Chapter Text
Philza couldn't sleep. He couldn't even lay his head down in the pillow despite the exhaustion that clung to him. His boys on the other hand were passed out cold. The day had been.... interesting wasn't a word Phil would use. Maybe frightening? Or stressful? Yeah that...that sounded like it would fit. Absently, his fingers reached up to curl around his neck. He could still feel the ghostly weight of the soft leather collar that Mister Techno put on him.
He blinked the tears out of his eyes quickly and fought down the sob that wanted to build. He was good. Had been good. He did what he was told, didn't talk back, took initiative, never assume anything…
Except he wasn't good.
He got lost in his instincts. In public. In front of people and strangers and his master. He was nothing but a dirty animal that was stupid enough to assume that he was equal as a free person. Philza quickly rubbed his eyes. Somehow the tears had escaped and were blurring his vision. He decided that he had stayed up long enough. But as he settled down in the pile of blankets, his ears perked up. There was movement further back in the house, near Mister Techno's room. Voices.
Why were his masters up so late?
Taking one last look at his boys, Philza quietly climbed off the couch and went down the hall as stealthily as he could manage with his hooved feet and the wooden floors. Thankfully it appeared that his masters were too engrossed with their conversation. Philza lingered just so at the edge of the light that spilled from the cracked doorway. He held his breath, straining his ears and his limited vocabulary as he listened:
"What do you think we should do, then?"
"It wasn't like it was Philza's fault."
Oh gods. Okay. So, they were talking about today. Don't panic.
"I swear if I had my flint I would've burned down that entire store."
There was a snort that sounded like Mister Techno. "That would make you as bad as Karen."
"No it wouldn't." His master defended. "It wouldn't have made me Karen. It makes me psychotic."
"You're not proving me wrong, by the way." His master sighed. "We're getting off track."
"Well we can't punish Philza-" Oh gods please no. "-his fault."
"He probably wasn't trying to steal the ring. It's gold and he's been repressing his instincts all his life."
"Well duh, I got that Techno." Master Wilbur sighed. God he sounded so disappointed. "Do....do you think we should...."
Philza furrowed his brow. He didn't catch the last. What was Master Wilbur suggesting? It was apparently something that had Mister Techno sighing heavily.
"I don't know....it's...ugh. It might be better for him if we do."
The floor seemed to drop from underneath him. It took everything in him not to crash to the floor. Was he....did he...what were they implying? Were they going to sell him? That's.....what else could they be implying? He was going to be sold. Again. He....he couldn't breathe!
Okay...take a breath. Calm down-
They're going to sell me.
Philza had stopped paying attention to the conversation. He was too busy struggling to keep his breathing down. They...they couldn't do that to him-
Yes they can, a little voice hissed, they own you. They can do anything to you and you can't do anything to stop them.
Philza stumbled back. The carpeted strip muffled his fall, enough so that his masters didn't stop in their conversation. All Philza could hear was the rushing blood and thundering heart in his ears. He scrambled back to the living room. Tommy and Tubbo, the only bright stars in his hellish life, were asleep. Blissfully unaware of the turmoil Philza was going through. Philza numbly snuggled up between the two, listening to their breathing and watching the ceiling with unseeing eyes.
He was a good slave. But apparently not good enough. He swallowed deeply. How would Mister Techno prepare him for the Market? Hose him down out in the cold? He hoped not. His nose was stuffed and his body ached. Using cold water out in the frigid air might actually make him sick, and by extension, essentially useless. They wouldn't get any money from him if he was hacking a lung out. Something inside him just....broke. Something snapped, something that had apparently been there for the longest time.
He couldn't be sold. Couldn't bear the thought of being torn away from his boys. Couldn't imagine a scenario where he worked in the field with little to no food, no showers...no reading lessons....no Tommy and Tubbo…
No Mister Techno or Master Wilbur.
Philza's breath shuddered in his chest as he sat up. He watched his boys sleep, their breathing deep and steady. Their faces were so relaxed in sleep that Philza couldn't turn his eyes away from them. Ever since he took them under his protection, they had been spitfires. Tommy was a little ray of sunshine that burned so brightly it touched everything around him. Tubbo, blessed little thing, was the water to Tommy's fire. Cool and collected but God if he wasn't as big of a hellion as Tommy was. But....but they were Philza's hellions. Philza absently brushed the little buds that were sticking up from Tommy's hair. He smiled softly as examined them. A few of them were unfurling, showing a half-bloomed flower waiting to curl open.
More than likely, they wouldn't get sold. They had behaved like instructed.
He didn't want them to have to go through the heartbreak of seeing him sold, traded like a common piece of machinery. And for the first time in his life, Philza was going to make that want a reality. He slowly removed himself from the pile. His breathing evened out. The scene before him, everything moving about the house, seemed to be amplified and muffled at the same time.
All sorts of feelings floated through him, ranging from a deep sadness to extreme fear, to wide regret before landing on surety. This was going to be done out of love. This was so that Tommy and Tubbo weren't scarred like he was, watching as his own protector was ripped from his side and given over to a stranger to never be seen again. He closed his eyes. This was for his boys. This was for them. His hands drifted down to cup their cheeks. A watery smile crossed his lips as he tried to memorize their faces. One of his tears fell from his eyes and plunked onto Tubbo's nose. The brunette twitched in his sleep, barely opening up his eyes and staring up at him. Even for a young boy, Philza could tell he was confused and concerned at the sight of tears.
"Ph'za?" Tubbo slurred. He tried to sit up, blinking his eyes to clear them of sleep. But Philza carefully placed him back on the couch.
"Wha' 'rong?"
"Bad...dream." Philza lied. "I....er, I am oooohkay. Going to read. You go sleep back."
"Mmm 'is back tuh sle..." The boy was once again welcomed back into the dream world before the last word left his mouth.
Philza smiled. He gave each boy a long kiss on the forehead, huffing out an 'I love you' before scrambling off the couch. He hesitated at the door. Was this the right decision, leaving his boys behind?
He could probably provide for the three of them easily enough. All he had to do was hunt and gather. He could take them with him, traveling through the countryside, enjoying each other's company throughout the year. But....but they were sold for two stacks of diamonds. Each.
If it came down to it, heavens forbid if they were caught by hunters....Philza wasn't sure if he could protect them. Maybe. Maybe it would be better if they stayed. Mister Techno and Master Wilbur could protect them. They were human and free. Mister Techno, by himself, could fight an entire army. They would be upset, yes but they would be protected. Their bellies would stay full, and they would be warm all the time. His boys could have a childhood that Philza couldn't provide them on the run.
Philza turned around, hand clutching the handle with a tightening fist. With no more glances thrown over his shoulder, Philza quietly opened the door and stepped out into the night.
~.~
Techno stared at the clock on the wall, twirling the cup of lukewarm tea in his hand. The little arms of the clock were slowly ticking towards midnight and the cabin was quiet. A deep quiet that one could find solace in, a confirmation in its own right that all was well, and everyone was safely asleep. Even Wilbur, the resident night owl, was tucked into his bed, and slept the rest of the night away. But Techno….he hated it. He hated the night, hated the darkness and never-ending silence.
And this night was far more troublesome for the pink haired human. His mind kept going back to earlier that day, to the scene that would probably haunt him for the rest of his life. The image of Philza being held down by a dozen or so strangers who held him by his neck. He couldn't stop thinking about the sight of the boy’s wide eyes. There was a fearful light in them. Confusion even. Techno wished he did something other than getting into a shouting match with the bitch that caused the scene in the first place. He wished he punched her, punched every employee that had so much as thought about touching his…er the boy.
But mostly that snobbish bitch of a Karen that claimed Philza was trying to steal.
He wasn’t. Techno and Wilbur knew that he wasn’t. Philza wasn’t talking to anyone when they brought him home, but the two humans' kind of got the jist of it. Philza was more than likely just looking at the ring, getting lost in the instincts that Technoblade told him were okay.
The more he thought about what he could’ve done better, what he could’ve done differently, the more he was convinced about his next step. Maybe it was for the best that they returned him to his sounder. Piglins really should be taken care of by Piglins. While Wilbur and Techno had experience with piglins during their time as liberators, the ones that they had freed in the past were either grown or hybrids. But they had control over their instincts. Which wasn’t a bad thing when it came to Philza, and nobody really held that against him. Poor thing had been through literal hell during his life, experiencing so much more pain and sorrow than most young boys should go through. He had it beaten into his mind that he was an animal. He was so fearful of his own biology that he still hesitated to purr when cuddling with the moobloom calves.
And even after Wilbur or Techno assured him that nothing bad would happen to him when he did so, it took a while for him to do it again. But even with all their knowledge, all their expertise, it seemed that they were out of their depths when it came to the young boy. So, with a heavy heart, Techno made his final decision at that moment. Once they were back at the Center, and once the higher ups deemed Philza rehabilitated, they were going to track down Philza’s sounder and return him to it.
Or, if they couldn’t find his original sounder, they would locate one willing to take in an orphan. Philza was golden furred so there was doubt in Techno’s mind that they shouldn’t encounter too many issues when trying to convince a group of piglins to take in the runt. Techno sighed as he flopped into bed and rolled over into his side. Everything would work out in the end. It always did, with a little bit of luck and excellent timing. His eyes started to close as the emotional rollercoaster of the day caught up to him.
Just go to bed…let the day end…. tomorrow will be a new slate…. they would…they would forget about…it….
His eyes slid shut and he drifted it off-
Until he was jerked awake. The clock on the wall said that he was asleep for about forty-five minutes. Techno held his breath as he strained his ears for any indication that something in the house was wrong. But no, everything was quiet. Still. So why the hell was he awake?
He sat up. His tired mind worked frantically to figure out why his body decided not to let him sleep when he heard it. A very timid, very gentle knock on the door. It couldn’t have been Tommy; the blond was more than willing to burst into any room. Wilbur was the same, and Philza…. the piglin was more than likely asleep or reading.
The knock came again.
Techno groaned, rolling his eyes as he stood. Oooh the hardwood floors were cold. He shuffled his way to the door, grabbing the handle. It was all too easy to open it, but his sleep-addled brain was very confused to find no one standing in front of the door. There was someone there. Just not in his line of sight. Someone tugged on his pants leg and when he glanced down, he saw a sniffling Tubbo in the hallway. The red-flowered moobloom calf was wringing the hem of his green checkered shirt, eyes and ears lowered.
“Hey there Tubbo.” He whispered, kneeling down so that he was near the boy’s height but even then he was still so frazzling small. That or Techno was just that big. “Are you okay? What’s wrong?”
Tubbo worried his lip, turning his head this way and that before slowly looking up through his lashes. “I…mmmmm…..I had a nightmare.”
Techno couldn’t help the furrowing of his brow. Usually, Philza took care of the boys if they were distressed. He took the boy into his arms and held him close. “Did Philza send you to me?”
“I can’t find him.” Tubbo muttered into his shoulder.
“I’m sure he’s just reading in the kitchen.” Techno felt Tubbo shake his head into his shoulder. “No? Is he not there?”
“I can’t find him. The door is open.”
Techno felt something drop heavily into his stomach. It almost made him lurch forward. He didn’t like it. Over the years of his being an abolitionist meant that he developed a sixth sense, a feeling deep in his gut that told him something was wrong. That feeling flared to life at Tubbo’s words, heavier than it has ever been. Techno quickly sprang into action, spinning around and placing the boy on the bed. He pulled out the hunting knife that sat tucked away under his pillow.
“Stay here. Be quiet.” He hissed. “Don't come out until I come and get you, okay?”
Tubbo’s eyes were watery and fearful as he nodded. With that, Techno silently moved out of his room and down the hallway. Keeping his movements slow and quiet was easy to do when all the floorboards barely even creaked. The hallway light was off, but Techno was able to see the threshold to the kitchen. That was when the feeling of worry and fear grew heavier when he saw no Philza hunched over an open book at the table, straining his eyes to look at the words. There was nothing on the table, meaning Philza didn't even get to his lessons. Techno cautiously moved towards the couch. There was some relief when he saw that Tommy was still on the couch, still asleep and outlined in the light of the moon.
Techno placed a hand over the boy’s mouth, causing him to jerk awake with wide eyes.
“Shhh. Tommy.” Techno whispered.
The golden moobloom just shivered a bit as Techno held up a finger to his lips, before slowly removing his hands. He still had to find Philza. His eyes scanned the living room. The panic that he felt steadily grew as he scanned every inch of the room, only to come up with nothing. Not even an intruder. Techno was about to pull his hair out when he finally laid eyes on the cracked door.
He rushed forward, throwing it open. Chilly fall air hit him as his eyes tried to latch onto golden fur somewhere in the darkness. Techno dropped his knife as his eyes landed on the single set of footprints…or well hoofprints…in the dirt.
Heading away from the house….
Into the woods….. Techno’s heart stopped. He took a deep breath.
“PHILZAAAAAAA!”
He was gone. Techno quickly ran back into the house. Tommy watched him with wide eyes as Techno darted down the hallway. He slammed his fist into Wilbur’s door with enough force to nearly break the wood. The man yanked the door open, glaring at Techno for a short moment before noting the look of absolute panic on his face.
“What’s….what’s wrong Techno?”
“Philza. He’s ….gone. He’s missing.”
“What?” Wilbur was instantly on guard. “Did someone break into the house?! Where’s Tommy and Tubbo?!’
“They’re fine. I…I-I think he left. Ran away.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Well, gee Wilbur that’s a really good question. How should I know?! The important thing that we need to worry about is finding him.”
“Right. Let’s get going.”
“I’ll get the boys.”
As Techno gathered up the two calves and grabs his keys and a flashlight, he could only pray that Philza hadn’t gone too far.
~.~
Philza had gone as far as he could from the cabin in a short amount of time. He didn’t know how much time had actually passed, but he did know that at some point during his trek, the moon was starting to move downward towards the horizon. The moon was just touching the treeline when he decided that he was far enough that he could spare a short moment of rest. He sat on the cold dirt, with his back against the trunk of a tree. His body ached something fierce. It had been a steadily growing ache that started dull early that morning, but now was impossible to ignore. He didn’t want to let Mister Techno or Master Wilbur know about him not feeling well, seeing how a sick slave was a useless slave, but gods did he regret that decision now. It was making his journey a lot harder, even as there was another ache growing in his chest and his head. It really made him grateful that Tommy and Tubbo weren’t there with him. Philza couldn’t bring himself to second guess the decision he made, but with the sickness slowing his progress…it would’ve been impossible for the three of them to make it anywhere with their guardian sick. He just needed…he just needed to rest a second then he could continue. If he could make it deeper into the forest he would be alright. Thankfully, he was able to relax for a moment, enjoying the frigid night. The stillness brought with it a heaviness of exhaustion, aches in his muscles and bones, but it was peaceful. While he hung his head and rested his eyes for a moment, his ears were flickering this way and that. Swiveling towards any small noise that pierced the slowly dying night. He forgot about how painful it was to be alone. There was no laughter from Tommy to fill the heavy void, no Tubbo wanting to cuddle in order to stave off the chill of the night. No Wilbur to point out the types of birdsong that could be starting up at any moment, and no Techno to laugh fondly as Philza tried to keep his boys in sight, and failed miserably at it. Maybe he made a mistake. But they were going to sell him because of his instincts…. But leaving his boys only caused an ache to start in his chest. It only grew with each step that took him away from the cabin. Or maybe that ache was the cough that he couldn't seem to shake. A sob choked his throat, causing another coughing fit to wrack his body. That led to more coughing, more tears. More longing for his boys and home. He just wanted to go home. He just wanted his family.
“Hello.”
Philza jumped at the voice. He bared his tusks, fur standing up on end. He growled as the man from the store melted out of the night. Now that Philza wasn’t on the verge of a panic attack, he was able to see the guy in a bit more detail. A lanky guy, pretty much like Wilbur, but in a way that made him seem….nerdy. He had a button down white tee under a heavy-duty jacket and blue jeans. Philza forced his eyes up to the guy’s face, wincing at the bushy-broom mustache and large wire glasses. This guy looked as much as a creep as he acted at the store.
The piglin didn’t like that one little bit. He took a step back when the guy took one forward.
“Hehe. What are you doing out here, little one? Did you lose your masters?”
Philza didn’t grace him with a response, instead growling threateningly. He would’ve been threatening had it not been the cough that cut through his chest. The guy didn’t miss a beat. Cocking his head worryingly, he hummed
“Hmmm. That cough doesn’t sound good. How about you come with me? I’ll get you somewhere warm. Then we can look for your master.”
He didn’t want to go anywhere with this creep. Especially when he noticed that there was something attached to the man’s belt. A gun that, when the man’s jacket shifted, looked much too similar to the tranquilizers that the handlers on the farm would use. Philza had to get away. He had to get back to the cabin. Which way was it?
“Where are you going, little thing?” Philza didn’t realize that he was backing up until the question clicked in his mind. He felt shaky, he felt sick to his stomach. What should he do? WHere could he run to? “Don’t make this harder on yourself, okay? I’m going to pick you-hey!”
Philza turned on his heel and darted away from the man. Running as fast as his tired legs and sore body could go. He heard the creep behind him, shouting at him as he struggled to keep up with the agile Piglin. Philza tripped. He fell harshly on the ground, dust flying upward. The man was right behind.
He was trapped.
No….there! There was an upturned root, looking deep enough for Philza to hide in. He jerked his head around, his heart hammering in his chest. The man-
The stranger was crashing through the underbrush loudly. But he was getting closer and closer. He didn’t have the time to debate this, so he ultimately ended up throwing himself into the hollow and pushing himself to the very back. Philza’s hands slammed against his mouth to muffle the whimpers that wanted to escape.
Philza watched as the feet of the man appeared in front of him, stopping just in front of his hiding place. His eyes widened even more as the heavy duty boots walked around. The stranger was so close to him. So dangerously close to finding him.
“Come out little piggy. I promise, I’m not going to hurt you.” The man clicked his tongue, as though Philza was a dog that could come to heel. But the piglin wasn't. He was a sentient being that belonged to himself. He pushed himself to the very back of the hollow. The silence only made the man angrier.
“Don’t you want to feel safe!? HUH!? I can take care of you better than the people that own you! You’re masters don’t deserve a beautiful piglin like yourself.”
He started to shake. Tremble. He wanted Wilbur. He wanted Techno. He wanted his boys. Tears pricked his eyes as the feet before him stopped. His heart dropped into his stomach when the man knelt down. His face twisted from an annoyed anger to a serene sort of appearance that sent a chill down Philza’s spine.
“There you are.” He reached into the hollow. Philza fought as a hand wrapped around his ankle and yanked him out, doing everything from biting to squirming. The man wasn’t all that happy about him doing that, doing everything he could to stop Philza from escaping. Through some sliver of luck, some deity looking down upon him, Philza was able to yank himself out of the iron grip and make another run for it. Although this time, he wasn’t going quietly.
“TECHNO! WILBUR!” He cried out for his master, too panicked to even realize he didn't use the honorifics. There was a very small thwap, thwap, thwap sound. Philza’s legs seized up. He fell forward, and….must’ve blacked out at some point going down. One moment the world went sideways, the next he was on his side, watching as the world went fuzzy. Philza tried to push himself away from the approaching footsteps. But it was like he was a marionette with his strings cut. His muscles were far too limp as the man was finally within reach, scruffing him roughly.
“Now.” The man huffed. Philza’s vision flickers even more as the man smiles. “We’re going to do this the easy way from now on. Yeah?”
His one tongue felt far too heavy to reply. The man shook him a bit before lifting him upward. He couldn’t keep his eyes open as darkness spotted his vision. The world titled, there was cloth all around him and then-
Absolutely nothing.