Archive of Our Own ^beta

“I’ll tell you something, Technoblade.” Quackity said.

Gone were the enchanted shears in his hand. His fingertips flashed white before being replaced with something much darker.

His stomach sank.

He could see through the curved blade. He could make out every boil in the lava, every pebble in the obsidian. He could see his own fear reflected back.

That was new.

“I’ll tell you something. The same way you did to me.”

He was going to cry. He was going to cry from the crushing weight of guilt, of sorrow. He would fall down like the bubbles in the lava, sink onto the hard stones underneath him.

No.

He was going to die.

“I have a pickaxe.”

Clearly, he thought. There was a lump in his neck. He couldn’t swallow it down.

“And I’ll put it,” he raised it above his head. His eyes were glowing with something much darker than the nights spent curled against crying obsidian, much darker than the depths of Pogtopia. But they glowed white- terrifying and deadly- like the TNT did.

“Through your teeth.”

The blade came whizzing down toward his head.

The room tilted and went black.

He supposed he died.

He couldn’t see himself. He couldn’t see anything but the flat line between black and light blue. He could feel his body, but it just felt weightless. He felt like he was floating.

And then he was.

The water weighed his hair down, he could feel it seeping into his (finally clean) orange jumpsuit. It felt like little needles poking their way through the fabric and nesting themselves in his skin. Before they began to burn, he felt hands under his arms. They pulled him up, endlessly up.

He felt air. He breathed, but he breathed salty water in, not the dusty air that surrounded him. The hands took themselves off his arms and pulled his hair back, wringing it over his shoulder.

“-hear me?” They asked. He grunted in response. “Techno?”

The voice sounded like cold mornings, like blue flags, planes, hungry laughter. It sounded like bad trades, the sharpening of a blade. He knew these things, they were home. Then he blinked a couple times and it was gone. He must have dreamed it. He couldn’t tell if it was real or not.

“Phil?” Pandora’s effects still hadn’t worn off, he had the timer in the corner of his vision, still counting down another hour. His voice was sluggish even after months of being used under those effects.

His body felt slow. He brought his hands up to wipe his eyes and that took half of everything out of him. Breathing took the rest.

He opened his eyes, the water stung his fresh cuts all the way to his toes. He could only see a towel that had been shoved into his hands. It was white, stained a yellowish color from being washed once too many times. It smelled like dogs. He brought his hands up to take it, but they fell halfway.

He heard Phil suck in a breath. He wanted to shake his head, it didn’t hurt, but he couldn’t. His body did hurt, but it wasn’t because of the fatigue.

He felt warm milk touch his lips. He allowed it. Once he swallowed, he could feel the slowness start to leave his body. He started breathing deeper. He took the cup and downed the rest.

“Better?”
He nodded. The effects would stay until he died, he knew that. But that wasn’t anything a little poison counter-effect couldn’t fix. Even a wither would make him feel better. The lines all over his body told him so. He shook out of his not-quite-drugged haze.

“Can you sit up?”

He did. He leaned against a spruce fence post. He looked at the back of his own chair. The stasis chamber bubbled. The wither skulls on the wall stared back at him. The blue of the table and the chandelier burned its way into his eyelids.

This was not where he was just a minute ago.

“Oh my god,” was the only thing his wide range of vocabulary could output. His heart started beating faster than he’d like. He had to get up, he had to get out of here. He put his hands on the cool Blackstone of the floor.

“Slow down,” Phil said, but not before Techno was on his unsteady feet. He didn’t have any shoes on. The stone burned, but he hardly felt it. He almost turned to the door, but his eyes caught on the man next to him.

He had bags under his eyes. They were a deep black Techno had never seen before. His wings were slumped against his sides, the right still torn at its white ends. His hat was half inside out at the brim, the emerald earring on the wrong ear.

“Phil,” he whispered, then he threw himself into the man’s arms. Phil jumped at the contact, but hugged him back almost immediately. Techno was getting his wings and cloak all wet, but he didn’t seem to mind.

“What happened there?”

“Doesn’t matter.” He pulled back. He knew his skin was battered with new scars and bruises. He would have to tell the stories behind them all later, maybe over a good meal that didn’t have anything to do with potatoes. No matter his past, they were now something he wanted to see much less of. Maybe not even at all. “Look Phil, Dream is still there. I have to get him out, I have to save him from Quackity.”

Phil’s eyebrows pinched. He didn’t know, that’s right. It’d been so long. He told one of the crows, but he supposed it got lost somewhere. Maybe Sam killed it.

“Quackity is plotting with Sam. He’s going to kill Dream, it’s about the book,” and he knew he didn’t have to say anything more. Phil had made the connection Techno did months ago about why he needed the book, even if Quackity never told him upfront. Dream knew too, but before now he never had to worry about Schlatt.

“I have to get Dream out before he comes back.”

“You need rest.” He countered.

“You do too, Phil. So sleep while I’m gone for the both of us.” He patted his friend’s shoulder.

“Where are you going?”

He swung his arm down, his fingertips turning white. It came back with a shining book, the silver letters floating in an ancient language. The name read Dream.

“To get him out. To stop Quackity.”

And he knew that Phil wouldn’t stop him. He would call the Syndicate with a single ring and they would be here within the hour.

And he didn’t stop him. He watched as Techno took his belongings out of the whispering chest. He followed him out of the meeting room and into the freezing hallway where Techno felt the water droplets freeze on his body.

Phil set the boat down and they zoomed to the exit. The ice stung his skin, the thin air blowing his hair back and itching his skull. Phil handed him a trident. Without instruction, he let the trident pull him up.

He let the lava burn the three months worth of dirt off, the last ten minutes of ice and the years of sweat. He felt comfortable, just for a second, in its suffocating heat.

Then Phil pulled him out. He fell into a water pit, which flooded the air with steam, hardly getting him wet at all.

Before they got to their houses, Techno’s ears were filled with the crackling of a fire, countless barks from his hounds, the huff of his second best friend. There were always new sounds here. It was home.

He left Phil at the stairs. He unlocked his spruce door with shaky hands and a warm cloud around his mouth.

Steve was waiting for him at the door. Techno almost fell outside with the new pressure on his chest, filled with white fur and familiar scents. He hugged him back, then watched as he went back to his boat, spun in his three circles, and felt the floor shake under him as he flopped down.

Techno smiled. It broke his bottom lip.

He took his clothes off of the dryer, long since wrinkled and forgotten. He slipped on the white shirt and black boots. He pulled his hair back for the tenth time that day. It was frayed and dead on the ends, much past recovery. Niki was always good at cutting hair. Maybe she’d have a new job.

He pulled the cape around his shoulders and had to stop himself from sinking into the familiar warmth, its scent of lavender and iron almost too strong for his broken senses, yet he breathed it in until his body hurt.

He eyed the shower, which held a villager. He wanted a warm shower more than anything. He wanted to feel the steam wrap him tighter than Steve or Phil could, he needed to be free of Pandora’s grime for more than a few seconds in lava.

But, if Ranboo could do with lava showers, then he could too. He took his crown, which was thrown on a coat hanger, into his scarred hands.

He knew what he was if he put it on.

He would be back there in Pogtopia, in the depths of the cave. Or above everyone on a cobblestone platform that… well. That was a long time ago. Those three months proved to him that more time had passed than he thought. He could see it in how much Steve’s hair grew, how dark Phil’s eyes were, how many trees grew around their homes. He could hear it in the campfire next to him, though he supposed nobody else could.

Point is, he wasn’t the same person. Not anymore.

He put the crown on.

He left his house.

The air no longer bit his skin. He couldn’t feel it around his neck anymore. Piglins always ran warm, he thought.

Phil stood against the spruce fence, his eyes trained on Techno’s door. He scoffed at the idea of the old man even watching his nametag move.

But he looked sad.

The world tilted when he met Techno’s eyes. He’d never seen that much grief in someone’s eyes before. He didn’t know why he hadn’t seen it earlier. It was etched into the way Phil carried himself, in the unkempt house across the way. There was water dripping from the ceiling, for god’s sake!

Techno slumped against the wall behind him. He knew he had to leave. He knew he had to do all the world saving this time, that people’s lives were in his hands. But the only one he cared about was standing in front of him.

He wanted to stay here. He wanted to promise Phil he’d spend the rest of the year here. He wanted to promise him he’d fix this and come back and spend the rest of his days overthrowing governments and answering only to the bell and each other. He wanted to promise more mornings like those he dreamt about.

But for now, he had to leave. He had to get that crushing weight off his heavy heart. For now, he had a duck to kill. His crow could wait.

He gave Phil another hug.

He couldn’t pull away. Phil did.

“I’ll be back.”

“I know.” Phil untied his horse from the fence. He handed the lead to Techno, who took it in steady hands.

“You read my will, right?”

“Ranboo and I did.” Techno almost rolled his eyes. He wished he didn’t miss that- two illiterate people trying to read something he, of all people, wrote. The image filled his mind with a buzzing pink. He had to be back soon, he didn’t think he could stay away from his family for much longer.

“Well, you know what to do.”

He nodded solemnly. Techno’s own words echoed in his head, louder than the voices. He wanted neither of them there more than the other.

“Stay safe, Techno.”

“You too, old man.”

The sound of Carl’s hooves crunching through the snow was louder than the sorrow.