Chapter Text
Techno grew up confident in himself. If you know the enemy and know yourself you need not fear the results of a hundred battles, after all, so he learned himself. The Art of War was his gospel.
When there are voices in your ears that tell you that you’re right to want blood and you’re right to push people away and you’re right to focus on yourself, you stop hearing the rest, you only hear I’m right, I’m right, I’m right. And it makes you strong, but it makes you arrogant. It makes it hard to admit that you’ve failed.
Insecurity is a quick route to death, and Techno very much prefers himself alive. There’s no room for second-guessing when there’s an arrow at your neck, you have to move with belief in your own competence. But there’s no arrow now, no battles to be won. There’s just his brother, and the bloodied words that spilled from his mouth, and tore the boy to shreds.
Techno finds Tommy sitting on the prime path, small against the sky. The whispers hum. He supposes he never went to Puffy’s like Tubbo suggested, or maybe he got caught on the way.
He’s sat with his legs dangling off the wood and over the ruins of L’manburg. The stars shine bright above him, and he’s lit from behind by a street lamp. L’manburg is eerily dark and void. Tommy peers at it all distantly. Techno watches his eyes fall shut as he takes a breath.
He’s never seen the glass before, the way it stretches over the rubble as far as the eye can see, a picture frame to destruction. His stomach churns to see the pieces of the land that were. It’s poetic in a tragic sort of way, forever frozen in time. Tommy’s hands are clenched like he can’t bear the sight of it.
He keeps his steps light as he walks over.
Be kind.
Don’t push.
Push him though, that would be funny.
Do not push him.
Tommy!!
Regret has a bitter taste, doesn’t it?
This was his home once.
It could’ve been yours too.
Techno stops a few feet behind, figuring the space is maybe needed. “Tommy?” He calls hesitantly.
Tommy’s eyes snap open and he jumps to his feet, nearly stumbling back onto the glass.
“Wh-“ he sputters, and he sounds hoarse. “Techno?”
The voices cry out and Techno winces. “Hey.” He waves awkwardly.
Tommy blinks at him, twisting the bottom of his shirt in his hands. “What are you doing here?” His eyes dart to the preserved devastation and back to Techno.
You’re tied to that now.
The death of his home.
Strange to kill a place and not a person.
Second times the charm.
“I’m here to see you.”
His face screws up in confusion, nose wrinkling all familiarly (he looks somewhere between Wilbur and Phil). Techno tries to ignore the way he appears to be curling in on himself. “Why?”
“I-“ he huffs, crosses his arms, and turns away. “I don’t-look is there somewhere we can go? I’d rather not do this here.” He gestures to their surroundings.
Tommy scratches the back of his neck. “Um, sure. My house is right there.” And he takes off, Techno following carefully behind.
His little hovel looks as awful as ever, and Techno swallows down a cough as he walks inside. It’s dusty and darker than he remembers.
They sit at a little table in what he assumes is the kitchen. The ceiling hangs low and there’s a certain emptiness to it. It doesn’t feel like a home.
It never was one.
There are pictures up on the walls, of Tubbo and Wil and L’manburg. There’s one of him too, flowers braided into his hair in Pogtopia, bright colors a stark contrast to the darkness around. They’re the only things that are untouched by time like Tommy’s come through to take care of them when he’s left everything else to crumble.
“It’s a little ransacked,” Tommy says, “Sorry. People went through my stuff when I was...” he frowns and the bags under his eyes seem a tad darker. “You know.” Techno does. “Haven’t really gotten around to fixing it up yet.”
“You died-“ Tommy flinches “-and people’s first instinct was to rob you?” There’s something appalling about the idea of it. There really is nothing sacred here, though. Nothing is holy, even in death.
You’d know, Blade.
“Yeah?” Tommy blinks like it’s obvious.
“That’s-that’s...” he struggles to say what he means and finds that he can’t quite put it to words. There’s a big sort of anger, frustration at them all. It’s protective and it’s bitter and it’s hurt.
“It’s no big deal.” Tommy shrugs dismissively, and Techno thinks that’s rather sad. “I’m used to it. And anyway, you laughed when you found out I died, so maybe don’t judge too harshly.” He squirms uncomfortably at the confrontation.
And Techno wonders how the hell he knows that.
He remembers the moment the words came from Ranboo’s mouth. He looked devastated like he’d been crying for hours, and his cheeks were freshly scarred. Phil froze up beside him, rigid and stiff. Niki let out a little gasp, unsure, unsteady. Her hands shook.
It seemed impossible, to all of them, to think that the un-killable TommyInnit could’ve died. Because Tommy doesn’t die, that’s not how it’s supposed to be. He couldn’t have died the way Ranboo described because Tommy would go out in a hurricane, a forest fire, an earth-shattering act of god. It was obvious, it was a given. He’d live a hero’s life and die a hero’s death, grand and extravagant and so very deserving of Tommy.
It seemed impossible, and so it was. So Techno laughed. And so did Phil and so did Niki. And Ranboo glared, tensed up. His eyes went dark and he didn’t speak for the rest of the meeting, stormed off after without a goodbye.
Techno remembers the way his ears filled with feedback, and static overtook him. He felt like he was drowning, the voices wailed. But the Blade doesn’t make mistakes in judgment, the Blade doesn’t regret decisions he’s made or people he’s tossed aside, the Blade doesn’t mourn brothers who left him behind. Denial hit like a wave.
“I didn’t mean it.”
Tommy cocks his head to the side. “No?”
“No.” Techno doesn’t elaborate. “How did you know that, anyway?”
Tommy’s eyes go just slightly angrier, a bit more lively. “Ranboo said. He was pretty upset about it. He cares about you a lot, you know.” It’s accusatory almost. It’s scolding. “Try not to let him down. He’s been through enough as is.” The protectiveness is almost sweet.
“Did he tell you where he was?” He wants to know if Ranboo’s a leak in their secret little Syndicate’s ranks. He’s not sure what he’d do if he was.
Nothing.
You’d pretend but you’d move on.
You’d excuse.
He’s easy to forgive him because he’s passive.
Tommy’s firm.
That’s why this is so damn hard.
You’re too similar for your own goods.
“No,” he says quickly, and Techno’s suddenly aware that Tommy would lie on his friend’s behalf any day, and he’d do it well, ever-selfless. “I figured he didn’t remember. Was too busy getting him to stop crying so he wouldn’t burn himself to interrogate him. I could honestly give less of a fuck what you get up to these days.”
And that’s fine. He assures himself. It’s easier if they both move on.
No, it isn’t.
Because you’d miss him.
You do miss him.
We miss him.
“Unless you need to ask me a question.” He says, thinking of Tommy’s rushed and mumbled words in his front room.
“Yeah,” Tommy sniffs. “Unless that.”
There’s a brief and awkward silence, but the whispers fill it sufficiently enough.
Talk to him.
That’s what we came here for.
He looks nervous.
Stop making him nervous!
Stop being nervous, it’s making me nervous.
Just talk to him.
“Uh, okay,” Tommy says sheepishly before Techno can speak. “So,” he starts softly like he’s afraid of pushing too hard. “What is it you’re here for then?”
He thinks lying’s a bit out the window at the moment. “I wanted to see you.”
Tommy brightens a fraction. There’s an electricity through his eyes like lightning, he sits up straighter. “Really?”
“Yeah, kid. I’m...” he breathes, “...worried.”
There you go.
Progress.
“Why?”
“Wilbur is...” he searches for the right words.
“A dick?” Tommy suggests eloquently.
Not inaccurate though.
He’s definitely a dick.
“Well, yes. And to answer your question from earlier.” He thinks of Wilbur’s sparking words, unpredictable and charged, the way his eyes narrowed and widened at the same time, how he said Tommy’s name like it was a joke. “Yes. I think he’s gonna manipulate you again.”
Tommy sighs, rests his face in his hands. “I know.”
“And you’re still gonna work with him?”
He sinks further. “He’s my brother,” he mumbles, hopelessly. “I love him.”
“I talked to him. He talks about you like you’re clay for him to mold.”
Tommy laughs, peeks through the cracks in his fingers to meet Techno’s eyes. “I mean, I basically am.”
Techno doesn’t get it. “Why? You don’t have to stick with him. You don’t have to love him anymore.”
It’s not that easy.
It’s not that simple.
Some love is unconditional.
Tommy loves like breathing.
Tommy loves like it’s easy.
Tommy loves without self-regard.
Tommy loves like your foil.
Tommy loves loud and he loves forever.
That’s just the way it is.
“Well, love isn’t exactly something you can turn off.” He puffs. “I hate him too. It’s possible for that shit to coexist.”
Techno has nothing to say to that. He frowns. “You’re baffling.”
Tommy smiles, tiny and lopsided. “Yeah, I get that sometimes. So that’s what you're here for then? To warn me?”
He nearly sulks, seemingly disappointed and Techno has no idea what to do with that.
People want him for things.
Nothing is for nothing.
Warnings aren’t free.
There’s always a cost.
Tommy always has to pay it.
A country.
A brother.
A disc.
And you said you came here to see him.
Now he thinks you lied.
“I guess,” Techno says frustratedly, and Tommy is shifting in his seat, pulling at his sleeves and tapping on things, body rigid with anxiety. “I mean-I’m also-“ Techno tries, but the words get stuck in his throat, cut off his windpipe, leave him breathless and choking. He stares at a scratch on the table. “Never mind.”
Coward.
Don’t be weak.
Coward.
Say what you mean.
“Okay,” Tommy says softly. He doesn’t push. Techno is grateful, embarrassingly. He can win a war easy, but awkward conversation is not his forte.
“Your house is...” he attempts feebly to shift the topic, something easier maybe, something Tommy knows how to talk about. Gods know Tommy knows how to talk.
“A shithole?” Tommy finishes, eyebrows raised, and eyes squinted in that funny way his face goes when he thinks he’s saying something hilarious. Technoblade nearly winces at the harshness. “Yeah. Again, I died,” he huffs, quickly. “Not great for upkeep.”
“It’s nice,” Techno says shakily, and he’s sort of proud of the way it doesn’t sound like a total lie. It isn’t. It feels painfully Tommy, and despite himself, that’s something he can appreciate.
“It’s poggers yeah,” Tommy says in a very Tommy-like fashion. “But usually more so than this.”
“Do you sleep here?” He doesn’t know why he wants to know.
Tommy hums. “Sometimes, yeah,” his eyes go to the floor and Techno thinks about what Tubbo said about tells.
“There’s no bed,” he says, though he’s in the kitchen so he’s not fully sure. Going off the eye bags on Tommy’s face, he’d bet money that he doesn’t have one, and if he does, he certainly doesn’t sleep there.
Does he sleep?
He needs to sleep.
Sleep is good for you.
Make Tommy sleep.
But like not in a scary way.
He is traumatized enough as is.
Tommy tugs at his hair lightly. “I don’t do so well on beds,” he says uneasily. “They’re too squishy and soft. Can’t really get comfortable. I’m still a soldier, I guess, down in my bones. Never got nice beds in L’manburg. I prefer the ground, anyway. Last time I slept in a bed was probably…” he trails off and meets Techno’s eyes for a brief second. “…Your house.” He finishes quietly.
Techno doesn’t say anything to that, almost lost in memories. Tommy passed out and skinny as bones in a rickety old cot in his basement. The kid was paper thin, bloodied and bruised and clearly exhausted to the point of delirium. He’s not sure he’s ever been more afraid than the moment Tommy collapsed onto his floor, letting out a tiny mumbled “Tech?” before nearly cracking his head open on the wood as he tipped over. Techno’s heart was as frozen as the tundra as he rushed to his side, nursed him to health, formed a hasty alliance, and watched Tommy walk away from him again. He tries to remember why he’s here, after all of the shit Tommy’s put him through, after all the times he’s left. But then he thinks of the shaking nightmares he ignored, the way Tubbo still flinched when he got too close, Wilbur’s hungry eyes, and Tommy asking him for help. Of Tommy trusting him.
Nothing is black and white.
You operate in the morally gray.
Let him be gray too.
He doesn’t have to be some paragon of purity.
Even heroes tire.
He glances around the room again for a distraction, something to shove between his thoughts and his mind, stupid as that sounds. His eyes land on a photo above the counter.
“Is that you and Tubbo?” He points at it, but it’s obvious it is. The two of them are beaming, arms around each other on a field of the greenest grass Techno’s ever seen. They’re in their old L’manburg uniforms, the ones Techno only saw folded up in corners of the ravine. They look younger, fresh-faced and without scars. Tubbo’s face is clear, Tommy’s still got a band-aid on his cheek, because that’s simply how he is. (Some things even time can’t change). They look well-rested. They look happy.
Tommy follows his gaze, and his eyes go soft, his body relaxes ever so slightly. “Yeah,” he confirms. “Wilbur took it actually. It was right after the declaration.” His lips quirk. “We were riding the high of independence. It was the little bit of time before war was called. Our fleeting instance of peace I guess,” he shrugs, blinking quickly like he’s holding back tears.
“Do you miss it?” Techno wonders aloud, as Tommy stares at the photo like it can take him back in time.
“Yes,” Tommy says without hesitation.
Techno stops studying at the picture, studies at Tommy smiling at it instead. “Do you wish you could go back?”
His face bends in consideration, eyebrows pinching together. Techno thinks this maybe isn’t the first time he’s thought about this. “I dunno,” he says, unsure. “I know things were easier back then, and they’re certainly harder now. And there’s some stuff I didn’t have them that I wouldn’t trade. I love Ranboo, I love Michael, I loved Ghostbur,” he says the last part confidently, if a little sad. “But every time I close my eyes I’m back there again, you know?” He turns to Techno again, and he seems impossibly torn, smeared with familiar sorrow. “It’s like the memories are painted on the insides of my eyelids. L’manburg and its flowers. The walls, the stupid old van.” He pulls the photo off the wall carefully, brushes dust off the corner of the haphazard little frame. “Niki’s bakery, Jack’s petty squabbles, Fundy tackling Tubbo into the lake, Wilbur’s fist raised into the air, sewing the flag together, our uniforms. It was like a dream when I was living it. Now it’s always just out of reach.” He sighs. “It’s an ache that’s a part of me at this point. I miss it and I’ll always miss it.” He speaks with a solemnity usually reserved for grown adults, but Tommy’s earned it. He’s earned his growth. “I think I’d go back in a heartbeat if I could,” he admits like it’s a secret. “It’s selfish, I reckon. But I’m selfish, so it makes sense.”
Techno shakes his head. “I don’t think it’s selfish. I don’t think you’re selfish.”
He hangs the picture back on the wall with a click. “Well, that isn’t true. You said it, earlier today.”
Techno thinks back. “I didn’t.”
Tommy’s cheeks go ruddy. “Well, you didn’t have to. You meant it. I’m a parasite, a pest. All I do is fuck up.”
“I don’t think I meant any of it,” Techno confesses, an attempt to pull Tommy out.
Tommy’s eyes are shining and Techno’s heart burns.
Guilty, guilty, guilty.
Are you really here to say sorry?
Sounds like a want to me.
“Then you wouldn’t have said it.”
Techno’s shoulders fall. “That’s not how it works.”
“Yeah, it is,” he sounds angry, just at the edges, like he’s sick of this conversation. “Even if you feel bad or whatever and you’re backtracking, you still meant it, you still think it, otherwise you wouldn’t have had the words in the first place. And you’re not wrong.”
He reaches out to put a hand on Tommy’s shoulder, but he flinches away, and Techno’s hand stays frozen in the air. “I’m-it’s not your fault Tommy.” His hand falls into his lap.
Tommy rolls his eyes. “You can say it as many times as you want. I didn’t believe Tubbo and I’m not gonna believe you.”
“It’s-“ he avoids the subject, tries to pick another fight.
Hiding behind rage is still hiding.
Don’t be naive.
Don’t be a coward.
Face this.
Face him.
He gulps. “Why did you take Tubbo back?” He says suddenly, words hot on his tongue. Tommy stops.
“What?”
“I mean, even after exile,” he rants, “you scurried back to Tubbo like nothing was ever wrong.”
Tommy stares at him. “It’s not that simple.”
“Isn’t it? What did he have that-“ What did he have that I didn’t? “What did he have?”
“I dunno. He’s just Tubbo. My Tubbo.” He tugs at his bandanna, right at the spot where Tubbo’s compass used to hang. Techno wonders where it’s gone.
“He left you behind.”
That’s not fair.
He was a boy.
He was scared.
Dream is a scary man.
Is he still a man?
Tommy scoffs. “So did you! So does everyone.” He’s hurt, that much is clear. It’s raw and open and Technoblade is always unprepared for things like this. “But he came back. No one’s ever done that before!” He takes a breath. “He came back.”
You hurt him.
He left us.
You left him.
He ran.
You took his home.
Watched him hold his brother together alone without bothering to help.
Tubbo was there when you weren’t.
Better brother than you’ll ever be.
“So you pick him because what,” he spits in disbelief, “he apologized?”
Tommy crosses his arms stubbornly. “I’m actually not one to hold a grudge.”
Techno gapes at him incredulously. “You hated me for months after I killed Tubbo.”
“You never said sorry!” Tommy snaps, clearly trying to catch up with the conversation. “I don’t think you ever were sorry.”
“Well-I mean-“
Blood for the Blood God, after all.
All’s fair in war.
Sometimes sacrifices need to be made.
Blood is blood.
We wanted blood.
You lost control, but you chose too.
You chose too and you’ve never been sorry enough to say it.
“You don’t have to lie to me,” Tommy says placidly. “You said all you needed to say in the pit, remember?”
And of course, Techno remembers. He remembers Wilbur’s voice egging him on, the whispers in his ears crying blood so loud his eyes were dripping wet with tears. Tubbo was sobbing and Tommy was screaming and there was blood and fireworks and scars and Wilbur’s fucked inflection like a radio announcer, a sports commentator, calling foul on his family’s firsts. He knocked Tommy to the ground the boy didn’t bother to get up. His eyes dared Techno to swing again.
“Why’s there a need for guilt when the world lives and breathes violence?” Tommy’s face falls. “It’s all we’ve ever known. It’s all you’ve ever known too. I don’t blame you for that, even if I think you’re wrong.”
And that’s insane. Because Tommy of all people has the right to understand truly and fully the extent of his words that day. “How am I wrong?” He asks genuinely, desperately, because he wants and needs to know all the same. “How has anything that’s ever happened to you, that’s ever happened to us, ever proved me wrong? Because it looks to me like you’re down and up one life, and I’ve got a cabin full of totems of undying to keep me clinging to whatever left in me. How can you believe that I’m wrong, after everything?” He begs.
Tommy looks him over him with pity. Techno’s never gotten a look like that before. “Because violence isn’t the only universal language, Technoblade,” he says firmly. “So’s love. So’s resistance. When my home was destroyed, I still had Tubbo, through it all. When Dream had a knife to his throat, I had the entire server behind me. Under the eyes of a cruel fucking god Wilbur started a revolution, made a country that lived three times and made people happy, gave them ideas and hope,” there’s this determination set on his face that sews Techno’s tired heart back together a little. “Now I may have scars, and I may have streaks in my hair, and blood on my hands, but I’ve got my friends. I can sleep in Tubbo’s house when the nightmare keep me up. I can sit with Ranboo on the roof in silence when the words won’t come because he gets it, and I’ll joke, but I love him and it’s easy. Light can’t exist without dark, there’s a balance in there somewhere, there’s gotta be. Violence universal, sure, but it’s not alone.”
Techno’s fingers tremble. “You’re remarkable.”
Tommy laughs. “I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or not.”
“Me neither.”
It is.
It definitely is.
Oh, for sure it is.
Yes, you are.
Yes, it is.
Tommy runs a hand through his hair. “I’m not trying to convince you or anything, believe whatever the hell you want. I’m only saying what I believe, because sometimes it’s the only thing that keeps my head above the water.” He chuckles. “It’s funny to be the optimist, still. Tubbo thinks I’m psychotic.”
“Are you?” He says, Tommy’s words ringing in his ears.
“I hope not. It’s not new. Hope was my whole shtick in Pogtopia. Great deal of help it was,” he chews his lip. “But it helped me, at least.”
Techno fights the urge to flick him on the forehead for the second time that day. “That’s cheesy.”
“I know. Very uncharacteristic, right?”
Techno smirks, warm feeling swirling under his rib cage. “I’m not so sure.”
Tommy taps on the table absently. “If you can’t say sorry it’s fine. If you’re not even sorry. I won’t hold it against you. Well, maybe a little, but not really.”
He’s not one to hold a grudge.
You are.
He’s a better person, though.
He’s a good kid.
“So it comes down to that. That’s all that’s walled between us. Just some words.” It’s easy in a way that seems insurmountably difficult.
Tommy squints at him like he’s stupid. “An apology isn’t just words, Techno. It’s intent. An apology is a beginning. It’s like starting over.”
“So can we?” His heart races, his throat is tight.
“What?” Tommy says. “Start over?”
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
“Yes.”
Tommy’s gaze falls to his own tapping fingers. “I think that depends on you.”
Techno exhales roughly. “It’s not easy, you know.”
Tommy glances up at him. “Of course, I do. But aren’t you tired, Tech?” He stares. “I am.”
“I...”
Tommy’s watching at him with shiny blue eyes, duller and grayer than they were as kids, stained purple with exhaustion. But for a second, he’s looking at a little boy, the one who used to braid his hair and demand to spar with him and cling onto Wilbur’s hand like a lifeline. The boy who swung at him with trembling fists, his best friend marked one closer to death. The boy who yelled his throat bloody in the pouring down rain, as bombs hissed and blew like his brother, like his dingy little tent, like his everything. The one who mumbled Techno’s name in his sleep, bleeding and sick and so terribly cold. The one who sang babbling tunes to Wilbur’s plucky guitar. Who sat on Techno’s shoulders and swore too much for a six-year-old. Who smiled like the sun with missing front teeth. And there’s a mile between them but there doesn’t have to be anymore.
Violence isn’t the only universal language, Blade.
So is forgiveness.
“Tommy,” he says, simply and wholly. “I’m sorry.”
And the disjointed voices between his ears swell. And for once it’s not grating, it’s clear and it’s joyous and it’s singing a chorus of repentance and bliss. And Techno could cry, because for a moment, just before the explosion of rhythm, there was a brief, fleeting second of pure, uninterrupted silence, a calm he’d never felt, never thought he would. A calm he’s not so sure he deserves. Flowers bloom from the bloodied dirt in the landscape of his wretched mind.
It’s never too late, the voices chant.
Life survives when it’s nourished.
All you have to do is start.
And you have.
Grass grows greenest over graves.
Blood is an excellent fertilizer.
“I’ll forgive you,” Tommy smiles like it’s simple as that, and maybe it is. Maybe it’s always been easy, and they’ve all just been stubborn bastards.
Yeah, that sounds about right.
I’m proud of you.
And it’s the first note on a piano, the first strum of guitar, the first words on a page, a melody is coming to life, a song by their shakily joined hands.
And they’re starting anew.