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The house is quiet now, and it’s a little unsettling to Ranboo. The only sounds all day have been the sound of rain hitting the house and whatever videos he watched for his online classes. Even then, those classes were played in headphones, not over speakers. After the last few days, having a quiet house is...
Weird. It feels weird.
After the events of Halloween night, the house was hardly as empty as it was now. There was constantly life and living and voices trailing from downstairs, laughter and relief that Dream, their friend, their brother, was rescued and safe and Techno defeated the King and the dreamon attacks had gone down drastically and people could live peacefully for a moment, breathe easily for a while, but now it was quiet.
Dream was still here; Ranboo knows that the living room had quickly become a makeshift hospital room. He’s healing much faster with Techno’s magic, but they can only do so little a day.
Ranboo glances at his alarm clock, and the numbers blink back 12:04 PM, even though he’s gotten ahead of his work and finished it ahead of time, having free time in a quiet house didn’t feel right.
His stomach growls. He should get lunch.
Not like he can do much, anyway, at the moment. Weather not included, Ranboo was grounded. Nothing too serious of a punishment (it was hard to take away electronics from someone who has to do online school), nothing compared to the sting of a ruler on his hands, but Ranboo couldn’t go anywhere without adult supervision for a while. And he couldn’t leave the house without Phil knowing exactly where he was going.
And no teleporting until Phil says so. Or, at least, when Phil is around.
Which, fair.
He probably gave Phil a massive heart attack when he just disappeared on him the other night to go help Dream. But it worked out in the end somewhat…? Ranboo still doesn’t know.
He heads down the stairs as quietly as he can, having memorized, at some point, the parts of the stairs that creak and squeak with too much pressure. Dream is a heavy sleeper, he thinks, but it’s better to try and be polite than to stop around everywhere (like Tommy does).
Peeking his head into the living room, he sees Techno hunched over Dream, his glittering magic lighting up the room. It fades quickly, and Dream is knocked out for another few hours for sure, if he wasn’t already asleep.
Techno turns his head back, noticing Ranboo immediately. It was only the two of them (and Dream, but he was pretty comatose most of the time aside from the few hours he was awake to eat and take a shower with help and the like) home for the day. Tommy and Wilbur were still at school, and Phil had some business to attend to for his job.
His actual job. Ranboo wondered what Phil’s job was, apparently, he was a consultant for a few companies in the city over. They only ever needed him virtually, so he could spend his time freely at home, but sometimes he actually had to attend meetings, and would be gone for most of the day. It was only the second time Ranboo had been left to his own devices after his adoption.
“Mornin’,” Techno grunts.
“It’s noon.” Ranboo replies.
“Oh.” He wipes his hands off on his pants. There’s no blood, but there’s still a faint glimmer of magic that gets wiped off on the brown fabric before fading. “Huh. Didn’t realize it was.”
“Do you want lunch?” Ranboo asks. “I was just about to make--”
“Sure.”
Ranboo nods. They both head to the kitchen, and Ranboo hopes that he doesn’t end up burning the macaroni and cheese again.
It’s a mediocre lunch, Ranboo decides, but there was no burning or small fire this time, at least. But there was also no Wilbur to help stop a fire with ice and have to get Phil to hire someone to repair and have an awkward conversation to how in the world some of the stove was covered with frost.
Still, no small fire, a success.
Techno stares at the bowl of bright yellow mac and cheese in front of him. He blinks a few times--
Oh my god, Ranboo realizes. Techno is tired!
He’s never seen the older man tired-- it’s always constant movement with Techno, even if he doesn’t show it. Ranboo has never seen him sleep, and when his sleepwalking problem was really bad, he knows that Techno and Wilbur were both the ones to help guide him back to his room or somewhere safe, but Wilbur slept at times. Horribly, for someone Wilbur’s age, and Ranboo would find him dozing on the couch or the large chair in Phil’s office occasionally if he wasn’t passed out in his room.
But Techno has never been tired before.
There’s another moment of awkward silence between them, and Techno leans back in his chair, stretching.
“How’s your day going?” Ranboo asks nervously, to fill in the silence. He’s been adopted for a good few weeks but also it’s still incredibly awkward sometimes. More on his end, because he’s awkward.
“Eh.” Techno shrugs. “Dream’s healing is goin’ a lot… slower than I was expecting.”
He was used as a generator for a monster for a month or so, so Ranboo thinks, he has a lot of things to heal from.
“But he’s eating more solid food now, right?” Techno nods, taking a bite of the (probably radioactive) lunch Ranboo made. “So, it’s progress.”
“Guess so.” Techno sighs. He glances to the side. “I’ve healed people before who were on the verge of death, but never anything like this. It’s the longest healing anyone has taken...”
He can’t imagine how many people Techno has had to heal. How many people he has had to reach across, grab their souls before they left their body, pulling them back to the living.
Wait.
“Techno, can I ask you a question?”
Techno quirks an eyebrow.
“So, uh, how old are you, exactly?” It spills from his mouth too quickly. He has half a mind to cover up his mouth, but he’s in too much shock that he just actually asked it to begin with-- just as Techno was complaining about stuff-- and he opens his mouth to apologize, but laughter from Techno makes him stop.
“You’re-- you’re something else, Ranboo.” Techno sighs. There’s a faint smile on his face. It improved his mood, at least, and Ranboo nods, hoping any flush embarrassment isn’t too visible on his face. “Is this about that stupid age club that Tommy keeps talking about?”
Ranboo nods.
“Well…” Techno sighs. “Since you asked, I guess I can tell you. Gets me thinkin’ about other things, at least.” He glances back to Ranboo, meets him not quite in the eyes but close enough where he knows that he is looking at him without direct eye contact, and grins. “Tell me, what do you know about Ancient Greece?”
“W-What?!” Is he that old? How?
Techno nods, and then he breaks out into a vicious laughter, like he can’t hold it back. “Oh my god, you should’ve seen your face. No, I’m not that old. Wish I was, though.”
Of course he does. “Okay… fine, you got me there.” Ranboo can’t help but smile back.
“Tommy and Tubbo are probably expecting me to be some sort of immortal god who has been around since the beginning of time, but the truth is, I was born in the 60s. 1966.” Techno smiles, but it’s not the mischievous one he has when he and Wilbur are about to pull a prank on Tommy, but it’s warmer.
“But that’d mean you’d be… fifty-something years old, right?” Ranboo can’t be bothered to do the exact math in his head. “You look barely twenty!”
“What can I say, dermatologists hate me.” Techno shrugs with a chuckle. He sits up. His bowl is empty now, and he looks a little more like Techno, less tired and exhausted. “Stopped aging after my twenty-first birthday, I think. Didn’t realize until I was thirty and was like, wait, I shouldn’t look this good still.”
That makes sense. If Ranboo was suddenly immortal he wouldn’t notice either, for a few good years.
“The fact that I got impaled also confirmed my theory.”
Ranboo was glad he hadn’t taken a sip of his cherry coke or he would’ve spat it everywhere. He still freezes, for a second, unpacking what Techno had just said.
“It made a decent first impression on Phil, at least.”
Whiplash number two. How will Ranboo recover?
“It was actually a really interesting story. Phil and I met out in Europe when I was looking for some old books about dreamons, and there was this cult-- safe to say they didn’t appreciate us snooping around, and were not afraid to use force on us...”
Ranboo is sure he isn’t going to recover, with the nonchalance that Techno speaks with. But it makes sense. So much sense.
And he’s thankful for two things. One, that Techno will tell him stories about a young Phil and adventuring in Europe for knowledge about magic and dreamons to bring back to the states, and two, an honorary induction in the Techno Age Club.