Chapter Text
The cold made him miserable. His appetite left him, thirst a distant pang. Technoblade tugged at his mind, pulled him into flimsy dreams, but his body’s needs overthrew them. He shivered all the time now. The chill of the Marianas Trench crept inexorably in. In damp corners, frost spiderwebbed across the walls.
His thoughts drifted back to Wilbur and Tommy like a returning tide. To them, he was a dead man already, being pulled apart like the crabs had pulled apart the shark outside the observation window. Drowned and bloated, smashed between crushed metal spars somewhere in the base, outside of the pocket he'd kept running past its expiration date. No rescue coming. No human voices, no human touch, no warmth, no sunlight--
What the fuck did they think had happened to him? Had they prayed it had been a quick death, nearly painless? Surely not this creeping malaise, the slowing faculties of a man on the verge of starvation, a man whose body had cannibalized his muscle because he wasn't using it anyway. Tommy was more optimistic than that. Even if Wilbur had reservations, he wouldn't have shared them. He'd have taken every opportunity to assure Tommy that Phil couldn't have suffered for long. That he was in heaven, if Wilbur decided to get sentimental about shit, or at least someplace he wouldn't suffer.
Wilbur would take care of the estate, too. Phil wondered vaguely whether he’d track down the silver Phil had inherited from his great aunt, or if it would be lost to the ravages of the storage unit. Funny how inconvenient death was for the people around you, when you weren’t there to explain all the shit you’d kept in your head.
“Is it time?” he asked the plush crow. He squeezed it lightly, not enough to set off the cawing noise. As the weeks had slipped by, he’d gotten paranoid about running out the battery. It had been three months by now. “There's nothing to do but dream these days, and I’m one malfunction away from suffocating to death as it is. Could be nice to go out quicker.”
Technoblade lingered at the edge of his thoughts, closer than Kristin. Phil received him like a turned-down radio, dial cracked just above zero, muffled and distantly concerned.
He swam a territory that spanned miles of the sea floor. When mer were that far from their friends, they kept up constant dreaming, using the drowsiness of reduced metabolic activity to rest and share the news. Techno had been sending him impressions of hydrothermal vents, of the blistering heat and chemicals, and the bleached-white shrimp that lived there. Crabs, too, coating the sides in scuttling masses: an ecosystem based on chemical-loving bacteria, who passed energy up the food chain independent of the Sun.
“Showoff,” Phil muttered fondly, shutting his eyes and leaning his head back against the metal wall, and received smugness-hiding-concern , an invitation to dream again. He saw the words in lights: uneven blinking up the spine, glimmers like a disco ball catching the light.
“If you want warmth, the vents are pretty good,” Technoblade offered, guiding him down. Phil eeled after him, admiring how his reddish-pink coloration camouflaged him in the darkness. Red light never reached this far into the ocean. A red animal was fundamentally black, to the eyes of a deep-sea predator: like a black fish, a red one would absorb all visible wavelengths of light, reflecting none of it.
Phil's conception of himself as a mer-- easier than being a human in these dreams, since he could keep up with anyone else who appeared-- was indistinct, a collection of sense-memories that purred through him like a smooth-running engine. He didn't have to think of it. Techno thought of it for him, like how Phil had given him a human form. Phil was borrowing from his side of the dream.
His scales were greenish, he thought, more frilled than Techno's, shading black along the edges of his fins. He spoke in white lights. "I'm not much of a fan of being boiled alive," he remarked, keeping close to Techno's side. He'd be able to find him again if they were separated, would have been able to do so even in real life, but he was enjoying the company. "How's your heat resistance?"
"Bruh, you think I'd get close to heat vents if I didn't know how to handle them? I'm a pro, I've trained for this. I've only been laughed at several times for scalding myself like a fool."
Phil snickered, a burst of glitter down his dorsal fin. "What, you weren't born with the resistance? For shame, Techno. What kind of fish man are you?"
"I reach all the way out to your container thing and get clowned on, mercilessly," Techno complained. "This is cruelty, Phil. This is persec-- oh, hey, we're here."
On the surface, Phil had only seen hydrothermal vents by the light of undersea drones, black or white plumes billowing out from chimney-like mineral deposits into the vast blue of the ocean. He knew all the technical terms for their existence, the reasons they formed. And yet, following after his best friend into the blackness by the sea floor, it took him a while to sense the difference, the unaccustomed heat on his face. It registered as discomfort at first; Phil recoiled a little, snaking back around, and the sensation grew painful, intense. The light of his photophores reflected oddly around him, hazed and muffled as if surrounded by smoke.
"C'mon, old man, this is a little too close," Techno said, catching his hand, and Phil let him lead the way, felt his hand guided onto the rough surface of the surface deposit. Not much lived this close to the sulfide-laden fluid emanating from the vent. Microorganisms, mostly. Chemosynthetic organisms. Farther away were the multicellular creatures-- the yeti crabs and mussels, and the worms. Phil settled at a comfortable distance from the vent, heat drawing back into luxurious warmth, and Techno smiled at him with his eyes, floating just close enough to the vent that Phil knew the water had to be at least forty degrees Celsius. Showoff.
"Feels like it loses something when I can't see it all clearly," Phil admitted, scooping a yeti crab off the sand. It waved its claws at him. He wondered how many times Techno had done just this, for one reason or another. Were yeti crabs edible for mer? "That could be bias, though, fuck if I know. Usually as a scientist we're supposed to avoid that shit."
"That's what you get for relying on eyes," Techno drawled. "Cringe organ for fail senses."
"Fuck off, you communicate with light ."
"And psychic energies! It's a mix, Phil, we diversify here in the deep dark. Skills galore."
"Sure, mate," Phil sighed, mock-disappointed. "Whatever you say."
Techno threw a crab at him. He caught a claw to the fin and bared his teeth in playful warning, flashing oh that is IT with every photophore at once, and dashed after Techno into the blackness, leaving the warmth behind completely.
*
The dream started slowly, on the day he decided to die. It wasn't a conscious decision-- at least, not one that rose to the level of saying aloud , of giving form through voice-- but a decision like flicking a switch, letting a fan power down slowly, momentum bleeding out to stillness. He was in the home stretch now, running on fumes. The wheels were spinning with nothing behind them. Entropy would take care of the rest.
Phil walked through the whole base first, those parts of it he could reach. He touched the airlock doors connecting the observation area to the crushed-up domiciles, imagining the decayed corpses of his crewmates that lay beyond, and said some respectful words. He traced his hands along the cool metal walls, feeling out the dents, the place where Puffy had accidentally banged a table hard enough to leave a mark, where he'd scratched a picture of a crow sometime in the second month of being alone. He pressed the plush crow to his face and made it caw-- fuck, he missed real birds, he'd befriended a flock of crows at his old house and they'd used to bring him bottle caps, when was the last time he'd thought of that-- and exhaled, luxuriating in the flow of air.
This had been his home for months now. He was synonymous with these things: with being alone, with being trapped, with the darkness outside and the minds reaching in. His mind reaching back.
Death hovered over his shoulder.
She closed a hand around his wrist, gently, so he could break free if he liked. Her skin smelled bitingly like sulfur. "Are you ready to try? I don't know if I can catch both of their minds, but I'm sure I can get one. It's night up there."
"Here's hoping," Phil said with a tired grin. "Thank you for doing this. You didn't have to."
"Of course I did," Kristin said, blinking with surprise. "You're gonna die down here one way or another, Philza. That makes you my responsibility-- and anyway, you're great to talk to. Believe me, it's no imposition."
"Well, if you're sure," Phil said. He meandered over to the emergency pressure suits, leaving the one he'd butchered for its oxygen and pulling another one over his bare feet, strapping on all its layers. Sealing himself in, like a hermit crab choosing a shell. The helmet pressurized with a hiss, light blinking on; he had to close his eyes against it, reflexive tears blurring his vision. "Fuck, that's bright."
"Are these all readouts?" Kristin asked, poking at the little screens on his arms.
"Oxygen levels," Phil confirmed, "shit to monitor for breaches, the whole shebang."
"Six hours," she read aloud. "That should give you enough time, right?"
"Depends on how fast Technoblade can swim," Phil said lightly. He picked his crow up and put him gently down onto his stacked notes, patted its head. He had days of food and water left; he left them by his notebooks, some little part of him settling at having his belongings safely entombed in one place, and went down to the lower airlock, the one they used for drones. Some repairs had been judged too risky for robotics, back when the base had been operational. They'd had emergency measures for fixing shit by hand.
The airlock filled up with a hiss, water rushing past his knees and chest and chin, enclosing his head. The emergency lights stuttered and went out; Phil waited until he felt submerged, then groped around for the release, the switch that would throw him into open water.
Technoblade was floating on the other side, a line of glimmers in the all-encompassing dark. His hands were twice the size of Phil’s, tipped with claws that could puncture his suit in an instant; his tail snaked out into the black behind him, massive as a whale's, half out of view. All that illuminated him was himself, faint light lending shape to his face and arms, a living constellation. "You, uh, sure about this?"
“I’m sure,” Phil told him. It felt odd to speak aloud, when the light of his faceplate was sending a different message. Like signing one thing and singing another. “Fuck living in a fishbowl. I want to see the bottom of the trench."
Technoblade flashed assent, grim with concentration. Phil grinned at him and plummeted into a dream.
Blue shadows danced on the floor: aquarium lighting, straddling the line between dimness and clarity, casting ripples across the faces of enthralled children. The plaque in front of him listed common reef fish— reef triggerfish, convict tang, and Hawaiian flagtail flitting close to the glass. Colorful fish meant for sun-warmed coral.
The floor was soft, thinly carpeted. Little kids squealed and ducked under his elbows, weaving through the press of the crowd, some parents holding them up so they could see the tanks. Phil put a hand against the glass with a helpless smile. "I used to lift you up just like that," he remarked, watching the reflection behind him in the glass. Wilbur's face was superimposed over the sea anemone, a faint outline with rounded glasses and uncombed hair. "Do you remember? You weren't much more than a baby, it might not have survived you growing up."
Wilbur was tight-lipped and pale, frozen in place. Phil turned around, waiting for his reply, but none came. A nurse shark circled in the tank across from them and nosed at the gravel, and his oldest son stayed silent, white as a wraith, staring like he'd seen a ghost. Like he was seeing a ghost. It wasn't too inaccurate an impression, really.
"Is Tommy here?" Phil asked, and Wilbur shook his head sharply, drew his wrist across his eyes.
"No," he said, voice cracking. "No, no, he's at Tubbo's house, Phil. Not at the aquarium. He hates them now, I-- fuck. Fuck, I'm dreaming about my dead father. I'm dreaming about you."
"That's not so unusual," Phil said wryly. "We populate our dreams with what's familiar to us, Wil, that's how they work. I've missed you, you know." Wilbur’s bangs were a little longer, his style darker than Phil remembered. He'd taken to wearing a long brown coat, apparently. Turtlenecks. His face was sallow with lack of sleep. “You don’t look too good, mate. Have you been eating right?”
“Have I been eating right,” Wilbur choked out, incredulous. “Well, my father was left for dead in the Marianas Trench and it’s devastated my brother, never mind how it’s affected me, but sure, I’ve been keeping up with my nutrition requirements! An apple a day, that’s me. Doctors flee me like the Four fucking Horsemen.”
“Grief doesn’t mean you should neglect your physical needs,” Phil scolded. Wilbur gave him a weak smile. “Try and eat better from now on, it’ll make you feel better, too. Death’s not a thing to fear, she’s a blessing. Everything rots down here eventually.”
“Let’s just look around,” Wilbur said. He’d flinched at something Phil had told him, but Phil had no idea what. It was hard to keep track of himself in a dream, especially when the other player knew less about keeping things steady than he did. “This is Newport Aquarium, right? I remember it. You took us once on a visit to the States.”
“You complained,” Phil reminisced. “Fucking bratty, you wouldn't let us leave without something from the gift shop.”
“Hey, that was Tommy insisting on a plush toy every time,” Wilbur corrected. “I went for the books, like an educated gentleman.”
They walked into a water tunnel, the warped tank arching over their heads. A black tipped shark sliced through the water on their right, dipping under a loggerhead turtle. Pale fish bellies slithered back and forth above their heads.
The water cast ripples of pale blue shadow across Wilbur’s face, catching in his eyes. He kept messing with something in his pocket.
Visitors bustled past, shoving at their shoulders. Phil asked, “How is Tommy?”
“Bad,” Wilbur said shortly. “But he’ll get over it. He’s strong, he has plenty of friends. This can all be a bad dream for him.”
“Not such a bad dream,” Phil said, a little stung. “We’re surrounded by ray sharks, Wil, those are a fucking delight to experience.”
“That’s true,” Wilbur said with a harsh laugh. “And I look more like a corpse than you do.”
Phil realized he was fiddling with cigarettes . “You know those’ll kill you.”
“Slowly,” Wilbur said. He took out a lighter and tossed it, caught it with a deft swoop of his hand, flicked it on. The tiny flame hung in the blue light like a visitor from another world. “And it’s worth the rush. Nothing like the quick death of being crushed under kilopascals of pressure, though, now is it.”
“We’ll see,” Phil said with a shrug. He grinned at his son. “Name that fish for me, won’t you? Let’s see if you ever listened to me.”
“Redhook Myleus,” Wilbur said promptly, and gave Phil a smug look. “And that other one’s a striped headstander. You can’t bamboozle me, Dadza. I recall this shit even in a dream.”
“I’m glad. I’m fucking glad.”
“You’d better be,” Wilbur muttered, and went so pale all of a sudden that Phil jerked toward him, wondering insanely if reaching out in a dream had given his son some kind of stroke.
He followed Wilbur’s gaze and saw that the aquarium tunnel ended in the observation deck, emergency lights so faint that it was nearly impossible to see. Phil’s blanket was laid out on the floor, stuffed crow lying forlornly on its side. Empty food packets piled up in one corner.
Beyond the observation deck was pure void. Phil sensed with the certainty of a dream that the glass was absent entirely. The deep sea was poised at the edge, just waiting to pour in and swallow them whole.
“It’s a bit fucked,” Phil admitted, stepping forward. The place looked like a bachelor pad. “Kept the crow, though. You remember that thing?”
“I remember,” Wilbur croaked. He flicked his lighter again, throwing up sparks before another flame licked up into the air, agonizingly bright. Hung back, clutching his other hand in the hem of his coat. "We found it online, Tommy and me. Gave it to you because-- because of the crows at the old house. They swooped us, but they never swooped you, Phil. They waited every morning for you to come outside."
"I hope they're not still waiting," Phil said regretfully. "I lasted a good few months, but there was never any hope of me returning to the surface. The base is shit anyway, even if they'd sent a rescue it wouldn't have gotten far."
"Is it true that pain can wake you up from a dream?" Wilbur asked apropos of nothing.
"I banged my toe one time talking to Techno and woke up pretty fucking fast, but I don't know that it'd work here," Phil said. "Why, is something wrong?"
"I don't like this," Wilbur said. "I'd like to go back to the aquarium now, I think. Nightmares about my dead father weren't on my agenda for tonight."
“I'm not dead just yet,” Phil corrected him. "I'm saying goodbye first, mate, that's what this dream is."
"But you are dead," Wilbur croaked. "You are, they-- this wouldn't all be here, they wouldn't have left you, I-- this is a nightmare--"
His flame went out, and the emergency lights went with it, plunging them into darkness so intense Phil could have breathed it in. Water sucked the warmth from his skin, lightened the hold of gravity; Wilbur choked out a cry of fright, somewhere in front of him, and Phil caught his hands, felt him grip back hard.
“Dad?”
“It’s fine, Wil,” Phil said, trying for comforting. His son's voice sounded incredibly small. "It's just darkness. You don't need light down here, they talk other ways."
"I don't understand," Wilbur choked out. "I should-- I should be waking up. This isn't happening."
Lights in the distance, glimmers twisting closer. Wilbur's breathing quickened. "I don't want to be here," he said softly. "I don't want to be here, I don't want to be here..."
"It's just Techno," Phil told him. He could feel his grip on the dream slipping, wakefulness seeping in and muddling his thoughts. "Don't worry about me, mate, it's beautiful down here. The trench is so much deeper than we thought, Wil, it goes to the mantle, and she's beautiful--"
"Dad," Wilbur begged, nearly sobbing, and Phil's feet hit silt.
He opened his eyes to the faint pink of Techno’s photophores, the sensation of his friend’s claws digging lightly into his shoulders. There were other lights in the distance, blinking in language-patterns, too far for him to make out their faces.
A cliff's edge yawned open beneath him, only visible from the thin beams of the flashlights in the suit. He switched them off, vaguely annoyed that they'd turned on automatically in the first place. After a moment of fiddling, he managed to switch off the lights inside his helmet, too.
His vision took a few minutes to adjust to the dark. "Is that the bottom right there?"
"Yep," Technoblade said. "Or, y'know, the closest we can get to it if you wanna see her directly."
"Right," Phil said thickly. He took a breath of precious oxygen and looked up at the nothingness above him, imagining seven miles of water pressing down on his body, squishing him like a mountain crushing an ant. His eyes might as well have been closed. "It was good knowing you."
Techno sighed, eeled around him to press their foreheads together. “Good to know you too,” he said, low. "You're down here with us no matter what, Phil. This is the end of it."
Silt boiled up in front of them, clouding the lights of Technoblade's fins out completely. The ground jolted under his feet. Stars gleamed to life under the distant surface, flickering closer over what must have been a mile, almost like the mer version of a hello .
Phil stumbled, clinging onto Techno's arm. The seafloor beyond the cliff shifted, contracted, pulled open. Revealed an opalescent surface the size of a football field, fires dancing in the deepest dark Phil had ever seen.
A single half-buried eye, rolling back to smile at him. Phil smiled back and unsealed his helmet.