Chapter Text
Being immortal didn't come with a high pain tolerance. Sure nothing could kill him, but at a young age Technoblade had felt everything, Had cried and wailed like any child should when he was hurt. Rather, It was centuries of scars, countless battles and war torn lifetimes that began blurring pain into nothing more than background noise in his head. He had aged to ten like any child would before anyone noticed something odd. And then his body began to slow down, days became years, years became decades. It took 50 years for his body to reach 15, another 100 before he seemed 18. Cuts and scrapes began to go unnoticed. Stab wounds and gunshots were little more than an annoyance. Lethal injuries were taken with a grimace and a roll of his broad shoulders. He was a soldier who looked 12, and then a general barely 16, and then a legend before he could even grow a beard. The Immortal Blade. The Blood God. Feared by enemy and ally alike for the way he ran into battles without fear or self preservation. Now, he aged like the movement of the continents, so slow it was nearly negligible. Trapped in time as an immortal mind in this wretched body, seeming no older than 21, with the weight of centuries on his shoulders.
All those years he waited for the pang of pain, the link to form between himself and the soul mate he was meant to have. Soul mates could be romantic or platonic, but they were lifelong, and the pair would share any sensation of pain. The person you were meant to be with, spend your days with, the person who would mean more to you than anyone else. Soulmates normally were born within the same year, grew up together, shared their life, their joys and their pains, literally.
But the pain never came. Techno never felt a scrape or a bruise that wasn't his own. The more years that crawled by the more it seemed to confirm; he had no soul mate. Centuries came and went. Wars lost and won. Some days he was thankful he had no soul mate. Being immortal meant the injuries posed no danger to him, and being without a soulmate meant no one else had to endure the pain. It gave him the freedom to be reckless, fight and kill without the weight of armor, or the fear of any enemy. No injuries phased him, he rarely even raised a shield, taking hits and slashing back with feral red eyes. White linen shirts soaked red with blood, his enemies and his own, he earned his legacy quickly.
But there were nights alone in war tents or the cabins of towns where he laid in bed still and careful, wishing he felt something, some bruise or headache or sting of a cut. Wondering if he had a soul mate out there and had simply missed the pain in the buzz of his head. Wishing someone out there was linked to him, some reason to care. Someone to fight for. To protect. Anyone other than himself. In all his centuries of war he met only one other like himself. An immortal named Phil.
Phil, known by many as the angel of death, had a legacy as long as his own. They met as enemies many lifetimes ago, but Phil grew soft for Techno quickly. As immortals came Phil was many times Technos age, his body in his 30s, the mark of what could be thousands of years lived. But unlike him, Phil had shared pain with someone early on in his long life. Around a campfire Phil spoke of the soulmate he had lifetimes ago. A woman named Kristen.
Phil's soft eyes shimmered with the fires light when he spoke her name. He loved her fully, overwhelmingly, loved her like no immortal should love anyone. He learned to fight and protect with dexterity, speed, agility. Determined to fight for his causes without allowing Kristen to suffer. Rumors followed that he could take out an entire army without receiving as much as a single scratch.
"Is she immortal then as well?" Techno asked, wondering how one could get so lucky as two immortals bound as soulmates.
"Ah, no mate. As mortal as they come." Phil had said quietly, gazing lost into the crackling blaze.
Techno had hesitated, chewing carefully on his words. "If she is…gone then?" He said slowly. "Why do you still fight so carefully? You're immortal, and there's no one here to share your pain."
"She's still out there." Phil had looked up, his eyes looking more tired and knowing than Techno had ever seen, the lifetimes he had lived suddenly evident. "I can feel her still. Not pain, but not gone." He placed a hand over his chest. "Wherever or whatever she is now, I assure you she will never endure pain, not from me."
The two became allies for a long time. Joining and leaving armies, supporting causes as they saw fit with no loyalty to sides. Any cause they supported was sure to win with the two immortals leading the charge. The untouchable and the unkillable.
It was decades ago that Phil had stepped away, retired to a quiet life in the arctic, tired of fighting for the fleeting whims of humans who never lived to see the consequences.
"If you ever need me mate, you know where to find me." Phil had said, pressing an emerald into technos hand, a mirror of the gem swinging from the gold chain in his ear.
And that was where they parted ways. Technoblade continued to fight. Maybe he was still young, still angry, still hungry for justice and change. Maybe he liked the stares his legacy drew every time he stepped into a town. Or maybe it was that the violence was the only thing that quieted the noise in his head. The voices that screamed to kill, demanded blood. He fought for any cause he saw fit. He killed kings and queens and monarchs, entire governments toppled to his hands. Army's fell at his feet. It never stopped the hunger. The safety and sureness of a blade in his hand. It became part of him, like a shadow. Dark and always lingering.
It was a week ago that it first happened. Techno had been laying in bed and for a moment he thought he felt a twinge of pain in his head. It was a fleeting feeling, oh so brief, but it caught him off guard. He laid in bed the rest of the night trying to feel it again, to feel that link, that pain that wasn't his own. Cruel hope and worry flitting through his mind until the sun rose. And then he spent the morning pacing, trying to write it off as a headache, a mistake, maybe the voices playing cruel tricks in his mind. It was nothing. It had to be nothing.
Right?
It was a moment ago, laying in bed once again in the blackness of his room that techno had frozen in place. He slowed his breathing and focused on the feeling of his head being squeezed. He imagined it would be painful to some, but he had nearly missed the dull ache. A headache? No, external, a pressure all around, like his head was being crushed. He reached up steady fingers to brush across his temple. Nothing was there of course, but it was like he was in a vice, being squeezed by an invisible force. His body felt sick, as the pressure faded he felt a burn in his lungs like a gasp of icy air stinging like needles. And then it was gone. His body tingled, every nerve on edge focused so intensely on feeling everything, anything, but nothing more came. It was gone.
But it had been there. Pain. Pain that wasn't his. Pain from a body outside this one. From someone else, somewhere else.
A pain link.
His soulmate.