Chapter Text
When I was a child, I heard voices
Techno had accepted from a young age that he wasn’t “normal”.
Normal kids didn’t listen to screams in the back of their head, hidden behind static that made him dizzy and afraid.
Normal kids didn’t become mesmerised by the shine of a kitchen knife or the flick of their father’s switchblade.
Normal kids didn’t know martial arts like it had been built into their blood.
Normal kids didn’t sit up in their bed at night, hands shaking as their vision fell red and blood seeped from picked and bitten nails in the hope their head would stop being so loud.
It wasn’t normal to take up sword fighting lessons at the age of 13, but he did it anyway.
Some would sing and some would scream
He learned quickly what set him apart, and how to hide it.
He also learned exactly how to get what he needed.
Bullying Technoblade became a norm, if only because when you threw a punch he would fight back and you could always go to him for a fight. (It kept the noises in his head quiet, kept the ‘chitter chatter’ away as his Mother had called it one night when he’d cried his soul to her)
At age 17, Techno had not only an application for a college to study English, but an apprenticeship at the local farm. They didn’t mind what weapon he used (the blade sung at his side, sung when he swung the purple tinted blade through the air) as long as it was clean, and the animals needed were dead by the end of his shifts. He took payment only to pay for school and eventually a car, and never spent it on more than weaponry and clothes if it was REALLY necessary.
You soon learn you have few choices
Eventually Techno dropped out of college, and started work full time on the farm, ignoring the way his throat lept when the farmer’s golden hair would have a plait down the side, or when the kids that lived there swore at him.
They were good to him, and he picked up potato farming, eventually starting a small war with another worker on the farm. The loud sweary kid would later gift him fertiliser, and he’d pretend to ignore the flash of deja vu he received when the tools and aids changed hands. Ignore the way Chat (as he’d come to call them) would rant about blonde troublemakers and squids. Ignore the way they screamed for blood when he passed by ditches or pits around the forests, and the way the calmed if his arm caught on a bramble, or when he’d decapitate another chicken.
Ignore the way his heart stopped when a traveller in a brown coat and yellow jumper locked eyes with him a little too long, and sang songs Techno somehow already knew the lyrics to. Pretended he hadn’t felt empty when that stranger had left that same evening.
I learned the voices died with me
Chat died when he picked at his nails. Died when he left cuts unbandaged (but not uncleaned, he did need to heal).
They were loud one April in 2004, screaming about brothers and love and trouble and noise. They ranted and raved about brothers and Greek myths and broken promises and love. They SCREAMED of love, and it tore his head apart.
A lot of chickens died that day, but not a single cow.
Chat refused to kill a single cow that day, and only quietened when he kept his promise to them that not a cow would come to harm on that day in April, and on April 9th every year the cows were allowed to live if only for another day.
~~~~~~
When I was a child, I’d sit for hours
Phil learned the hard way that it was weird for a 14 year-old to be sure he wanted to adopt 3 kids.
He also learned it was weirder to know how to tell berries that could kill apart from the regular ones.
People always commented on how polite Phil was as a child. How civil and wonderful he’d been, a ‘little grown up!’
He was also loved for his Lego builds, those of giant monuments, that he’d sketch out on papers and design with various items. Each one stood proud and tall on windowsills and shelves around his room. One particular prize, a fish bowl made purely of Lego, with tall ‘obsidian’ pillars inside, was the center of his windowsill, and reflected light all across his room.
Staring into open flame
DT became a dream for Phil, enjoying the endless whittling and building and construction. Even being asked to draw a toaster (why did he need a toaster when fire was good enough?) was brilliant compared to maths or English. The only lesson he even slightly liked as much as DT was Latin.
He knew another language in the back of his head, and Latin was the closest thing to the odd words that clouded his subconscious. The teacher, after beginning to become attached to Phil’s natural skill in Latin, had learned of this other language, and tried their best to help him. It was tricky to figure out anything when no-one had a clue what this language was, or even what it sounded like, but Phil could write it down, and it looked good.
Something in it had a power
He’d eventually met Kristen, who didn’t think it was odd that he had three spare bedrooms in a cabin he’d built from scratch, on land he’d bought with the money from small carvings. She didn’t think it was weird to house three kids that he’d eventually take in, despite never visiting an orphanage. Kristen didn’t deem him insane to only have a little blackberry that sent texts and called who he needed (her), didn’t think it was bizarre to not want emails.
They made only money needed to get by, called only who they needed to, and wanted for nothing more than a cow, some bees, a sheep, a horse and the three missing members of their family.
Could barely tear my eyes away
Sometimes, other things would take hold of him. He’d fight off nothing in the dark, dive off of the nearby cliffs to feel the wind rush past his face, if only for a moment. His hat never left his head, and his robes calmed him down. The weighted ones that in the dark, in the middle of the night, replaced an empty feeling on his back.
Other times, he’d use what Kristen called “the voice.” It wasn’t anything major, just when something went wrong.
She’d suggested they dye their sheep a colour other than blue and he’d used it. When a man had come round to suggest butchering their cow, he’d used it. He had no control, and never remembered what happened, but the sheep remained blue, and the cow stayed alive, and that was the end of that.
~~~~~~
When I was 16 my senses fooled me
If his teachers had to describe him in one word, it would probably be skittish.
Tommy had been a very loud child, babbling and bothering and swearing and chatting about banana sweaters and wings, sometimes even buildings beneath the ocean, that held fish. He had an odd love for fish. But from the age of 13 and up, he’d grown quiet. Ready to run in the snap of a finger. So scared that the simple command of “run” turned him into the school’s star sprinter.
Of course, speed was not enough to be safe in a school like Tommy’s. Bullies had no mercy for lanky kids that begged for safety. His cries, his pain. It was sweet melodies to their ears, and he didn’t even know he was doing it. Their ‘beat downs’ were like blackouts, he could never remember a thing. Bruises coated his arms, and he’d given up caring when they broke his fingers. Hospital trips every week, and not a single suspicion yet. He preferred it like that.
Thought Gasoline was on my clothes.
Tommy could always remember vividly the first time the fire alarm had gone off.
He had known it was going to happen, could feel an itch beneath his skin, lungs taking in less air. He could smell the flames licking. The loud sirens had sent him into a panic, one that caused him to grab everything he had, shove it in a bag and jump out of the nearest window. Somehow, he’d landed just fine, and taken off sprinting to the school’s exit. Somewhere along the way, he’d grabbed his friend Jack by the wrist, dragging him along.
In that moment, Jack wasn’t confused at Tommy’s weird actions. In fact, he’d sprinted with him. The both of them holding a knife in their free hand, bags slung over their shoulders. Something powered them, and it kept them going.
The school didn’t do fire drills without warning Tommy and Jack anymore, and trusted them to take care of themselves if a fire ever did happen.
I knew that something would always rule me.
Tommy’s actions hadn’t always been his own, and he’d learned to become content with that.
Sometimes, he lived like an outsider to his own life, watched from afar as his body walked down the road. Loneliness owned him, and with his parents’ constant absences it was only fuelled. He found solace in breaking into Jack’s house at night. Freddie and Eryn didn’t feel it the way he did, but Jack had a glimpse. Though they’d figured out Jack didn’t feel the same Tommy did, the memory of the fire alarm had never left them. Jack knew what it was to fear flames, for car fumes to feel more at home when they should. To look at reports of bombing on the news and know what it had felt like.
Tommy got it the worst of it all, a fear of everyone leaving him. A connection to an online speed runner he’d discovered called “Dream.” The Dream in these videos felt off somehow, didn’t feel correct. But Tommy’s soul ached when that predatory voice filled his ears, and even moreso when songs came on that felt like the hug of an older brother.
I knew the scent was mine alone.
He’d gone caving with his parents once, and although it was claustrophobia-inducing, something felt right about it.
The moment Jack had been allowed to drive, Tommy had begged to be taken back, and Jack had sat in the car the whole day, while Tommy carefully ran his fingers along each nook and cranny. A pit in the corner, which just looking at would cause his bruises to throb and flash with pain. Holes in each wall, that filled his ears with laughter. The coo of a bird, echoing through the cavern, throwing a feeling of safety to wash through him, a connection to the feather hanging on his mobile at home.
Once, he’d made the mistake of picking up a stick, and suddenly he was fighting thin air, tripping over kicks to his knees that never existed. Jack had found him, when the sun had set and Tommy hadn’t returned, fighting the wind with cuts adorning every arm.
It had taken a week to convince Jack to take him back to the caves.
Even longer to convince him to take Tommy to the clearing in the woods.
~~~~~~
When I was a man, I thought it ended,
Wilbur’s heart had never done anything but ache for the call of creation and travel. Fear had worked its way into his heart as a child, and held its place in his head through the nights, leaving his soul to pour out to the stars. He’d hoped with everything in his soul that perhaps when he’d grow up, he’d be able to leave. Get on a train and go, that maybe it would settle his mind and bring him to peace. His family had been tearful, but supportive of his leave. His parents had never known anything but the ground they’d been born on, and that was enough for them, but not him.
With a Guitar, songs from his soul that he had pulled from no-where, and a trench-coat on his shoulders, Wilbur hit the road.
When I knew love’s perfect ache.
Ache was a good word to summarise his love life. Solitude shrouded him the same way his coat did, and no matter how bad he wanted love, or how much he had tried to find it, he had only pushed the people he loved away. Something told him this wasn’t right, this wasn’t the love he needed but his parents had always been loving, so that gap where his heart needed a father should have been filled. He’d never wanted for siblings, and his parents didn’t need children. That want for a small child to yell into his ear was pointless.
Various women had left him alone, but he knew deep down he’d deserved it in the end. His music was the only thing that truly felt home, aside from his coat, jumper and beanie. He didn’t need anything more. He didn’t.
But my peace has always depended,
Upon his travels, he’d clicked for a small moment with a man on a farm. According to his host, that pink-haired Guy killed the animals for them. Killed them with a purple tinted sword. Apparently he loved potatoes, and he’d even started a friendly war with one of the other workers. The farmer had said his name was “Techno” and that he’d been with them as long as the man could remember. He didn’t kill cows on April 9th, and didn’t kill Sheep, oddly enough, on Wilbur’s birthday.
Wilbur had been scared by Techno. They’d locked eyes for a second too long and then blood and capes and crowns had flooded his vision. Pain had blossomed in his chest, and his hands had itched for his guitar. He needed to play, needed to get out the music, to know if this “Techno” man had felt the same thing he had.
And he had.
Techno had hummed along to the tune. He’d known Wilbur’s music. He had the spark.
It scared him. He left the next morning, but couldn’t help writing the farm’s address in his songbook.
On all the ashes in my wake.
When Wilbur was 8, he’d burnt down a shed, and watched the embers fly into the sky. The police had been called, and Wilbur had been placed on a watchlist. When he was 14, he’d started a bonfire in the woods with Rihanna and Charlie, and they’d run from the cops in the night.
The night after running from Techno, he’d burnt his socks, the itch for fire crackling beneath his skin. He’d wanted an explosion, but the fire would have to do. He’d google how to make a simple explosion another day, or perhaps set his deodorant can alight if he really got that bored.
He’d caused damage in every town and village he’d passed through, but for some reason when he’d run, he’d waited until he was off the estate to set the fire. Something about harming the land that his brother this guy had lived on tore at his insides. He wouldn’t hurt them. Not a chance.