Chapter Text
“I need to find a wife,” he said, with his elbows on the table and his hands clasped together in front of his face, covering his mouth.
Still pacing the living room with his blonde wig on, Dream whirled around in shock, exclaiming, “A wife?!”
“A wife,” Wilbur repeated solemnly, nodding while his brain ran through the different profiles of available women in the city. He had skimmed through them after he had been briefed for his mission, hopeful that he wouldn’t have to actually find a civilian to help him with Operation Strix. However…
His friend stared back at him, gaping at him like a goldfish. He would’ve preferred working with someone he knew, like Dream, but fucking hell, Dream was ugly in a dress.
“I don’t think you can pull off the role of the mother, Dream,” he added.
“I thought I looked pretty good,” his friend sulked, rubbing off the lipstick with a swipe of his thumb.
“You look ugly,” Tommy interjected, “Wilby, I don’t want this mother.”
Scowling in disbelief, Dream ripped off his wig and turned towards the kid, saying, “Your father was the one who helped me with this disguise!” Then, looking back at Wilbur, “Where did you pick this kid up from again?”
Eyes wide, Tommy’s lower lip quivered. Uh-oh, Wilbur’s mind muttered, before Tommy was scrambling to cling onto his leg, attempting to climb into his lap. “Don’t send me back, Wilby!” The child wailed, face flushing red as he finally managed to weasel himself onto Wilbur’s hold. “Please,” he looked up at Wilbur, eyes swimming with unshed tears.
Sighing, he wrapped Tommy into a hug, his heart softening. “I’m not sending you back, Toms. Dream’s just being mean, don’t listen to him.”
Running a hand through the child’s blonde hair, he went back to agonising over his next move. This had all started with that cipher he was sent through his daily newspaper –
“Good evening, Chekhov. Brilliant work on your last mission. Unfortunately, we have another assignment for you. Your target is the leader of the National Unity Party, Jay Schlatt. He is a grave threat towards the tentative peace between West and East Essempii. Your mission is to get close to him, in order to probe into any seditious activities he may be involved in.
In order to do so, you will find a family and have a child.”
He had choked on his own spit when he had read that.
“Your name will be Wilbur Soot. You work as a psychologist. You live in an apartment in L’manberg Square with your family.”
“Schlatt is an incredibly private man. He has been known to operate completely behind the scenes. His only public appearances are at events held at the private school that his son attends – Snowchester Academy.
Thus, you are to enrol your child into the academy . The academy also requires the child to show up for an interview, accompanied by two family members – preferably a father and a mother. However, we are sorry to inform you that the deadline for admissions is in a week.”
He had to get a child in seven days? His mind had reeled from the reveal, scrambling to find solutions for his pressing assignment.
“This will be ‘Operation Strix’. Kinoko Intelligence Agency depends on you for your cooperation. Your name will never be known. Your face will never be seen. You will earn no medals. But Chekhov, you must remember – everyone else’s daily lives only continue because of your contribution and sacrifices.”
Which brought him to the present – in his new living room in the capital of East Essempii, with the child that he had picked up from the orphanage. He had been looking for an intelligent child and Tommy had been recommended by the matron. Yet…
Tommy continued clinging onto his waist, shoving his face into Wilbur’s shirt as he babbled away with half-formed and incoherent sentences. This child didn’t seem that clever.
“I’m clever! I can be really really smart, Wilby!” Tommy suddenly piped up.
Raising an eyebrow, he ruffled the boy’s hair. “It’s almost like you can read my mind, Toms.”
He let his mind drift as the boy got off his lap and began playing with the knickknacks on the table. He still remembered the background check that Dream had helped him run on Tommy.
“He’s been transferred from foster home to foster home, again and again,” the man muttered, flipping through the files. “Tommy Innes, Tommy Miller, Tommy Clark,” Dream rattled on, before turning to look at Wilbur. “He’s a kid of many names, just like you, Chekhov. The perfect child for your family.”
The phrasing made him uncomfortable. His family. He wasn’t supposed to have one. Chekhov worked alone; intelligence agents like him had no faces, no names and certainly no family.
He had to get Tommy to memorise the answers to the entrance examination for Snowchester. The issue wasn’t the written examination, but rather the interview. He needed to find a wife. Or maybe there was another way around it.
“Dream, do I necessarily have to find a wife?” He frowned, watching his friend continue wiping the makeup off his face. “The mission brief did say to show up with two family members, preferably a father and mother, but doesn’t that mean we could send Tommy to Snowchester with a father and an uncle, or anything like that?”
“Well,” Dream mused, “you might be right. But I’m not free to accompany you for the entirety of this mission. I still have my regular job.”
“So I just need to find someone else to play the part of my wife, or my brother or whatever it is?”
“I guess?” Dream cracked a smile. “Good luck–”
“--with that,” his co-worker laughed, watching him struggle with filling up the cups of coffee.
Techno paid him no attention as he continued his task. His day job was in an office, a boring old paper pusher.
“C’mon, lighten up a little,” another one of them teased. He hadn’t bothered to learn most of their names. “Is that the chief’s cup? Give him a little more sugar, he likes that stuff.”
Techno raised an eyebrow, setting the cup aside. “He has diabetes,” he drawled.
“Oh, we know,” the three of them chortled, their laughter almost in sync while Techno watched them passively. He never understood them.
Understanding anyone else besides himself had always been difficult. How do you peer into another’s mind? Pry it open and read between the little squiggly lines of their brain? And when you’ve finished looking, what goes next?
“You’re always so quiet, Tech,” one of them remarked.
“Techno,” he corrected.
He didn’t bother to react to the way the three of them briefly exchanged exasperated glances.
“Do you have any other friends besides us? Or family? Tell us about them!”
“I don’t have anything like that,” he replied.
He didn’t have many friends, he thought while setting the cups onto the tray. Life in East Essempii was fairly mundane, and he had lived here his whole life ever since his parents passed on. He had a grand total of one friend, who he rarely saw nowadays.
The sharp ring of a telephone pierced the air, followed by the click of the receiver and–
“Hey Techno, the chief’s calling for you!”
Placing the tray down onto the pantry, he strode out towards the telephone without so much of a goodbye towards his colleagues. Nodding at the woman who answered the phone for him, he placed the phone right next to his ear, only to hear:
“Blood God, we have a client for you.”
Stalking down the hotel corridor, he fiddled with his sleeves while making his way to his destination. Room 308 was where he needed to be. By the time he reached the door, there were two guards standing outside, their pistols tucked neatly into their pockets.
“Sorry, only authorised personnel are allowed beyond this area,” one of them said, upon seeing him there. Keeping a blank face, Techno replied, “Room service.”
Looking at each other, the two guards frowned in confusion, one asking the other, “Did anyone order room service?”
Before they could answer, Techno had already whipped the dagger out from behind his jacket, launching himself at the first guard and swiftly tackling him with his weight. Without hesitation, he slid the knife into the other’s throat, before changing targets and going for the other guard.
The other one had just enough seconds to react, his pistol drawn with a clumsy dodge at Techno’s lunge. Rolling to his feet, Techno let his steady heartbeat guide him and hunched low, just missing the bullet that lodged in the wall behind him. The gunshot meant two things for him – the occupants of Room 308 were alerted of his presence and he was now allowed to level the playing field.
Reaching into his pocket for his own gun, he swerved out of the way of another round of bullets, narrowing his eyes at the quick succession of bang bang bang! Techno could feel the adrenaline slowly creeping through his veins. Guns always raised the stakes and his heart rate at the same time. A smile was forming on his face while sweat beaded on his forehead. Quickly, he let instinct direct his movements, his arm coming up to aim the gun at the guard’s head.
The thud of the body that followed the shot was a familiar one. His scuffle with them had lasted longer than he had intended, he noted as he rolled his sleeves up to reveal the watch on his wrist. With his dress shoe against wood, he kicked the door down, pistol in his left hand and knife in the right. He had always preferred the schlick of metal sinking into flesh.
“Vice Minister Hugh from the Foreign Affairs department?” He asked, letting his gaze rest on a tall man that matched his target description. Flipping the dagger in his right hand, he didn’t wait for an answer as the others in the room scrambled to escape.
Unfortunately for them, this job also included a note about leaving no survivors. His mind was going wild again, egging him on and pushing his body beyond its limits as he switched between his weapons. Blood, with every temporary melding of steel and skin. The scarlet hot against his skin; art splattered onto the carpeted floor. His breaths were coming quicker as he whirled from victim to victim, the Vice Minister already long dead.
Techno didn’t have the time to contemplate how glossy a corpse’s eyes looked, not when each bullet through a forehead or a heart already got him up close and personal with death. Overkill, the voices in his head chided. It was a blur, his vision going in and out as his body merely moved with precision that was drilled into him ever since he had been old enough. Where he lacked pretty words and persuasive tones, was a rhythm that thrummed from the spaces between his ribs and the crevices along his veins.
And soon, he reined himself in when he stood alone in a room with overturned tables, chairs and unmoving bodies. The excitement was fading, the lightheadedness from a job well done eventually settling in. He didn’t know who he killed, just that he had performed his duty – East Essempii would see another day of peace. (This peace was temporary, tentatively held in place by people like him who only spoke violence and who were willing to get their hands dirty for it.)
Surveying the room, he thought to himself, ‘Even if I had friends, I think they’d leave in a heartbeat.’
“Techno,” Phil’s voice was thin through the phone, whittled down by wires and connections and lines that stretched oceans away.
“Tech,” he corrected.
“Tech.” He could hear his smile and that gave way to a tiny curve of his own lips. “Have you been playing nice in East Essempii? Made any friends?”
“Define playing nice.” He ignored that last bit.
Phil laughed and immediately, that piece of Techno that knew part of the human condition was to yearn for connection, missed him. It was instinct, irrationally hammered deep into their bones and into their souls. People needed people; Techno needed his friend.
“No terrorising your colleagues. No one-upping your superiors. Befriending people instead of scaring them off.”
“Yes, yes and,” he paused, “yes.”
Techno wasn’t surprised to hear that little inhale through the receiver. “Really!” Phil exclaimed.
His stomach began twisting into little knots. What was he saying? “Really.”
Fuck, what was he doing? Lying to Phil?
“I’m so proud of you, Techno.”
His heart squeezed itself.
“Thanks. I’m proud of myself too.”
“I know that sort of stuff’s always been hard for you,” Phil laughed, “look, I’m actually returning back to the East really soon. My job here in the West is almost finished. Why don’t you introduce your friend to me? I’d love to meet them.”
“Uh,” he fumbled to answer. His fictional friend meeting Phil? “Yeah. Sure. No trouble.”
Fuck.
“Great! I’ll see you both this Saturday then. It could be a party of sorts! Some of my friends from the West are coming along with me as well, I’d love to introduce you to them.”
Then Phil hung up after a quick goodbye and Techno was left standing by the telephone, his mind reeling from what he had just done to himself. Letting out a groan of disbelief, he twisted his long hair between his fingers, tugging sharply while making his plans.
Maybe he could threaten someone? He made his way to his kitchen, pouring himself a glass of water at his counter. Actually, threatening someone didn’t seem very friend-like. Was he already messing up before he even started?
He had
two days
to make a friend.
So Wilbur found himself at the tailor’s, watching Tommy try on various outfits in preparation for Snowchester Academy.
Exasperated at his pseudo-son's wriggling and constant need to run away from the tailor who merely wanted to take his measurements, he calmly said, “Tommy.”
One word was apparently enough for the child to cease his fidgeting.
“How’s this set of day clothes?” The tailor asked, waving him at a mannequin donned in a simple white button up, with black shorts and a set of suspenders. “For winter, we could add a vest or a children’s cloak.”
Appraising the outfit, Wilbur answered, “Replace the suspenders with a necktie. I don’t trust my son with suspenders.”
He could already imagine Tommy coming back to him sheepishly, confessing that he had lost one of the suspenders and Wilbur would have to replace the set with a new one. Kinoko Agency was already stretched thin with their resources, especially with the talk of a potential war. And Lord, he was practically burning money just to raise Tommy.
The child needed a new…everything. New clothes, new shoes, new books and toys. Wilbur didn’t even want to think about the upcoming doctor’s appointment he had arranged for the boy.
At least with one tie, Tommy would struggle with taking it off and in turn, struggle with losing it.
“Wilby!” The child whined. “I don’t want a tie!”
Looking at him sharply, Wilbur raised an eyebrow. They had already gone through this but Tommy always forgot. In public, he was Father. Not Wilby or Wilbur.
“Father,” Tommy corrected, catching the look he was given. “Can we please not have a tie? It makes my neck hurt!”
“Have you worn a tie before, Toms?” He sighed.
“My previous family made me wear one,” the child sulked, pouting at the thought of wearing one.
“Oh,” the tailor looked to Wilbur, curiously, “he’s not your…?”
Fuck me, he thought. He had planned to pass Tommy as his biological child but–
“No!” Tommy suddenly yelled, eyes wide as he fumbled with his words. “It was my uncle who made me wear one; I’ve always been with Father! Don’t ask silly questions!” Then he scowled at the tailor who had asked the offending question, lifting his chin in childish arrogance.
“Don’t be rude, Tommy,” Wilbur scolded, while breathing an internal sigh of relief. He turned to the tailor, and continued, “I apologise for my son.” He emphasised the last word with a slow nod.
“I shouldn’t have assumed, my apologies,” the other shook his head and went back to work.
When they were done with measurements and ready to pay, Wilbur made his way to the counter, only to knock into someone with flamboyantly dyed pink hair that tickled his face as he dropped the wallet he had been looking through.
“Really sorry about that,” he apologised hurriedly, scrunching his nose up at the wispy strands while backing away in order to bend down to get his wallet.
“It’s alright,” the stranger replied, their voice a low baritone filled with nonchalance. Wilbur looked up, met with the sight of a man who looked far too serious for someone with pink hair. He was dressed in a white sweater, paired with brown slacks.
As Wilbur stood upright, he met the stranger’s gaze, eyes tracing the hard features of his face – the sharp jaw, the slightly crooked nose and heavy lidded eyes. This was Techno Blade, he realised as his mind filtered through the hundreds of profiles he had went through the other day. He had been looking for someone to maybe pose as Tommy’s uncle or aunt, instead of straight up getting into a shotgun marriage.
Techno Blade, age 24, only graduated highschool and worked an office job in an upper East Essempii district. Unmarried. No known family members. No notable history or criminal record.
An everyman type. And this was a chance encounter that Wilbur hadn’t even planned – he had thought about picking a proper day where he would go and look for someone who would be able to fulfil his needs for Operation Strix, but here Techno was, at the tailor’s shop a week before he had to go for the Snowchester Academy family interviews. Perhaps that was enough for him to cultivate a friendly enough relationship with this stranger, to the point where he would … agree to pose as Wilbur’s fake brother.
While the gears in his head cranked out all of that thinking, his body and his mouth were moving on auto-pilot, straightening his posture and giving Techno a blinding grin. “Here to get that fixed?” He asked, gesturing at the black jacket that was thrown over the man’s shoulder.
“Yeah,” Techno replied, his tone clipped. Then, the man seemed to freeze, before adding on, more hesitantly, “I’m not good at sewing so I’m here. To get some help. With fixing it.”
Wilbur raised his eyebrows, keeping his smile on his face as his mind tried to register the sheer awkwardness of the other’s speech.
Meanwhile, Techno was utterly overwhelmed by his thoughts of oh wait this is my chance, this could be a friend, hold on I should be nice, I can elaborate on that, wait I don’t know what to say. Stiffly, he schooled his expression and waited for the stranger to reply to him.
Because that's how conversation works. Right?
He had already said something so it was the stranger’s turn to say something back. He couldn’t find any flaws with his logic, and thus he remained as he was, heart quickening and waiting.
The stranger laughed, throwing his head back and pushing his brown curls out of his eyes. “I’m not very good at sewing either. My son,” he jerked his chin towards the young boy that had slinked up behind the stranger’s legs, “always gets his clothes damaged in some way. So we’re always coming back here.” He cracked a smile and Techno found himself naturally returning it.
Okay, he thought, this is alright. This isn’t too hard. I believe the next step is to ask to be friends.
But do people even…ask to be friends? Had Phil asked him to be friends? He furrowed his brow.
“Is something wrong?” The stranger asked, concerned with his sudden frown.
“Oh no,” Techno rushed to reply, “there’s nothing wrong. I just–”
Maybe being honest was the better thing to do? Or maybe he could bring this stranger to a quiet place and threaten him to pretend to be his friend, so that Phil wouldn’t catch him on his lie. ‘ No!’ His rational voice screeched, scolding him for even considering it. I can’t keep solving all my problems with violence; I’d blow my cover as a hitman.
Tommy, while hiding behind his pseudo-father’s legs, gawked unashamedly at the pink-haired man. He was a hitman?!
Meanwhile, he could hear Wilbur’s thoughts going a mile per minute, drawing up possible scenarios, conversation topics and the most efficient way to get the other to be his friend and in turn, fake brother. Wilbur was always thinking loudly. That was exactly how he had aced the test that Wilbur had first given him – while the older man watched Tommy read the questions, his head was quietly solving all of the questions, giving out the answers to Tommy who had to merely focus on listening.
But wait – Tommy could have a hitman as his uncle.
The possibility made him grin in excitement, as he tugged onto Wilbur’s pants leg and loudly declared, “You look like Wilby!”
–
The child cried out, staring at the stranger with those starry eyes. And once again, Wilbur cheered at Tommy’s childlike ignorance, as he knew that Techno and him looked nothing alike! At! All!
But this was beneficial, because he got to smile warmly at his child before looking at the stranger and saying, “Do we?”
The other studied Wilbur’s face, likely memorising the curve of his nose, his thick eyebrows and his thin lips, then comparing all of it to his own features in his mind. “No,” he stated bluntly, “we don’t.”
Wilbur’s smile fell.
Seemingly noticing the drastic change in his expression, Techno hurriedly added on, while wringing his hands together, “I have pink hair and you have brown hair. We can’t look alike. Sorry.”
Sorry? Lord, who apologised for things like that?
“Why’re you apologising?” Wilbur laughed in reply, more genuine than before. “There’s no need to be sorry – I think I’m rather handsome, so I wouldn’t want anyone to look like me. Don’t come around stealing my game…” He trailed off, realising he hadn’t gotten the other’s name yet. He had been caught up in setting up their conversation for banter. “Sorry, my manners are deplorable. What’s your name?”
“Techno. My name’s Techno Blade,” the other stuck his hand out.
Wilbur shook it.
“Pleasure to meet you. Would you like to get coffee together after this?”