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Niki may not have been a part of the Syndicate for as long as the others, but there’s one thing that she caught on quickly to: none of these fuckers know how to take care of themselves. It would be hilarious if half of the members weren’t grown men that have lived longer than she wants to think about. Ranboo is the only one that gets a slight pass.
Every meeting they have, Niki notices a bit more than the others would probably like her to know. She sometimes catches the weary looks Phil slips into when he thinks no one’s paying attention. She sees the slight shaking of Technoblade’s entire body when the chatter gets a little too quiet (it’s really only then that she speaks up to start another conversation). It’s not hard to realize that Ranboo is trying very very hard not to fall asleep in his chair, and how his body is always a bit too tense when in the room.
Niki doesn’t spend a lot of time with the members of the Syndicate out of meetings. It’s just how they are. She’s a part of the organization, not their friend. However, she’s a nurturer at heart, and that will never change. So, when Ranboo comes knocking on her door in the middle of the night with steam rising from his cheeks, Niki is immediately thrown into action.
The boy is tall and lanky, and Niki is decidedly not either of those things, but she makes due with slightly pushing the boy towards the couch to lay down. He falls onto the cushions in a tangled mess of limbs. She tries her best to stifle a laugh at the shocked expression on the Enderman hybrid’s face.
It doesn’t take long for Niki to be pushing a bowl of warm soup into Ranboo’s hands. He looks at it for a moment before scarfing the entire thing down. He doesn’t need to ask before Niki is already refilling the bowl with more. They don’t talk while Ranboo eats. The only sound is the soft wind hitting the windows.
Niki lets Ranboo sleep on her couch. To be fair, she didn’t want the boy to trudge through the snow when he obviously looked dead on his feet. The couch is also the only surface long enough for Ranboo.
He’s gone in the morning when Niki wakes up. A note is hastily scrawled out and laying on the kitchen counter next to the coffee maker. She lets out a short breath of slight annoyance. Men. None of them know how to take care of themselves. With a newfound determination, Niki starts to bake. She doesn’t stop until the sun is dipping just below the horizon.
Gathering all of the treats into several containers, Niki makes her way to the Syndicate’s meeting room. Without saying a word, she places the containers in the middle of the table, and smiles at the incredulous looks that the three men throw at her. It’s not the first time she’s brought food, but it’s the first time she’s ever brought this much. Ranboo shrinks back sheepishly as Niki all but glares at him until he eats.
Even Technoblade looked a little scared as Niki handed him a cherry turnover. Although, he’d never admit to it if asked. Niki can be a little scary sometimes, and no one really wants to be on the other side of her glares or harsh words. There’s something about being cussed out by Niki that no one wants to experience. Her threats are creative at worst and downright cruel at best. Phil eats happily, but she doesn’t miss the way his eyes widen slightly as they make eye contact.
Two weeks go by relatively smoothly until Phil comes knocking on her door in the middle of the day. His wings are disheveled and his hair is, to put it nicely, fucking terrible. Honestly, you’d think that a man that’s been alive for centuries would figure out how to take a bath once in a while. Apparently Niki is the only one with sense around here.
Saying nothing - although she really wants to - Niki opens her door to let Phil come inside. She sets him down at the dining room table with a cup of warm tea, and goes to run a bath. It’s unknown to her if the man’s wings can get wet, but he’s going to have to deal with it. Everything about him is filthy. Thinking back on it, Niki remembers him saying something about going to explore the forest surrounding their wintery base. Something about it growing denser? She has given up on understanding Phil completely.
When she walks back into the dining room, Phil is asleep. The tea is spilled all over the table, and the cup is shattered on the floor. It’s nothing that Niki can’t handle, but she feels herself start to get frustrated at the state the man is in. Even asleep he looks like a wreck.
Niki cleans up the mess before gently shaking Phil awake. He flinches as she touches his shoulder, so she switches tactics and speaks softly instead. It works well enough as Phil slowly opens his eyes. She can see the utter exhaustion in his once bright blue eyes. The tension in his shoulders didn’t even melt away as he slept. Niki is left thinking when the last time Phil had a good night’s sleep was.
She doesn’t want to know the answer.
Instead, Niki gently puts Phil’s arm around her shoulder, puts her other arm around the man’s waist, and hobbles into the bathroom. She sets him down on the toilet seat and starts to remove his crusted clothes. Phil says nothing. Niki hums quietly as she works.
She looks into Phil’s eyes when his chest is bared, and he shivers at the loss of heat surrounding him. She turns around as the man removes the rest of his clothes and slips into the lukewarm water in the bathtub. The curtain is pulled closed as Phil cleans himself, but Niki stays in the room and sings softly. She doesn’t quite trust that Phil will stay awake and not drown.
“Um.” Niki stops singing. “Can, uh. I need help. With my hair.”
No other words need to be said as Niki pulls back the curtain just enough to see Phil’s face. There’s blood and grime matted into his blond hair, and she can see that there’s blood still seeping out of two cuts on his left shoulder. She tilts his head back and pours clean water from the sink onto his hair with a cup.
She watches as everything washes out of the man’s hair, and she starts to see the original color again. She feels the tension fade away from Phil’s body as he melts into her fingers as they work to remove dirt and sticks from his hair. Niki starts to sing again, and Phil makes an effort to not actually fall asleep.
Once his hair is thoroughly cleaned, Niki stands up and leaves to gather some clothes for him to change into. It’s a good thing that she got bored and took up sewing. She probably has thousands of different sized shirts and pants. Some things never change as she unconsciously prepared for people of all sizes and shapes to stop by her house for a night or two from travelling.
Niki sets the clothes on the counter and leaves the room to let Phil change. She had cut large slits into the back of the shirt, so hopefully his wings will fit. Actually, she hopes everything will fit him. It’s not like she got his measurements or anything. All of her worries are shooed away as Phil opens the door. The clothes fit relatively well.
She puts an arm around him again as she guides him to the couch. The wound on his shoulder isn’t terrible, so all she has to do is clean and bandage it. Just as she did with Ranboo, Niki gives Phil a bowl of soup to eat. Then another. Then five more before he stops eating. If Niki only learned one thing, it would be that food is the fastest way to anyone’s heart.
She takes another look at the state of Phil’s wings. They’re supposed to be beautiful, grand things that were granted to him by the Universe, yet they look like a goddamn trainwreck. Niki puts a hand on Phil’s back in a silent question, and he extends one wing over her lap.
Niki isn’t stupid, contrary to popular belief. She’s actually quite smart. So, when Phil drapes a wing over her lap, she knows the weight that the action carries. Phil trusts her enough to preen his wings, and that, she thinks, is the highest honor that she could ever be given. To touch something that only a divine being can wield is something that makes Niki smile widely before running her hands through the feathers.
She works her way through each row, straightening and pulling out loose feathers. Phil has completely melted into the cushions of the couch, a deep sleep overcoming him. It takes Niki well into the night to fully be satisfied with the state of his wings. Once everything is in order, she climbs into her own bed and hopes for a few hours of sleep before the sun inevitably shines through her window and wakes her up. After all, she has a lot of baking to do.
If her heart breaks just a little bit when seeing the couch empty and a note left on the table, then that’s no one’s business except her own. She never expected much else from Phil.
The most surprising thing happens when Technoblade knocks on her door at two in the morning. It’s the night after a Syndicate meeting, and she has absolutely no idea why he would need to speak to her, and - oh. There’s blood dripping from his very being.
Technoblade looks downright savage as his hand grips tightly onto his axe. There’s a crazed glint in his eyes as they dart around before finally disappearing as he looks into Niki’s. She’s sprung into action as Technoblade starts to fall.
She lies him down on the dining room table, and gets a bowl and a washcloth to start cleaning the blood off of him. Thankfully, not a lot of the blood is his own. However, there’s a nasty gash on his right upper-forearm that is going to need stitches. Niki sprints to the kit underneath the bathroom sink and back in under a minute.
She unclasps the cape from around Technoblade’s shoulders, and cuts his shirt right below his shoulder. Working quickly, Niki uses a suture to sew Techno’s arm up. He doesn’t move during the process, but he does let out pained hisses when she pulls just a little too tight. She resists the urge to tell him none of this would have happened if he had been more careful.
When she’s done, Techno’s breathing is irregular and his pupils are dilated. So he has a concussion. Awesome. She has no idea how long Techno has been out with a concussion, and that means that she can’t let him sleep now. Okay. This is fine.
“How long have you been out?” Niki waits for an answer.
“I don’t know.” Thanks Techno, really helpful.
“Do you know how long it’s been since you hit your head? You have a concussion, and you can’t sleep for at least three hours after the initial trauma to the head.”
“If it counts, I can’t remember when I didn’t have trauma to my head.”
“Physical, not emotional, Techno.” Slight snorts emit from Techno as he tries not to laugh.
“It’s been probably about an hour.” Now they’re getting somewhere. Niki can work with this. “But you don’t have to watch over me. I’ll head home and deal with it. Thank you for patching me up.”
“Oh hell no. There is no way I’m letting you back out there with a concussion, newly stitched-up arm, and torn clothes. Also, I mean this in the nicest way possible, you look like you’ll fall over if the wind so much as blows the wrong way. Sorry to say it, Techno, but you’re staying here for at least the night.”
Niki would laugh at the look on Technoblade’s face if it weren’t for the fact that she’s beginning to feel a little more than aggravation towards the Piglin hybrid. He truly can’t be serious about heading home right now. It’s three in the morning, for Prime’s sake! He’s an idiot if he thinks Niki is just going to let him saunter away like that.
Technoblade doesn’t say anything as he sits down on the couch. Niki nods and goes to run a bath for him. He can obviously walk and talk perfectly fine, so she doesn’t have to worry about him drowning while she’s not with him in the bath. This time she can actually make something other than soup.
However, Niki still guides Techno to the bathroom. She leaves him to clean himself as she puts a fresh pair of clothes on the counter for him when he gets out. Then, she makes her way into the kitchen to start breakfast. It might as well be, anyways.
Just as she finishes baking a potato for Techno, he comes out of the bathroom with the clothes Niki set out for him on. The pants are a little too short, but they fit fine. He sits quietly in a chair at the table. They eat in silence.
She doesn’t ask why he was out so late at night. She never asks anyone their reasons for coming to her house. There’s rarely any time to talk, anyways, seeing as most of the times people come over is because they’re injured. Her house is right next to the forest, after all, and it’s the first thing people come to once they escape the maze of trees.
It’s alright, though. Niki doesn’t mind the company, however short-lived it may be. She enjoys being there for other people in their time of need. If all she needs to do is stitch up a wound or feed a weary traveller, then it’s really the least she could do.
She’s used to people leaving in the morning before she wakes up. She’s grown familiar with the pit in her stomach as she reads thank you note after thank you note. Always right by the coffee maker. Always right where she can see it.
Maybe someday she will learn how to go to other people when she’s the one who’s injured. Perhaps she’ll learn that there’s people that care about her just as much as she cares about them. If she would have asked Ranboo why he was crying, then maybe she would have learned that he would have told her everything. If she was paying attention, maybe she would have seen the way Phil looked at her with curiosity as she hummed a song that he hadn’t heard in eons.
If she looked up right at this very second, she would see the way that Technoblade is truly relaxed for the first time in her presence. She would feel the tension in the room dissipate into nothingness. She would look into dilated pupils and see nothing but hardened loyalty and admiration lurking.
But Niki doesn’t look up. She doesn’t ask for the reasons people come to her home. She has learned that not everyone wants to talk about why they are on the verge of death. Niki is a healer, not their friend. She is a tool in the Syndicate. She is a hardened veteran of wars. She is Niki, and Niki has never really meant anything.