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Tommy feels like he’s plummeting to his death and sits upright, sudden enough that he smacks his head on the wall behind him. It’s wood, rather than brick, but it’s still solid enough to hurt, and Tommy lets it be known with a soft hiss of pain, hand coming up to rub at the back of his head like he can massage the bump away. Belatedly, he realises he was falling asleep, and is quick to climb to his feet, as soft and silent as he is able while he goes through a half dozen familiar insults before adding in a few more that would make his brother laugh if he overheard.
Tommy throws a look over his shoulder, and is both relieved and pained to see Technoblade still lying where he left him, breathing heavy but soft enough that indicates that the pain has softened somewhat during sleep. Another glance shows him the cedar and birch bindings are still in place, one above Techno’s headboard, another above the door.
Tommy picks his way over the floorboard, decidedly not shivering in the cool night air as he moves to Techno’s side, hand automatically coming up to brush through his fringe. His skin is sweat-slick and his brow is hot to the touch. The fever hasn’t relented as Tommy hoped it would, and instead, it’s almost gotten worse.
There’s only so much he can do to throw another blanket over Techno’s hulking shape, to wipe his brow with a damp cloth, to drip water on his lips and pray that his brother drinks what meagre sips he can take where it’s been three days and Technoblade hasn’t been awake enough to sit up and take a full mouthful of soup.
Broth.
Meat-water.
Technoblade is the one that cooks. Hunts. Protects.
Tommy isn’t pathetic all by himself, but he’s always had his brother to guide him, to be the shadow that stands behind him as he draws his bow. He’s always helped Tommy flush pheasants and deer from the undergrowth, always pointed out a berry copse or fruit tree Tommy has managed to overlook where he’s been searching for other plants, or shown him which trees to climb and hunt from and where to stand downwind to allow animals to come to him.
He’s always been the one to stoke the fire and cook the meat; to cut the flesh from bone and make something tasty from the hunts they win and even the foraging that leaves them even a little sated.
Tommy’s been trying. But it’s been three days now and the most he’d been able to scrounge was a few measly rabbits that barely had enough meat on their bones with barely any greens or foraged vegetables to pad out the soup into something worthwhile.
Tommy knows he should hunt again. Maybe see if he can snatch some fish from the river or pick at the forest edges for anything he can forage.
There’s also a village, back down at the mouth of the valley. It’s a full day’s hike, but there is the promise of food in the markets and in the gardens and fields, even if Tommy doesn’t have the coin to buy it.
Techno wouldn’t like that. But if Techno doesn’t wake up soon—
Tommy puts the thought out of his mind. Forcefully.
He takes the now-warm cloth from his brother’s makeshift pillow where it’s fallen from his head and Tommy heads to the water barrel near the door to wet it and returns it to Techno’s brow.
They’ve holed themselves up in a hunting cabin on the outskirts of the village’s territory—or more accurately Technoblade had when they’d stumbled their way out of a bandit ambush with a knife in Techno’s gut and Tommy breathing heavy from maybe-bruised, maybe-broken ribs and a soreness still lingering his neck despite the meagre salves he’s mixed—determined to patch each other and themselves up before the kept on their slow lope around the kingdom.
Technoblade earns them money by selling his skills with a sword, be it to a lesser noble wanting to remind peasants he can buy their time with all the gold in his pockets, or sometimes throwing himself into a monster pit and collecting the bets and wagers made on him by the hungry crowd that find mindless violence a welcome reprieve from the mundane day-to-day.
When Tommy isn’t offering salves and medicines for fairly cheap prices, he charms young women and men alike to make their temporary inn stays cheaper, and he’s a good enough storyteller that with an enraptured audience he can usually manage to keep a steady supply of evening drinks coming, all unpaid from his own purse-pocket.
They’d done the same to the village at the mouth of the valley; more of a small town than a village really, but spread out enough and surrounded by fields and farmed lands that it didn’t feel as densely populated as the other places that Techno and Tommy have passed through this summer.
Except when they’d left after two days of work—Technoblade hired to clear out an old overrun mine of the undead that had moved in while Tommy had spun tales of dragons and goddesses for the children complete with coloured smoke clouds and handfuls of spark powder to the amusement of their parents—they’d been followed by a bunch of men. Bandits was too high a compliment to pay to them, but they used the same kind of dirty tricks by targeting Tommy and holding him at knifepoint, simply to distract Technoblade enough to get a knife in his gut. It only served to piss him off and slow him down long enough to pay special attention to the bastard that had managed to loop a garrotte around Tommy’s throat tight enough to leave black finger-like bruises over his skin.
Until three days ago, when the fever came and Technoblade hasn’t recovered consciousness since.
Technoblade sighs, soft and quiet when Tommy places the cooled cloth on his forehead. In the dim light of the moon and the singular candle lit up near the firepit on the other side of the relatively small hunting cabin, Tommy watches his eyelids flutter, and he almost hopes that Technoblade is going to wake.
He doesn’t.
It hurts just the same as it has every time Techno hasn’t woken these past few days.
Tommy eyes the birch again, bundled and tucked above the bed, kept suspended by soaked twine and a rusty nail driven into the wood. The cedar is tucked into the space above the doorframe; the sticks dried out and smoked over the small fire that is now only dying embers in the hearth. Paint ground from hypericum flowers is dried and cracked just beneath Techno’s cheek, and more stains the pallet he’s sleeping on, beneath the furs he and Tommy have carried with them.
Tommy only has one of the thin woollen blankets thrown over his shoulders to accompany him through the cold nights, but he doesn’t care about the chill. Just goes about checking the wards he’s placed on the small cabin, the bed and his brother; his hand ghosting over his brow and his neck again, not sure what he’s searching for when he knows that Techno’s fever still has a firm grip on him and is refusing to budge.
Tommy sags against the bed, knees on the cold ground, head pillowed near Techno’s hip, eyes looking at his hands that lay still and unmoving on the furs.
Technoblade is always running his hands through Tommy’s hair, even when Tommy bats him away; always calling him his Sunshine, his golden treasure; always telling him that finding Tommy is his greatest achievement, even though Technoblade has killed dragons. Plural.
And Tommy misses him. It’s stupid, because Technoblade is right in front of him, but he misses him all the same. He wants Technoblade to run his fingers through his hair, wants him to tease him, wants to tease Technoblade in return and—
Tommy presses his face into the furs, feeling his shoulders sag and his body grow heavy, but he knows that he can’t sleep. He can’t miss anything, in case Technoblade’s condition worsens, or he moves too sudden and reopens the stitching that Tommy did to keep his insides inside his body, so Tommy’s shoving himself upright again, palming at his face to wipe away the beginnings of tears. He should read his books again, even if it’s too dark to really read and he’s already reread all his medicinal notes twice over in just as many days.
He’s already given Technoblade a feverfew draught, he’s scrounged as many raspberries and marigolds that he can in the brief moments he can stand leaving his brother’s side; he’s wiped Techno’s body clean of sweat and tried his best to swap out the furs and rinse what he can in case there is sickness riddled with his sweat and yet it’s still been three days and Tommy doesn’t know what else—
A soft knock echoes off the door, sudden enough it interrupts Tommy’s growing panic.
For a moment, Tommy just freezes.
It’s the middle of the night, more night than morning, and there shouldn’t be anyone outside. Not even a hunter out in the forests or the wildlands of the upper valley.
But then, the door knocks again, and Tommy’s up off his knees in an instant. There’s no point hiding the noise, no point pretending that he and Technoblade aren’t inside because whoever is outside knows, because otherwise they wouldn’t have knocked.
Tommy is between Technoblade and the door immediately, one hand reaching for his brother’s sword even though it’s a little too heavy for him to wield it properly. He’d be better off wielding his own dagger; his spark powder in the other hand and the guise of a child that looks younger than he actually is—which Tommy at time hates—a natural defence that seems to disarm most and makes others misjudge him the rest of the time.
Tommy doesn’t know what he’s expecting when the door opens, but he still finds himself some kind of caught-off-guard when the door eases open and it’s… just a man. Not a familiar face—not one of the many bandits that Technoblade had killed when they’d followed the pair from the town—but not entirely unfamiliar all the same.
He is older than the pair; blond hair copper-rich in the dim candlelight, but straight and well maintained where it reaches his shoulders that immediately makes Tommy think of a noble. Not a lesser noble, not when his ears glitter and his hands and his clothes all glitter with gold; deep green robes hanging from his frame rich enough they sink into the deep black shadows of the night; golden thread hemming the seams and intricate patterns that almost look like feathers, or birds in flight all along his sleeves. He wears a hat, green and white striped; face hidden beneath the shadow only for the time it takes for him to step across the threshold before he’s lifting his head and the dim candlelight shows kind, not-yet-weathered features.
Tommy doesn’t trust the man for a second.
“Hello,” the man says, dipping his head, face pinched like he feels embarrassed for intruding. Tommy tightens his grip around the hilt of the silver sword and keeps his body tense, eyes snapping to the man’s hands, hips, sleeves, looking for a weapon or a disguised threat. He isn’t calmed when he finds none, only pushed more on edge as the man steps further into the room, boots clicking on the wooden floor—
“Stop,” Tommy demands, lifting the sword to place the tip of the blade between them, halting the stranger in his approach. He’s loud enough that Techno makes a small sound from the bed—breathing just a little deeper than before—but Tommy can’t tear his eyes away from the potential threat that looms from the doorway, only lending a quick touch to Techno’s hand, squeezing gently.
Technoblade protected him from the bandits. Now it’s Tommy’s turn to protect him.
The man holds up two hands in pretence of surrender. Or like he’s trying to show Tommy that he’s unarmed. That doesn’t mean he might not have ill intentions, and Tommy hardens his glare, not really caring that it the man probably can’t see it from where the shadows are deep across his face and the fire is still a low bed of embers that are only really providing lingering warmth rather than any real light. It’s something Tommy wished he’d kept on top of now, if only to give himself the ease of being able to see the danger more clearly, but he hates that he’s having to search further for firewood, that he already has to leave Technoblade long enough when he hunts or scrounges for meagre rations, and the kindling he’d dragged back yesterday was all but diminished—
“I mean you no harm,” the man says. His voice is lightened with a smile, and soft enough not to disturb Technoblade where he slumbers, unrestful. His gaze is pitying, and Tommy can’t help but sharpen his glare, teeth grit on the impulsive insults that burn his tongue; teeth slightly bared like he’s the still same feral kid Techno picked up out of the dirt after Tommy had tried to rob him.
It’s such an obvious lie. Or maybe it’s not and the man doesn’t want to hurt them, only take everything they own. Although, he’s already draped in finery, looking too much like a young noble to be bothered about a few spare gold coins in someone else’s purse-pocket. Which explained even less what he was doing out here, and why he’d knocked on the door as if this wasn’t practically in the wilderlands.
“What do you want?” Tommy growls, torn between being threatening and not wanting to wake Techno and alert him to the danger. The man regards him with a tilted head, just enough that something crawls up Tommy’s spine and whispers in his ears that something’s not right.
Even though there’s only one candle lit—a small flickering flame trying to warm the hunting cabin—the room feels darker than it should, like the stranger has brought shadows with him; the cold of night creeping into the room and not just because of the briefly open door, but instead because the man stands in their midst—
“You’ve hidden your brother well,” the man says, head straightening, shadows softening as his eyes flicker to where Technoblade is laid out on the cot. Tommy steps neatly to the side, blocking him from view as much as he is able; decidedly not flinching when the man’s eyes snap back to him.
The movement is too sharp. Too predatory. Too unnatural.
Tommy adjusts the grip on Techno’s sword as sly as he can manage, but the man isn’t even looking his way. Instead he reaches up to the door frame, gold and emerald rings glinting, robe shifting from his shoulder in an odd motion as his fingers pluck the bundle of cedar sticks from above the door frame. “Such strong desire,” he hums, running his fingers down the length of the twirled wood, pausing over the shapes Tommy had cut into them, bringing the stick close like he’d be able to see even in such dim light. “Unorthodox,” he hums, to Tommy’s continued confusion, “but far more effective than anything I’ve come across in a long while. Almost reminds me of…. Hmm. No. Can’t be.”
The man has made no active threats; has done nothing more than pluck the cedar from the door mantle—a tradition Tommy’s mother taught him while telling him stories of ghosts and goddesses and immortal men—and yet Tommy is rooted to the ground in fear.
Somehow, he knows it’s not a trick of the light or his own fear that makes the air around the man feel darker; that the glint near his feet isn’t a boot buckle or a lace-eye, but a smooth black claw; the movement of his robe not the wind or rolled shoulders but wings—
“You can’t take him,” Tommy rasps, and in a moment of desperate madness lifts his brother’s sword to command The Angel of Death.
The Angel tilts his head again. Regards the sword. Regards Tommy.
“Not many have dared threaten me,” he says, and there’s something infinitely more terrifying about how his voice doesn’t change from before. It’s still soft, gentle. Like an ocean that looks calm on the surface but is raging underneath. Like a beast stalking prey from the shadows. Like the silence before the thunder.
“I don’t need to threaten you if you simply left,” Tommy counters, throat dry, heart racing, palms sweaty. His mind is racing, searching desperate for an answer, already having a good idea that The Angel wants and needing to find something that will drive him away before he can touch Techno—
“I don’t have the power to walk away,” The Angel says, and he almost sounds… sympathetic. Tommy keeps the sword up. He doesn’t believe him.
“You’re the Angel of Death. Of course you have the power,” he says, and tries so very hard to keep the desperation out of his voice while manically trying to think of something that isn’t throwing spark powder in the man’s face and trying to stab him with his sword. The Angel being immortal is only one problem to consider.
“You can just—you can leave,” Tommy says, uncaring that he sounds like he’s begging. He’s not the first to beg with The Angel of Death and he won’t be the last. “You don’t have to take him. He’s not dead yet.”
“But he is dying,” The Angel says, and in one sweeping motion he is standing before Tommy, the sword dropped between him, a hand reaching out to lift the furs from the bed to show Technoblade, feverish and clammy; breath coming hot and hurried in a way that twists Tommy’s gut. Any plea is choked on his tongue, eyes wide as he stares at The Angel’s clawed hand; black talons deep as the void curled around the furs and so very deliberately avoiding touching Technoblade while the other still clings to the cedar.
Tommy’s mind races. Marigold. Feverfew. Lavender. Rosemary, chamomile, sage, ginger-echinacea-peppermint-rue—
“I can heal him,” Tommy says, a sob caught in his throat, words a mere whisper in the space between them. “I haven’t—I haven’t tried everything yet. There’s still more—I can—I need to—”
“Even if you’re not aware of your magic, Little One, there isn’t much more you can do. My Lady’s power is too strong. Even for you.”
Tommy shakes his head, not understanding what The Angel means by magic. If he means the cedar, the scents, the poultices and salves, that’s simply what his mother taught him when he was tall enough to haul himself up on the kitchen counter, helping to cut leaves and mash herbs and pick flowers in the overgrown garden for teas and perfumed smoke and whatever else Mother thought to create.
It’s not magic. It’s understanding that the plants have properties no one thinks twice of; the words and the carvings in the sticks is a habit and an anchor for Tommy’s prayers like he can thread them beneath the bark or whisper them beneath the smoke and they’ll hold more weight than simply begging at his brother’s bedside.
It’s not magic because Tommy is ordinary. Technoblade is the extraordinary one. He’s fought dragons, fights zombies and skeletons, dances toe-to-toe with the eldritch monsters that fall between the realms and he’s the one who taught Tommy where to strike a creeper so that it doesn’t explode. And sure, Tommy is the one who knows who to sing to the allays, how to hide himself from wardens, how to squeeze out every last drop of ingredients of potions and salves and medicines, but he’s not….
“He’s my brother,” Tommy whispers in the small space between them. He’s close enough now that he can see how dark The Angel’s eyes are; flecked with white stars like the prophesied endless End skies. “I have to protect him. He fights and I—I patch him up. I stop him from getting sick. I keep watch and keep us protected.”
The Angel tilts his head again, but this time it’s less like he is appraising Tommy, but instead sympathetic towards the way his words catch, tears not quite falling from his eyes, the way his fingers shake around the handle in his grasp.
“I do not have the power—” The Angel repeats, eyes wide and vast and Tommy almost thinks he sees a hint of purple in their depths; the sound of a woman’s voice laughing kindly; something brushing against Tommy’s cheek like a loving caress, “— but My Lady might.”