Chapter Text
Blood clouded the icy water in russet billows. Technoblade had already felt an unnatural cold that spoke to deeper wounds than he could afford, but now it felt like winter incarnate was a parasite threading his veins. The joke was ultimately on the thrashing river bucking his sloshing escape, though; Technoblade had been running for so many days he couldn’t feel his legs to begin with. Ha. Take that, nature. Can’t numb what’s already exhausted beyond endurance.
But endure it he must. Like wolves, the bounty hunters swarmed lethally through the pines, howling their delight as they spotted him again. Or perhaps that was the baying of the hunting dogs after him. The stolen luxurious cloak streaking behind him, the brilliant cherry hue staining his hair, the powders concealing endless scars; his disguises weren’t much use against bloodhounds. Maybe Technoblade had a strategy, it was hard to remember with a mind fogged by sleep deprivation and panic. Something about losing his scent in the water, or perhaps just losing the hunting dogs altogether, swept away in the current. Getting rid of the dogs wouldn’t stop the humans from finding him (it never did), but it would give Technoblade at least some breathing room.
It wasn’t as if Technoblade wasn’t used to being run out of towns and countries before. Every single one he’d ever had the gall to step a toe into, even. Monarchs weren’t keen on his politics, nor his penchant for righteously protecting his freedom of speech from tyrannical naysayers. Via violence.
It seemed, sometimes, that Technoblade had spent his whole life running. Ears always perked for the hint of a hunt, muscles always tensed to bound away. Scrambling from hovel to slums to, with increasing frequency, little more than a ditch to call his bed. Technoblade was tired. But he didn’t get to be tired. It was antithetical to running, and it was run or die. And so he ignored the jolt of pain up his ankle with every step, and the congealed sanguine blotting his vision from an axe to the face, the endless slices across his chest…
The arrow caught him in the leg, piercing clean through, and Technoblade was too tired to scream. Its plummeling force wasn’t independently significant, but with the river-slick rocks and rushing current, it was enough to send his exhausted body careening. The river embraced him in the chilling arms of death. At once he was swept away from the safety of shallow shore. Weight dragged him deep, deeper into the waters. Everything was a blur of bubbles and blood and black black black. Yet in the ink there were twin pinpricks of light. Must’ve hit his head, too. Wasn’t he the luckiest person in the world. Getting a concussion and drowning had to be better than the bounty hunter’s plans, admittedly. There probably weren’t enough pieces of Technoblade to go around.
Problem was, Technoblade hadn’t gotten this far by giving up. Which really was unfortunate, since giving up right now, or about any time in the last two decades, would have saved him a lot of trouble. But Technoblade had commitment issues. As in, he didn’t know when to stop committing himself to this stupid thing called life. And so he ripped off the drenched cloak anchoring him down into the fathoms below, kicked off the river bed despite his screaming leg, and swam.
The surface was embarrassingly close. Not ‘he could stand up with his head above water’ close, but, not ocean bottom or anything. Which meant he didn’t drown to death, and now had to swim with an arrow through his freaking leg. Yippee!!! The only warmth he felt was the white-hot agony searing through his calf! YIPPEE!!!!!!!
Eventually, in a sopping wet mess of mud and blood, Technoblade dragged himself through the tender riparian zone to where the treeline began. He was too tired to flinch at the crossbow bolts slamming against his shelter.
Three. Two. One. CRACK. Technoblade bit his tongue to a bloody mess as he snapped off either ends of the arrow. Not too close to the injury, for easier removal later. Now, he just needed to avoid more blood loss, but even that was lower priority to evasion.
As vital as a head start was with such a disadvantage, Technoblade wagered the river might slow them enough to give him at least a moment to catch his breath. Alright, and maybe he was psyching himself up for the agony of running on an injured leg, sue him. From personal experience, it wasn’t exactly fun. One of the more hellish experiences in his remarkably miserable life, even. But maybe fifth time was the charm?
And so he waited, and measured his breaths, and listened to the wolves closing in.
Water crashed as the pack plunged in after him. Adrenaline spiked, knowing he needed to run, but Technoblade just couldn’t seem to get his exhausted body to move. His leg was a horrific mottle of blood and bruises, misshapen with the swelling. Maybe he was hidden. Maybe they’d lost track of him, and running was dangerous. But Technoblade knew they had him dead to rights. He would run. He always would.
And then, their jeers turned into screams. Awful, terrified screams, each one gurgling into watery demise.
Atavistic instinct kept Technoblade perfectly still. Listening, always listening. The hum of alertness and adrenaline never left his body. He’d never known a moment without it. He couldn’t look. But he could hear the crescendo of terror, the thrashing reaching a wretched cessation, the frantic splashing back towards the distant shore.
A ragged, rough voice quelled the scattered cries. “It’s not worth it. And anyway, he’s deader in hybrid territory than anything we could do to him.”
And for the first time, Technoblade felt fear.
“How do we get the bounty, though?” Technoblade throttled his instinct to bolt as the hunters argued over who was brave enough to sneak in to get whatever scraps of him were left for proof to their clients. Because where would he run? Into the arms of the hunters? Into the watery suffocation of the river? Into the certain death of hybrid territory?
Perhaps this was a trap. It certainly felt like cold, metal teeth were sinking into his heart. Maybe there weren’t hybrids, they were just trying to scare him into running back their direction. Technoblade knew it was a lie, but he told it to himself anyway, because it was the only way to be brave.
Technoblade had only ever heard the horror stories of a lone hybrid, cornered and vicious. A whole territory of them escaped even the scope of malicious myths. Technoblade hadn’t ever heard of hybrids surviving enough to have communities. Let alone borders. However they’d ensured their people weren’t picked off for pieces against the overwhelming plethora of humans surrounding on all sides would surely obliterate an injured, exhausted, single person. It wasn’t as if there was a single place on the planet that wanted Technoblade. But it was just his luck to end up in the one place he wouldn’t have a few days' grace before the masses pounced. One look, and he was dead.
Staying would kill him too, though. Technoblade would seize the chance of life. He had no other choice, by his nature.
Their territory couldn’t be infinite. As the river was allegedly the boundary, travelling along it was his best bet. Swimming would just get him drowned, and leaving the territory would immediately have the bounty hunters poach him. But what were the odds a hybrid was at the very periphery of their area?
He kept along the river, beyond the riparian zone to avoid the hunters seeing him. Technoblade flinched at every noise, the hiss of the river, the rustle of creatures in the underbrush, the crash of wings through the canopy, the thunder of his every agonizing step. Everything in him wanted to bolt. But his vision pulsed black whenever he put weight on his injured leg. So all he could do was hobble along, catching himself on branches. In his wake, a significant blood trail. The hunting dogs would find him in an instant. It wouldn’t matter if he ran fast enough, though.
And then, Technoblade hadn’t the ability to silence the keening screams of pain.
And then, Technoblade hadn’t the ability to stop himself from crumpling when agony suddenly sliced through his leg as fractured bone snapped.
And then, Technoblade hadn’t the ability to walk.
And then, Technoblade hadn’t the ability to crawl.
The only thing he could rally himself to fight against was the encroaching unconsciousness, and Technoblade was losing even that battle. He could breathe. He could experience pain. That was all.
His vision was dark, sure. But Technoblade froze as a wash of black passed, too defined and bleak to be the swaying of the canopy. He mustered all his determination, but couldn’t hold at bay the suffocating exhaustion, the seal of his eyes. He held out just long enough to register massive talons roughly seizing his torso. And then all was nothing.
A nearby argument mumbled in his hind brain, piecing together fragments captured on the verge of consciousness. Technoblade snapped fully awake. He always did. Years on the run had ingrained that instinct into marrow.
His awareness began at the body and expanded. First, agony. His tormented body raged at daring to move, or even breathe. Second, restraints. Endless ribbons of stained white encircled him, particularly on his leg and chest. The blindfold had slipped, though, only covering one eye. Third, threat.
Pain shredded through his chest as he bolted upright. Technoblade immediately crumpled. He gasped breathlessly at even so soft a landing as the plush embrace of the sofa.
Yet the conversation rambled on, seemingly unconcerned with Technoblade’s jarring movement even as the conversation circled him like vultures. “Never seen a human with that many scars,” a man huffed in a plume of dark smoke. The antenna’d kid next to him leaned far away, wrinkling his nose. “If that wasn’t poacher work, I’ll eat my own rods.”
“Or wounds from hybrids that fought back,” the kid argued venomously, dark insectoid eyes glittering with suspicion.
Hybrids. Lots of them. His brain automatically catalogued more and more of them, bright smears of threats everywhere. The earlier pair perched at a diorite fountain, a scattering of hybrids dotting the balconies layered in the high vault ceilings, chairs pulled from the plethora of tavern tables to face the evening’s entertainment: him.
Jolting back, aching fingers instinctively grasped at a hidden dagger, slashing through the air near instantly. But in a massive dark blur, pain exploded in his hands as the weapon was flung away.
The blur slowed in its arc, fanning into a looming inky wing. Attached was a well-dressed man, primarily cloaked in rich greys with hints of smoky amethysts and viridians. His golden hair swirled in the gale his wings incurred, but it failed to obscure his cold menace. Claws the side of Technoblade's head, hunter's eyes that could track no matter how far he ran- endless horror stories flooded Technoblade's mind of what happened to lone humans traveling alone at night.
The elytrian advanced, and Technoblade bolted. The sofa slammed back, tipping, slamming to the ground. The entire pub silenced as his pained cry rang through its walls. Technoblade blindly plucked himself out of an agonized heap, forcing himself to run. He managed a few strides before agony blotted out existence. In a whimper he collapsed. Technoblade shook on his hands and knees, failing to endure even a crawl. He glanced back at the approaching enemy-
Only to find a small boy between them.
The kid was lanky, draped in a crimson shawl. Crooked grin, blue eyes, blond hair- no. not hair at all, a fuzz of golden chick down in a fluffy pile along his head and back. His scrawny avian wings spread as if to bar the towering elytrian’s path.
Baffling, the meager barrier succeeded. “Oi! You’re scaring our guest!”
The elytrian managed only a low, haunting hiss. His taloned hand shot out, wrenching the boy by the arm to be safely behind his outstretched wings. Only, his advance was thwarted by suddenly being occupied by preventing the brat from running into the arms of danger.
“He just tried to attack us,” the bumblebee boy piped up. “Only humans do that.” He crossed both sets of arms, glowering at Technoblade, but the intimidation was rather undermined by his cheery striped sweater and flowers spilling out of his overall pockets.
A dark blur lurched out of the fountain the kid perched on. Water sloshed into a grate at its base. A pink-haired woman hauled herself from the water, propping her elbows on the fountain edge to curiously stare at Technoblade. “I would too, if I woke in a room full of strangers. You grew up here, Tubbo, you’ve never been alone like I have. Any isolated hybrid would’ve done the same.” A sudden splash as she pushed off to dunk herself. When she emerged, she shook her head to fling off the water, then eeped an apology to the splashed Tubbo. “Also, finders keepers. I saw him first, so I have dibs, so you have to ask before you kill him!” The merling grinned at Technoblade, like she was doing him a favor. But the rows of sharkish teeth weren’t particularly bolstering his nerve.
“Is this NETHERITE?!” Technoblade whipped around at the jarring exclamation, and found the avian teenager had plundered his dagger. “This is mine now.” The sentence slightly trained up like a question. He looked to Technoblade expectantly, who, having little choice, managed a strangled sure?? “I declare this guy to be the bestest ever, except for me, the Great Tommy.”
“That’s why you aren’t allowed out of the territory,” the elytrian rumbled. “You’d run off with the first human to offer you a shiny bauble.”
“Like you’re any different! Just because it’s fun to steal from your hoard DOESN’T mean I got feathers for brains!” Tommy had pulled himself up to a practiced indignation indicating an ongoing bicker, but then remembered the stakes. “Dunno, he seems safe to me, Ph-” he gagged on the feathers whapped against his mouth. The elytrian spread his wings, and the room dimmed to the filter of lantern light through midnight feathers. Every other hybrid was blocked off. As were all escapes.
“I am Crow Father. What brings you to my village?” He must be the leader of the hybrid community. Did they have leaders? Monarchs? Eh. No matter the species, this Crow Father guy was the same breed as every other nobility that set loose packs of ravenous bounty hunters to shred Technoblade. Well. By the twitch of his daunting claws, at least Crow Father might have the decency to do it himself.
Technoblade raised an eyebrow. “Didja miss the humans hunting me for parts or…”
“See!” the merling exclaimed, but her grin faltered when Crow Father reprimanded a silence, Niki! “...I know what I saw. And what I saw was a hybrid just like any of us, being chased down by poachers. You said you’d make this place a refuge. What happened to that protection?”
Crow Father held her gaze for a long time. But he was the first to flinch. His glower caught Technoblade. “So just what hybrid are you meant to be? Because all I see is a human.”
Technoblade needed to be a hybrid. Technoblade needed to be a non-threatening hybrid. Problem: he couldn’t think of a single hybrid that wasn’t terrifying. “Isn’t it obvious?” he asked annoyingly to buy time. Think think think.
A slender black finger curled around a lock of his hair, and Technoblade tensed, since seconds before he was certain no one was behind him. He waited for it to be wrenched from his scalp. But the long hand only teased out a knot. “I’ve never seen a human with pink hair.” Her voice was muffled by an ornate veil cloaking her enderian features.
“That’s an assumption,” Crow Father hissed. “I will not risk my community.”
Technoblade grinned. “How much threat is a bunnyborn?” Sure, sure, that sounded safe and not dangerous, so he could probably pass off his lack of abilities super easy.
Crow Father scoffed. “So, bunnyborn, shouldn’t you have ears?”
That was. A horribly excellent question. “Yes. Yes I should. You must be proud of such an astute observation.” He said it with slow condescension to buy time, but also cause he had a knack for irritating governments. “I used to have ears. But I hear they fetched a good price.” Every head in the room whipped towards him. Eyes wide, bodies tensed, a few clutching themselves to brace for combat- ah. Welp. At least Technoblade tried.
Crow Father’s wings puffed up, a looming threat ready to pounce at his stupid excuse. Heck. The flaw in that was blatant. No wonder they were all staring at him like that. “Not that, uh. I hear as good as I used to,” he covered up, because he was committed at this point.
A massive clawed hand seized his shoulder, and Technoblade braced. As bad a lie as that was, yeah, that’s about how he expected it to go. Only to be immediately released. Crow Father eased back. “Sorry, that was overstepping. That’s awful, mate. But, you don’t have to worry about anything like that ever happening again, alright?”
“Uh. In a, because you’ll kill me way…?” Technoblade inquired tentatively.
Crow Father snorted, and dug for something in his leather side pouch. But instead of drawing a sword, or dagger, or crossbow, or morningstar, he plucked out a vial. “We take care of our own, no matter what it takes,” he said simply.
Poison. “I swear I’m not lying! I really am a hybrid!” His frantic defense was met by a vague uh huh. “You don’t gotta do this!”
“I must, actually,” Crow Father chuckled.
Technoblade scrambled away as best he could, though perhaps it was closer to pained writhing. Realizing there was no escape, Technoblade hysterically begged, “DON’T POISON ME!”
Crow Father hitched, brows and scowl drawing. “Ah. This is a healing potion.”
Yeah right! “I don’t need a healing potion. Really, I’m fine, I just need a day and I’ll bounce.” Crow Father shook his head, insisting on fake help even as Technoblade’s panic grew. “I don’t have money! Okay, I can’t repay you, I’m worthless! There’s no one to extort!”
“I realize you must have no one in the world to trust. So, there’s only one way to make you believe me.” Long feathers wove a wall behind him, trapping him in close proximity. They drew him ever closer, apathetic to his thrashing. Crow Father patiently waited as his fight grew ever sluggish, overcome with the exhaustion and pain to do much more than tremble. Even that grew too difficult, at last reduced to a limp doll in the merciless grips of an elytrian. He reached for Technoblade, prying off the half blindfold– facial bandages. It stung as globs of congealed blood and scabs tore off. Technoblade braced as cool tonic sunk into the wound…
…and began to stitch it close.
His breathing hitched on an involuntary sigh as pain ebbed away from his head. His racing heart was likewise forced to slow, artificially easing his panic. Technoblade melted into a stupor as his body’s healing kicked into high gear, chewing through the last of his meager energy reserves.
“Oh. It…was healing,” he mumbled in pure confusion. It made no sense. They seriously didn’t believe his nonsense lie, did they? “......why???”
With a flop of his stripey hat, Crow Father canted his head in perplexity. “Why what?”
“You already know I don’t have the money for that.” As the elytrian’s brow furrowed even further, Technoblade’s hand drifted to his coin pouch, only to find it unexpectedly full. Er, full of the four silver he had to his name, but, as empty as it’d been before. Sure he wasn’t surprised they’d missed one of his many secret daggers while disarming him, but- why hadn’t they robbed him?
Tommy chirped, “You can pay us back in ten installments at steep interest!” but Crow Father lightly swatted him with a wing.
“Mate. I can see clearly infected cuts to your torso, more bruises and mud than clear skin, and your shattered leg bone stabbing below your skin. I don’t need you to pay me back; I need you to survive the night.”
He pawed at the freshly closed slice across his eye, trying to clear the blood enough to see. The blindspot made him anxious. And yet, they’d just undone his disadvantage. “Why?” Technoblade asked suspiciously.
“What do you mean why??? You’re hurt!” Tommy blurted out. Technoblade fundamentally didn’t understand how that objective fact was an explanation of any kind. Was this a hybrid thing he was supposed to know? The yawning cavern between their perspectives widened its cavernous maw.
Crow Father appeared apologetic. “I didn’t put my best foot forward, and would like to make it up to you. Now that we know you aren’t a threat, it’s our responsibility to help a hybrid in need.”
“Humans don’t exactly look out for each other,” Technoblade replied flatly. All he’d wanted was to not be killed. Maybe that would’ve been simpler, he knew what to do with people trying to kill him. This unfamiliar, unpredictable confusion screamed trap.
“Ah, but they don’t need solidarity to survive.” Technoblade supposed he was living testament to that.
Niki drew Tommy back, gently explaining, “I was the same way when Phil first rescued me. It’ll take time for him to be coaxed out of survival mode. At least he isn’t biting.”
So that was their plan? Manipulate him into lowering his guard before striking? That…wasn’t so bad. All Technoblade had to do was never stop bracing, and he could exploit their bids at manipulation. His trepidation eased, finally able to see the strings attached to bewildering generosity.
Phil shrugged. “Your understanding actually isn’t remotely necessary in our help. Now, will you let me apply healing potions to your more serious wounds?”
Numbly, Technoblade nodded. Claws wrapped around his abdomen, far gentler this time. Technoblade blacked out momentarily from gravity, helplessly feeling himself carried. Arms trapped around himself, legs faintly kicking as they found no purchase, no control. Technoblade tried to struggle, he really did, but he hadn’t any left. He couldn’t run, so all that was left was to endure.
For all he warily watched the hours of Crow Father’s devoted medical care, nothing ever warranted bolting or biting. Still, Technoblade remained vigilant for the familiar knife in the back. There was only so long Phil and the rest of the hybrids could maintain a kind façade, and the moment the ploy was abandoned Technoblade would be ready. Technoblade could be patient. Had to be, considering his body’s state.