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There was always something so freeing about being on patrol late at night. It’s the indescribable adrenaline that you get from jumping across rooftops, never quite knowing if you’re gonna land in the right spot. Most people say that the trick to performing such stunts is to never look down.
Tommy would like to disagree with that statement. Refusal to look down implies that you believe that falling is a possibility, that you have the slightest fear that you could topple between the buildings at any given moment. Of course, Tommy was only human and he did harbour those fears, but he also enjoyed looking down.
He enjoyed seeing the tiny pavements and all the little people laid out on the ground beneath him, and the ever present cloud of red magic that meant he was safe. It was always fun to see if someone would notice him, maybe a small child tugging on the hem of their mothers dress, pointing up at a vigilante that was far gone.
The neighbourhood that he lived in was mostly peaceful, and Tommy liked to believe that a large part of that was thanks to him. Afterall, his sleep schedule (and also some of his bones that one time) weren’t getting completely decimated for nothing.
However, it was hard to really consider the crime rates as having been lowered when you had one annoyingly persistent villain that seemed to stick around no matter what you did. It was hard to determine why exactly the Blade had chosen to hang around Tommy’s shitty neighbourhood so frequently, especially for such a high profile villain.
There wasn’t really anything on this side of town—except for him and his amazing charisma, obviously—in terms of wealth and valuable possessions. The nearest bank was a solid half an hour away, a fact that was extremely inconvenient because the last thing you wanted to be doing was walking through the city with a backpack full of cash to deposit in the bank.
If that wasn’t an invitation to get mugged, Tommy didn’t know what was. However, as the local vigilante, Tommy liked to think that while many of his efforts to subdue the Blade had been unsuccessful, many of his efforts to subdue random muggers with no training whatsoever had been highly successful.
The pros of having an older brother who was strangely passionate about self defense, fencing, and the Art of War (all things he had tried to pass onto Tommy, with only one of the three actually turning out to be successful), never seemed to end. Tommy didn’t quite know where Techno could have possibly managed to learn to fight with the ruthless precision that he did, but he wasn’t really complaining about free lessons.
Well, free lessons in the sense that he would be mostly unharmed, save for a few stray bruises here and there. Technically, free lessons could count as going onto the streets and getting beaten up by random people, gradually assimilating their shitty fighting styles into your own technique. Not that Tommy had ever done that of course. He wasn’t that stupid…right?
All this to say, Tommy would like to consider himself a fairly competent fighter. Most of the muggers he encountered were not particularly good, and they had little going on for them other than a knife and some shitty insults.
However, as one could likely deduce, the Blade, being a supervillain and all, was not like most muggers and Tommy rather frequently got his ass handed to him whenever they encountered one another.
Their encounters were spread far and few, because even though there were frequent sightings of the Blade around his neighbourhood, the Blade never actually did anything villainous. He kinda just…hung out around the streets and probably scared the living daylights out of random citizens happening to pass by.
Most of the actual crime would typically happen far, far, away from Tommy’s little corner of the city and be swiftly dealt with by the heroes, because obviously when the rich districts are in danger it's all hands on deck.
However, today did not seem to be a regular day, and the crime in question was currently happening very, very close to Tommy’s general proximity. Fun. He loved it when random tech stores got broken into.
So, being the good vigilante he was, Tommy checked his GPS, spun in a circle several times in a rather poor attempt to triangulate his current location relative to the tech store, and jumped off across the rooftops in the pursuit of justice.
Wow, that sounded corny. More like the pursuit of crime given that all he ever did was chase crime. It wasn’t like he was really chasing justice per se, because he didn’t even hand all the criminals in-
This was probably an entirely useless thought process that did very little to help him apprehend criminals. So, with that thought in mind, Tommy leapt off in the pursuit of crime.
***
It was late when he got back to the apartment, so late that the more appropriate term to use would probably be early. The barest glimpse of the sun could be seen peeking above the buildings in the distance, orange rays just starting to paint the clouds in shades of golden.
The whole pursuit of crime had gone fairly well, and by fairly well, Tommy meant that he had sustained no major injuries. It would have been extraordinarily awkward to tell Techno that he’d sprained his ankle yet again, and he wasn’t sure how much Techno was buying the whole, “maybe my ankle just hates me,” story.
In all fairness, it wasn’t even a complete lie. His ankle had probably sustained the most injuries from his vigilantism, which therefore meant it was weak and gave up easily and probably did hate him because it was a fucking loser of an ankle that needed to pull itself together.
…sorry ankle.
However, today was a good day (or rather a good morning) for Tommy because his ankle had escaped completely unscathed, as had the rest of him. He couldn’t really say the same thing about the unfortunate robber though, who had seemed vastly underprepared.
It was a wonder how some people could think that robbing a tech store with nothing more than a baseball bat and a poorly constructed mask would actually work. Shitty robbers, the lot of ‘em. On second thought, it probably would work if Tommy wasn’t such an epic vigilante.
Anyways, putting the poorly planned robbery aside, Tommy was just approaching his apartment building when he spied a figure on the roof. Now, this in itself was not particularly out of the ordinary. It was a free city after all, you could hang on the roof if you wanted.
He hung out on the roof a lot, it was a good place to dangle your feet over the bricks and question your entire life's existence. You got strangely existential when you could stare at all the tiny people on the street and wonder what was going on in their lives, but they couldn’t stare back at you and wonder what was going on in your life. So yeah, Tommy couldn’t really judge people for spending their time on the rooftop.
However, if you saw the Blade hanging out on your apartment's rooftop, that would be considered something that you could judge people for. Obviously, there was no other course of action now but to go over to the rooftop and see what was happening.
It should be noted that Tommy did not have the best self preservation instincts, but most of the time he merely just attributed injuries to the uselessness of his ankle. The briefest thought did occur to him that he and the Blade had fought on numerous occasions, and having a highly wanted superhero on your rooftop was probably a bad sign.
Afterall, what if the Blade somehow knew his civilian identity? Maybe this rooftop musing session was not a random rooftop like he had initially believed, but maybe it was a targeted rooftop musing session, designed to be a carefully concealed intimidation technique.
Of course, if you were dead set on trying to intimidate someone, there were probably better ways to go about it than sitting sadly on a rooftop by yourself. Actually, why did the Blade look so sad? Guess there was only one way to find out.
In the end, Tommy’s curiosity won out, as it did with most things, because obviously the only course of action that one could even consider taking in this situation was to figure out what the fuck the Blade was doing. There was no way that this would possibly end badly.
And so, this interaction began as all good ones do: with Tommy tripping over his feet and almost face planting into the concrete. Wait, no. Scratch that, because that obviously never happened. Tommy would never trip and fall, because he was merely too cool for that.
Ignoring the muffled laughter from the Blade, which woah, why was he laughing? That was so random and uncorrelated to anything that Tommy had done in the past five seconds. Anyways, putting aside that little non-incident, the entire rooftop meeting suddenly got significantly more awkward.
“So, you, uh, come here a lot?” Tommy began, which was a great conversation starter for your first real chat where (hopefully) neither of you were actively trying to kill the other. He was so nonchalant and subtle and cool.
“No,” was the deadpan response he got in return.
“Yeah, yeah, cool.”
Cue a solid thirty seconds of awkward silence.
Why did he have to decide that he wanted to be sociable, why did he have to decide he wanted to see what the Blade was doing on this random rooftop? The strong majority of Tommy’s ideas were rather brilliant, despite the mistaken opinions of those around him, but even he could concede defeat in this particular scenario and admit that this may not have been his finest moment.
“Let’s cut to the chase then, shall we?” Tommy said, “What the fuck are you doing on this rooftop?”
The Blade looked over at him, the first real acknowledgement of his presence. His mask always freaked Tommy out. He wasn’t sure what it was, maybe it was the fact that you couldn’t see his eyes behind that beady, empty boar skull, but plenty of villains and heroes alike had their eyes hidden completely. Maybe it was how wickedly sharp it looked, like simply running your finger over the edge would slice the skin open, leaving blood to drip onto the pavement below. Maybe it was just the fact that the boar skulls seemed strangely judgemental for some reason.
Whatever it was, Tommy found himself questioning all of his life's choices at that very moment.
“Do you own this building?”
“Well, no, but-”
“Then I don’t see how this is your problem.”
“Dude you’re literally a wanted supervillain sitting on the roof of the district that I patrol.”
“And?”
Tommy spluttered for a little bit in a manner that was probably not all that dignified, “Well, uh, um, you know what? Fuck you.”
“Wow, I feel so insulted right now.”
“Good riddance bitch, you should.”
Cue another lengthy pause filled with nothing but awkwardness. Fun.
“So you never really answered my initial question: what are you doing here?”
“Well technically, your initial question was whether or not I came to this particular rooftop or not, which I did answer.”
“You know what I mean,” Tommy complained, crossing his arms in mock offense.
The Blade frowned at him (or rather presumably frowned, given Tommy couldn’t really see his facial expression; he could just tell he had major frowning vibes right now). “I don’t really, given I’ve already answered your initial question.”
“Okay, how about you answer my second question then, bitch. What the fuck are you doing on this rooftop? Plotting out your next big crime?”
“Why would I plan out my ‘next big crime,’ as you so eloquently put it, on one random rooftop?”
“I don’t fucking know now, do I?” Tommy complained. “I’m asking you, aren’t I?”
The Blade paused, and for a split second it almost seemed like he was contemplating giving Tommy a real answer. However, in the end, he must have decided against it.
“How do you know my next big crime isn’t happening right now? I could shove you off the top of this roof.”
Yeah, Tommy was really hoping that wasn’t a real answer, because if he got shoved off the top of this roof it seemed like a lot more of him would sustain damage, not just his stupid ankle.
“I would rather you didn’t,” Tommy said rather diplomatically, before following it up with, “That’d be a right dickhead move now, wouldn’t it?”
The Blade stared at him in silence for a beat, seemingly contemplating something, “You’re that vigilante, aren’t you?”
“Wow, what brilliant observational skills from such an esteemed villain,” Tommy said, rolling his eyes. “It’s not like we’ve encountered each other and fought before.”
“Oh, you’re that Theseus kid, aren’t you? The scrawny one who fell off a rooftop and made headlines.”
This was so incredibly wrong on so many levels, because why was that incident the thing that everyone seemed to know him for. Not the countless crimes he’d stopped, not the people he’d saved, not the charismatic vigilante personality he put on when talking to so many people around the neighbourhood, but rather as ‘the scrawny kid that fell off rooftops.’ Granted, most people didn’t really include the first part, it was mainly just the falling off rooftops thing that they seemed to get fixated on for whatever reason, which was so stupid.
It wasn’t even his fault, what else were you meant to do when you got shoved off a rooftop? And if the stupid media helicopter had a camera person that wasn’t completely shit, maybe they would’ve seen Tommy catch himself with his magic, in a super epic moment exemplifying his heroicness. It could have been the perfect debut.
But no, instead he had to go and fall off a rooftop at precisely the wrong camera angle. There was a rather humiliating shot of him midfall, arms and legs thrown into the air in an odd u shape of sorts. It was plastered on the front of newspapers for a solid three days, speculation could whether or not the newest vigilante had fallen to his demise on the first patrol.
For fucks sake, Technoblade had shown him the newspaper, making a dry remark about stupidity and their headline of choice, which had so kindly chosen his vigilante name for him. And so, Theseus was born.
In his humble opinion, it was a shitty name because further research revealed that Theseus was a right asshole. However, Tommy didn’t exactly go round talking to the media all that much, and the name Theseus had rather unfortunately caught on.
It was so fine. He was like the better, less dickhead version of mythology Theseus, and he was probably ten million times cooler and also significantly more alive than that guy because Tommy did not plan on falling off a cliff to his ultimate demise.
Granted, falling off a cliff to your demise wasn’t the kind of thing that one really predicted. Also, it was hard to fall off a cliff in the middle of L’Manburg, which was not huge on the general concept of nature and also cliffs. So therefore, the building would have to suffice.
Specifically, the building that the Blade was currently threatening to throw him off.
“I did not fall off the rooftop, you prick.”
“I saw the picture.”
“Fuck you! That picture is an inaccurate representation of me as a vigilante, because I actually managed to catch myself. And notably, as you can see right now, I am not ‘lying flat on the ground’ like the papers claimed. That entire debacle was so ridiculous anyways, because how could I be lying flat on the ground if there was no body down there? It simply makes no sense.”
“Right…” the Blade replied, not sounding particularly convinced. “So what, I’m meant to believe that you just clung onto the side of the building and didn’t die?”
“No, I used my magic to stop my fall.”
“What magic?”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Heh?”
“I’ve literally used my magic before when we’ve fought in the past. It’s like red, glowy, kinda hard to miss.”
“Oh.” the Blade seemed genuinely dumbstruck by this revelation, despite it not being very much of a realisation at all.
“Yeah. So anyways, I did not fall off that rooftop, case closed.”
“I mean technically, you did still fall off the rooftop,” the Blade pointed out. “Your landing doesn’t impact whether or not you were falling, or whether or not you were pushed off the rooftop in the first place.”
“Fuck you, bitch.”
“Wow, your comebacks are so good, I feel so threatened right now.”
“As you should.”
The two of them lapsed back into silence, only this time it wasn’t as awkward as before. The banter had helped break the tension a bit, and there was peace in this silence, a mutual understanding of sorts.
While they may have fought in the past—a fact that the Blade seemed completely unaware of—they weren’t fighting now. They were no longer Theseus and the Blade, the vigilante and the supervillain, but rather two strangers sitting on a rooftop and watching the sunrise together.
Tommy missed moments like this, the peaceful way that you could simply just coexist in the presence of someone else, and be comfortable in that and only that. He used to watch the sun with Techno a lot, before Techno was suddenly too busy all the time, and then Tommy was busy as well and then all of a sudden there was never a good time to take a moment to simply just exist in the presence of each other.
He missed the simplicity of when they first moved into their apartment, the ‘organised mess’ of cardboard boxes as he liked to put it, and the mornings where both of them would wake up disastrously late and have to rush around the cramped space together. It was a structured routine, an invisible dance that both of them had somehow always known the steps to.
But it was here, sitting on the rooftop next to the Blade of all people, that Tommy felt that same odd sense of comfort that was so hard to label.
If this was what his life had come to, seeking companionship from random supervillains at five in the morning, maybe he did need to reconsider his life choices. Maybe he needed more friends or something. Maybe he just needed to sleep more. It was crazy what sleep deprivation could do to a person.
His moment of reminiscing and sleep deprivation musings was abruptly broken by the Blade standing up.
“Well, I have to be off now. Don’t want to get home too late, my brother will wonder where I was.”
“You have a brother?”
This probably sounded really bad, but Tommy had never actually thought of the Blade as knowing people. Like he gave off major ‘life of solitude in my evil villain lair’ vibes.
The Blade paused, like he had said something he wasn’t supposed to say. This was probably because he wasn’t supposed to say anything, as typically you don’t tell random vigilantes on rooftops minor details about your homelife and family. Tommy’s brilliant skills of deduction strike yet again.
“I mean yeah, but don’t go around publicising that information, okay?”
“I’m no snitch,” Tommy said, but for some reason the Blade didn’t seem particularly convinced of that.
“Okay then. See you around, maybe.” With that brilliant exiting statement, the Blade was off again. Tommy covered his eyes out of respect for privacy, which was probably a bit unnecessary given that the Blade likely had not departed in the actual direction of his house, because in addition to giving off solitary villain lair vibes, he also seemed like the kinda guy to be overly paranoid about security.
Wow, Tommy really should stop making assumptions about villains he’d only just met.
He stayed on the rooftop for just a second more, taking a moment to absorb the shimmering rays making their way across the sky.
Then he turned, walked over to the backside of the alleyway, and climbed down the fire escape. Was this the most stealthy way to access his apartment, climbing through the window in full vigilante gear? No, probably not.
But in his defense, at least the fire escape was backing into a dimly lit alleyway and not the main road. Also, he normally looked around before climbing through the window. And in the worst case scenario, where someone looked up at the fire escape and yelled, ‘Theseus, do you live there?’ Tommy would merely pretend that he had made a sudden switch to the other side.
It was about time to take up a life of crime, it would be like his mid-life crisis except it wasn’t in the middle of his life. Anyways, technicalities about midlife crises aside, Tommy would merely just pretend that yes, his new life of crime involved breaking and entering a random civilian apartment, because why wouldn’t you do that?
See, Tommy was perfectly prepared for every single scenario that could possibly occur.
Except for maybe the scenario he was currently facing, which was where he opened the window, did a shitty forward roll onto his bed, overestimated the length of his bed and rolled over the bed and onto the floor.
Ow.
You might be wondering, why would you possibly need to do a forward roll in this situation? Could you not just open up the window and climb through like a normal person? Tommy wasn’t quite sure what had possessed him to do a forward roll, but he would like to kindly request that it unpossess him, because he was quite regretting that decision.
Everything hurt, including his stupid ankle.
There was a special kind of pain that came from knowing this entire situation was very avoidable had you not chosen to forward roll across the floor.
And to make matters even worse, Tommy could hear Techno call to him from the other room.
“Tommy? What was that massive crash? Are you okay?”
“All good, big man,” Tommy called back through strained teeth. “Everything is okay.”
Fuck. He didn’t expect Techno to be up this early. While his brother may have been a morning person, his morning routine normally began at seven on the dot, and Tommy couldn’t imagine why Techno would be up at—pause to check the clock—5:48 AM.
Weird, but he had bigger concerns right now. Namely, the fact that he was currently lying on the floor in his full vigilante suit, and if Techno decided to come in and investigate the crash he would be completely and utterly fucked.
“Are you sure? Do you need anything?”
“No!” Tommy yelled back, just a tad too fast. He really hoped his panic wasn’t being conveyed through his tone, because that would be extremely unfortunate.
“You sound a bit panicked,” came Techno’s deadpan response. “Are you sure you don’t need something?”
“I’m getting changed!” Tommy practically screamed.
“At 5:50 AM?”
“...yes?”
Tommy could hear the doubt in Techno’s voice, “Okay then, whatever.”
Technically, it wasn’t even a lie. He was getting changed out of his vigilante costume. However, it was very unfortunate because this now meant that he couldn’t get changed out of his vigilante costume, and into his warm, comfortable pajamas like he was intending to. This was particularly disappointing because it meant that he wouldn’t be able to just climb back into bed and get two whole hours of sleep.
Scowling slightly, Tommy picked himself up off the floor too much protesting from his stupid limbs and stupid body that had tricked him into doing a forwards roll, and dragged himself over to the wardrobe.
He then proceeded to select the first item of clothing he could find, replacing his current vigilante hoodie with yet another hoodie. You could never go wrong with a basic hoodie. Peeling off his shitty mask, Tommy shoved it in the recesses of his closet, throwing a couple t-shirts on it for good measure. He was so good at this whole 'hiding your seceret identity' thing.
Having successfully devigilantified himself (and yes, that was totally a real word and not something he just made up), Tommy resolved to facing Techno.
When he walked out into the living room, Techno was sitting at the kitchen counter, looking deep in thought. Techno didn’t see him for a beat, so Tommy cleared his throat rather awkwardly.
In an instant, Techno’s head snapped over to Tommy. “So you gonna tell me what that massive crash was? Did something break?”
Shit. He should have thought of a good excuse before he came out here. “No, nothing broke. I just…rolled off the bed in my sleep?”
Techno stared at Tommy in disbelief. Tommy could feel himself metaphorically staring at himself in disbelief as well, because why the fuck did he say he rolled off the bed? Was that even a believable excuse?
“You rolled off the bed?” Techno remarked dryly, raising his eyebrows.
Welp. The only way forward now was to fully commit to this. “Yeah. I don’t really know how, I just woke up on the floor.”
Prime, he sounded like such a fucking dumbass.
“So then why did you have to get changed? Why didn’t you just head back to sleep?”
What was this? Why had this turned into a full on interrogation. Tommy suddenly felt very guilty, like he had been caught doing something he wasn’t supposed to. Actually, he totally had been caught doing something he wasn’t supposed to, because he didn’t think Techno would be very impressed to learn Tommy had been running a side gig as a vigilante.
Although, he technically hadn’t ever said anything direct about prohibiting vigilante activity. Granted, Techno probably didn’t think that this was a necessary thing to establish, because you don’t typically expect your younger brother to turn to a life of vigilantism.
Anyways, putting all that aside, Tommy did what he did best: he began bullshitting. “Well, you see, I fell on the floor. And then I was awake, because falling on the floor really hard does that to someone. It’s shocking how well that wakes you up, y’know. So then, I just figured I may as well get an early start on my day. Really get going. So I got changed into this epic hoodie. Yeah, that’s what happened.”
It wasn’t technically that much of a lie. Falling on the floor did tend to rather abruptly wake someone up. He felt significantly more awake now that he'd fallen on the floor. Oh, the things that a poorly planned forwards roll could do to someone.
“Right…” Techno said, staring at Tommy for a moment. He seemed to be having a mini debate in his mind about whether or not he wished to pursue Tommy further, but in the end, he decided against it.
“So,” Tommy began, going in for a swift topic change, “why are you up so early in the morning?”
“Oh, you know. Got stuff to do.” Techno said, not so subtly avoiding eye contact.
Who was the guilty one now, huh? Not that Tommy was ever guilty obviously.
“So what do you have to do?” Tommy asked casually, because he was kinda curious about what had roused Techno out of bed so early.
“Work,” Techno deadpanned.
“Oh. Ew.”
(At this moment, it had never once occurred to Tommy that Technoblade worked at a coffee shop, and therefore would have no need to bring work home, much less work on anything at 5:56 AM. Unless he was perfecting a new drink recipe? But no, that made no sense, and at the time Tommy thought nothing of the casual comment.)
“I’m going back to sleep,” Techno decided for the two of them. “See you in an hour.”
“Fuck no, I’m going back to sleep and you’re not seeing me for another three hours,” Tommy declared.
“Whatever, gremlin child,” Techno said dismissively, already heading over to his bedroom. “See you in three hours then.”
It was only once Tommy had gotten back to his roof safely that he considered this entire ordeal to be a crisis successfully averted.
With that thought in mind and not a lot much else, Tommy collapsed on his mattress and promptly passed out.
***
As it turned out, Tommy did not see Techno in the next three hours. Instead, his body decided that nope, it was done for the day and waking up in a timely fashion was not a necessity. And so, Tommy was fast asleep for the next eight hours.
When he woke up, the little alarm clock was cheerfully blinking up at him, electronic display reading 2:12 PM in neat block letters. Shit, had he really slept for that long? Granted, if he had slept for that long, it probably was because he needed the extra sleep, something that Tommy was strategically choosing to ignore.
Techno would be long gone by now, his shift starting at 11:30. This meant two things (1) Tommy had the entire apartment all to himself and (2) Tommy was extraordinarily bored. With nothing better to do, he figured that he may as well pull out the shitty switch that Techno had gotten him for his last birthday and play Animal Crossing. Prime, Animal Crossing really was such a goated game. There were no flaws in it whatsoever.
Well, no flaws except for the fact that Tommy couldn’t find the fucking gamecard, and before you asked, no Tommy would not recall the last place he’d put the gamecard.
That’s such a stupid fucking question to ask whenever someone's lost something, because if you could recall the last place you’d put something, then it wasn’t actually lost now, was it?
Anyways, after a solid eight minutes of searching (and yes, that was enough time to encapsulate an extremely thorough search thorough his bedroom and the rest of the apartment), Tommy still couldn’t find the gamecard. How was he meant to play Animal Crossing under these conditions? This was simply unacceptable.
And so, Tommy came to the completely logical conclusion that Technoblade must have taken his gamecard. He wasn’t really sure how and why his mind made this leap in logic, but once he’d thought of it, Tommy became completely and utterly convinced that his Animal Crossing gamecard was in Technoblade’s bedroom.
Afterall, he was always complaining that Tommy spent far too much time glued to the screen, immersed in his tiny little island. So, with a clear culprit in mind, Tommy marched into Technoblade’s room in search of his gamecard.
Upon flinging open the door, he could not immediately see the gamecard suspended in the air, slowly rotating in an ethereal spotlight. Disappointing to say the least.
Techno’s room was eerily neat, everything set up with such perfect precision that Tommy was a little paranoid to even breathe on the books. However, he really wanted that gamecard and curiosity won out over his potential concerns about Technoblade discovering him snooping through all his belongings.
Very carefully, he began opening drawers at random. Socks, t-shirts, pants, random papers, and a mini dagger, were all discovered, but no gamecard. Techno’s room was so boring. And so, Tommy tried to imagine: if he was the gamecard, where would he be hiding?
Everyone knows you insert the gamecard into the console, and close the little plastic flap over the top of it. Therefore, the gamecard's natural habit would likely be dark. With this thought in mind, Tommy attacked the cupboard next, flinging over the doors and digging down into the recesses of darkness, aka the most likely place for his pesky little gamecard to be hiding away.
He was just poking around in the corner when he felt something sharp. Was Techno hiding knives in his room? Or maybe it was just a really pointy t-shirt? Or maybe, just maybe, it was the corner of a pointy box containing his gamecard?
The possibilities were endless, and so Tommy reached into the closet, brushed the clothes off the offending object and froze.
A familiar boar skull stared up at him, the same one that had been staring at him just earlier today. Maybe it was a replica, you know, that was plausible. Tommy wasn’t quite sure why Technoblade would have a replica of the Blade’s boar skull, but you never knew. Maybe he was just a big fan?
Wait. Technoblade. The Blade. No, surely that was just a fucked up coincidence, everything's basically just a coincidence anyways, right? Like, maybe the Blade knew Techno from college, and stole his name because he was a criminal and criminals did identity theft.
Yeah, that was super plausible.
Actually no, maybe he was named after a sword or something. No, that was lame. He was definitely named after Technoblade, but not because he was Technoblade, but rather because he knew Technoblade in college.
But that didn’t mean that this was the Blade’s mask, right? With hands that were definitely not shaking, Tommy reached for the mask. He turned it over in his hands, once, and then twice.
The same judgemental mask from earlier stared right back up at him, the bone white edges gleaming in the dim light of Technoblade’s room. Maybe the Blade asked Techno to keep his mask safe for him?
This wasn’t any of his business anyways, this was Techno’s thing. Reaching back into the cupboard to put the skull back in its place, Tommy felt fur brush his finger. Specifically, white fur attached to a red velvet cape. More specifically, white fur attached to a red velvet cape that was exactly like the one that the Blade wore.
The whole outfit was here, tucked away into the recesses of the cupboard, everything from the cape to the skull to the heavy black combat boots that Tommy had always admired.
He didn’t recall making the conscious decision to put everything back into the closet, clothes thrown back on top of the boar skull, but he did it anyway. He didn’t recall making the decision to silently back out of Techno’s room, closing the door softly behind him, but suddenly he was back in his own room, sitting on his ratty bedsheets and wondering what the fuck he was possibly supposed to do with this new piece of information.
It was there, sitting on a mattress that was slightly too stiff and questioning how he possibly missed all the signs that he saw it.
There, on the very corner of his desk, tucked under a piece of paper of some dumb school assignment that seemed so insignificant now was a tiny black rectangle of plastic. Reaching over, he grabbed it by the corner, flipping it over to see the cheery mint green background smiling up at him.
Animal Crossing, it said, in cheerful yellow font set against a wooden sign. Tommy couldn’t help but laugh at his own stupidity.
***
Not much changed after that day. You’d think that this would be some grand revelation that ruined their relationship beyond repair, the kind of thing that you just had to confront someone about.
But Tommy was never good at confrontations and he didn’t care about the particulars of the whole thing. He was more hung up on the why. Why had Techno never told him, why did he even do it in the first place?
Of course, with the whole Theseus gig he had going on, he couldn’t exactly be too judgemental of the first question, because he’d never told Techno about that particular facet of himself. And so, life went on as normal.
Techno would leave for work, Tommy for classes, and the topic of villains and vigilantes was never brought up between the two of them. Tommy made a particular point to avoid the Blade when he was out on patrol, but that was about as far as he went.
As you may or may not be able to tell, Tommy was a shit liar with an even shittier poker face and he doubted his ability to not blurt all his secrets to Techno the second they encountered each other on patrol.
At the very least, it was highly amusing to ask Techno about his sleep and watch him flounder for an answer because simply replying, “Good,” in the same monotone voice.
So yeah, life was alright.
That was until a rather unfortunate incident in October. He had been patrolling, as per usual. However, what was not usual was him getting stabbed.
Being stabbed is about as fun as it sounds, which is not very fun at all. All of his insides felt like they were in the wrong place and there was an intense heat radiating from his side. Seriously, why was it so hot all of a sudden? Maybe he needed icepacks or something. Yeah, that was a great idea.
Maybe he just needed to stick himself in the freezer. Could you fit a whole person in the freezer? Probably not. Maybe what Tommy really needed to do in life was buy a new freezer, carry it back to their apartment, unplug the current freezer fridge situation that had been going on and then lie down in the new freezer. That was such a good idea, why had no one thought of that before?
So, as you may or may not be able to tell, yeah, Tommy was a little bit delirious. It was hard to think when your brain was think. Brain was think? What?
As he stumbled down the street, all he could think about was nothing at all.
That was, until he saw a flash of pink hair in the distance. The Blade. Or rather, Technoblade.
“Blade!” Tommy yelled, because he had no self preservation.
The flash of pink in the sky froze, and then suddenly seemed like it was getting bigger and bigger.
“Theseus? What happened to you?”
“Stabbed,” Tommy grinned. “Fun.”
“Can you get home alright?”
“Hmm,” Tommy hummed slowly, considering that question. After all, did they not have the same home? “Techno, I wanna go home.”
All of a sudden, the Blade paused, muscles tightening. Why was Techno so scared of his own name? “What?”
“Big man, take me home,” Tommy complained, “I need a freezer.”
There was a moment of silence and Tommy started to get concerned that the real Technoblade had run away and left his evil, silent doppelgänger to take his place.
“...Tommy?”
“Yeah?”
“Oh my god, Tommy?”
For some reason, Techno seemed to be freaking out quite a lot. Was this not old news? Did Techno not know Tommy? He thought they were brothers. Maybe Techno had amnesia?
“You got memory?”
That was not what he intended to say, but that was okay. Everything that Tommy said was factually correct in some sense, because he was never wrong. This was a proven fact.
“Tommy, what happened?”
“Stabbed.”
“Oh my god, okay, we have to get you back to the apartment. Can you walk?”
The answer to that question was no, as Tommy found out five seconds later when he tried to walk and immediately fell over.
“Okay, stay with me Theseus, we’re close to the apartment.”
A pair of warm arms carefully wrapped around Tommy’s torso, and those words were the last thing he heard about he closed his eyes and let the darkness grab hold of him.
***
Tommy woke up gradually, and then all at once. His first thought was that being stabbed was so fucking lame, and since it was his side, he couldn’t even attribute this to his stupid ankle. His second thought was oh shit, Techno knows that I know that he’s the Blade. And then his third thought was wait, fuck, Techno knows that I’m Theseus.
As you can see, Tommy really had his priorities in order.
Then he thought, oh wow, my side hardly even hurts anymore. Did he get put in a freezer? Did Technoblade honour his last wish (ignoring the fact that it wasn’t actually his last wish) and purchase an industrial freezer?
The only way to know the answer to this extremely pressing question was to do a bit of the good old fashioned exploration, and so Tommy got out of bed against his better judgement.
His side was very thoroughly mummified in what felt like an excessive amount of bandages, and the strain when walking was not a fun experience. But still, he had to know if there was an industrial freezer out there or not.
As soon as he pushed open his bedroom door, the first thing he saw was the lack of an industrial freezer, and instead their regular fridge maintained his position in the kitchen. The second thing he saw was Technoblade slumped over the kitchen table, pink hair tied in a messy braid and glasses askew on the bridge of his nose.
“Techno?”
He’d barely even finished uttering the words before Technoblade bolted upright, hair falling over his face and eyes frantically darting around the apartment.
“What are you doing up? Shouldn’t you be in bed? Why aren’t you in bed?”
Tommy frowned leaning against the wooden doorframe for a bit of extra support, “I wanted to see if you’d gotten an industrial freezer or not.”
“Heh?”
“Industrial freezer?”
“What? Why would we have that?” Confusion was evident across Techno’s face.
“Doesn’t matter. Anyways, how am I not bleeding out right now?”
“I have my methods,” Techno replied in a manner that was totally not ominous.
“Such as…?” Tommy prompted.
Technoblade looked strangely guilty for some reason. “Breaking into a lab and stealing all of their health potions."
“Holy shit, how did you evade security?" Tommy was gaping at Techno with wide eyes. L’Manburg’s labs were known for their security, lest some dumb teenagers break in and wreck havoc on the equipment (and yes, that had happened before).
Techno merely shrugged. “I feel like we’re not really addressing the elephant in the room.”
“Probably because there are no elephants within a several hundred feet radius of us,” Tommy pointed out.
“You know what I mean,” Techno sighed. “You’re Theseus. I’m the Blade. How did that happen? And how did you know about me?”
Tommy pointed an accusatory finger at Technoblade, “You stole my fucking gamecard.”
“Your what now?”
“You know what you did.”
“Bruh, I didn’t steal any of your stuff. What I’m gathering from this is that you decided to dig through my stuff for no reason.”
“It was for a reason! My gamecard!”
Technoblade did not look particularly impressed, “And where did you find your gamecard?”
“...on my desk.” Well this was awkward. He should’ve just lied.
“Right, so what we’ve concluded from this conversation is that I did not steal your gamecard, so basically you just snooped through my stuff for no reason,” Techno stated.
It wasn’t really said with any kind of inclination of disappointment, but Tommy felt the disappointment. Why was he the one feeling guilty all of a sudden when Technoblade was literally a supervillain?
“Okay, in my defence, it’s not like I actually went off and did anything with that information,” Tommy protested.
“Why?”
“Why what?” Tommy shot back, “Can you be a little bit less vague?”
“Why didn’t you do anything? Like, I dunno, why didn’t you mention it to me?”
Oh. That actually was a real question that Tommy did not currently have the answer to. Because when you find out that the supervillain you’ve been fighting for the past few months is actually your brother, most people would be inclined to say something.
Tommy wasn’t stupid, and even with the stab wound fucking with his head he knew Techno had killed people. That wasn’t exactly a big secret, he’d seen the headlines about the Blood God plastered all over the front page before.
So why didn’t he run? Most people with any sense of self preservation would probably leave. But there was one crucial thing about Tommy that differentiated him from most people: he had absolutely zero instincts for self preservation.
Okay, that probably wasn’t the real answer.
The real answer was something a lot more complicated and messy, as all good things were, but ultimately it boiled down to one thing, “Because you’re my brother, obviously.”
“Oh.”
And that was all that needed to be said. Maybe there were other reasons why Tommy didn’t say anything. Maybe he was scared of change, as all people are. Maybe he just really didn’t like confrontation and that was an incredibly awkward subject to breach. Maybe he had nowhere else to go.
Whatever the reason was, Tommy couldn’t find himself caring all too much, because if it got him right here, to this very moment where silence spoke louder than words ever could, he didn’t mind.
And so, when Techno opened his arms in a silent gesture—and Techno had never been one for displays of affection—Tommy didn't even think twice before he collapsed into the embrace.
***
So, the story ends much in the way it began.
Two brothers sit side by side atop a roof, watching the sunrise paint the sky in shades of gold. Only this time, there are no masks and there are no stupid ankles and no awkward secrets.
Regrettably, there is also no industrial freezer, but sometimes you have to make compromises.
Not much had changed since that October night, and Tommy’s wound had healed pretty cleanly with no infections (thank Prime, he had no idea how to even begin to deal with an infection).
They both still left on their various villain and vigilante duties, only now no one had to forward roll through the window and onto the floor (a fun little anecdote Techno had never let go after learning about). Sometimes they encountered each other on patrol, but it was a great deal of fun to stage a mock fight between the two of them, Techno calling out helpful tips along the way.
This had done wonders for Tommy's technique, because it turns out randomly assimilating fighting styles into your technique does lead to some unfortunate habits.
There was a great deal more chats between the two of them, sometimes on patrol in full villian and vigilante gear, and sometimes just huddled up on the couch in their shitty apartment. Some of the discussions had been difficult, some less so, but Tommy couldn't bring himself to mind all that much. They always made up eventually, and no two people could ever be perfect with that many secrets between them.
Some things had changed, as they were always bound to, but at the end of the day there was a comfort in knowing that despite everything, despite all the tears and laughter and anger and frustration, there would always be someone by your side, unconditionally.
And what could possibly be better than that?