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Techno is finding it hard to exist without guilt. Stop biting your nails. There is guilt in just about everything he does, it seems; everything he does isn’t good enough to him but he knows he wouldn’t be any more happy if he didn’t do whatever he did.
It started randomly, frankly.
Techno was in his room, stressing out about the essay he was writing for English as he was revising it when he glanced at his watch. 8:30 pm., it read.
He thought, “ I missed dinner. Whoops.“
Directly after this thought, he felt strangely- proud, almost. Happy. Whatever it was, Techno was addicted. Akin to his love of coffee or his late night (early morning) reading sessions, he couldn’t get enough of it.
Standing in front of the bathroom mirror the next morning, Techno did something strange. He turned sideways and lifted his shirt up to show his abdomen. His stomach was flush with his hips, and the pride from the previous evening flooded through his chest once more.
He only skipped one more dinner that week, and quickly had to devise a new plan for skipping meals because Phil’s eyes narrowed at him when he took only half of a serving of pasta.
“What’s wrong, mate? Don’t you want some more pasta?”
“Nah, it’s ok. My stomach doesn’t feel the best right now.”
“Ok, then. Feel free to get more if you want.”
Techno smiled and tried to act normally throughout the meal with Phil’s eyes pinned on his back all evening.
He went to bed semi-hungry and woke up craving breakfast. He hasn’t skipped another meal until this afternoon’s lunch. He was at running practice, and gave away the sandwich and chips that Phil had packed for him. Simple as that.
Dream was ‘absolutely ravenous’ (his words) and took the chips then split the sandwich in half with Quackity.
The Mexican boy had jokingly called the pita that had peanut butter and jelly smeared on it a baguette, then soon after a croissant. Techno was soon after dubbed ‘croissant boy’ by Dream, and it caught on all too well with Quackity.
Echoes of the silly name ring in Techno’s ears as he lays in bed.
Currently, he’s supposed to be eating dinner with Wilbur and Tommy in the living room while Phil and Kristin are out on a date, but.
The house is cold, his bed is warm and Techno really isn’t in the mood to eat anyways. The warmth of his thick comforter buries him in sleep, even though it’s only 8:00 pm. And the pattern repeats.
Techno eats progressively smaller and smaller meals, trying to keep suspicion off of himself; he eats at family dinners then fasts the next day, or eats half-portions of his meals to keep his stomach flat and his brain happy.
And it’s fine. It’s completely, absolutely totally fine. Because if he wakes up dizzy and lightheaded, it doesn’t really matter, does it? If he craves food all the time, even after he just ate, that’s also fine. If he sleeps for 11 hours and wakes up tired, it’s because he’s been overworking himself.
If he distances himself from everyone, his family, friends, team, if his grades take a small, miniscule dip, if his athletic performance is not on par of what he expects, it’s absolutely ok, which is what he tells everyone around him that he barely sees anymore-
Techno tells them that he’s ok, and they believe it. He wants them to question him, to not believe him for once, even though they’re not going to because he’s Technoblade, golden child, golden athlete, golden student that has never done anything wrong in his life- he’s trustworthy, perfect, and most importantly, unproblematic. He needs to keep it that way, he needs his image to be untarnished, he wants to be perfect and normal.
He needs this, this drug, this addictive habit that he just can’t shake- being honest, he never tried- he doesn’t want it, he would get rid of it if he didn’t look in the mirror and feel burning pride deep inside of him.
Anyways, it’s not like it’s hurting him. It’s not like this could ever spiral out of Techno’s control, because he has a firm handle on it. He knows his limits, knows that he has to eat at least once a day, knows he has to consume something when his ribs stick out, knows that he can handle it. And he can handle it. He can, he just has to try a little bit harder. Just a bit.