ones on which Phil is waiting.

As Techno tilts his head back, breathes in a long sigh of fresh, open-skied air, Phil points to the distant trees. There’s a figure there, running at a stumbling sprint towards the both of them.

It’s Tubbo.

Tommy goes absolutely stock-still. His wings pull inwards, as if he’s trying to hide them behind his back; his gaze drops to the ground. The closer Tubbo comes, the smaller he gets.

Tubbo reaches a few feet from Phil and stumbles to a halt. He’s pale, exhausted, and still damp, as if he’s been running through a forest still dripping with dew-drops from the rain. He sees Tommy and something like a tremendous shiver seems to pass over him, for a moment, before he tears his gaze back to Phil.

“I’ve been trying to find you for hours,” he gasps. His voice is ragged. “Phil, he’s gone.”

“Tommy is fine,” Phil says, brow furrowing in confusion. “Tubbo, he’s right-”

“No,” Tubbo interrupts. “He’s gone. Ranboo. I thought he teleported back to the cabin, but I can’t find him anywhere and everything’s untouched, and it’s been hours, and Phil - and Phil-”

His voice is wild with desperation. It sounds wrecked, like he’s been yelling for hours.

“It rained, Phil,” Tubbo manages. “It rained, and Ranboo is gone.”

Chapter Text

Tommy makes the hike back to Techno's cabin with puddles in his shoes and something crawling at the back of his neck. It's a slow, mounting tension, like something nipping at his heels. He has the irrational sense that the world is yawning around him, the dirt below his feet sinking and the hillside forests stretching and warping higher and higher. His world is a half-broken fishbowl; he risked everything to break his glass prison, and now finds his water draining into void. Glass shards mix with air and sunlight stabs at his feet and his arms and the prickling tendons at his wings. 

Around him, the forest is blinking with a quiet kind of solitude. Leaves glint with softened dewdrops, puddles of rainwater mixing with the hollowed pits of dirt gapped around each tree-root. Behind him, the thump of Techno’s boots against the forest-floor mingles with the rustling of the forest. 

He’s already a long way from the canyon. He barely remembers how he’d gotten so far away, only that he’d been tugged out of the gaping crevasse of the valley into a field so bright he’d had to squeeze his eyes shut to not be blinded by the sun, and when he’d opened them – 

When he’d opened them, there’d been Tubbo. Tommy had tried to hide his wings. It hadn’t worked. It hadn’t had any chance at working, really; there’s nothing subtle about the glinting red-gold at Tommy’s wings or his tail-feathers sticking through his clothes or the bristly feathers at his ears, his wrists, the corners of his eyes – he’s something too inhuman now to hide. 

Tubbo had looked at him with something of a yawning horror. A disbelief beyond comprehension; a man staring into the face of something he couldn’t manage to – didn’t want to – comprehend.

All that time spent hiding it just for the moment of reckoning to come as Tommy was fingertips away from letting go – a moment’s grasp away from putting his old life to rest. He’d been ready to put it all behind him. Evidently, he should have ran further. 

Phil had stayed with Tubbo. It was a clearly intentional move, to give the two some distance – Tommy could tell from the little glances Phil had given Techno, when he thought no one else was watching. The silent communication. The words gone unsaid. Tommy was well learned at reading between the lines as a necessity for survival.

Another thing gone unsaid had been the spooked look in Tubbo’s eyes, like a frightened horse, when he’d said Ranboo had been out in the rain. Tommy knew why. He remembered Ranboo’s weaknesses well – he’d used to catalogue them in his head, an itemized list of last ditch options and desperate measures – and the thought of Ranboo being left out in the rain had always been one of those possibilities that left him squeamish. 

There’s something squelching by his feet. He pauses, glances down; Slimecicle is burbling along next to him, rolling over and over like a squishy little gelatin ball. It’s picked up bits of leaves and dirt as it rolls, and is now nearly indistinguishable from the soft forest floor but for the green bits that show when it moves.

Tommy leans down and picks it up like one would a very formless cat, holding him at arms-length. He’s filled with such wonder at the sight of it that, for a few seconds, he forgets to be beside himself with anxiety.

“Bitch,” he says admirably. “You found me!”

Slimecicle does a little jiggle. A dancey-dance, if you will. “I have found you, Tommy,” it repeats.

“How the fuck,” Tommy marvels. 

“I thought you were dead,” Slimecicle says, a bit dolefully, “but the humans disagreed. Were they correct?”

Tommy blinks and realizes Slimecicle is genuinely asking. “Um, yeah.”

He gently sets Slimecicle down on his shoulder, ignoring the disgusting conglomeration of sticky dirt and pine-sap residue that it streaks across Technoblade’s old shirt. If the shirt getting dirty is enough to set Techno off, Tommy’s already past done for. 

“Good,” Slimecicle says. It sounds pleased. “I am glad you are not dead, Tommy. You are a good friend.”

Something in Tommy’s eye stings. He rubs at it absently. “Er, thanks,” he says. “‘Appreciate that, slime-thing.”

Slimecicle seems very happy with itself. It makes another delighted little jiggle and lapses into silence.

Tommy feels the air change as they near the cabin. The thick, heady scents of the forest and the damp leafy canopy begins to fade into something gentler and milder, a honeydew-scent of grasses and riverside mosses; the space between the treetrunks starts to clear, and after a while, Tommy glimpses the blue horizon winking through brush.

Before him, the great open valley yawns, lit by sunlight and clear-blue skies. Clouds of bugs flit across the grass, and the river pours itself deep and slow along a curved crevice in the land, and there – right at the slope of the hill – stands Technoblade’s cabin, stark with rich brown wood edged by dappled cobblestone. The fence is only half-built, but vines are already creeping along the wooden slats, and the scent of fresh tilled dirt hangs above the garden. Glass lanterns hang, unlit, from iron-arched poles along the fence, and well-worn paths are already dug deep into the dirt along the steps of the porch. 

It feels warm in a way Tommy can’t explain. It’s as though the unlit lanterns are pouring rich firelight onto the paths of the garden, and the warmth of the brick at Techno’s hearthside is dripping itself into the wood of the porch and the overgrown wildflowers sprouting along the fence. The warmth starts at Tommy’s wingtips and winds itself in heartwards from there, reaching heavy into his chest and pooling in his gut. It’s a relief so tangible he feels it tingling in his fingers, his nose, even the wet squelching in his boots.

And simultaneously it all feels uneasy. He has the sense of being on a platform above the unknown, an unstable ground below him; something is ready to tip one way or the other, and he doesn’t know where to put himself to make the fall. His whole life has been a series of falls cleverly made, of collisions just barely avoided. 

Tommy thinks of the pillar he’d constructed outside of Logstedshire. Another cleverly avoided fall, even if his survival had been an accident. He believes, in retrospect, that some unconscious part of him had felt the building of it served as penance for what he’d been prepared to do; as if working himself until his back ached and his fingers bled against the carved-cobblestone bricks could pay back what he’d owed to the lot of them – to Tubbo, for serving as the ruination of his nation; to Dream, for being ungrateful. Unappreciative to the end. 

Tommy stops at the foot of the porch. He stares down at his feet, hesitant to go further until prompted. The sound of Techno’s footsteps grows nearer, behind him, until he’s strolling past Tommy to swing the door open. He looks at Tommy expectantly. The sunlight glints off his tusks, the velvet folds to his ears; his red eyes are like stained-glass windows, glinting as he moves. He holds the door open; an unspoken invitation.

Tommy takes the hint. He ignores the creaking of the wood as he scales the porch, scuffs his boots against the doorframe to kick off what he can of the dirt, and walks into the kitchen. 

Techno swings the door shut behind them. Tommy watches his movements with a careful kind of hesitancy. Techno had promised him that his presence was welcome – wanted, even – at the cottage; but men like Techno – men who have seen war –  are of the unpredictable sort.

“You look cold,” Techno says, his voice grave. “You should sit. I’ll start a fire.”

He heads right back out the door without giving Tommy a second glance. Tommy stands there for a minute, frozen, before cautiously making his way into the living room, where a plush red couch sits across a thick woven carpet. The hearth is an empty, unlit box of soot, and chairs and chests are aligned along the walls.

He takes a seat on the carpet, impossibly aware of the dirt and water and leaf-bits streaked across his clothes. Slimecicle is still on his shoulder, although it hasn’t made much noise for a good two miles, and it sheds crunchy leaf bits onto the carpet every time he moves.

A few minutes go by before Techno returns. He’s carrying a pile of firewood on one shoulder, and he pauses to kick some mud off his boots as he enters. Tommy watches him kneel by the hearth and toss a few pieces of wood into the grate, piling the rest nearby; he pulls a flint and steel from a pocket somewhere, somehow, and sets about lighting a spark.

Slimecicle slimes its way off of Tommy’s shoulder and goes to hide under the couch. Tommy watches it go and turns to find Techno crouched by a now-roaring fire, watching him in turn.

Tommy meets Techno’s stained-glass eyes and manages to resist the urge to flinch. “What?” he asks, a defensive snappishness sneaking into his tone.

“We should talk,” Techno says. He gives a quiet sigh and shifts so that he’s sitting by the hearth, leaning against the mantle brick to the left of the fire. He kicks his legs out in front of him. His vast red coat sprawls under him and gives the wall behind him a shadowed kind of look.

Tommy watches him carefully, but doesn’t meet his eyes. He keeps his gaze on the weapons at his belt; at his hands, which, after a moment, Techno moves to rest, unmoving, against the wooden floor. 

“I think some clarification,” Techno begins, his voice a gentle rumble; “Would be helpful for both of us, Tommy. We’ve come to some misunderstandings.”

Tommy drums his fingers softly against the carpet and is quiet.

“You are perfectly welcome in this house, Tommy.”

There is a pause. Tommy can feel Techno formulating his next words.

“I’m not a man to play games,” Techno says. He looks away; studies the rafters for a moment. “I tell people what I think of them and I am clear about my intentions. It saves everyone trouble, in my experience. Tommy, if I were to reach the conclusion – which I have no reason to believe would happen, but in the case that it did – that you were no longer welcome in my house, I would tell you so honestly and clearly. I expect no predictions from you as to my behavior. This arrangement will work clearest if you trust me to be honest with you, Tommy.”

His gaze comes to land on Tommy, heavy with red firelight. “Do you understand me?”

Tommy doesn’t know, really. He knows what Techno likely wants him to say – a yes, yes Tommy understands what it means to be genuinely honest, to trust someone to leave nothing unsaid and expect nothing understood except what is clearly presented; but he can’t help but get the pervasive sense that were he to try – to really try – to let himself believe nothing but what is said to him, he would fail. He’s not sure he knows how to have that level of trust anymore. It just isn’t in his blood.

“I don’t know,” he says. A practice in being honest. “I can try.”

There’s another long silence. “That’s alright,” Techno says, finally. “As long as it’s been said.”

Tommy digs his fingers into the carpet. “You don’t – Techno, you don’t know everything about me,” he says, hesitant. “You don’t know why I’m here – what I did – why I had to leave.”

“No,” Techno says. “I don’t. I’ll hear you, if you want to tell me.”

Tommy finds that he doesn’t. Not really.

He looks away.

“Then it seems we’ve reached an impasse.” Techno heaves a sigh. “Phil should be back soon. You need to get some sleep, Tommy. Take a nap if you feel up to it. I’ll be in the garden if you need me.”

Techno pushes against the wall and shuffles a bit, getting to his feet. As he stands there, there is a brief moment where he looks like something devil-sent, a hellish creature bathed in firelight; his cape falls around his shoulders again, swathing him in warm red, and he looms overhead in a manner that casts shadows on the walls. His eyes dance red. He is the very image of terror. 

Inexplicably, Tommy finds that he isn’t afraid.