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Philza left ten minutes ago, promising that if Techno needed him, he’d be back in an instant. He also threatened Techno twelve minutes ago that if his date was interrupted, he’d make sure the next one involved pork BBQ.
Technoblade is pretty sure that Philza was joking about that. He’s also pretty sure that ‘not knowing what to do with the Youths’ does not count as an emergency.
The Youths in question are currently sitting on Technoblade’s couch, silently staring at him. The younger of the two–Lullah, he thinks–is swinging her legs and waiting patiently with her hands folded in her lap. The other, Chayanne, has his arms crossed and is making unflinching eye contact. Technoblade chooses to stare back at the older. To assert dominance. It’s like a prison, you have to win a staring match with the strongest one to show you aren’t to be messed with. Or maybe this is more like bears, where you’re not supposed to make eye contact? Technoblade’s eyes are starting to water, and Chayanne still hasn’t blinked. Lullah has caught on to what’s happening, and is now looking back and forth between the two of them. She leans forwards in anticipation, getting very close to Technoblade’s face.
And then, Lullah blows into his eyes.
He blinks furiously at the unexpected burst of air. Chayanne bursts into cheers and her victory, and Lullah giggles uproariously. Technoblade…has lost.
“Bruh.” Lullah only giggles harder at that, kicking her feet and bouncing slightly in excitement. Technoblade straightens up and crosses his arms. “I feel like that’s cheatin’,” he observes drily, “But you’ve emerged victorious an’ all that. What d’you wanna do tonight, oh great victor?”
Chayanne perks up and pulls up his whiteboard. After a moment of scribbling, he turns it around to reveal the text. ‘Anything?’
Technoblade thinks about it for a moment. “Sure, why not.” He shrugs. Chayanne perks up and starts kicking his legs and wiggling, leaning over to have a quick whispered/written conversation with his sister.
After a long moment of frantic scribbling, he turns the board around for Techno to see. ‘i wanna go to a HAUNTED HOUSE’
“Phil might kill me for taking you to an abandoned–” Chayanne shakes his head vehemently and starts scribbling again. Techno scratches his nose absentmindedly as he waits.
‘not a real one a fake one.’ He taps it emphatically.
“Oh, yea, we can make that happen.” He pulls out his phone and starts looking up nearby haunted houses. Chayanne starts cheering, hopping up onto the couch and jumping around Lullah. Lullah claps delightedly, but is more subdued about it than Chayanne is. He’s not wearing shoes, so Technoblade lets it slide. “Looks like there’s one fifteen minutes away. We…you can both fit in my sidecar, right? You’re small, it should be fiiine. Just don’t tell Phil.”
They both nod emphatically, Chayanne still standing behind Lullah bouncing up and down. Technoblade hears the springs of his crappy couch creak and winces. Maybe he does need to put a stop to this. “Alright alright, enough. Go get your coats. Yer gonna destroy my couch.” He laments. Chayanne is off like a rocket, bringing back both his and Lullah’s coats with him. He helps Lullah get her hands into the sleeves without her shirt riding up and then puts his own coat on. Again, he buttons hers and then his own. Technoblade refuses to admit how endearing it is. He grabs his own coat and keys and waits by the door. To the haunted house they go.
—------------------------
The line to the haunted house is long–too long for how shitty it looks, Techno thinks. Chayanne is absolutely thrilled, though, bouncing excitedly every time the line moves forwards even a little. His eyes don’t stop moving, trying to drink in every inch of the atmosphere. Lullah, on the other hand, is looking much more unsure. She has a vice grip on her brother’s sleeve, but when Techno asks if she wants to stay outside, she shakes her head and juts out her chin defiantly. Who is Techno to argue? She wants what she wants.
The first room is decorated as a reception area–it’s not really meant to be scary, just unsettling. The actor behind the desk is in a pretty blue dress and is doing her best to smile big and look nervous at the same time, assuring them everything will be fine in the following rooms. She sees the kids and gives Technoblade a disapproving look, which he shrugs at.
The doorway they’re funneled through leads from the reception area to a wide room with hospital beds surrounded by curtains. Chayanne pats Lullah’s cheek where she has a death grip on his arm, but looks around excitedly, drinking in the theming and props. Out of the corner of his eye, Technoblade spots movement as a woman in a bloody vintage nurse costume peeks out from around one of the curtains, her mouth open to scream. Seeing the two out of three of the new entrants to the room are kids, she closes her mouth with a click. Lullah hears and jumps, almost pushing Chayanne over. The nurse smiles and waves. Lullah shakes her head and buries her face in Chayanne’s shoulder, but Chayanne grins and waves back excitedly.
The next few rooms follow the same trend. Techno amuses himself by trying to spot the scares before they happen…or don’t. The actors spot the kids before they spot them and tone back the scare; slinking out instead of jumping, making friendly hand gestures, getting down on the kid’s level to be less scary. The drop windows don’t even bother dropping. There’s a motion-sensitive trigger in the fifth room that goes off regardless–it makes a fake dog lunge out at them, snarling and barking. It’s blocked behind a chain-link fence over that whole section, meant to look like a kennel. Lullah and Chayanne both jump and cling to each other, but Chayanne recovers first, shoving Lullah behind him as they both get their bearings and scoot past.
Technoblade spots the scare in the next room almost immediately–the actor isn’t even in a good boo hole. The room is decorated to look like a morgue, dirty tiles and a metal rolling table with a terrible fake body laying on it. The scare actor is dressed like a doctor in a long white lab coat and tie, but it’s absolutely ruined by his beanie and dark sunglasses. The room is too dark to realistically be able to see with those on, and as a result, he’s just standing tucked behind a wire shelving unit right by the door with a knife. Not even a scalpel, a knife!
Technoblade watches Lullah and Chayanne to see if either of them notice. The scare is on Lullah’s side of the door, but it’s Chayanne who’s scanning the room for danger. They’re still on high-alert from the motion trigger, so he’s scanning extra carefully. They get about a step and a half past the threshold before the fake doctor jumps out, yelling and brandishing his knife.
There’s a tiny roar in response, and Techno watches proudly as Chayanne kicks the absolute shit out of the knife guy’s ankle. “Ah, fuck, puta madre–you little shit!” Knife guy drops the knife, grabs his shin, and hops backwards, still swearing. His situationally-inappropriate sunglasses slip down his crinkled nose, and Chayanne grabs the knife and holds it facing out towards knifeless guy. Lullah hides behind Chayanne, tiny hands fisted in her brother’s hoodie.
Techno laughs and cheers. “Ye-ah, you show the guy! Go for the ankles!” It’s a plastic knife, Techno can now tell. That’s not going to stop a particularly determined nine-year-old from doing some damage, though. This is great, Techno should have agreed to babysit ages ago.
—--------
Technoblade is definitely never going to be allowed to babysit again.
Technoblade feels a bit like a child himself, hunkered down between Lullah and Chayanne on his own couch as Philza paces back and forth in front of them. He’s pinching the bridge of his nose with one hand, and the other is crossed over his chest to brace it. All three sitting on the couch follow Philza with their eyes as he walks back and forth, waiting for what he’ll say. Finally, he stops. He points at Chayanne first. “You! You know better–you’re not allowed to go to a haunted house until high school!” Chayanne crosses his arms and huffs, looking wholly unrepentant. His accusing finger moves to Technoblade. “And you! You know better than to let Chayanne kick someone!”
“Honestly, I thought it was pretty justified. And funny.” He holds out a hand for Chayanne to high-five, which he does with great enthusiasm.
Philza groans and drags his hands down his face. “Mate, that was an actor. His job is to scare you. You got kicked out of a haunted house. How is that justified?”
“The other scaries didn’t jump out at us.” Lullah adds quietly. Chayanne nods vigorously, pointing at his sister in agreement.
“Kid’s got a point. All the other actors stepped back when they saw kids were going through.” Techno argues. “If he didn’t want to get kicked, he shouldn’t’ve jumped at a kid.”
“Or,” Phil presses his hands together and points them at Techno, “ You shouldn’t’ve brought kids in a haunted fucking house!”
Techno crosses his arms. “I mean what is a kid really if not a tiny adult?”
“A child. ” Phil throws his hands in the air. “Mate, he’s nine!”
“An’ he did a great job defendin’ his sister for a nine-year-old–really, we should be rewardin’ him. This is great practice for stranger danger an’ all that.” Chayanne nods along proudly, puffing out his chest.
“I am never letting you babysit again.”
“ Bruh .”