Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Phil had no idea what he was doing here, but he followed the stupid crow that had dragged him all the way from his house to the middle of the Nether. He’d had this hardcore world for over a year, and on occasion Kristin’s crows liked to lead him to new places to show him some shiny, usually useless, bauble they’d found. He often indulged them and follow them wherever, ooh and aah over the latest thing their feeble birdbrains had discovered, and head home for the day to bemoan the waste of his time. He rarely refused because when he did the crows would go whine to Kristin who would send them back to him with a disappointed note.

Kristin’s disappointment was crushing even in paper form.

This crow was taking full advantage of Phil’s unwillingness to make his wife sad and dragging him so far out of his way that he would have to use the coordinates to get home. This trip had better have something better than a shiny amethyst shard.

The crow cawed extra loud and settled on nearby huge fungus. It dropped its beak in a pointedly downward motion, and Phil understood that whatever the crow wanted him to see was under it. Pushing away the vine hanging from the netherwart block the crow had perched on, Phil prepared his best impressed impression. But before he could fully fake the emotion, he caught sight of a brown and red bundle shifting at the fungus’s root. He moved closer, and a worn golden blade nearly took off his head.

A small piglin kid crouched close to the huge fungus’s tunk and squealed loudly. The golden blade quivered between Phil and the kid but did not drop down. Blood red eyes peered past long dirty pink hair and flared in warning. The fierceness of the kid’s expression nearly distracted Phil from the way one of the kid’s legs pressed crookedly against the red truck while the other held most of the small body’s weight. Blood spilled around a tiny white protrusion, and the snout under the blood red eyes fluttered overly wide and fast.

The crow cawed again in a purposefully understandable way.

“Keep. We want keep.”

Phil side-eyed a quick glare and returned his attention to the kid. He would be having words with the murder of crows later. Or better yet he would get Kristin to lecture them. Living things, especially sentient living things, were not for “keeps.”

“You seem injured there, mate. Any chance you’ll let me help with that leg?”

The blood red eyes narrowed futher, and then the kid’s mouth opened and showed off half-grown tusks.

“You Player?”

The deepness of the kid’s voice made Phil pause, but he quickly recovered and put on his best smile.

“You speak Mojang. That means you’re a Player too, mate. Have you met one of us before?”

“One of us?” the piglin hybrid (had to be a hybrid since Players were never full-on mobs) asked. “You me same?”

“I’m going to take that as a ‘no.’ Your Mojang is a bit rough, but that’ll get better with a little socialization since it’s an instinctual Player language.” Phil cut himself off when he realized he was rambling. The sword had not lowered, and the kid was still bleeding. “If you put the sword down, I’ll help you stop hurting.”

The piglin hybrid’s ears flicked, but he must have understood enough of Phil’s sentence because the sword tilted down. When Phil did not attack, the kid fully collapsed back into a bundle of rags. Phil spared no time in pulling out a potion of regeneration he had in case of an emergency. He expected the emergency to be his, but it would work on keeping the kid alive until he could get him home.

The effects cause the piglin hybrid’s eyes to roll back, and he passed out. The kid had obviously been holding out for too long. Phil gathered the kid up in his arms and gently positioned him into the safest position. He’d take him home and help him heal before finding someone to foster and help him. Phil was terrible with kids, and he was sure that once the kid was healed, he would be better off in anyone else’s hands. Besides if the kid stayed, it would set a bad precedent for the crows. They would try to keep getting him to “keep” other sentient beings, and he was not going to make this a habit.

Chapter Text

“Are you sure that’s a good idea, sheriff?”

Sheriff Sherman Thompson let out a loud snort and pointed his good eye at the man standing next to his desk. The bearded store clerk kept his two perfectly good eyes on the newly deputized cannibal looking hungrily at the wall of wanted poster.

“No. It’s a terrible idea,” Sherman grumbled, keeping his voice light and low. He didn’t want to attract the (hopefully former) criminal’s attention. “But a friend of mine used to say sometimes fighting a fire requires one.”

“Is this friend still alive?!” Williamson asked, eyes wide and a little panicked. But at least he wasn’t still staring at the ravenous criminal deputy. Sherman’s ravenous criminal deputy. Williamson’s question was already starting to haunt him.

“He was constantly trying to court Death, and one day he finally won her over. Fell to a crazed child in a town far North of here.”

“A crazed child?” The poor clerk had green tint meshing into his skin.

“Watson claimed the child was sent from Death herself to take him home,” Sherman continued. “Which isn’t somethin’ anyone wants to hear from their partner right before he tries to take a monstrous child out. But he was right in a way. Death took him home that day. But he also claimed that the child would never hurt me.”

“And what happened to the child? Did you take it out?”

“No,” Sherman said flatly. “He got away that day. Thought I’d never see him again.”

“Did you?”

Sherman stared at Williamson and shrugged.

“Does it matter if I did? My job is to keep the peace around these parts, and that’s what I plan to do.”

“With a cannibal as your deputy?! I’d ask if you’ve gone mad, but we all know the answer to that,” Williamson said. The store clerk sighed. “But I guess as long as I can sell my wares in peace, I don’t care how mad you are. We all have to be a bit mad to be out here. Take that stranger that came out of nowhere. Spoke about all kinds of nonsense, convinced us all to take on those annoying bandits, got John killed, avenged John, and then disappeared. If I hadn’t seen that there cannibal deputy of yours eating the bandit’s corpse, I would have thought that man was some strange sort of joint hallucination.”

“What joint hallucination?” Sherman asked smugly. “I don’t remember any man named Karl.”

“Yes you do!” Williamson shrieked, anger turning the greenish tint in his skin to red. “I never said his name! You do remember the man!”

“No, I don’t. You might need to go see one of those newfangled head doctors to figure out what’s happening inside o’ there. All this time in this here town has definitely scrambled some circuits up there.”

“Circuits? What in the fudge are those? Did that man Karl mention them?”

“He might have,” Sherman said. The store clerk’s face lit up, but before Williamson could say the obvious, Sherman quickly added, “If he had ever been real.”

A loud, frustrated cry came from the usually mild-mannered clerk before the man growled at Sherman and huffily marched out of the sheriff’s office.

“What happened to him?” asked the low voice of Sherman’s criminal deputy as he took Williamson’s place beside the sheriff’s desk.

“Nothin’. He remembered some muffins he’d left in an oven,” Sherman answered. He leaned his chair back and stared up at the tall, young man that ate people for pleasure. The kid had only grown crazier as he got older, but Watson had hoped the kid could one day find his way. Maybe taking down criminals instead of innocents would help the kid take at least a step in the right direction.

Chapter Text

The light was on. It was 4a.m. in the f***** morning, and the lights were on in Techno’s cabin. Phil had just brought him back via the enderpearl stasis chamber seven hours ago, and the idiot was up and clanging around doing f**** knows what instead of resting.

Putting down the warm milk, Phil mentally said goodbye to his plans to go back to sleep. (He honestly should have given up the moment he woke up from the image of his best friend’s empty eye socket.) He shook out his feather, stretched his arms over his head, grabbed his jacket, and walked through the freezing snow in the gaping night’s darkness. He didn’t bother to knock and let himself in. He didn’t expect a netherite sword to be pointed toward his throat.

Blood red eyes blinked out of their narrow stare. “Phil?”

“Who else would it be at this time of night?” Phil asked. The netherite sword lowered, and Techno huffed.

“I know this might have escaped your notice, but I did just escape the server’s inescapable prison hours ago. It’s not unlikely that I would get unwanted visitors in the middle of the night.”

“Is that why you left the light on? To let them know you’re here?”

Techno winced slightly at the observation and shrugged. He turned to head back into the crafting room.

“Think they’ll know I’m here either way.”

“Maybe, but no need to advertise it,” Phil suggested. “You working on something? I heard loud noises from my house.”

“Sorry,” said Techno in an oddly contrite voice. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”

“I was already awake, mate,” Phil said, placing his hand on Techno’s shoulder. The large Piglin hybrid melted into the touch. “What were you working on?”

“Brewing some potions,” Techno said heading over the brewing stand. “We’re going to need a few dozen to get Dream out.”

“We’ll have time to work on that later. He’s not going anywhere. You need to rest—”

“Dream was tortured, Phil.” The words were ground out and growled. A tone Phil had not heard from Techno in years, not since some foolish mortals had tried to kidnap Phil. “They only stopped because I was there. The longer he stays, the more likely they are to—”

“You’re going to burn yourself out, Tech,” Phil said, maneuvering himself between Techno and the brewing stand. “That won’t do him any good.”

“Get out of the way,” Techno snorted loudly.

“No,” Phil said, flaring open his wings to show he was not going to back down. Techno let out a deep warning squeal. Phil grabbed either side of Techno’s head. He then hit it hard with his own. The aggression draining out of Techno’s stance was worth the growing headache. Phil place his head back against Techno’s. “We’ll get him out of there, I promise. But if you don’t rest, you’re going to collapse. And if you think I’m going to let you go near that prison in anything less than peak condition, you’re f***** out of your mind.”

Again, Techno winced. “Phil, my monetization.”

“No offense, mate, but I don’t think there’s monetization to be had at 4 a.m. in the morning,” Phil said with a very obvious eye roll. He kept the large head of his best friend in his hands and lead them to the nearest couch. He then sat on it and pulled Techno to lay next to him, head in Phil’s lap. “Now rest. I’ll keep an eye out for any ‘unwanted visitors.’”

“This isn’t playing fair,” said Techno, automatically moving to get into a more comfortable position.

“I don’t have to play fair,” Phil said, gently raking his fingers through the tough bristly hair that made up his best friend’s fur. He slipped the crown off and placed it on a nearby chest to scritch behind Techno’s ears in the way Techno would never admit to enjoying. The large Piglin hybrid, fiercest warrior on several servers, melted under Phil’s ministrations. Already Techno’s blood red eyes sagged closed, dark eyebags lightening slightly.

Soon, loud snorting snores echoed through the cluttered living room. Phil smiled and chuckled, glad to see that he could still make his best friend feel safe.

Chapter Text

The hoe hit the earth and sent dirt flying. The iron tool lifted up again, the sun making the cleaner parts glitter, and barreled straight back down. The motion repeated, again and again and again, until the hoe no longer glittered. Techno paused and stopped to clean the tool off. He took stock of the large tilled field as he wiped sweat off his brow. Crisp cold air caused him to shiver, but he took in the result of his work with pride. The field had been entirely filled with symmetric rows.

Techno hefted the hoe over his shoulder and marched off the field to grab the seed potatoes, but when he got to the chest that contained them, barking caught his attention. Several large puppy dog eyes stared at him from in between the slats of fencing.

“I fed you guys a couple of hours ago. You can’t be hungry already,” he sighed. Several whines answered him. He set the potatoes in his inventory and reached into the chest for more uncooked steak. He could almost hear Phil making fun of him for not feeding the hound army rotten flesh, but the army did a lot. They were prepared to die for him. The least he could do was feed them well.

And after he fed them steak once as a treat, a few of them wouldn’t eat anything else.

He opened the gate, and every tail in the pen wagged. Techno slowly made his way through and made sure to hand one steak slab to each of the fierce hounds. They eagerly wolfed it down (ah, unintended puns), and a few of them soon had puppies yipping along beside them. Great. More mouths to feed.

Techno cut an unusual large steak into strips and gave it to the newest additions before realizing that he should have started these on rotten flesh. Again.

Bemoaning the bovine slaughter he would soon need to embark on to feed his growing doggie hoard, Techno leapt over the gate and back towards the field. Or he meant to go back to the field, but Carl neighed for his attention and there was no ignoring Carl.

Going back to the chest, he grabbed out some golden carrots and headed over to the stables. No point bringing a treat for just Carl. Best to treat them all the same so that the other horses would have no reason to turn on Carl. As far as the horses knew, Techno had no favorites.

Sure, he rode on Carl almost exclusively, but what horse wanted to carry a rider?...Maybe he should give Carl a break once in a while.

He carefully snuck in an extra golden carrot for Carl to thank the horse for carrying him around. The other horses would understand.

Snorting in disbelief at his own thoughts, Techno beelined back to the tilled field. It had been a while since he’d talked to anyone—not since seeing Tommy in exile—but he was starting to worry about his mental health. He wondered when Phil would get tired of playing nice in L’Manberg and move out here with him. Hopefully soon before he started thinking about the politics the hound army was forming.

He placed the seed potatoes in the ground with quick and practiced motions. Soon the whole first row was sown, and he moved onto the next and the next and the next—and he was done. He double-checked that the spacing between the potatoes had been done properly before deciding to head in and make himself dinner. He was thinking some potato cakes made with the last full harvest.

As he headed towards his base—his house, Techno paused. He took in the sound of growls and yips and barks. Of neighs and shuffles. Of wind and rustling leaves. The quiet stillness of a land where only one person dwelt.

Phil would come join him one day, he was sure of it. Maybe others would join them one day too. People who were sick and tired of conflicts. Of fights that had no end. Of making enemies out friends over something as meaningless as power and influence.

But for now, Techno stood alone in this artic paradise and enjoyed the peace he had chosen.

Chapter Text

Techno waited on the other side of the gate. He could hear the roar of people outside. The announcer blasting out his name along with a challenger’s. He gripped his sword and remembered: He was the Blade. No one was going to take him down. He would not let them.

The iron rusted gate lifted, and Techno glided out despite the weight of the armor pressing against him. The diamond armor was only a second skin and made less difference than the sight of who exactly his challenger was. The white mask with the stupid doodled smile glowed in the noon sunlight.

Techno did not hesitate. He couldn’t afford it, and neither could his opponent. He spared a mental moment to figure out how it had come to this. When the coliseum coordinator had decided to declare a match between two champions.

There were certain unspoken rules for the coliseum fighters. One, they were to fight until their deaths. Whether that was their first match or their hundredth, they would die on the arena floor. Two, if they managed to not die long enough, they would drop the novice challenger title and gain the champion title. Which meant that their matches would be the subject of great display and would occur less often. Three, champions could face up to a hundred challengers at a time, but they would never fight other champions. Certainly not to the death. Champions were too valuable for entertainment.

And yet here Techno charged his fellow champion, Nightmare. His sword fell onto Nightmare’s helmet, stopped only by Nightmare’s own ax. Nightmare’s fist flew to Techno’s face as the Blade pulled his sword and himself away from his opponent. When Nightmare’s ax swung at Techno’s breastplate, Techno leaned away from the blow and used the momentum to spin around and slice at Nightmare’s throat. As expected, Techno’s opponent dodged the blow.

Movement superseded thought, and blows came from practice and long experience from both sides. But as the minutes passed and the attacks and dodges continued, the Blade saw an opening. A chance to cut his opponent open and finish the match. And Techno hesitated.

Because he didn’t know if this was a match to the death. And if it wasn’t…He did not want to lose a friend.

“Protesilaus.”

Nightmare—Dream pushed his ax full tilt onto Techno’s sword. The whisper would not have been heard by anyone but them, and the action restarted immediately afterwards giving Techno no time to respond. No option but what had once jokingly been agreed upon.

The netherite sword glimmered and shone as it flicked like a whip into the space between Nightmare’s diamond chestplate and pants. Blood gushed around the sword’s tip.

Nightmare fell. The crowd roared. The Blade stood tall and lifted his bloody sword in triumph.

Techno frantically counted seconds as Dream bled on the ground beneath him.

Medics rushed in to assess the other champion’s injury. To declare him alive or dead.

The crowd cheered and chanted while Techno did not dare breathe.

The medics carted Dream away, the captain of them yelling out orders and directing a new apprentice to hold Dream’s wound closed.

Techno quietly sucked in a breath and purposefully did not follow the medical team’s departure. Several guard came close and congratulated him as they lead him back to his chambers (to his cell). He chatted and boasted, generally making himself pleasant. He engraved the faces of every guard that spoke ill of the other fallen champion.

When the guards left him, Techno’s broad grin fell. He made it over to his barred window and beckoned the crow on a nearby tree to enter his room. He tied a well-worn handkerchief with a certain symbol embroidered onto it to the crow. He then let it fly back out the window.

Dream might be injured, but their plan to escape the inevitable death in arena sand had moved up. Because Techno refused to wound his friend mortally ever again.

Chapter Text

Techno slunk out of the shadowed alley and sped-walked to the glowing portal.

“Technoblade? No way! Is that really you?!”

He increased his speed, but the owner of the voice bodily blocked his way. Wide dark eyes gazed up at Techno. Techno wished he could curse, monetization or no. He had his hood up? What other way was he supposed to broadcast that he wanted to be left alone?!

“It is you!” the blond in the striped shirt and dark jacket exclaimed, his face getting waaay too close to Techno’s. A hand stuck out and would have got under Techno’s cloak if he hadn’t taken a full step back. “It’s an honor to meet you! My name’s Lukas!”

“Good for you. Now as nice as this sudden meeting is, I have to go—”

“I’m a huge fan! I…um, I voted for you like three times,” the guy continued. The guy had reached a high enough pitch to get Techno’s ears flattened against his head. “There’s no one better to be mayor of Hypixel. No one.”

“Isn’t that voter fraud?” said Techno as he tried to move around the annoying obstacle. “Should you be admitting to that to a government official?”

“See! That’s the thing! You hate government. So it doesn’t matter if I say things like that. You’re too cool to send me to jail.”

Techno considered doing exactly that, but he’d have to call up law enforcement, which would then alert his “mayoral assistant.” And seeing as he’s trying to get away from her—

“Well, thanks for your vote or whatever. But I’ve got to go now—”

“And where are you going?” said a dreaded voice from behind him. “Hopefully back to the mayoral office so that you can finish the pile of paperwork you left behind.”

Techno very quietly cursed. Chat was too busy spamming L to notice.

“Hey, Niki,” Techno said with a cracked smile. “I was just looking for you—”

“Uh, huh,” Niki cut him off. “Looking out for me so that you could avoid me you mean?”

“Hyeh?! How could you think so lowly of me? I would never avoid you. I would never avoid you, Niki. I was just,” Techno drew out, searching the area for some inspiration for an excuse. His gaze fell on the still star-struck fool that had cut off his escape. “I was just going to call you and have you arrest this man. He’s committed two counts of voter fraud.”

The guy squealed some kind of betrayed protest, but Techno kept his attention on the pink-haired woman in front of him. She did not look convinced.

“So you left your office because you heard about some guy who committed voter fraud?”

“See, the way you’re saying that makes me think you don’t believe me. Why would you doubt your illustrious mayor like that?”

“Because about twenty blocks away from us there’s a portal to people’s personal islands. You wouldn’t be trying to squirrel out of your mayoral responsibilities to farm potatoes again?”

“Niki, does that sound like something I would do?” Techno asked with his most innocent expression.

“Yes.”

The expression soured. “Can we at least through this guy in jail on the way back to the office?”

Niki’s narrow eyes widened in brief confusion, and Techno’s very dutiful assistant stared at the guy who was still bemoaning betrayal or something equal dramatic. She sighed and nodded.

“I don’t see why not. As long as you get back to the office and finish your paperwork.”

Snorting wordlessly, Techno grabbed the Lukas guy and dragged both himself and the annoying obstacle back in the direction of his purgatory, a.k.a. town hall. At least one of the people who put him in this situation would suffer along with him.

Chapter Text

The carefully sewn blue cape flew through the air and landed on a certain homeless teletubby’s sulking head.

“Get up. You’re going to help me today.”

A scowl appeared from under the blue velvet material.

“Why should I?” the blond idiot asked. “I am still recovering.”

“You’ve been ‘recovering’ by staring at that wall for over six hours,” Techno drawled. “That poor wall needs a break, and I could use an extra pair of hands. So get up and help me.”

Muttered grumbles were muffled by the hooded cape being tugged over the teletubby’s head, and Techno pointedly ignored them. He also ignored the way that lanky, bone-tight skinny man sagged and snuggled into the large, soft velvet. He grabbed several stacks of steaks and handed half to Dream as he shuffled up next to him. Techno also gave him stacks of carrots and fish and seagrass.

“Techno, are we going to feed your pets again?” Dream asked with an heavy amount of exasperation. It didn’t distract Techno from the slight tremble of Dream’s hand.

“Don’t know about your pets, Dream, but mine like to be fed daily,” Techno said in a snort. Dream winced, and regret pricked Techno’s chest. He quickly added, “Besides last time I went to do it without you, I swear everyone looked so disappointed. The hounds would not stop whining, not even when I gave them extra steak. Your Disney Princess magic has worked on them, and now you have to pay the consequences.”

“I don’t have any ‘Disney Princess magic,’” Dream grumbled, but he followed Techno outside.

They stopped at the hound army’s pen first. As expected, they went crazy as soon as they smelled Techno and his likely permanent houseguest. Most of his hounds proved their loyalty by coming to him first, but too many of them rushed over to wag their tails at Dream and completely ignored him. Techno would be more upset if he hadn’t noticed Dream slipping those that went to him first an extra steak each. He could respect the hustle.

Next they went to the small aurora of polar bears on Techno’s property. Only Steve technically belonged to him, no matter what Phil insisted. The rest stayed because Techno had entirely too many stacks of fish lying around. Steve trotted up to Techno immediately, of course, but the three others shambled over to Dream, who patted and cooed at them as he gave them enough fish to feed triple the number of polar bears. They devoured them and bumped their shoulders amicably against Dream. Steve growled lightly at Techno’s distraction, and Techno scratched a line lightly up Steve’s back.

Steve joined them as they headed over to stables. The horses stuck out their heads from their stalls for snacks equally for the two of them, except for Carl who chewed on Dream’s blond hair before taking the offered carrot. Dream spluttered and stuttered out of Carl’s reach afte the horse took the carrot, and when Dream wasn’t looking, Techno gave Carl a golden carrot and a soft word of praise. He had to give Steve another fish to keep him from snitching about the golden carrot to Dream.

The three then went into the turtle farm. Every single turtle poked their heads from their cozy spots and shuffled their way over to Techno and Dream. Dream stroked every turtle’s shell, even the ones Techno had fed. The turtles in turn seemed to go out of their way to pass by Dream and linger near him for a few moments before returning to their resting places.

Their inventories empty of food, Techno and Dream headed back to the cabin with Steve still snuffling close by. Techno handed Steve another fish for not eating any of the turtles.

“See? Was that so bad?”

“…It could have been worse,” Dream conceded. His hands were steady as he reached over to Steve and scratched behind the polar bear’s ear. “I still have no idea why I have so many pets. It's dangerous.”

“So’s hiding a known criminal,” Techno replied. The ease on Dream’s shoulders disappeared into a tense line. “Won’t stop me from doing it.”

“But—why?” The tense line crumbled into a sad sag. Techno stopped and looked directly into Dream’s maskless face.

“Because I want to. Isn’t that reason enough?”

Techno didn’t wait for an answer and headed straight for his front door. Steve squeezed himself into the house first and curled up next to the fire. Techno took off his red cape and hung it onto the coat rack next to the door. A blue cape was placed next to it, and Techno’s permanent houseguest plopped himself next to Steve by the fire. Huffing quietly to himself, Techno headed to the kitchen to make him and the idiot in the living room a cup of hot chocolate.