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Techno could already tell that today was not going to be a good day. Last night he had only managed to have a total of 3 hours of sleep. Was it his fault for being too invested in a book he was reading? Absolutely not, Techno will blame anyone else for his tiredness but himself. So, he woke up, eyes sore and back aching. At least the crisp water from the shower was refreshing. That was a pleasant thing that helped wake him up a little bit.
Then it all went downhill from there.
First, he burnt his toast when making breakfast. Whilst that may seem like a stupid thing to get frustrated about, it left a sour taste in his mouth that would probably stay for an uncomfortably long amount of time. And as Phil would always say “breakfast is the most important meal of the day!” So when he managed to mess that up, he could tell that today was going to be tiring.
Next, he decided to go to the closest village to stock up on supplies. However, this couldn’t go smoothly for him either. Not only did he trip down the stairs at the front of the house (causing Wilbur to burst into a fit of laughter), Phil had forced Techno to take Tommy with him. He had smirked as Techno groaned at the suggestion. He hated the fact that the old man really knew what he was doing, he would definitely complain about it to carl later.
“Come on, Techno! Pleaaaseee?” Tommy whined, voice dragging on for way too long.
“Fine,” he huffed, “just please shut up.”
Techno knew he was asking too much from the blond because his little brother did in fact not shut up for the entire trip.
“Techno look at that emerald, isn’t it cool? Buy it for me?”
“If you’re going to be annoying then I’m not buying you anything”
“Can we get it Techno? Can we? Can we?”
“No.”
Today he has come so close to committing several crimes, one of them being murder. Would he rather be stuck with his younger brother or finally have some peace and quiet? It took an embarrassingly short amount of time for him to choose the latter. Phil wouldn’t have been very pleased with him though, so he decided to just push Tommy over when the blond wasn’t looking.
“You bitch!” Tommy gasped, lying on the dirt path.
“Maybe you deserved it,” he smirked.
Following the little ‘confrontation’, Tommy seemed quieter now. He wasn’t silent though and as always, somehow, he successfully pushed all of Techno’s buttons.
It was when they were just about to leave the village when Tommy asked him to look at something he had in his inventory. In his hand, was the shining emerald that he had been looking at before. The emerald that Techno had most definitely not bought for his little brother.
“Tommy,” Techno pinched the bridge of his nose, “where did you get that?”
“I stole it,” he grinned and that caused Techno to almost strangle him right there and then.
“Why would you think that that was a good idea? You shouldn’t steal,” he scolded.
“But I was thinking of giving it to Tubbo,” he explained, trying to do puppy dog eyes (which, just to be clear, would usually work on Wilbur or Phil but would not work on Techno), “Phil gave us all emeralds as a present and since Tubbo is basically family I though I’d give him one too.”
Okay, Techno isn’t soft. He is violent and strong and definitely not kind. So when he let Tommy keep the emerald it was totally out of pity and not because the thoughtful action warmed his cold hard. Yeah, it was definitely out of pity.
And of course, as if the world was trying to correct itself after Techno was unusually kind, another problem arose.
A villager managed to stop them before the could actually leave, waving at Tommy and gesturing a whole lot. Being a piglin hybrid meant that Techno could speak and understand both English and Piglish. However, he has never been able to understand whatever the hell villagers were saying. All they would do was “herm” and “har” and Techno never had a clue what they were on about. The only way they could communicate was through pointing and then nodding or shaking your head. It wasn’t the most effective way for communication but it did the job.
However, right now, he wished he understood even just a little bit of what this guy was saying.
Luckily (or maybe it was unlucky, Techno wasn’t quite sure), Tommy was there to fill him in, “that’s the guy I stole from.”
Oh great. Absolutely wonderful. This is just what Techno needed right now.
“Well, let’s keep walking I’m sure he’ll leave us alone eventually,” he instructed.
He was very wrong.
The villager ran around to stop them from moving further, pulling out his axe. It was only a stone axe though, so if this guy wanted to fight over one measly emerald, then so be it. It was fine because he had his trusty-
His hand reached down to his belt and where his sword should have been, there was just empty space. Seriously, what bad thing has he done to deserve this? Had he pissed off some God and his punishment was having (possibly) the worst day of his entire life?
Well, looks like Techno was doing this the old-fashioned way. It was time to fight a villager with just his bare hands.
In hind sight, maybe that hadn’t been the best idea because now Techno had a deep slash within his cheek and a villager who probably didn’t deserve Techno slamming his fist into the side of his head, rendering him unconscious. To be fair, the villager had swung first so Techno had just retaliated. Was it a fair fight? No. Did Phil have to know about this? Absolutely not. So they between himself and Tommy, they used a healing potion and vowed not to let Phil in on their secret because both of them would rather not feel his wrath after he finds out about them knocking out a villager they stole from.
By the time they had gotten back home, Techno had a pounding headache.
Furthermore, Will deciding that now was the best time to practice his new songs, did not help the situation at all. So he banged on his brothers door and demanded him to be quite.
Wilbur chuckled, “I’m practicing my music, I’m not going to stop just because you’re in a mood.”
“I’m not in a mood,” he sighed, “I have a headache and I will not hesitate to tell Phil because we both know he will tell you to shut up.”
“Oh yeah and then you can explain that you got the headache because some village brought and axe to your head.”
Techno froze, “did Tommy tell you?”
“Of course, he can’t keep a secret to save his life.”
It was better that Will knew and not Phil but of course Tommy spilt the secret literally as soon as they got home. His loud mouth little brother didn’t have an off button, what did he expect? “So you’re saying you are using that as blackmail?”
“I guess, it’s just that I know that, tomorrow, Tubbo is going to be given an emerald that wasn’t paid for. I also know that there was an incident that led to a village being unconscious.” Wilbur flashed a sly grin, before shutting his door, knowing full well he had won this battle.
Curse his stupid brother and how he always managed to have blackmail of some sort over him. The most dirt he had on Wilbur was the fact that he had snuck out that one time to meet up with friends after curfew but he was pretty sure Phil already knew about that. So instead he chugged a healing potion (not a good idea) and locked himself in his room, distracting himself with more books (considering he still had a persistent headache, this was also not a good idea.)
At some point Techno could almost feel himself drift away but that was interrupted by Tommy who slammed his door open to exclaim that dinner was ready. Dragging himself away from his desk and downstairs, the table had already been set and Phil was busy finishing cooking in the kitchen. Throughout dinner he had to kick Wilbur a total of three times underneath the table and Tommy twice. Of course the latter was vocal about it so Techno was forced to apologise. Then after helping clear the plates, the effects of the potion hit him. It wasn’t his smartest idea to down a whole healing potion and his head ache had returned and now he just felt annoyingly drowsy.
The plan now was go see how Carl was doing today then go to bed because for once he felt like he could actually fall asleep.
“Techno where are you going? It’s game night, remember?” Tommy reminded him.
To be completely honest, he hadn’t remembered that tonight was game night and wished his family hadn’t remembered either because Techno did not want to play any sort of game right now, he wanted to lock himself away and make sure his brothers couldn’t bother him anymore.
“Yeah Techno, you’re not going to bail on us, are you?” Wilbur smirked, “because we really wouldn’t want that, would we?”
The thing about being twins was that you were unnervingly good at knowing what the other was thinking. So no doubt, Wilbur could sense that his twin was drained and had a head ache but of course he wanted to play games so he was going to drag the piglin into it too.
Techno was shattered, but all he had to do was play one game. Maybe he will pretend to be crap then lose fairly quickly so he can leave as soon as possible. Tonight’s game was cards, he could deal with this. Wilbur would play first, they would then all take turns, Techno would lose first and then escape to the stables. It was a perfect plan.
Starting the game, Wilbur played down his card, the ace of spades.
Tommy followed... putting down a plus four from uno?
Phil chuckled, “good try Tommy but you’re not prepared for this! Jolteon, I choose you.”
Wait, what?
“Guys what the hell are we even playing?”
Narrowing his eyes in suspicion, his family just stared at him, nodding at him to play as if whatever had just happened was an actual game. As if them staring at him would explain what was going on.
Glancing down at his cards (which he hadn’t even realised were a mismatch of literally every card game you could think of), he picked one at random. It was a wheat card from the game pit and whilst playing that would make no sense, this game didn’t make sense to begin. “I play one wheat?” Look, he had no idea what was going on but he was trying his best.
“Oooh, that no good Techno, you have to pick up the pile now,” Wilbur informed.
“What? Why? This doesn’t make any sense,” he spat back.
“Sorry mate,” Phil pushed the cards towards him, “it’s the rules.”
Was his whole family just teaming up to mess with him? Did they want to rile him up? Because if so, it was absolutely working. Whilst Techno wanted desperately to go to sleep, a competitive voice in his head demanded that he won this game.
He wasn’t going to be defeated by his family and their stupid made up game.
Techno ended up losing. He lost 'completely' even though he wasn’t sure how it happened. At one point Tommy just played a folded up plain piece of A4 paper and that apparently gave him 20 points. Techno didn’t even know this game had a points system. He didn’t even know how to win, all he knew was that his family had declared he had lost.
God he was so fed up with all of them
“Okay fine,” he shoved his chair backwards, maybe a little too fast, before leaving out the front door.
Had he let their shenanigans get to him when he should’ve just ignore them? Yes, he had. Phil called to him before he stepped outside, unfortunately the door slamming cut his dad off. Instead he headed to the stables. He headed to a place he knew would be safe from silly games and annoying brothers. Opening the door, he relaxed his shoulders, “hey Carl, how are you?”
His horse whinnied in response, causing Techno to smile slightly, “sorry I’ve not been able to ride you toady. I had to go out with Tommy and I’ve had a huge headache all day then had family game night. You know how it is.”
Carl huffed, agreeing with him. If Techno ever needed someone he could trust, he knew he could come to his noble steed. He could ramble about his day without any interruption and his family knew not to bother him if he holed himself up in the stables. It was a gentle and non-violent method to calm the voices if needs be. So he told Carl about everything that had happened today.
It made him realise that today hadn’t been so bad. Tommy had been fun to hang with and whilst playing cards his competitive side told him that the game was worth playing too. Behind the stable door, the sun began to set and Techno could feel his heavy eyelids start to droop.
When he awoke, the only source of light was a small candle that definitely hadn’t been there before. Next to it was a small note.
“Hey mate, Tommy’s really excited to give Tubbo his emerald tomorrow. Wilbur already told me how you obtained it when I asked him if anything bad had happened today once you had stormed out after cards today. To be honest, I’m impressed, Tommy said you used your bare fists. Will thinks you had a bad nights sleep last night too and was probably tired all day today so thanks for still getting supplies. I won’t wake you but when you wake up, the back door is unlocked if you want to come back inside.”
Techno let out a chuckle, why had he been so scared for Phil finding out about what had happened? And of course, Wilbur was still looking out for him even with the joking around. Now he just felt slightly dumb.
Putting the note aside, he noticed he was now covered in a blanket (one he remembers seeing in Tommy’s bedroom) and a pillow (a pillow he knew was definitely from Wilbur’s room), keeping him and Carl protected from the bitter night air.
If Techno ended up blushing, a warm smile forming on his face because of the kindness of his family, he would claim that that never happened. No one was there to witness his soft side, so no one could prove that he had thought that the letter, pillow and blanket were touching. If Techno ended up whispering to whatever God that was watching over him that he was thankful for his family, well, no one but himself and Carl needed to know about that.