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Techno fed his little brother yet another bowl of soup, part of him, the piglin side, the protector side, wants to growl and chuff until his throat goes hoarse.
The rational side tells him to keep on building up his little brother’s appetite until he doesn’t feel the urge to vomit every time they eat something heavier. Growling won’t help, at all. And Tommy didn’t understand piglin enough to know what a chuff meant.
And Chat is just Chat.
Little brother arc pogg!
Kill Dream.
Blood for the blood godddd.
L’s in the chat for Dream once Tommy actually tells.
Tells what? Techno wants to ask. He wants to grab Chat by the neck and shake them around until they divulge all the information he needs so that he can rampage.
Unfortunately Chat is literally just the voices in his head, bodiless and therefore unable to be threatened physically.
L.
L for the homeless telletubby.
L
L
Chat has become useless to Techno, so he ignores their spamming of L’s and gets to work planning the next meal. It’s sad that Tommy can’t have anything other than soup, so the least Techno can do for his brother is vary the taste of it a little.
He snorts a little as his brother flinches when he gets a little too close. Anger floods his veins and he calms himself by breathing slowly.
His brother will tell him what it is in time.
Yet his brother, always so foul mouthed and loud, taking up all of the space in whatever room he happened to be in being so quiet?
Well that just left a foul taste in Techno’s mouth.
They were flinching for goodness sake. Flinching.
This was Tommy. He would stand up to anyone who he thought was even the slightest bit in the wrong. No matter how dangerous, or skilled, or big, or powerful they were.
Now Tommy was reduced to this husk, this empty shell where the starry eyed child used to be.
Technoblade loathed it. Loathed the fact that somebody had managed to crawl under all of the shields Tommy had put up and bomb the city that was his mind.
And the only suspect Techno had was based off of Chat and a hunch.
Techno never swore. He needed his monetisation after all. But the sight of Theseus’s scars was enough to nearly shatter his resolve.
Because whoever did that deserved at least one swear.
Possibly like, three canon deaths as well.
If only Tommy would tell Techno who it was himself, if only he trusted him enough.
Techno wanted to be a protector, a shield for his sounder. But he could only do that if they told him who they needed protecting from first.
He wanted to call Philza, on the bad days, on the days where he felt just a little too hopeless. On the days when Theseus would gain that blank-eyed glossy look on his face, and he couldn’t be woken up.
On the days where the child living in his house felt like a ghost.
_________
Tommy was barely inhabiting the body he had once so pridefully called his own. He could admit it to himself, but only just.
He silently plodded up to his designated room after dinner, turning and tossing in the bed.
He had missed this, having a comfortable place to sleep that wasn’t the too hot days on that stupid beach. Or the too cold nights where the wind would brush through the openings of tnret and sweep through his hair.
He missed being warm in Logstedshire.
He missed the days when he could scream and shout and call to the wind. Where he could run in the fields with Tubbo and still be able to curl against the short goat hybrid at night.
He missed the days when he still considered Dream his friend.
Wait, Dream was his friend.
No he wasn’t.
He missed the days when his mind was able to choose between two conflicting ideas and believe wholeheartedly that the option he chose was the right one.
But he couldn’t have that, not anymore.
Instead, he was stuck. That child who swore like a sailor and laughed effortlessly was no more.
Maybe, he thought on some days, when grappling with the shattered edges of his mind and mental state, he could tell Techno. They were there, they were protecting him. Techno was his brother.
But the pit, he thought on better ones. Is he truly trustworthy? He set withers on the streets of L’manberg and told him to die.
It was on one of those better days that Tommy decided to bite the bullet.
He wasn’t even sure it was a conscious decision. He barely remembered making it. He just woke up one day and decided to trust.
It wasn’t an easy thing to do. Not by any definition of the word. Tommy was tired, however, and even if Techno left him, even if he decided that Tommy wasn’t worth it and decided to kill him.
Well, Tommy wasn't exactly against that. The killing part, not the abandonment part.
Sure that wasn’t the most positive thing to think, it definitely wasn’t something that a sixteen year old should ever think, but that was what was on his mind when he walked up to Techno that day.
__________
Techno was shocked, obviously who wouldn’t be, when his brother asked him a favour.
He immediately steeled himself, ready to rampage, ready to be whatever Theseus needed to be. (He was even prepared to be treated like a weapon, no matter how sick the thought made him feel.)
Instead what Theseus asked of him broke his heart.
“Techno, can you listen?” The vulnerability in their voice made Techno freeze, but he was never going to say no. This basically wasn’t even a favour.
Techno nodded, and Tommy seemed to steel himself, taking deep calming breaths and exhaling slowly.
“Techno, please, don’t interrupt. I trust you, and I have thought long and hard to reach that conclusion. If you interrupt me then I don’t think I’ll be able to say this. And I want to say this all today.”
Tommy was twiddling his thumbs, hand brushing over each one. Chat was screaming incoherently but Techno zoned them out. He needed to focus.
He would not admit that his heart warmed at the idea of Tommy trusting him. His heart didn’t warm at the idea of Tommy trusting him. No matter who said otherwise, do not believe them, they are liars.
He watched as Tommy took another deep breath, and Techno didn’t interrupt.
“Pinky promise you won’t interrupt, that you’ll hear me to the end?”
And they raised their pinky, and it was so childlike, their eyes, that Techno transformed into his more humanoid version to quickly link their pinky’s.
“Pinky promise,” he said assuredly, holding it for three seconds before shifting back.
Theseus began his story.
“Exile was strangely cold at night, for being a beach location. At first that was my biggest gripe about the place. Then it was the fact that after a while, the only person who came to visit, only came to watch me.”
They continued, on and on, as if stopping would mean the end of their life. Techno listened. It wasn’t the most eloquent at times, Tommy stuttering over the worst of it. But Techno understood him anyway.
Techno wanted to scream at the sun, at the world, at the people who allowed this to happen.
But he made a promise and he would keep it.
At the end of his tale, Tommy pulled up the sleeve of his signature T-shirt. Techno held in a gag at what he saw, a scar. Deliberate, international. A curved smile and two dots.
Right on his forearm, a few centimetres under the start of his shoulder.
Techno growled. It was fine, Tommy was done.
“Are you going to ‘bandon me now?” Tommy asked, his speech slurring slightly. He was clearly dead tired, and Techno picked him up and began to walk up the stairs to his room.
“No runt, no I’m not.”
“Even though ‘m broken ‘nd shit.”
“You’re not broken kid.”
“Okay.”
Techno chuffed softly at the sight of his runt, curled up in his arms and sleeping soundly. He had a murder to plan and a favour to get rid of.
But for now, they could sleep.