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“...Phil. What did you do?”
Phil jumped in a way that was totally not guilty, spinning to face his second eldest son with a sheepish look on his face.
“Hey mate! How’ve you been?” He rambled, “Tommy hasn’t been too much trouble, has he? I know you had Wilbur to help, but-“
“Phil. That’s a child.”
Phil’s wings spread out slightly, as if in an attempt to hide the child behind him. It might have worked better if said child hadn’t been taller than Phil’s wings.
“Phil. Why have you got a child?” Techno’s voice remained monotone, even as distress crept in, “Phil, we don’t have room for another child! We’re gonna have to get another house, man! I don’t want to move house!”
Phil sighed, “We’re not going to have to move house, mate. I’ve spoken to Tommy and Tubbo and they're both more than happy to share a room so Ranboo can have his own.”
The boy standing behind him - Ranboo, presumably - gave a low chirp, his eyes wide as he stared at Technoblade.
“Where did you even find him?” asked Techno, doing his best not to make eye contact with the bi-colour child, “Please don’t tell me just found him on the side of the road again.”
Phil shifted uncomfortably, his answering laugh just slightly too high pitched, “Come on, Tech, that was once.”
“Four times. Five if you count Michael.”
Michael being the pigman-hybrid they’d found on a road trip down to the Nether, who’d been returned to his family once they’d contacted the local police, despite Tubbo’s insistence on keeping him.
“I- you know what, we can have this conversation later, alright? Tommy and Tubbo should have finished clearing out Tubbo’s room by now. Come on Ranboo, I’ll show you the house.”
Techno was left outside on the porch, staring with a feeling of bewilderment at the newest addition to their household. All he knew was that there was no way he was going to be guilt tripped into babysitting. Nuh uh. He’d set a line in the sand, and this time he wasn’t going to cross it.
-0-0-0-0-0-
Technoblade was babysitting.
Why did it always end up like this? He wondered as he confiscated yet another gapple from Tommy’s clawed hands, the raccoon hybrid not being deterred in the slightest from eating as many as he could, even after all the times he was horribly sick from the magic overload.
It wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy spending time with his family - as annoying as they were, he was actually quite fond of his adopted siblings, especially as he was tall enough to just yeet them out of his room when they got too irritating.
It was just that there were so many of them.
It had been a long running joke that Phil and Puffy, who lived on the neighboring estate, were in competition for how many children they could get away with adopting, but if this went any further, Techno was going to have to start making people move out.
Wilbur was the oldest by three years, as well as being the only biological child within the household; Kristen and Phil had always had a habit of adopting small animals, and the brunet had claimed it was only a matter of time until they started collecting children as well. The Avian had reacted remarkably well to his father returning from a business trip to the Nether with a feral piglin hybrid, accepting that he was now an older brother with far more enthusiasm than anyone had expected. On Techno’s part, he was just happy to meet someone else with a Chat, even if Phil’s were a bunch of primadonna crows rather than voices in his head.
From there, Phil had apparently taken his son's happiness at a brother to mean that Wilbur wanted him to take home every stray that he met on the street.
Niki had been the next one to come to them, having been kicked out of her home by her parents after coming out as gay - her friend Eret (who just so happened to be one of Puffy’s adopted kids) had recommended she try Phil’s place, as he, and he quoted, “would take in a dragon hybrid if it bat it's eyelashes”.
Tommy had been the next to join, Phil bringing him back after the raccoon gremlin had attempted to rob him blind.
Tubbo had come months later, and immediately latched onto Tommy, the pair rapidly becoming inseparable.
Sally had been the most recent new member of his family, Kristen having offered the hitch-hiking girl a lift down to the city, whereupon finding she had nowhere to stay, promptly offering her own house.
Wilbur and Sally had fallen madly in love within the month, and were married a year later, Fundy being born nine months exactly after the wedding.
Even Technoblade, who was notorious for his hatred of children (no, it was not anything to do with the fact they scared him), had to admit that the fox hybrid was adorable, though that was mostly because fox hybrids grew up fast, and as such he was roughly the size of a six year old by his first birthday.
All in all, their little family wasn’t all that little, what with nine people, (four adults, one almost adult, two not quite teens and a rambunctious Fundy), and as such, they had no need of an extra child.
And yet here he was, keeping half an eye on Tommy, half an eye on Tubbo, who kept looking longingly towards the gunpowder box, half an eye on Fundy, who was attempting to eat a bee and a final half eye on Ranboo, who wasn’t doing anything suspicious at all, which made Techno paranoid.
He needed more eyes.
Ranboo was a very polite child, if that was even the right word to use - despite being only thirteen (to the outrage of Tommy), the Enderman hybrid was already approaching six feet, which made Techno, who was a respectable 6’4, feel decidedly nervous. Wilbur already lorded it over him, with his beanpole frame; he didn’t need to be displaced in his height seniority by an actual child.
Like most End hybrids, Ranboo preferred not to make eye contact, which was just fine with Techno, who felt much the same about it. He was quiet, although incredibly smart and charismatic when did talk, decent at swordplay, and got along like a house fire with Tommy and Tubbo. (Hopefully without the widespread loss of life and destruction).
And it wasn’t as if he had a problem with the guy! Ranboo was good for their family, endlessly patient with Fundy, providing important impulse control for Tommy and damage control for Tubbo, and Kristen, being an End-Avian herself, loved having another End hybrid in the house.
It was just… Techno had liked the balance they’d had.
It had been two and a half years since Sally had joined them, and two years before that they’d got Tommy and Tubbo.
The balance within their household had been perfect, it was what he was used to, and he knew exactly where his place was within the family. And now he didn’t.
Tommy and Tubbo had barely spent half an hour with him on their own volition since Ranboo had arrived, preferring to show the Enderian around the large grounds they lived on, and bring him to meet both their friends in Puffy’s house, and their ones in L’Manberg, the nearest town. And that was fine - they were kids, they didn’t want to hang out with their older brother all the time, and he wouldn’t have let them if they did, but he still wanted to spend some time with them.
Niki had invited him to help plant her flower bed with her, which was something her and Techno used to do, but now he felt too awkward to really enjoy it, and more often than not made an excuse to duck away early, or not go at all.
Even Wilbur, who’d been his best friend for over a decade, seemed enamored with his newest little brother, doting on Ranboo even more than he had with Tommy.
And maybe Techno was a horrible person for it, but he began to resent the apparently perfect teenager, who seemed to collect the members of his family as easily as one would pick grapes off a vine.
And even more infuriatingly, he didn’t even seem to know he was doing it.
The boy seemed entirely oblivious to the fact that he’d turned Techno’s world upside down, stumbling through the wreckage with his innocent eyes, and his blushing cheeks and his nervous stutter.
You could make it all go back to normal, you know? BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD! We can’t kill a kid! Why not? He’s an orphan, right? TECHNOMURDER! E! WE’RE NOT KILLING KIDS! Protect the Boo! Technoprotect! Protectoblade! TECHNOSTAB! NO! Whyyyyyyyy. Tommy and Tubbo like him! E. E. E. E. E. Chat stop spamming! CRAB RAVE! OFFICER I DROPKICKED THAT CHILD IN SELF DEFENSE! BLOOD! BLOOD! BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!
Techno glared down at the book in his lap, trying to block out the ravings of Chat in his head. No, he wasn’t going to murder Ranboo. He just needed time to warm up to him. After all, he’d found Tommy annoying when they’d first met, and he was glad he hadn’t killed the blonde now. Not that he’d ever tell him that.
“Blade! Blade! Where are- oh hi Blade!” half-yelled Tommy, directly into Techno’s ear, “Me and Tubbo and Ranboob are gonna go out to meet Drista and Purpled!”
“Where are you meeting?” asked Techno, accepting his new fate of being partially deaf.
“Puffy’s!”
He considered this a moment, before shrugging, “‘Kay. Be back before dark, stay away from mobs and try not to get yourselves killed.”
Satisfied with his excellent parenting skills, he settled back down into his chair as Tommy ran off to relay the news, bouncing up and down with excitement.
There was five minutes or so of shuffling around and loud voices, and then the house was filled with blessed silence. Phil and Kristen were out for a couple’s day, Wilbur and Sally had taken Fundy out to the zoo, and Niki had gone into town to meet Eret, meaning that Techno finally had the house to himself.
Standing up, he walked over to the far desk in the library, pulling out the cartography table on the shelf, and taking a seat on the chair that Phil had commissioned specifically for him, an adjustable one that allowed him to get the exact height he needed so he didn’t have to hunch over the maps that were stored carefully in the drawer to his left.
Map-making was a notoriously difficult art, needing not just an innate understanding of the specific magic that made up a region, but also an affinity to the code itself. Most maps were crude things - scraps of paper with a few key landmarks, nothing special and nothing particularly accurate.
The ones that Techno made were nothing like that.
He made maps infused with the very magic that fueled life upon this plain, maps that were unique in every way, but most impressively, because they were live updates of the area they showed. It would update every time you left and reentered the chunk border, showing changes to both the natural land and man made buildings, and even register Player code, indicating where people were. That particular feature he was most proud of, since it could be modified to only register known Players, or even to register mob code, which was no easy feat.
They weren’t exactly easy to make, given that they needed time, space and quiet within a household that had none of those in any sort of capacity, but Techno could make more off a single map than Phil brought in in a month of mercenary work, and he could sell out his entire stock in an hour on his market stall in the Greater Essempi.
With the children gone, he might even manage to restock in time for the next Market Day. And he appreciated the peace and quiet anyway-
“Uh hi Techno.” The timid voice from the doorway did not make him jump, there was no evidence and he could always get rid of the witnesses-
“Ranboo.” He said in his usual monotone, “Did you forget something?”
“N-no. It’s just- I- we got halfway there and then it- started to rain? So I kinda had to run back, and Tommy and Tubbo wanted to go as well but I didn’t want to ruin their day and so I told them to continue and then I came back here and-“
Techno spun so fast on his heel that he almost knocked over his cartography tables, scanning the teen up and down with more urgency that he would otherwise. Water was toxic to End hybrids, and especially so to Enderman hybrids - Kristen was covered in scars and rough patches of skin from being caught out in storms, and he’d seen first hand how bad the burns could be.
Ranboo seemed whole, at least - from the soggy jacket dropped hastily on the floor, he’d presumably stuck it over his head as he’d run back, but his hands were looking raw, and there was a faint sizzling noise from his damp clothes.
“Get out of your clothes,” Techno commanded, grabbing a set of new ones from the pile of folded laundry on the kitchen table and tossing them in the teen's direction. “Do it.” He snapped, stalking back out of the room and down to where he kept his brewing stands, collecting a health and a regen potion, as well as a gapple for good measure. And no, he wasn’t going overboard, and it certainly wasn’t because he was worried! Tommy would be distraught if his new brother melted in the hallway, and it would just be inconvenient if Ranboo ended up seriously injured.
That was all. Chat could shut up. He meant it.
Stalking back up to the library, he was pleased to see the boy pulling a shirt over his head, the rest of his clothes on the floor beside him.
“Sit.” He said roughly, pulling the boy down to sit on one of the comfortable armchairs in the library, shuffling over a footstool so he could attend to his patient. He handed over the gapple first, glaring at Ranboo until the boy tentatively bit into it, his body going limp as the pain reliever worked its magic. Next was the regen potion, dabbed carefully on the exterior wounds he could see, and bandaged and taped over.
Most people assumed that regens, like most potions, worked best when ingested, but in reality, while consumption was enough for it to work, applying it directly to exterior wounds healed them twice as fast. Once he’d finished dabbing the potion on, he handed the remainder to the boy to drink down, Ranboo grimacing at the bitter taste, before finally giving him the healing potion, which would ensure the burns didn’t become infected during the healing process.
Other than a few winces and hisses, the hybrid had remained quiet through his ministrations, attempting to make himself as small as possible on the chair.
“Does anything else hurt?” He asked gruffly, sitting back on his footstool.
Ranboo shook his head slowly, opening his mouth a few times before finally saying, “Thank you for helping me."
Techno made a vague noise as he disposed of the empty bottles and bandage wrappers, chucking the wet clothes in the wash basket as he went. It was Wilbur’s week for laundry, so he had little sympathy for the extra laundry that day.
When he returned to the room, Ranboo was still huddled in the chair, beginning to look almost chilly. Oh right, Techno realised with a grimace, it was winter, he’d just been in the rain, and the windows were open. Also, now that he looked closer, the shirt he was wearing appeared to be one of Techno’s, which tended to be thin and floaty, to help him keep cool from his Nether heritage.
He shut the window with a sigh, noting that it was in fact properly raining now, with dark clouds on the horizon, knowing that with the lack of ventilation he was going to be roasting within a few minutes.
In contrast, Ranboo seemed to be colder than ever, physically shaking now on the chair. If he listened closely, he could almost hear his teeth chattering.
Inside his head, Chat was divided in a way that was almost comical: one side found the entire thing hilarious and wanted him to take blackmail photos, then kick the boy out and continue the cartography stream, the other half were screaming that Ranboo was part of his sounder, that that was his little brother there, freezing to death, and that Techno should wrap himself around the boy until he warmed up.
There was also a small section who were calling for a crab rave, but he had gotten good at tuning them out.
Ranboo made a noise of surprise as the heavy cloak settled around his shoulders, a chirp that made Techno feel no fraternal instincts whatsoever, and gave him no desire to start building a nest to cocoon him in. And even if there were, it was because winter was setting in, and the storm was messing with his hybrid instincts. Ranboo was a coincidence, no more and no less.
Techno huffed in contentment as Ranboo’s shivers died down, the boy almost melting into the blanket-like cloak he was wearing. “I’m going to continue making my maps.” He explained, keeping half an eye on the boy as he walked away, “If you need anything, let me know.”
Ranboo nodded, seeming far more at ease than he had only half an hour ago, his own instincts likely soothed by the scent of piglin on the cloak - Enderians were big on item sharing, much like Raccoons were, and the weight was likely comforting as well. Sitting back down, Techno refocused himself on his work, carefully enchanting the maps and drawing out the runes that sunk into the parchment itself. Every so often, a sniffle would sound from behind him, which he desperately tried to ignore. He had almost finished his third map when he finally snapped.
“Prime damn it,” he cursed, sweeping the whole lot of parchment back into the drawer, before turning to Ranboo with an accusing look. “You’re getting a cold.” He stated, examining the redness around the white half of Ranboo’s nose, and the teary eyes from all the sniffling.
“S-sorry.” Stuttered the teen, “I can- I can go if you-“
“No.” Techno almost growled, “You’re going to bed. Now.”
His piglin brain was almost entirely in control now, hyper focused on the sickly piglet in front of him, and demanding that he fix it immediately. Despite all the technological advancements of their age, they’d never discovered a cure for the common cold, and so he had no real way to fix it, other than to keep him warm and fed. The teen went limp in his arms as he scooped him up, walking them both up the stairs in a matter of moments, and depositing the boy onto his bed.
Internally, he sighed. There was no way he was going to make market day now, was there?
-0-0-0-0-0-
(Five hours later, Phil returned to a quiet house, which was suspicious enough on normal days. He entered the house to see his wife sat on her accustomed seat, flipping quietly through a book. She smiled at him as he entered, making a shush motion and gesturing up the stairs. When he climbed up, his heart melted at the sight before him. Techno - and from the number of red cloaks, it was clearly him - had formed a nest in the centre of Ranboo’s bed, the teen pressed tightly against his chest, the piglin’s rumbling snore audible from the corridor. Wilbur was pressed up against Techno’s back, Fundy lying between them as Sally spooned Wilbur from behind.
Tommy and Tubbo were both using Ranboo as a pillow, their heads resting on his chest, their arms interlocked in a tight hug. At the very end of the bed, Niki was curled into a little ball, one of Wilbur’s wings spread out across her like a blanket.
Phil had to hold a hand over his mouth to stop himself chirping aloud at the sight of his kids all wrapped up together. He’d been slightly worried that Techno hadn’t been getting on with Ranboo - the piglin was notoriously territorial, and he wasn’t sure whether the Enderian had been with them long enough to count as family. It looked like his worries were in vain.
Back downstairs, he settled himself next to his wife, letting his wings envelop her.
“We’re lucky to have them,” he murmured into Kristen’s hair.
“That we are.”
-0-0-0-0-0-
Three months later: an extra scene
“…Phil. What did you do?”
Phil jumped in a way that was totally not guilty, spinning to face his eldest son with a sheepish look on his face.
“Hey mate! How was your day? Did you and Niki get the seeds you wanted for the garden?” Phil rambled.
“Phil. That’s a god. A dead god.”
Phil’s wings spread out slightly, as if in an attempt to hide the dead body of XD behind him. It might have worked better if said god hadn’t been bigger than Phil’s wings.
“Phil. Why did you kill god? How did you kill god?” Techno’s voice remained monotone, even as distress crept in, “Phil, you can’t just kill god because you feel like it! We’re gonna have to go on the run from the rest of the Pantheon- is that a cake? Phil… did you kill god with a cake?”
“Technically, I didn’t kill God with a cake. Uh, Kristen and Ranboo attempted to bake today.”
“Phil,” said Techno in a strangled voice, staring at the abomination disguised as a cake, which was surprisingly hard to do, given that it felt like staring into the void itself, “Why is there spaghetti in the cake?”
“I don’t know,” whispered Phil, “Please just help me get rid of-“
With an ear splitting crack, the cake tore reality apart, code shredding into tiny scraps and leaving a gaping maw leading into the void. XD disappeared into the portal with a plop.
“… What was it you said earlier about ‘having Ranboo doesn’t mean we’ll have to move house’?”
“Tech?”
“Yeah?”
“Shut up.”
“That’s fair.”