Work Text:
Tommy watched helplessly from the bay window as Michael jumped off the top of a high bookshelf into a pile of pillows. “It’s fine. This fine. He's fine. Oh Prime Tubbo is going to kill me. I’m good. I’m okay. Deep breaths. Everything is alright. Michael is fine. ”
“ I understand that! ” Michael squealed from the pillow pile. “ Uncle Tommy! Uncle Tommy! ” he called as he pushed himself up and ran over to the bay window.
“ Hi Michael ,” Tommy said, looking up at the little piglin through his eyelashes.
“ You speak piglin ?” he asked, climbing up next to Tommy.
“Yeah.” Tommy moved his legs so Michael could climb up between them. “ I learnt from your Papa’s friend .”
“I’ve never met anyone who can speak it.” Michael put his hooves on Tommy’s knees. “What’s he like?”
Tommy took a deep breath. He calmed himself and properly looked at Michael. “ Technoblade is… ” Tommy trailed off, thinking about his childhood. “ Embarrassing .” Tommy chuckled. “ He’s not embarrassing. Don’t want to give you a bad impression of Techno .” Tommy shifted to hold Michael closer to his chest. “ He’s my older brother. Of course I find him embarrassing .”
- - -
“ Your stance is poor ,” Techno said, poking at Tommy’s leg with his sword.
“I don’t speak pig.”
“Then learn,” Techno said, turning on his heel. “ Again .”
“Again?” Tommy asked when Techno got back into a fighting stance across the field.
He watched Tommy rise to his feet. “Yes Tommy, again. The only way you will get better is with practice. Violence is a language on its own .” He slashed at him.
Tommy blocked. “Oink oink bitch.”
“Fine.” Techno’s sword swooped down. “If you’re going to be like that.” He slashed at Tommy’s right. “You only need to learn one phrase.”
“Only one? So you can bad mouth me in piglin now?”
“I always could.”
“Meh meh meh meh meh.”
“Lesson one.” His words were sharp and quick. “ Give up. Surrender .” He threw another blow Tommy’s way which sent Tommy sprawling to his back.
Tommy took in a gasping breath, breathing heavily. “Ouch.”
“Get up.”
“No! I hurt. Please.” Tommy looked up at Techno with his puppy dog eyes. He pointed his sword in Techno’s direction. “I know you’re going to say ‘again,’ but I’m tired. Please Techno.”
“When I said ‘give up and surrender’ I meant for you to say that to your enemies, not for you to do it.”
“Because I understood you!” Tommy whined. “I’m not your enemy am I?” he asked in a small voice.
Techno’s gaze softened. “No. You’re my little brother. But what’s the difference? I will forever be Phil’s favourite.”
“Hey!” Tommy sat up quickly. “Ouch.” He stumbled and dropped his head in his hands. “I’m serious Techno. I’m done.”
Techno smiled softly and picked his cape off from the railing where he had placed it earlier. He bent down and draped it across Tommy’s shoulders. “Rest. A warrior can’t win with ease if he’s not in good form .”
“That feels like something important you’re trying to tell me. And I just don’t understand you.”
“You’ll learn.”
- - -
“ Techno is a fighter; a warrior. He’s one of the strongest men I know ,” Tommy whispered to Michael. “ He was all about tough love. He was very harsh, but he was well meaning .”
“ Did you like him ?”
“ He’s my big brother, I loved him. I looked up to him. I idolized him .”
“ Do you still ?”
Tommy tilted his head, thinking about it. “ Maybe a little .”
“ Only a little ?”
“ Stop calling me out .”
Michael giggled.
“ Lesson one—he’d tell me—know how to demand surrender from your enemies .”
Michael looked up at Tommy with a mischievous smile. He pressed down on Tommy’s shoulders with his hooves. “ Fall !”
“Aaahhh.” Tommy leaned back, smiling; his earlier worries forgotten.
- - -
Tommy dropped to the floor, exhausted after their training session. He head-butted Techno as he leaned down to grab him. “I don’t wanna learn.”
“Don’t you want to talk about Wilbur behind his back?”
Tommy paused his flailing as his brain caught up to what Techno just suggested. “Of course!”
“Then you’ll learn.” Techno knelt down next to Tommy. “Lesson two. Trust no one. Don’t let anyone get close .”
Tommy head-butted Techno again and shifted closer to him. The energy leaving his body entirely, he slumped into his big brother Technoblade. “What does that one mean?”
“Don’t let anyone get close.”
“He says as he picks me up,” Tommy mumbled.
“I will drop you.”
Tommy grinned. “I know.”
“Shut up.” Techno softly nudged Tommy’s head with his.
Tommy nuzzled into the fur of Techno’s coat.
- - -
“ Technoblade was looking out for me. He had good intentions. Wanted to keep me safe .”
“ Did he ?”
“ Yeah. Big strong guy. But he sometimes forgot to be human. Lesson two; don’t let anybody get too close. Think that’s why he was pushing me away all the time .”
Michael pouted and burrowed into him. He would hate it if Tommy pushed him away, even if it was for his own good. Whatever that meant.
- - -
Techno carried Tommy up to his bed. “You ready for lesson three?”
“I’m ready to pass out.”
“Lesson three.”
Tommy hummed. He was still awake enough to listen.
“ You are part of my sounder .” Techno picked up the covers and tucked Tommy into bed. “Rest.”
Tommy listened, for once, and cuddled into the sheets.
Techno stepped towards the door and as he was shutting it Tommy asked him a question.
“What does that one mean?”
Techno stopped in the frame. “It doesn’t translate. Not cleanly. One of those Piglin proverbs that doesn’t mean anything,” he dismissed.
“But I wanna know!”
“You’ll learn,” Technoblade said once again. “One day you’ll know enough Piglin to know what it means.”
“But I wanna know now,” he whined.
“What happened to being tired? Rest. A warrior can’t win with ease if he’s not in good form .”
Tommy groaned. “Good night Techie.”
“ Good night piglet .”
Tommy flipped him off before promptly falling asleep right then and there. Not that he knew what Techno was saying, it was more about the principle.
- - -
“ He’s a good man. One of the best .”
Tommy held Michael close to his chest the way Techno had that night.
“ I miss him .”
“ What was lesson three uncle Tommy? There had to have been a lesson three. Good things come in threes you know .”
Tommy head butted Michael. “Lesson three.” Tommy smiled at the little piglin. “Lesson three was: you are my sounder. You are my family,” he repeated in the common tongue so Michael would know what it sounded like when Tubbo and Ranboo said it to him.