Archive of Our Own ^beta

Techno didn’t realise until the pit.

Tommy had figured it out months ago. From the moment the Blade had shown up to the server, with blood in his eyes and an axe in his left hand, he had been violent in a way that takes a toll on your body, no matter how strong you are. Tommy had taken the brunt of the injuries from their soulbond—hosting bruises on his knees and slashes in his side—but that was more of a testament to Tommy’s knack for running and hiding from battle than it was Techno’s carelessness. Tommy never ran when people needed him— never when people needed him—but when Tommy is alone, without people relying on him, he is not afraid to play the coward.

Still, Tommy sees the realisation in Techno’s eyes when he gets hit.

The rock of Pogtopia is cold around them, slippery with moss and spilled blood and dripping water from a leak somewhere above. Wilbur is cheering, and Tommy looks in Techno’s eyes and cannot help but think this is what Hypixel had been like for him ; all adoring fans and bones where they shouldn’t be and opponents who are so much smaller than him, terror in their eyes and cowardice in their hearts.

But Tommy is not a coward. He is afraid, sure. Terrified. But adrenaline runs through his veins, thrumming in his blood, and he looks up at Techno and spits on the rock floor. It comes out a rusted orange, blood mixed with saliva.

Technoblade stands there for just a moment. He blinks a few times more than needed, and peers down at Tommy the same way one would look down at a pest, or a weed. Confusion works its way around his face, apparent in the whites of his eyes and the furrow of his eyebrows, before horror and realisation replace it. He looks at Tommy, and there is something in his eyes that makes Tommy want to run and hide from all the world.

Slowly, Techno reaches up to his face, to the blood that is pouring from his nose; an injury mirroring Tommy’s to the letter. Technoblade looks down at his hand—the knuckles irritated a bright red, skin peeled back and blood peeking through—then glances at Tommy’s.

The injuries are the same.

Wilbur has stopped cheering. He is not the same Wilbur Tommy has grown up with—not the same Wilbur that had ruffled his hair or taught him to tie his shoes or held him when there was no one else to hear his sobs—but he is not insane, not yet. The crazy in him rests in the wide whites of his eyes and has not yet reached his heart; has not yet poisoned him beyond the possibility for a remedy.

Tommy’s chest is heaving, in and out, blood running from his nose to his mouth and then down to the hard rock ground, dripping slowly. Each soft plunk of the blood dripping is a constant reminder of a truth that Tommy has known for a long time but has still not yet accepted.

“Well,” Tommy says, smile wide and blood in his teeth, “Blade, meet your soulmate.”

There is false bravado in his voice and a shiver in his spine, terror coursing through his every muscle. Techno cannot fight him—not really—but he can reject him, and that will hurt just as bad. 

Wilbur is deathly quiet above them. In the silence that echoes through Pogtopia, the only sound is that of Tubbo tossing and turning in a fitful sleep, soft whines escaping his throat. It is as much of a ghost town as any place on this server can be, grief and anger and sweet terror swallowing the ravine whole. Pogtopia is a house (not a home, never a home) haunted by grief for a country long lost, and its inhabitants are slowly being poisoned by it.

“I don’t have a soulmate,” Technoblade says, and he sounds so serious that Tommy almost believes him. But there is a tremor in Techno’s voice and a twitch in his eye that betrays the truth, whether or not Technoblade has accepted it yet.

Tommy’s smile fades. There is blood on the rocks below him and blood in his mouth and blood dripping from the broken nose that Techno and Tommy both share, and the taste of iron on his tongue is so strong that he spits once more.

Above them, Tubbo makes a sound so pitiful that Tommy’s heartstrings pull taut. It had always been Tommy and Tubbo—two kids without soulmates—who had vowed to stay by each other and protect each other as if they were. There was a bond between them stronger than that between soulmates, because their bond was chosen, while soulmates were only created by a mixture of chance and fate.

Tubbo is above him, and he is hurting, and there is nothing Tommy can do to relieve him of that pain.

Tubbo is above him, and his face is covered in burns, the skin mottled and red and so thin that his jawbone peeks out, and his left eye is not the colour it ought to be but instead a grey that makes everything seen out of it a blur.

Tubbo is above him, and the band of hearts on his wrist is yellow, and it is Techno’s fault.

“Well,” Tommy spits, vitriol in his veins mixing with the anger in his heart, “today’s your lucky day.”

Tommy is prepared to fight. He is prepared to kill or be killed or wait for the inevitable both, as the bands on their wrists turn yellow and it is finally confirmed. He is prepared to die for Tubbo, and he is not prepared to live for Techno, and that right there is the difference between a bond formed by fate and a bond formed by brothers.

Techno reaches a hand up and wipes the blood off of his mouth. He stares at his hand as it comes away covered in red, as if he has not realised the gravity of what has just happened. As if the blood on his hands is not of his own doing.

“Right,” Techno says, and it’s so dry and full of the sarcasm that Techno is known for that a part of Tommy wants to run and hide. It is cowardly, and Tommy is not a coward, but he knows when he will get hurt and does not care to stand around for it. “I’m s’posed to believe that this snot-nosed kid is my soulmate? Good one, Tommy.”

Techno is tall. That is something that Tommy had noticed a long time ago, but it doesn’t truly kick in until Tommy is standing under him, his life in Techno’s hands, and Techno’s tusks glittering under the light of Pogtopia’s lanterns.

Tommy wants to run, but he will be brave. For Tubbo, if not himself.

“Hit me again,” Tommy says, teeth sharp and voice sharper, “fucking hit me again , Technoblade.”

A little giggle sounds out from above them. Tommy glances up towards Wilbur—the man he thought a brother—and then back towards Techno, the man who could end Tommy’s life just as quickly as he could save it.

Techno’s movements are littered with hesitance, but he steps closer. The ground does not shake with his movements, but his footsteps echo across the ravine, until all Tommy can hear is Techno stepping closer and the pounding of his own heart in his ears.

“I don’t want to fight you, Tommy,” Techno says, but Tommy knows a lie when he hears one. Techno could step away. Techno could apologise to Tubbo. Techno could do anything but stare at Tommy, a mix of emotions so jumbled on his face that not even Tommy can figure them out.

“Well,” Tommy snaps, his hands forming into fists, “I fucking want to fight you, Blade, okay?”

This too is a lie.

Tommy does not want to fight Technoblade any more than he wanted to experience Tubbo’s execution, but some things in this world come down to fate instead of will, and this, it seems, will be one of them.

Techno stands in front of him, and when he raises a fist and hits Tommy square across the jaw, Tommy mourns the loss of a man that could have been a brother.

(Techno hits him until there are bruises across both their faces and blood dripping down in pools to the Pogtopia floor. Wilbur claps, calling for an encore. Tubbo only cries, the tears a stinging pain against his cheek. There is anger in Tommy’s veins, and tears in his eyes, but more than anything there is grief for the life Tommy could have lived, and grief for the person who was supposed to be his everything.)

Technoblade doesn’t have a soulmate.

He’d grown up knowing that. When other kids would show up with scars that weren’t theirs or a broken arm that had happened in the dark of the night, Techno had only had his own scars to bear. 

People had pitied him for that, maybe. They didn’t need to. Technoblade didn’t have a soulmate and he was glad for it, because his life was his and his alone. To cherish, to destroy, to waste away until his eyes turn red and he is no more man than the monster everyone expects him to be.

And then there had been bruises that he didn’t remember getting.

He had gotten them so late—at the age of thirteen— that it didn’t seem real. Didn’t seem possible.

So he ignored the scars on his collarbone, and he ignored the bruise that bloomed on his cheek, and he ignored the stabbing pain in his side. Technoblade didn’t have a soulmate, and Technoblade didn’t die. The two statements were intrinsically linked; one could not exist without the other, because if it did, that meant his life belonged to a stranger he had never met, and to an enemy he could not beat.

And then there is Tommy at the bottom of the Pit, and there is his broken nose that is mirrored on Tommy’s face, and nausea grows in Technoblade’s stomach stronger than he has ever felt it before. Tommy is his soulmate, and Tommy is an idiot kid, and even if Technoblade never dies Tommy most certainly does.

There, with blood on his lips, Techno makes an enemy in a thirteen year old kid, innocence still apparent in his eyes. This kid has done nothing but been a victim of fate—something Techno can be sympathetic to—but he is obnoxious, and loud, and he is too kind for his own good. In him, Techno can see Phil, see a heart of gold that can too easily be manipulated into something much darker than a heart of stone could ever be. Tommy is a danger, and no longer to just himself—but to Techno as well.

He beats the kid into a bloody pulp. He ignores the instincts within him—the ones that tell him to protect the runt and hide him away from this war that children were never supposed to fight him—and he takes the pain with a grimace, rolling with each punch that he throws at himself and hurting Tommy until his instincts realise that there is no runt, no pack, nothing but a threat.

(And yet, he looks under him and sees a boy, still so young, still so hopeful. Wilbur is laughing above him, the glee in his voice sickening. There is a child under him and he is covered in blood and full of the pain that Techno feels within himself, and even as he turns away and spits out a tooth that he knows Tommy must have also lost, something in his heart tugs at him. He ignores it, like he always does, but he does not forgive: and worse, he does not forget.)

He tries not to think of Tommy after Pogtopia. An odd feeling appears when he does. It’s a mixture of grief and regret and guilt, so strong his eyes water with the scent, and the pain burns in his chest even as there are no injuries to match it. 

Wilbur is dead, Phil is sad, and Techno is busy comforting a grieving friend. There is no time for a runt who betrayed him; no time for someone who still sees him as a weapon instead of a person.

The fire flares at that thought, and Techno has to clench his fists tight to ignore making a pitiful sound in his throat. He is not sad over a boy who is the only threat to his life. He isn’t, because that wouldn’t be logical, and Techno follows rules. He follows rules, and he follows Phil, and Tommy is a part of neither.

One day, there is a scrape on his arm. It is little, and it barely bleeds, but Techno knows that it is not his own.

There are burn scars on his hands the next. They don’t hurt much—they aren’t anything more than a first degree burn—but they sting, and even as Techno runs them under lukewarm water the ache does not go away. It is not his injury to tend to. Techno shakes his head, and if there is a sort of mix between affection and worry in it, he will hold that secret in his heart until it bursts. 

A few days later, there are bruises all over his body. Techno makes soft sounds in his throat as they bloom on his body, and Phil looks after him worriedly, unable to do anything but offering a few pain potions and giving Techno more blankets than he can physically put on his body. He nearly barks out a laugh at how he must look like—the Blood God, buried in soft blankets and being watched over by a man who is at least a foot shorter than him—but he keeps his complaints quiet. Phil wants to take care of him, and so Techno will agree. 

They have always worked this way. Techno wants, and Phil gives. Phil wants, and Techno gives. It’s symbiotic in the simplest form of the word, and yet there is something more that runs under it, something more than blood and friends born from the same fight. There is love, and there is family, and there is a trust that only Phil can earn from him. Phil promises him devotion, and Techno promises Phil the world.

“He’s gotta be doing this on purpose,” Phil murmurs, handing Techno a cup of tea. It’s hot in his hands—so hot that it would burn a normal human—but Techno’s hands are deeply callused with years of hard work and time spent near fire.

(Briefly, Techno thinks of a boy whose hands are just as callused as his. He thinks of a boy much younger than him who must have cried when he first felt the lava skim over his palms. He thinks of all the things he had done because he knew that there was no one who would be affected but him, and then he thinks of the way tears had formed in Tommy’s face when Techno had broken his nose and denied the evidence right in front of him.)

Techno hums non-committedly. “Maybe.”

He wouldn’t put it past the runt. He always seems to run towards danger instead of far away from it. It was interesting, in certain ways, but absolutely terrifying in others. 

Phil sighs and relaxes on the couch, kicking his legs up on top of Techno’s lap. Techno shoves them off.

“I’m s’posed to be injured, old man, don’t do this to me.” 

Phil barks out a laugh. “You’re literally older than me!”

Techno smiles. “Maybe. But I don’t have grey hairs.”

Phil slaps at his shoulder, and he puts his legs back up. Techno lets them stay there this time, rubbing a circle on Phil’s ankle with his thumb.

“That kid’s going to kill you one day,” Phil says, and it doesn’t sound like the joke it should be. Ever since Phil was made aware of the child his son took in like a brother, he’s been against him. Technoblade understands why—Tommy’s loud, and doesn’t understand when to stop. He fights, and even if he doesn’t fight well, he fights with all his heart.

For some reason, that thought makes an odd sense of pride twist in Techno’s stomach.

“He’s going to try,” Techno says dryly.

It’s snowing outside. It frosts up the windows, snowflakes falling down in clumps, and in the small cabin, Techno and Phil are hidden from the world. In this cabin, it is just them: no ghosts of dead sons, no country that was doomed from the beginning, and no soulmates.

“He’s a smart kid,” Techno says suddenly. He doesn’t know why he says it, but the moment the words leave his lips, he knows that they are true. Tommy’s a smart kid, and he’s got a good heart, and he’s not the villain Techno wants him to be.

Phil hums. “If you say so.” There’s a half-smile on his lips, like he thinks that Techno is making some sort of joke.

Techno clears his throat. “He—he wouldn’t hurt himself to get back at me. He’s naive, sure. Doesn’t know what’s best for him. But he wouldn’t hurt himself for revenge.”

The words fall from his lips like a prayer, even with the aftertaste of guilt on his tongue. The truth is—he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know if Tommy would hurt himself to get back at Techno. Doesn’t know if Tommy’s that reckless. But there’s a part of him, a part that’s small and hidden away, that cares for Tommy despite the bruises that appear on his back.

Phil smiles, and this time, it’s gentle. “Tommy’s okay.” He laughs, and gets up from the couch, accidentally kicking Techno’s stomach as he does so. Techno doubles over, and though Phil apologises, the sentiment is tainted by the giggling that spills from his lips. Phil picks up Techno’s empty mug, and holds it close to him before whispering, “Tommy’s okay. And he’ll stay that way if he knows what’s good for him.”

It is a threat and a promise woven into one, and it makes Techno’s heart ache. “He’s not that much of an idiot,” Techno says, and he hopes that he is right. He smiles and tries to forget about the burn scars on his hands and the bruises on his back. “‘sides, he’s not stupid enough to risk the wrath of Philza.”

Phil laughs, and his eyes twinkle with joy. “Fuck yeah!”

Techno laughs with him, even as he winces, and not for the first time, a small, selfish part of him wishes that Phil was his soulmate, and that Tommy had never been involved in this unwinnable war.

Tommy is cold.

It’s the first thing he notices.

There is water surrounding him, filling up his nose, pouring down into his lungs drop by drop. His lungs are so tight that he fears they might pop, and the world around him is dark and lonely.

Tommy breaks the water with a gasp.

He paddles to the land with as much energy as he can manage, even as ice pours through his veins. His movements are slow and sluggish, but he continues, pulling himself up onto the sand beach. He lays across the sand, the small rocks pushing into his face and into his lungs, but it is all he can do to breathe.

He almost died.

It’s an odd thing to think of. Something he had never thought about beyond whizzing arrows and sharp swords. Tommy was born on a battlefield, and all his life, he has expected to die there.

But there is water in his lungs and an ache in his side and Tommy knows how Death stalks him, Her eyes bright in the night sky, waiting for the moment to pounce. Tommy looks down to the band on his wrist—a bright green, three hearts right next to each other—and thinks of the person who shares those hearts with him.

How would he have reacted if he had died?

One moment, Tommy would be alive and Techno would be safe, and the next, water would fill his lungs and he can't breathe and his chest is shaking with each breath not inhaled, until there was no more fight left and Tommy could do nothing but allow the water in.

Tommy knows that Techno would not mourn for him. He would be angry at the life lost, furious at Tommy for leaving their band yellow and destroying his title. 

Technoblade is known as the god who never dies, and Tommy is filled with dread when he thinks about how he is the only one who can humanise him with Death’s touch.

Tommy presses his cheek to the sand. It is cold, and it is wet, and Tommy’s tears form a puddle under him. He wants to be angry, and he wants to be sad, and he wants someone to blame beside the reflection he glances at in the dark water. He is alone except for Dream and the small scars that appear on his hands, and he is lonely despite them. 

Shivering in the cold night breeze, Tommy wraps his arms around himself and imagines that they are someone else's. He pretends he is not alone, and he pretends that he is warm, and he pretends that he never got a soulmate, and when the sun finally begins to rise, Tommy pretends that he is happy. It does not heal the ache in his chest, but it soothes it like a gentle kiss pressed against a stab wound. 

His lungs burn, but the loneliness growing in his ribs burns brighter, so Tommy wraps his arms tighter around himself and falls asleep on an abandoned beach. And if his left hand is curled around the band on his wrist, there is no one to see, no one to tell, and no one to care.

Tommy goes through the motions of exile. Dream shows up a few days later, with a wide smile and some food, and even though Tommy is sad to say goodbye to his armour, Dream's hugs more than make up for it. Dream lets him use his trident, and above the ocean water, Tommy feels weightless. The land below him is so small that it seems inconsequential, and for a few moments, Tommy is flying, and the smile on his face is genuine.

Dream feeds him soup that he made, and Tommy shyly gives him a painting he had made. He knows it’s not enough—the odd twinge of emotion in Dream’s eyes is a stark reminder of that—but distantly, Tommy knows that nothing he does will ever be enough for Dream. Dream is nice, and he is here when no one else is, and he is the only person who cares.

Dream ruffles his hair, just like Wilbur used to do, and Tommy leans into the touch before he can pull away. Dream laughs, but the sound is not the mocking cackle that he often makes, but instead something small and joyful. Something in Tommy’s heart blooms at it.

Logstedshire is quiet, and fog surrounds it, and it’s colder than anywhere Tommy has ever been. The chill seeps into his bones, filling him completely, until every inhale he takes is imbued with ice. Because of this, Tommy is not surprised when Dream leaves—after all, how selfish would someone have to be to keep a person here?

This is a punishment, and Tommy knows that the worst punishment of all is loneliness, so he bites his tongue and waves as Dream walks off.

It is quiet, and he is alone, and his hands are too empty and his eyes are stinging with tears. The wind courses over the choppy water, and Tommy bites the inside of his mouth until it bleeds and there is nothing to feel but the sting of the cut and the taste of blood on his tongue.

Tommy cuts down the trees. He mines through the caves. He makes friends with the cows and the bugs and the whispers that echo through his tent at night, and he builds himself up from the ground. When he is done, he is covered in iron armour, and he’s sweating so much that he cannot think of anything other than the strain in his chest and the feeling of dirt on his palms. When Dream arrives a week later, and buries his progress in the ground right next to Tommy’s hope, Tommy cannot help but crack a smile. Dream is here, and he cares, and he says he is only doing this to help Tommy, so of course, Dream is right. 

Tommy thanks him, and Dream ruffles his hair, and Tommy pretends that he has a brother besides the one that rots in a grave; besides the one that had exiled him without a flinch. He pretends that he has a brother that cares, and when Dream laughs at one of his jokes, it doesn’t sound like a lie.

Dream leaves, and Tommy works, and Dream comes back. This cycle repeats until Tommy’s hands are black with the ash of his armour. Tommy’s becoming better, and he’s happy, and everything will be okay.

He doesn’t mention the dead cows that litter the ground after Dream leaves, and he doesn’t mention how he mourns them. He refuses to talk about the way he had almost doven into the lava, entranced by the fire below, before Dream had saved him and reminded that his life did not only belong to him.

(“It’s not your time to die,” Dream says, his arm wrapped around him, so close to the hug that Tommy craves.

The Nether is hot and warm and the lava below is horribly inviting. Tommy just wants to be warm again, no matter what it takes. But Dream is holding him and Tommy is supposed to be better and there is another person’s life tethered to his own. 

Tommy shouldn’t care about him. He really shouldn’t. But he thinks of how he had admired Techno like he was a god and loved him like he was a brother, even as blood spilled from both their lips and their hearts broke as one.

“It’s never my time to die,” Tommy whispers, and he knows it to be true, because when he dies, Techno will follow him. Technoblade is harsh and ignorant and too quick to violence, but he is not an evil person, and he is not the monster people want him to be. Tommy is already doomed, but Techno does not have to be fated to follow him. 

In that moment, Tommy vows to break the bond between them. It should be impossible. Rather, it shouldn’t be something he wants. Tommy has always been told that he is supposed to cherish his soulmate, to accept their flaws as his own, and to understand that dying with them is a kinder fate than having to live as they wither away.

But Tommy knows that he is not the soulmate Technoblade wants, and he is not the soulmate that Technoblade deserves, and even though a selfish part of him wants to wind their bond even tighter he pushes it away. Techno has always deserved more than Tommy can give him, and Tommy has never deserved what Techno has done to him, and there is only one way to fix them. Even if it means giving up the thing he has longed for since he was a child. Even if it means watching as the scars on his knuckles fade away. Even if it means that he will be alone, and this time, there will be no one left to comfort him.

And so, Tommy doesn’t jump. Not yet. He smiles when Dream hugs him and he cries when he is alone and he holds himself throughout the night, waiting for a saviour; waiting for a brother. They are the same thing, in the end. Both would be a miracle.)

Exile continues. Tommy withers. Once, he falls asleep while mining and sinks the pickaxe into his arm. It doesn’t go deep, but even swallowed by the haze of sleep, it hurts like all of hell, and Tommy cannot help but think of Technoblade.

Dream shows up less and less often.

It’s not your time to die.

Tommy bides his time, and he waits, and he prays.

It’s not your time to die.

Dream watches him, head tilted to the side, and Tommy knows that there is something behind that blank mask, something hidden and evil. Dream does not hug him anymore. He does not ruffle his hair. Dream has stopped pretending, and Tommy has to come to terms with the fact that it wasn’t real. 

He does what Dream asks, starving for just a bone of affection, like a stray dog. Dream laughs, and it is not the soft chuckle Tommy wants.

Tommy has done something wrong, like he always does, but this time, he’s not sure exactly what. He does what Dream asks, and he ignores the pain that scorches through his body, and he forgets about everything but the ache in his chest and the longing in his heart.

Dream stops showing up. He says he will be back in a month. Tommy knows it is selfish, but he cannot wait that long. He cannot wait for the taste of loneliness to fill up his mouth once more, mixing with blood and grief and the sorrow that he cannot explain.

And so, he towers up. He goes up, and up, until Logstedshire is only a speck under him and everything is quiet, just as it always is. The pond under him haunts him. He could jump, and he could survive. He could jump, and he could die. He could stay up here and wait for someone to rescue him; he could wither away when no one comes.

He sits over the side. If he jumps now, Technoblade will die with him. Tommy almost chuckles at the thought. The Blade, brought down by a ‘snot-nosed kid.’

He stops laughing a moment after. It’s not funny.

Techno’s life rests in his hands. He can shatter it, or he can cherish it. Tommy looks down at the ground. It would be so, so easy to jump. So easy to get revenge.

Tommy is cold, and he is alone, and he has never felt more like the kid everyone tells him he is. The wind swirls around him, and he is so close to falling that his stomach squirms.

Death is supposed to be soft. Wilbur had told him about Her once; Her dark eyes glittering like gems in the moonlight, hands soft and gentle, voice a lovely croon as She cradles him within Her arms.

He is starved for affection and starved for revenge and those two things never mix well. It’s a volatile cocktail, made from a country that had once been a home and the taste of explosives in his mouth. It’s fireworks echoing in his ears and violence pounding in his heart. It is death, and it is grief, and it is the body of a man who rots six feet below, a sword through his heart.

It is everything, and it is nothing, and it is the power that Tommy holds in his hands as he jumps. He cradles a life that is not his own in his bare palms and wonders if he should drop it.

Tommy stands, and he takes a single step forward, and then he is flying.

(He is under the water again, but this time, it is not a threat but the thing that has saved his life. He breaks the icy surface and he is alive, and he is not happy but the adrenaline in his veins nearly convinces him he is, and Tommy knows that there is only one person in the whole server who is obligated to care about him. Only one person who would care if he died.

Tommy wraps his arms around himself, and starts the journey to Technoblade’s house.)

There is a child at his doorstep.

That is the first thing that Techno notices.

The child is small and covered in dirt and has a scar across his nose that mirrors the one on Techno, and he realises who it is almost immediately.

“Tommy?” Techno asks, soft and gentle. He doesn’t care. He doesn’t. But Tommy’s life is closely tied to his own, and it is once again Technoblade’s responsibility to save them both.

Tommy looks up at him. His eyes are a much lighter shade of blue than Techno had last seen them. It’s like staring into glass. Tommy’s lips are blue, and though Techno can feel the pain that accompanies the hypothermia, he cannot feel the cold, and for that he is thankful.

“Cold,” Tommy whispers. It comes out slurred. Blinking, Techno realises that Tommy’s clothes are wet—or rather, they were. Now, they’re frozen completely, the sleeves slashed into bits, and an odd emotion rises up in Techno’s throat. It’s not pity—it’s not— but something warm and indecipherable, wrapping its squeezing hands around Techno’s heart and pinching until he winces.

“Yeah,” Techno says, “most people who go out into the tundra in a t-shirt are cold.”

Despite his dry words, he’s thankful that Tommy’s still feeling cold. It’s better than the alternative—a burning sensation, so strong that Tommy would feel like he’s being held above a fire. 

Techno sighs. “C’mon,” he says, “let's get you inside.”

He gives Tommy clean clothing, and turns around as he changes into the warm clothes. Techno’s clothes are huge on him—the soft cloth pants are bunched up at his ankles and tied tight around his waist, and the sweater Techno gave him reaches well past his knees. His instincts scream at him, but Techno does his best to quiet them down, even as Chat’s voices begin to join in.

The voices in his head meld together in a violent clash. Techno’s fists clench, but he quickly relaxes them after glancing at Tommy's wide eyes.

“Sit down,” Techno says, not unkindly, gesturing towards the couch. Tommy sits.

“I’ll be right back,” Techno says gruffly, and he ignores how Tommy’s face falls. Once he is out of Tommy’s sight, he begins to gather blankets, layering them in his arms. When he returns, Tommy is shivering, and Techno doesn’t know if it’s because of the cold or the fact that Techno left him alone.

“Here,” Techno murmurs, placing the blankets next to him. He wraps one all the way around Tommy, pinching it between Tommy’s legs and the couch, then piles more on top of it. Tommy has stopped shivering, but his eyes are still wide with fear, watching Techno’s every movement.

“Thanks,” Tommy whispers, but his words are so slurred that he completely skips the first consonant. Here, wrapped in no less than three blankets, Techno’s clothes layered on him, Tommy looks so small. It’s a reminder that makes something burn in his throat: Tommy’s a kid. He doesn’t think about it much, but that doesn’t stop it from being true. Tommy’s a kid, and he’s fought whole wars, and his life is tied to a man who never stops fighting.

“I’ll get you some tea,” Techno blurts out, stepping far away from Tommy and nearly running to the kitchen. Tommy murmurs something incoherent behind him. Maybe it’s a plea for Techno to leave and never come back. (Maybe it’s a plea for him to stay.) Either way, Technoblade does not linger to find out.

Techno puts the kettle on the stove and watches as it slowly heats. He tells himself that he’s only doing this because Tommy’s life is tied to his own. He tells himself that the only reason he is sitting in his kitchen at midnight is because he can feel Tommy’s slowly beating heart in his own chest. He thinks of Phil, and knows that he will tell him that the only reason he allowed Tommy into his home is because Tommy—and by extension, Techno—would have otherwise died.

He tells himself this, and he tries his best to believe it, even as his hands shake.

Technoblade stirs in the tea leaves that Phil picks up for him on his travels. Phil has a bad habit of collecting them, so there’s bottles upon bottles of it stored away in Techno’s cupboards. He inhales the sweet scent of peppermint, and waits for it to cool down to lukewarm before carefully bringing it to Tommy.

Tommy whines, all high and from his throat, and Techno resists the urge to coddle him like his instincts demand.

Just because he’s your soulmate, Techno reminds himself, even as the lie leaves a bad taste in his mouth.

“Here,” Techno murmurs. It is snowing softly outside and Tommy’s cheeks are still a ruddy red from the cold, but he is safe and a part of Techno purrs at the knowledge. 

Carefully, Techno hands the mug to Tommy, wrapping Tommy’s cold fingers around it. Tommy makes another sound, this one much more pitiful. Deep down, Techno knows that there is something here beyond hypothermia. There is something—or rather, someone—who is the cause of the bruises littered on both their backs and the burns that dance across both their palms. There is someone who has hurt Tommy, and Techno wants to find them and rip them in half.

For myself, he thinks. It’s purely selfish. Nothing more.

Tommy makes another sound, choked up and close to a sob, and Techno gives up trying to make him drink the tea. Instead, he wiggles it from his loose grip, and raises it to Tommy’s lips. They’re no longer blue, but instead slowly returning to the full colour they ought to be. They’re still chapped to all hell, but Techno deals with one thing at a time, and right now, all that matters is Tommy and his shaking hands.

“Drink,” Technoblade whispers, nudging the peppermint tea towards Tommy. Tears have begun to run down Tommy's face, wet and hot, and Techno does not back down. He knows they aren’t because of him.

Nevertheless, he wipes them from Tommy’s cheek. The sun is down and everything feels quiet and close, like what happens here will stay a secret. Tommy makes another choked sound, and Techno pours the tea slowly into his mouth. For a moment, Tommy only blinks, eyes wide in a sort of confusion, before he registers the warm tea coursing down his throat and drinks it like a dog laps at water in the summer.

“Easy,” Techno chuckles, and Tommy shoots him a glare. Normally, Techno might have taken offence to that, but it’s a reminder that Tommy is still okay—that he hasn’t been broken, not fully, not yet. That Tommy is still whole and alive and is still desperately gripping onto that good heart, even as everybody else tries to rip it away from him. 

When the mug is empty, and Tommy slumps back, like he’s been zapped of all energy, Techno places the mug by his side and nudges at Tommy. “Move over, Theseus.”

Tommy stiffens. His spine goes all straight, from the worst posture Techno has ever seen to a perfect line. His shoulder blades draw together, and even under the pile of blankets, the tenseness of Tommy’s muscles is easy to see. He looks like an animal stuck between fleeing and fighting.

“I hate you, Technoblade,” Tommy mutters, and slumps back into the couch.

Techno smiles, part bared teeth and part genuine. So he has chosen to fight. 

There is a part of him that is proud, but Techno squashes it down under his laugh. “I know, Tommy.”

Tommy attempts his arms, and huffs when the blankets hold him back from doing so. He wiggles, and Techno has to hold back another laugh at the sight, before Tommy succeeds and crosses his arms defiantly. “Well, I do.”

There is a desperate part of Technoblade that wishes it was true. That Tommy despises him just as much as Techno pretends to despise Tommy, that Techno has a reason to hate him, but he doesn’t. Not beyond the scars on his knees and the burns that will stick with him for a lifetime.

“Sleep,” Techno finally says. The lantern is beginning to flicker, and Techno stands up, blowing it out. The fire is still going, but it’s flickering, more coals than anything. 

Tommy makes a sound like he wants to argue, but Techno turns around, meeting Tommy’s eyes. “Sleep. I don’t want you movin’ around like an idiot tomorrow and hurting me.”

Hurting yourself, a part of him whispers. He ignores it.

“Oh,” Tommy says, and if Techno didn’t know better, he’d say there was something sad in his voice. Not even a moment later, Tommy’s perking up, glaring at him in defiance, and Techno wonders if he imagined it.

“I’ll fucking sleep better than you, asshole!” Tommy shouts, coughing as his voice thins out and rubbing a hand over his throat. Techno holds back a wince as his throat lights up with pain, bright and stinging.

“You do that,” Techno says dryly. “Don’t fall off the couch, and don’t die.” He starts to walk out, then thinks better of it. “Actually, I might be better off if you don’t move at all.”

Tommy glares at him, and it makes something in Techno’s chest burn. “Fuck you.”

“That’s original,” Techno says. He picks up the mug that he had placed next to Tommy and holds it in his hand. “If you need more blankets, just yell or something. There’s water next to you.” He stares down at Tommy, and where he wants to see an enemy, he only sees a kid.

Techno turns to leave once more, but Tommy shuffles behind him. “Wait!”

With Tommy’s words, Techno turns and raises an eyebrow. “What, Theseus?” His tone is exasperated, and he’s disgusted to find it sounds more like affection than annoyance.

Phil was right, he thinks, looking down at Tommy on the couch. Kids do ruin your reputation.

Tommy’s certainly not his kid. Of fucking course he’s not. But he’s a kid, and he is ruining Techno’s reputation even if there is no one to witness it. Chat certainly picks up on it, the shouted words becoming more and more intense.

“I—” Tommy’s face is bright red. He opens his mouth, then closes it, and then looks at the floor. “Thank you,” he mumbles, so quiet that Techno barely hears him.

Techno chuckles. “So the child does have manners.”

“Fuck you!”

Techno smiles, but it fades from his face quickly. He looks down at Tommy, and tries not to let the fondness shine through his expression. Instead, he bites down on the inside of his mouth, and winces as he remembers Tommy can feel the pain in his own. The kid looks at him, head turned like an upset puppy, and Techno almost lets his resolve crumble.

Almost. But Techno had not gotten his title by being weak, and he certainly would not lose more of his dignity to a child who looks like he lives in a dumpster, no matter how much said child bears resemblance to a lost puppy.

“I’m only doing this because we’re,” Technoblade gestures between the two of them, “y’know.”

He cannot let the word leave his mouth, because if he says it, it will become more true than Techno wishes to admit.

Tommy blinks. There is something in his eyes that Techno cannot decipher, and then it is replaced by a burning anger that Techno knows well. “I fucking know, Technoblade.” Tommy seperates each syllable of his name, and it’s stupidly endearing. “Why do you think I came here?”

Techno pauses. He hadn’t thought about it. Maybe his cabin was the closest building. Maybe Tommy hadn’t thought it through. Maybe, just maybe, Tommy had trusted him.

But the words that Tommy speak shatter him through until his core. Tommy is only here because Techno cannot hurt him without hurting himself. Tommy is only here because Techno has gone through every little speck of pain with him. Tommy is only here because they have spilt blood and bruises together as one, and nothing forms kinship like violence. 

Techno has known that his whole life. It’s why Phil is his closest confidant; it’s why he hadn’t hesitated to kill Tubbo with the fireworks.

“Then we’re on the same page,” Techno says gruffly, and although it should be an olive branch, it feels more like a bridge burning to the ground.

Tommy nods. “Yeah. Bitch.”

The ghost of a smile appears on Techno’s face in the dark, and he tries his best to ignore the wetness in Tommy’s eyes. He knows it’s born only from either anger or pain—not sadness. Never sadness. Tommy has never shown regret before, and why should he now?

“Goodnight Theseus,” Technoblade whispers, and it is the closest thing to an apology that he will ever say.

Doomsday comes and goes. For a precious month before it, there is a tentative bond, and then there is betrayal in a million different forms. Tommy is weeping, and Techno is yelling until his lungs are void of air, and there is nothing left but ash. 

(Techno vomits when he sees the bite marks on his own skin. He has sustained injuries a million times worse, but he looks at the marks on his skin and cannot help but imagine how Tommy had screamed as the dogs bit at him, and cannot help but remember that it was Techno’s own dogs that hurt him. Tommy is a traitor who had chosen a dying country over his own soulmate—over something that Techno could have called brotherhood—and Techno should not grieve the loss of an annoying kid by his side, but he imagines Tommy’s terror and he vomits until there is nothing left in his stomach but blood and guilt.)

(Tommy does not speak for three days after Doomsday. His country has become a graveyard carved by a man he thought a brother, and his insults turn to ash in his mouth. He does not regret his decision, but he regrets the brother he lost with it, and he regrets the blood on his hands and regrets and regrets and regrets until he is sobbing. Tubbo holds him, hands warm, but Tommy can feel Techno’s blood dripping down onto his tongue and can still hear the echo of Technoblade’s cry for revenge and justice as he destroys the only home Tommy has ever known. Tubbo is warm and he is gentle and he holds Tommy as tight as he can but it is not enough. That night, Tommy grieves for the loss of two places he could have called home.)

Techno punches a wall until his knuckles break, and then digs his nails into his palms when he realises that the next time he sees Tommy, the kid will bear his injury as a branded reminder of the violence that follows his soulmate like an omen of death. Blood is a curse Techno could never escape from, and he has passed it to Tommy like a plague.

Tommy trips and fucks up his arm so bad he has to put it in a sling. Ranboo holds him to his chest as he sobs, clawing at Ranboo’s skin, and he only sobs harder as his water burns Ranboo’s skin, because he has left Techno completely defenceless. Guilt grows in his ribs, and Tommy vomits it until he cannot breathe through the tangle of weeds crawling up his throat. He is not supposed to be sad and he is not supposed to be angry and he is not supposed to miss Technoblade, but Tommy has never been good at doing what he should, even when all it does is end with Tommy alone once more.

Months after Doomsday, Tommy becomes trapped in the prison.

Dream hovers over him, like an omen that will not disappear, a mirage that Tommy cannot force out of his vision. Dream is terrifying and different and no longer the nice man Tommy had known in exile.

(Tubbo tells him that Dream was never nice, but some part of Tommy cannot accept this, because if Dream was not the man that Tommy thought he was, it means that no one has ever cared for Tommy without an obligation, and that is a truth that Tommy cannot stomach, no matter how much blood is spilled and how little he can remember the boy he had been before the wars.)

“I hate you,” Tommy whispers, the words almost swallowed completely by the slow dripping of a leak in the corner. It does not feel like when he had said the words to Techno. This time, the words are so true that they hurt, carving away at his fragile heart and twisting the knife that Wilbur’s death had left permanently stuck in his chest.

“I know,” Dream says. This too does not sound like Techno. It is his words, but not his unsteady tone, words wavering and hesitant. No, Dream’s voice is full of glee that makes Tommy want to run far, far away. This is not Techno, this is not his soulmate, this is not the man that had become so close to family only to rip away from Tommy at the last second. This is Dream, eyes wild with a fire Tommy understands more and more with each coming day, and calculating craziness in his words that Wilbur only hoped to achieve.

Tommy dies. He thinks of Techno. He is revived. He loses his last life. He is revived again. He thinks of Techno once more. He wonders if Techno knows where he is. He wonders if Techno cares beyond the death that Techno himself dies.

Sickeningly, he wonders if Techno will be revived the same way Tommy is. If he’s okay. If Tommy has doomed him to a life in Limbo, listening to the same empty echoes Tommy can recite from memory now. 

(Tommy wonders if he will be the reason two of his brothers rot in the ground.)

Wilbur is in front of him. His hair is curlier than the last time Tommy had seen him—when he died, he was covered in dust and grease, and showers were a luxury those fighting could not afford.

“Come play,” Wilbur says, and he is different than when he died. He is not laughing and is not sad and is not the empty shell he had been when Phil’s sword went through his chest.

(“Why?” Tommy had asked Phil, voice quiet. He was done screaming. No one listened either way.

Phil wiped the blood of his only son onto his shirt. “There wasn’t anything I could do.”

At first, Tommy wanted to screech, even as he knew no one would listen. For a moment, he wanted to scream until all Phil could do was cover his ears and cower the same way Tommy had been cowering for all his childhood. But then he realised.

Phil wasn’t talking about the sword in his hand. Phil had possessed all the will and constraint in the world when it came to that. 

No, he was talking about the flicker of emotion in Wilbur’s eyes, bright like a wildfire, and just as quick to burn out. He was talking about how Wilbur was loud where he had once been quiet, and violent where he had once been soft. He was talking about how Wilbur could not be saved, no matter how many hands pinned him down and how much time he had to heal.

Tommy had wanted to protest, but the truth was, the man that Tommy knew had died long before the second war had begun. Wilbur died with his country, and he died with his exile, and he died when he had cheered for the blood that splattered across Tommy’s face.

And maybe, just maybe, a part of Tommy had died with him.)

“I don’t want to,” Tommy whispers. He’s scared. Some part of him misses Techno. (Some part of him misses Dream.)

Wilbur looks at him, head tilted. The calculating look that haunts Tommy in his dreams appears in Wilbur’s brown eyes. “You will.”

It does not sound like a threat. Instead, it sounds like a fact—something Wilbur believes whole-heartedly. But Wilbur has lied to him so many times before, so Tommy squares his shoulders and looks at the man who rests in a grave Tommy dug with bare hands. “Fuck you, Wil.”

Wilbur laughs, and it reminds Tommy of Techno. Wilbur smiles, teeth sharp, and it reminds Tommy of Dream.

“I was worried for a second there, little spitfire.”

Tommy crosses his arms. “I’m not little.” The words are mumbled and soft.

Wilbur hums, and he looks at Tommy like he is seeing him for the first time. “Maybe.” He takes a step forward, and Tommy fights the urge to flinch. “You’ve changed, Tommy.”

Tommy opens his mouth—he is not sure whether Wilbur means it as a compliment or an insult, but both breed unrest in his heart—but Wilbur is deteriorating in front of his eyes. He looks worried, but then he looks elated, and the mix of the two make Tommy’s eyes sting.

Dream is in front of him. He is tall and scary and maybe Tommy is little after all. 

Dream smiles, wider than the mask he always wears, sharper than the Axe of Peace, more devious than the look in Wilbur’s eyes as he had goaded Techno to fight Tommy until they were both bloody and bruised.

“Well,” Dream says, holding a potato covered in Tommy’s blood, “wasn’t that fun?”

Tommy dies. Tommy lives. Tommy is somewhere in between, and Tommy is nowhere at all.

Techno feels it when Tommy takes the first hit.

At first, he shakes his head, because of course the kid would get into a fight not even a month after leaving Techno. It’s almost comical, and then Techno remembers how violence is a sickness that is so contagious he is still not rid of it. Techno stops laughing.

He prepares for another hit. Sure enough, it lands, right across Technoblade’s head. It’s an odd shape—it can’t be a fist, it’s too uniform for that. Too soft, even as Techno spits blood.

And then, there is another.

Normally, that might not be concerning. Tommy’s a good kid, and he’s not bad at fighting—no one who has gone through as many wars as Tommy has is bad at fighting—but there are always others who are stronger, and Tommy has a bad habit of pissing them off.

And yet—there is no pain on his knuckles.

He examines his hands, even as another phantom injury blooms in his side. They aren't bruised. There are no pauses in the hits—they’re almost routine, one after the other after the other, and it clicks all at once.

Tommy isn’t fighting back. 

Technolade doesn’t know if it’s because he’s unable to or does not want to, but Tommy isn’t fighting back and the injuries are only ramping up in intensity. He winces as he feels his nose break. He vomits as his stomach is stomped to pieces. 

Techno drags himself to his chest, rummaging through, and downs a combination of the first three potions that he finds. He knows it’s not a good idea to mix potions, and he knows that he should check the label, but he hurts so much that he will do anything to escape it. The potions drip down his throat, and he stops drinking the last one when it’s only half empty. The hits have not stopped, so Techno grabs a dagger from his belt and slits a cut on his wrist. It’s shallow, careful, avoiding arteries and major veins just like Phil had taught him. Techno lets the potion drip into his blood, wincing at the pain.

Bit by bit, the injuries begin to heal, but the hits do not stop.

Technoblade feels bruises blooming on his knuckles, and his heart beats with pride, before the hits stop altogether. Dread pools in his stomach.

“Phil?” Techno whispers. There is no response. “Phil?” 

He shouts it the second time, and although he hears a clattering of items as a response, the hits show up again. This time, it is a fist. Techno knows the feeling of a bare hand beating him all too well—has memorised the pain that blooms on his jaw when knuckles meet it. 

His injuries are healing— Tommy’s injuries are healing—but not for long, and Techno wonders distantly if all the potions had done was condemn them to a much more painful fate.

There is a hand cupping his face, and Phil’s worried voice is echoing in his eardrums, but Tommy is dying and Techno can do nothing to stop it. Techno is dying, and he can do—

Phil is pressing something into his hand. He knows that thing. It’s metal and cool and feels like magic, thrumming against his palm as if it is someone’s pulse pressed against his own. He looks down at the totem in his hand, and he looks up at Phil and presses his lips together.

There’s a chance—a chance, one so small that it shouldn’t matter—that this totem will rip the soul bond into pieces. No matter how slim, Techno could clutch this totem as Tommy dies—as he dies—and then, suddenly, he would be alone. Fate would forget about him. It is a chance, and Techno does not know if he wants to take it.

It’s not that he likes Tommy. Hell, he hates the kid. Still feels the sting of betrayal hot on his neck. But Tommy’s a good kid, and he doesn’t deserve to die right now. And Technoblade is not a good man, but he would like to think that he deserves a soulmate. Even if he had always hated the idea; even if he knew Tommy would get him killed one day; even if he wasn’t supposed to care. 

Tommy is a good kid, but Fate does not spare heroes or villains; good men or bad; adults or children. Tommy is a good kid, but Fate takes until there is nothing left in its wake besides hollow hearts and small coffins. Tommy is a good kid, but that is not enough. It is never enough.

“Techno,” Phil whispers, and it’s so soft that Technoblade has to hold himself back from sobbing.

He is forced to choose between death and condemning a child to die alone. His hands shake, and the totem is cold next to his sweating skin, and he can no longer feel the individual punches. They blend into one movement, painful and all consuming, like Techno is being devoured by Death in its most concentrated form.

If he had been asked to make this choice a few years ago, he wouldn’t have hesitated. Perhaps, he would have jumped at the choice, whether it be to teach his soulmate a lesson or else to laugh at Fate as it is forced to rip two souls apart who had never truly fit.

But Tommy is not his enemy. No matter how hard he tries to believe it. Tommy is sixteen years old, and his blood is pounding in Techno’s heart, and his blood is dripping from Techno’s nose, and his blood is being spilled across the ground in a wave. Technoblade wants to hate him. He wants so, so badly.

“Techno,” Phil says again, and he curls Techno’s own hand around the Totem of Undying. Its name is misleading. Techno will die. Techno will die, and he will come back, and there is a chance that someday Tommy will not.

“Phil,” Techno whispers. His friend’s name is a lifeline that Techno grasps to, as every part of him fades away. Technoblade was born to be violence incarnate, to laugh as blood drips from corpses, to smile as pain swallows beings whole, but he was not meant to bear witness to the death of a child not even old enough to know true right from wrong.

“Breathe,” Phil says. “It will be over soon.”

That, Techno wants to whisper, is the problem.

Tommy is going to die, and there is nothing Techno can do to stop it. Nothing besides holding his own knees to his chest and praying to the god he masquerades as to halt his carnage, hoping someone will answer his plea.

Tommy dies. Techno does not feel it until the pain reaches an unfathomable height, breaking bones in two, and his heart stops beating.

Techno dies. He dies, and though he knows that it is because of the way his brain has smashed against his skull a few too many times, the poet in him wants to attribute it to a broken heart.

Techno lives. The totem in his hand disappears into golden particles and spreads throughout his body, repairing every part of him. Techno is alive, and Tommy has died, and Fate’s scale is out of balance.

Phil holds him. He is not often this soft, but he presses a kiss to Techno’s hairline and holds him like he had lost him. He cradles Techno’s body, even though he is so much smaller, and holds on so tight Techno ought to tell him to stop.

He doesn’t. He holds on just as tight, and Technoblade grieves for a soulmate he never wanted, and Phil grieves for the son he would have stolen the sky to please.

Technoblade sobs when the pain returns. Once again, it is not his own. Deep down, he had suspected it, known the hits were too viscous to only account for one death. Technoblade sobs, and although he will not admit it, this is the moment he realises that Fate may have been right. 

Technoblade, the Blood God; Tommy, a child and a soldier and a corpse.

Techno was never supposed to die. Neither was Tommy. Fate saw that and intertwined their souls with a smile and a laugh, painting their suffering as entertainment for the gods. Technoblade has always called Tommy Theseus, and he has always said it is because-

(“Why do you call me Theseus?” Tommy is small and scared in the moonlight.

Technoblade should lie. He doesn’t. “You’re a hero.”

Tommy’s smile carves into something so similar to Wilbur’s minutes before his death. Techno had always regarded the rumour that the two were brothers as myth, but now, he wonders. “That doesn’t sound like a compliment.”

“It’s not.” Techno has never liked heroes. This is the truth.

“Why?”

Technoblade focuses on not burning the soup. “Because you will die because of it.” Because you will not succeed, and you will only face pain, and you will only face destruction, and I cannot fate myself to a life spent cleaning up after your good deeds.

“Oh.” Tommy’s face is an odd mix of emotions. “That’s shitty.”

Techno laughs. “Yeah. Yeah, it is.”

“Well,” Tommy whispers, and he is so quiet that Techno can barely hear him, “I won’t. I’ll be the first. I’ll do it better than your fucking Theseus, and I’ll do it better than everyone before him. I’ll fucking show you.”

Technoblade smiles, and where there should be joy, there is only the echo of grief. “You can try.”

Technoblade hates heroes, and he hates Tommy.

This is a lie.)

Phil gives him a potion for sleep and tells him it’s for his own good. Techno struggles against it, because he will not leave a child to die alone, no matter whether or not he deserves it, but Phil looks him in his eyes and forces the potion down his throat. He presses a totem into his hand. He says he will wake him when it is over. When Techno is alone, and Tommy is dead, and Techno will wake up, and Tommy will rot in a too-small coffin, and be mourned by a too-small family.

Techno falls into sleep. As he does so, he cannot help but feel like he failed the boy he knew in the Pit—the boy who was strong and not happy, not exactly, but he could have been.

That boy had died long before this night. Techno did not die with him then, and he will not die with him now. He will only mourn and regret and pretend that he hated Tommy, because it’s easier than admitting that he might have loved him.

When Techno finally succumbs to sleep, he dreams of brothers, and he dreams of death, and he dreams of a world where it isn’t his fault.

They hold a funeral. Techno wasn’t supposed to come. No one had expected him to, after all. But he watches from behind a nearby tree, and when Ranboo plants an allium on Tommy’s grave, he presses his nails into his skin so hard it bleeds.

Techno was never supposed to have a soulmate. But he did, and losing him hurt more than never having one at all.

Bruises pop up on his arms. Techno doesn’t remember getting them, but he does remember this: grief is a funny thing. He does not cry at Tommy’s funeral, but he cries when he makes peppermint tea. He does not cry when Tubbo hits him and then sobs into his chest because Tommy wasn’t supposed to die, why did you survive, we didn’t even get to see a body but he cries until he vomits when he finds the turtle helmet he spent a whole day making for Tommy after he nearly drowned. He had lied and said it was to protect the both of them; he had whispered the truth about caring in the middle of the night with only the crows to hear him.

Tommy is dead, and that is a fact, and no matter how many scars Techno gains on his body that will not change.

Techno is alive, and that will be true until it is not and Techno can finally allow himself to join Tommy in the earth, laughing as Lady Death appears to collect her payment.

Tommy is dead, and Techno is alive, and that is a fact.

Until it’s not.

Techno has never believed in reincarnation. Technoblade believes in logic and rules and things that are undoubtedly, indisputably true. Reincarnation should not belong in that category.

But there is a boy in front of him, and he has Tommy’s eyes and Techno’s scars. There is a boy in front of him, and he has Tommy’s smile, but Tommy ought to be rotting in a prison grave. There is a boy, and he looks like Tommy, and if Techno didn’t know better he might believe that a miracle has occurred.

“Techno?” The boy asks, and he sounds like Tommy too. His hair is a blinding white, the same colour as snow. Techno focuses on it. It’s the only aspect of this boy that doesn’t look like the Tommy he remembers; the boy who should be dead.

Technoblade takes a step forward, even as his hands curl into fists. He wonders if Fate is laughing at him again, taunting him with the same boy she had delivered to him only to rip him away.

“You’re—you’re not dead,” the boy whispers.

Techno tilts his head to the side. “Why would I be?”

The kid who is not Tommy, can’t be Tommy tilts his head in the same way. “I—you— I died,” he whispers, and a sickening feeling grows in Techno’s stomach. In some odd way, it feels like hope.

“Theseus,” Techno says, addressing the boy in front of him. It can’t be Tommy. It shouldn’t be Tommy. Tommy should be dead and buried and gone, and it should be Techno’s fault.

“Technoblade,” Tommy whispers, and it sounds like a plea.

It hasn’t even been a month since the funeral. Rationally, Technoblade knows that he is still grieving, and grief is a funny thing, and that Tommy shouldn’t be standing in front of him, but he is. “You’re alive,” Techno murmurs.

Tommy smiles, a little off-kilter. “Reincarnation.” He sees Technoblade’s expression and bites his lip. “Dream,” he adds on. 

Techno hums. The man always did say he was a god. “Totem,” he says in response. “Phil.”

They nod, and it’s painfully awkward, two soulmates staring at each other in wonder that the other is not dead. 

Techno takes a step forward. He is not one for physical contact or softness or anything but biting words and grudging affection, but Tommy was supposed to be dead. Techno was supposed to have doomed him to dying alone. He takes another step forward.

Tommy is shaking. Techno notices this all at once—the way his hands shiver in a fight to stay still, the way his eyes light up in fear, the way Tommy is prepared to run if he must. Technoblade knows that Tommy is expecting them to have another fight.

Instead, Techno pulls him into a hug.

Tommy struggles for a moment before relaxing completely into Techno’s arms. He goes almost boneless, and Techno tightens his grip around him. Tommy is cold against his chest, and so much smaller than him, and some vulnerable part of Techno wants to cry.

“Tubbo missed you,” Techno whispers. I missed you.

Tommy hums. “I missed him too. Missed a lot of people, actually. Being dead is pretty lonely.”

Techno laughs softly. Tommy has finally stopped shivering his arms. “Imagine being dead.”

Tommy kicks at Techno’s shins, then makes a sound of pain when he feels the kick as well. “Bastard. Not all of us are fucking stocked up on totems of undying.”

There’s a moment of quiet, where all Techno does is hold Tommy tight to his chest, like he’s afraid he will lose him again if he lets go. “I won’t let you die again,” Techno finally whispers, another half-apology. Whether his words will reveal themselves to be true is inconsequential, because he means them with every fibre of his being. He will protect Tommy until he cannot anymore.

Technoblade never dies. So far, this is a fact. But Tommy—child, soulmate, could-be-brother—does. And so, Techno holds him closer, and he prays that he will never have to let him go.

Techno was never supposed to have a soulmate. Tommy was never supposed to deserve one. But under the bright sunset, Techno is hugging Tommy so hard Tommy worries he might break, and Tommy is crying hot tears into Techno’s shoulder, and it feels like there is no one else in the world besides each other.

Maybe that’s all a soulmate is, Tommy thinks to himself, the early morning breeze drifting across his tear stained cheeks. Someone to be there when no one wants to be.

Techno hugs him harder, and Tommy squeezes so tight he can feel a ring of pain around his own ribs but he doesn’t care, because he isn’t alone.

“I don’t hate you,” Tommy whispers, and his voice cracks. “I really don’t.”

Technoblade buries his face in Tommy’s hair. “I know.”

There’s a moment's pause.

“I suppose you’re not the worst,” Techno mutters. His grip tightens around Tommy.

Tommy laughs until he cries, and then he cries even more, and Techno holds him the whole time.

For the first time, Tommy feels—not loved, not exactly—but he feels content. Like he could be loved, if he just gave it a little more time. 

Tommy hugs Techno until he can’t breathe and then hugs him some more, and for the first time since before the Pit, Tommy does not feel alone.