Archive of Our Own ^beta

Dear Technoblade AKA Mr. Blade AKA The Blade™️ AKA Technology Bladefin Basslet AKA Technoblade The Almightly Monsterslayer, O Hear His Name And Quake For He Is The Vessel Of The Impervious Blood God AKA Techno,

My name is Thomas Tommy Innet. I am turning 13 VERY VERY soon and I would appreesh apree apprea reeeeaaalllly like it if you came to birthday party this Saturday.

Now, I know you are a very important person. And perhaps you do not have time to fulfill my request. HOWEVER I can assure you that a man such as yourself will have a good time and that I will be very cool. I am sure you have gotten requests to attend birthday parties before. But I promise that I am better and stronger and taller than all of those other boys and that you will NOT REGRET IT!!!!

The party will be held at a pub (child friendly!!) called THE PUBE. That is unfortunately not its actual name, BUT my friend's dad owns it, and because my friend is stupid (his name is Jack!!!), we put a sign over the name that says PUBE. In the event that the sign has been taken down, the pub will be called THE BLAZEBORNE.

Sinceerly,

Tommy Innet

PS: There will be FREE FOOD!!!

It's kinda cute, Techno will admit.

The letter is all decorated and everything. It's got doodles in the corners and an About the Author section on the back, including a self portrait that Techno can only assume was drawn with a blindfold on. The envelope is scrunched up and stuck together weirdly, leading him to believe that the boy prepared it himself.

He has half the mind to throw it away, but decides to keep it on the table instead to reread while he has his dinner. Underneath the table, Steve the polar bear scoffs down any crumbs that fall onto the floor. Because he wants to keep his hostel room clean, of course. Not because Techno has somehow managed to pick up the hungriest damn creature he's ever met.

He reads over the phrase, "important person" again and nearly laughs, leaning back in his chair to spare a glance at the sack of medals and prizes he's been accumulating over the past couple of months. It's flopped carelessly onto the bed as if it were just another spare pillow that he had no real use for, with sharp edges jutting out of it. Steve matches his line of sight and lets out a low groan.

Techno sighs and pats his head. "Yeah, yeah, I know it's heavy," he says, and nearly laughs again. Any other man would kill to be carrying a sack of gold wherever he went. For Techno, it's just an inconvenience. Steve won't stop complaining about how heavy and sharp it is.

Although, he is rather important, now that he thinks about it. He's been alive longer than most civilisations, thanks to the whole god-vessel thing. He's completed more quests than he can count and slain beasts more horrifying than anyone could have ever imagined. Rivers have run red with the blood of his foes, and the sly little voice in the back of his mind won't let him forget it.

"Shut up, Blood," he mutters indistinctly

He looks down, a hand entangled in white fur. "You up for going to a little brat's birthday party?" he asks, and Steve huffs out of his nose. Techno forks over the last of his dinner and Steve gladly devours the whole thing in one bite.

He has no reason to attend, really. It wouldn't help him on any future quests, he won't make any new allies (not useful ones, anyway), and he gets next to nothing out of it.

So it's settled. He's not going. He'd much rather just stay home, relax, maybe do some reading...

...but on the other hand–

Look, okay. Techno has better things to do than to attend some brat's party. He knows he has better things to do than to attend some brat's birthday party. But, he hasn't exactly gotten too far on any of his non-quest related projects, so maybe he could use a bit of a breather to help his brain reset. And he hasn't received any prayers as of late– or, well, the deity living rent-free his mind hasn't received any prayers as of late. So he has every excuse to do whatever the hell he wants.

He weighs the options in his head.

Cons:

• would tire out carl

• would leave steve alone

• would take effort

• would require social interaction

Pros:

• would be funny

...well, the results don't get much more conclusive than that.

He nudges Steve to the side with his foot. "Steve, move, I need my cape," he says, pointing to the big red square that the bear is using for a blanket.

Steve looks up at him like a betrayed boulder of fluff. But Techno can't pay attention to that, because he needs to wash his cloak. He can't show up to a party looking unpresentable, now, can he?

Anyway, the invitation says that there's free food. And sure, Techno has a sack of gapples and enough money to buy an entire buffet for himself, his horse and his bear– but really, who would turn down the opportunity for free food?

All things considered, Tommy Innet's thirteenth birthday party is going really well.

At least, in Tommy's opinion.

And some of those 'things' include the fact that Jack got a stomach bug, and that he and Ranboo were working on a project together, so now they're both bedridden and unable to attend Tommy's party. Which, obviously, he's upset about, but he's officially a teenager now! There's no time to be sad on his birthday!

And they're almost completely unsupervised, which is the other 'thing'. Wilbur, who's currently sitting idly in another part of the pub, is about to leave them to hang out with his friends down the street; and even Jack's dad is allowing them to roam free like chickens so long as they don't drink the alcohol or break any furniture.

But Tommy's almost starting to regret his decision to be unsupervised, because Eryn brought matchsticks to light the candles on the cake, and is now currently chasing Freddie around the room with a tiny flame.

"Seriously, fuck off!" Freddie says for the millionth time, half laughing, half horrified.

"Throw it!" Purpled shouts as Eryn stumbles over a chair, giving Freddie time to scurry away. Tubbo cheers alongside him.

Tommy cackles. "Eryn, we're surrounded by alcohol!" he points out rather obviously. "If you set something on fire and I die on my birthday, I swear to fucking Prime and back–"

"It'll be fiiiine," Eryn drawls, just as the match goes out. They toss it into the nearest bin and light another match to continue the chase.

Tubbo seems eager to join in now, and leaps off his chair, abandoning his plate of cake. He goes to tackle Freddie and promptly faceplants the ground when the much taller boy simply steps to the side and keeps running.

"I'm taking your cake!" Purpled says, and Tubbo yells, "Fuck you!" in response as he hops to his feet and jogs after Freddie.

Purpled rolls his eyes, then turns to Tommy.

"So, birthday boy," he says, dragging Tubbo's plate towards him. "What's this dare that I keep hearing about?"

Tommy perks up and grins, open-mouthed. "Oh! So, basically, Eryn dared me to invite Technoblade to my party, since he'll be in town for the week," he says casually.

Purpled blinks. "Hefnobla'e?" he repeats through a mouthful of dessert. He quickly swallows and repeats, "Technoblade? Like, The Technoblade? Almighty Monsterslayer, O Hear His Name and Quake– that Technoblade?"

"Yeah!" he nods. "Isn't that cool?"

"Delusional," Purp corrects. "But I appreciate the optimism."

Tommy opens his mouth to respond, but stops himself when Freddie leaps over the bar and hides behind it, effectively knocking Tommy's plate of cake onto the floor.

He gasps. "Oh, you rat fucking bastard!" he says, and lunges for him.

So yeah, all things considered, the party is going well. And they've only broke one chair!

All that's left to do now is to tucker themselves out. Which won't be a problem, because they are children, and therefore their only source of energy is sugar, which is a very prevalent ingredient in birthday cakes.

But they're also in a pub, so not long after keepaway and charades and shadow puppets, they've moved onto alcohol. Not drinking it, mind you– they're troublemakers but not idiots. Purpled and Tubbo are behind the bar, twirling around various bottles and pretending to mix up overly-complicated cocktails for their customers.

Tubbo seems particularly confident, spinning a bottle around his hand like it's a baton. "Relax, I've seen Mr. Jack's Dad do it, like, a million times," he assures them, though none of them are assured.

Eryn pats their cup on the counter. "One shot of vodka, please!" they say, and Tubbo throws his bottle up in the air, before (to everyone's relief) catching it and pretending to pour them a drink.

"Prime, be careful," Freddie reprimands.

Purpled flinches as Tubbo throws his bottle again, then snatches it milliseconds before it hits the countertop. "Yeah, dude, seriously."

"I got this, I got this," he says whilst tossing it between his hands.

And in the next second, it's on the floor, smashed into bits and with liquid in a puddle across the floorboards.

Tubbo blanches. "Oh."

At the sound of glass smashing, Wilbur finally decides to show face and pokes his head through the doorframe, from where the pub is split in half. "What the fuck happened?" he demands. "Why did I hear glass?"

"Ah," Tommy says nervously. "Well, you see–"

And then there's a knock at the door.

Which is weird as fuck, because it's a pub, and nobody in their right minds knocks on the door of a pub.

"You get it," Tommy says out of instinct, instead of dwelling on why anyone would be knocking in the first place, and slowly sinks behind the counter to help Tubbo clear up his mess.

Wilbur sighs, and scurries off to answer the door while the kids search for tissues.

And just as quickly as he goes, Wilbur rushes back, bright red and frazzled.

Before anyone can even speak up to ask what the hell just happened, he holds up both of his hands, silencing them all. He takes in a deep breath, closes his eyes, then opens them again to say, "Technoblade is outside the door, asking for Tommy."

Immediately Tommy lights up, as if his face were a sun after a cloudy day. "Oh, that's great, holy shit!" he says cheerily, heedless of Eryn's slack jaw, or Tubbo's rounded eyes. "He saw my letter!"

"Your letter?" Wilbur repeats, incredulous. Tommy is about to go answer the door, but Wilbur puts a hand on his chest. "Oi, stay still, mister. Tell me about this letter."

He points back to his friends. "So, me, Freddie and Eryn were talking about how Technoblade killed a giant scorpion recently," he says, and Eryn's eyebrows raise, like they know how the story's about to end. "And then Freddie was like, 'Hey, won't Technoblade be travelling nearby while he's on his quest to restore the ancient scrolls of The Inbetween?', so Eryn was like, 'Hey, Tom, I dare you to send Technoblade a really stupid letter signed with your full name', so I was like, 'Okay, bring it on, bitch!'. So then I was like, 'What should the letter be about?' and Eryn said, 'Invite him to your birthday party', so I did it, and now he's here!"

Wilbur blinks.

"What are you staring at?" Tommy says, oblivious.

Before he can even sigh, there's another knock. Instinctively, Wilbur shouts, "Come in!" before paling and realising who he's just invited inside.

For a moment the door doesn't open, and Tommy's heart seizes–

But then in walks Technoblade the Almightly Monsterslayer, O Hear His Name and Quake For He is the Vessel of the Impervious Blood God, snorting like a bull and stomping like a titan. He closes the door behind him, cringing when it slams shut, and then. Just stands there.

It's like he's brought a vaccum in with him. Nobody moves, nobody makes a sound. Tommy itches, Technoblade's expression is unreadable, and Wilbur is barely taking his eyes off him.

Until Eryn blurts, "Is it true you're trying to restore the ancient scrolls of The Inbetween?"

Purpled fights a grin, and Tubbo audibly snorts.

Technoblade, the man, the myth, the legend, and apparently really socially awkward, blanks. Then he responds, "Uh, no, no it's not. Don't know who started that rumour, heh. I don't even know what The Inbetween is."

Wilbur nods slowly, pretending that he understands what's going on. "Well, hello Mr. Blade," he says, and doesn't correct himself when Technoblade physically cringes at the title. "My name's Wilbur, those are Tubbo, Eryn, Freddie, Purpled," then he points to his brother, "and that's Tommy, the birthday boy."

Techno looks him up and down, expression still not changing. "Happy birthday," he says gruffly.

Tommy smiles up at him as if he were just another one of his unofficial uncles. "Thanks!"

Wilbur presses his lips to a thin smile. "Well, help yourself to food, I guess." He drops his voice at the last sentence, apparently not so thrilled with the sudden guest. Technoblade nods thankfully and makes a beeline for the snack trays. "I'll just be in the corner."

"I– pardon?" Tommy looks up, horror etched onto his face. "You what?"

"I'll be in the corner," he repeats, a little more firmly.

"You're staying?" his brother says, betrayed. He doesn't hate Wilbur, not one bit, but he was really banking on him not being there so he and his friends could hang out without the looming threat of adult supervision. (Not that he considers Wilbur to be an adult, he's still eighteen for crying out loud, but he's way older than Tommy and his friends and that's what counts.)

Wilbur eyes Techno. "I mean, I was just gonna hang outside until you were ready to go home," he says warily, "but I don't know if I'm comfortable leaving you alone anymore."

"It's fine!" Tommy assures him. "Technoblade's here, and he once killed a sea lion!"

"For clarification, that's a giant lion made out of ocean water," Technoblade says quietly. "It was drowning a bunch of sailors and then stealing from their ships. I, uh, I didn't just kill innocent marine wildlife."

Tommy grins and does his best puppy eyes. "Please?"

It takes a lot more begging and a lot more of Tommy's signature charm (also known as annoying Wilbur into getting what he wants), but finally, he relents. Shoulders sagging, eyebrows furrowed, nose wrinkled, he agrees to leave.

"If you get upset," he says, barely above a breath, taking Tommy's shoulders, "or scared, or lonely, or whatever, shout for me. Alright? I'll just be down the street. I promise I'll hear you."

Tommy nods and salutes. "Yes sir!"

Wilbur nods back. Then, with one last look to Technoblade (who's already finished the rest of the roast pork, Prime almighty), he steps out the door.

And as soon as the door clicks behind him, the boys decide to fill in the silence by bombarding the aged hero with questions.

"So is it true that you once got swallowed by a hydra?" Eryn asks first, blunt as ever. Freddie looks like he wants to reprimand them, but holds his tongue when he accidentally makes eye contact with Technoblade.

The man himself shakes his head. "Heh, uh, no. A hydra's breath alone can kill you, so if I were swallowed by it, I would be dead right now."

"How old are you?" Tubbo says next.

"Many decades older than you will believe me," he answers ominously.

Tubbo nods. "So like, sixty."

"Are you actually half Piglin?" Freddie pipes up, and Eryn, half demon, narrows their eyes a little.

"Uh, there's some Piglin blood in my ancestry," he says slowly. As he speaks, he reveals a small pair of tusks settled into his lower jaw. "But neither of my parents were full Piglin."

"Were you actually there in the L'Manberg war?" Purpled queries.

Techno pretends to shudder, and the boys giggle quietly. "Prime, ugh, yes."

"What was so bad about it?" Freddie says.

"Many, many things."

Turns out, they all have a lot of questions, and the next minute or so goes as such–

Eryn: "Who actually is the Blood God?"

Techno: "Not something I should be telling a thirteen year old."

Purpled: "He's twelve, actually."

Eryn: "Oi!"

Tubbo: "How did you get your name?"

Techno: "Uh, my parents, I guess? It's not exactly a cool story."

Tubbo: "Dang, I'd give anything to have a cool name like Technoblade."

Freddie: "Why do you dress like a king?"

Techno: "It looks cool."

Purpled: "What actually happened in the Great Potato War?"

Techno: "Read a book, kid."

Tubbo: "How many books do you think there are of yourself?"

Techno: "Too many."

Eryn: "What do you think was your coolest quest?"

Techno: "When I saved Old Lady Gwyneth's cat from a tree."

Freddie: "Really?"

Techno: "No!"

Tubbo: "What's your favourite weapon?"

Techno: "The Axe of Peace."

Eryn: "Peace?"

Techno: "It's called 'irony'."

Tubbo: "Are you actually friends with the King of the Antarctic Empire?"

Techno: "Yep, he sends me mail."

Tubbo: "Really?"

Techno: "Yeah."

"And do you like karaoke?" Tommy interrupts their interview.

Technoblade blinks slowly. "What."

"Do," he says again, slower, "you like, kar-a-o-ke?"

The man goes silent, giving Tommy an opportunity to observe and enjoy his friends' bewildered faces. Technoblade answers after a while, "Uh, I guess."

He smiles innocently. "Great."

Techno shouldn't be here.

This is a thought that crosses his mind quite frequently– usually in the midst of eerie silences, or laced in the steady drip drip drip of blood, or echoing in the click of his footsteps as he travels down the pews of an abandoned church, or taunting him as he struggles out the grip of a ferocious kraken. Most of his weekends tend to be spent with him in mortal peril as he stares death in its eyes and watches it flinch.

He most certainly should not be spending his time at a child's birthday party.

It's all far too out-of-place for him. He hasn't had a casual in-person conversation with anyone other than Steve and Carl for the past half a decade, and quite frankly, he has no idea how to start on socialising. What are kids into these days? Do they still pretend to be soldiers at war, like he did when he was young? Do they read books? Have they read books about him? Is Technoblade the Almighty Monsterslayer even still relevant?

Somewhere, Prime Herself is receiving a million prayers for Techno not to screw up and kill one of the kids out of sheer awkwardness. That would really dampen the mood of a thirteen year old's birthday party.

The boy himself is so young it's laughable. He bark-laughs at everything as if it's the funniest thing he's heard in millennia, even though he's walked the planet for thirteen years (twelve years, babies can't walk, remember). He walks with the sort of unearned confidence that can only be found in a mortal and he grins with his entire body somehow, bouncing on his toes, flexing his fingers, raising his shoulders.

And his body, by the way, looks like a damn twig. Techno has held swords with thicker handles than him. His spine has all the stability of a leaf's stem. It reminds him of how he defeated a giant siren-spider by snapping all its limbs individually and then finishing it off with a javelin to the eye and an axe to the neck.

(He tells Tommy as such, and pays no mind to how Freddie looks like he's about to throw up behind the bar.)

They're playing darts. Of course, a fairly normal kids' game, and a lot more chill than the games Techno had watched them play earlier. Only, it's actually beginning to cause him physical pain at how bad they are at it.

"Miss!" Eryn says happily as Tommy misses his tenth shot on a row.

The boy scowls. "Bloody bastard," he says, and aims another dart. His feet are a metre apart and he's sticking out his left arm, as if that will help him aim any better towards a target that's six feet away.

"Fix your stance," Techno mutters, idly chewing on a barbecue stick.

Tommy stops what he's doing and looks up– shit, he actually heard you, abort, abort–! 

"What?"

"Pardon," Techno corrects, and Tommy rolls his eyes. Which, in a world where people have quite literally bowed at Techno's feet and begged for forgiveness when they accidentally got too comfortable and nicknamed him 'Tech', is not something he expects.

The brat has a rebellious streak, he thinks, almost nodding. That will get him killed one day.

Behind him, Tubbo stifles a gasp at the blatant show of disrespect. Freddie looks curious and a little confused, and Purpled and Eryn's eyes glitter like cats, ready to watch Tommy be ripped apart like an innocent little mouse.

Techno decides to humour them.

"Don't roll your eyes, they'll get stuck," he says, like a strict father reprimanding his little scamp of a son.

Tommy sticks out his tongue. "I do what I want, bitch!"

Tubbo's eyebrows shoot up past his fringe. Freddie recoils a little. Purpled cracks a grin. Eryn cackles silently to themself.

At Techno's amused silence, Tommy bark-laughs again. "You're stunned into silence." When he gets no reply, he continues, "Yeah, that's what I thought, dickhead. You think just 'cos you killed a couple hundred million monsters that you can tell me what to do? Well, I'm the birthday boy! I don't do shit that I don't want to!"

Eryn is biting into their hoodie now. Tubbo looks like he's ready to run– either to Tommy's defense or out the pub, Techno can't really tell. He hopes it's the latter. That would be funny.

Slowly, he rises to his feet. The chair shrieks underneath him. He stares Tommy down unflinchingly, looking at him through his nose and disheveled strands of scarlet hair, and the boy stares back as though he is laughing in the very face of turmoil and entropy itself. Techno flexes his hands, the hands that have killed so many and will not hesitate to kill more, and still, Tommy looks at him, jaw set, unrelenting.

He kicks Tommy's ankles so they're only a foot apart.

"Fix your stance," he says, and sits back down.

The others quiety giggle into their sleeves, as Tommy huffs and tosses his dart. It finds its mark an inch away from the bullseye.

They play hide-and-seek after they finish darts. In Techno's humble opinion, these kids are much too old for hide-and-seek (Purpled, Tubbo and Freddie are all thirteen, who even still plays games at that age?), but he can't intrude on them having fun. Mostly because he tried to reason with them that most young teens from his boyhood village were learning to fight and living in perpetual fear of incoming war, but Tommy just turned to the nearest corner and started counting down.

Well, Techno's not really complaining, not anymore. A game based on staying quiet and not moving makes for a solid fifteen minutes of peace and quiet, where Techno snacks on the free food and flips through the latest rendition of The Great Potato War: A TRUE STORY. Since, apparently, this pub also has a bookshelf. It's inaccurate and the metaphors are pretentious and everyone is completely out of character– and Techno should know, because funnily enough, he's the protagonist.

Some ten minutes later, it turns out the boys are done with hide-and-seek, because now they're running around with all the energy of hyperactive puppies. And apparently somebody found a spray bottle, probably for cleaning the bar, because Techno can hear the chh! chh! all the way from the other side of the pub and the squealing that follows.

Pretty quickly afterwards, Tommy sprints into the room, red-faced and working up a sheen of sweat. "Hide me!" he giggles, and lunges forward for Techno's cape. Before he can even protest, Tommy covers himself in velvet. The velvet that was hand-stitched by an ancient king's servants as thanks for toppling the enemy empire and returning prosperity to their lands.

"It will bring you great strength, young hero," the old king had rasped out as the cape was placed upon his shoulders. And how Techno's heart had swelled! He's gained many a scar from his conquest and nearly died multiple times, but in the end, he'd emerged victorious, and humoured enough to tell the treacherous tale of grave danger and perilous risks many times in the future.

Now it's just a little boy's blanket.

He's almost entertained, when Purpled rushes into the room, spray bottle in hand. "TOMMY!" he shouts. "Where the fuck–"

He stops himself when he lays eyes on Techno. He's not scared, it seems, or at the very least he does a very good job of hiding it. But he lowers his hand a little, and he stands still, and he begins brushing idly at his hair.

Techno snorts and diverts his attention back to his book. "Calm down, I'm not Prime Herself," he says, and Purpled's mouth twitches.

"Have you seen Tommy?" he asks. He swirls around the spray bottle, brandishing his weapon.

Wordlessly, and without looking up from his book, Techno reaches out and flourishes his cape, revealing the crouching child underneath.

Tommy looks up at him, mouth agape. "Traitor!" he shouts, and boy has Techno heard that word before.

Before he can dwell on it, Purpled's grin returns, and he leaps forward and grabs his friend in a headlock. Tommy pretends to choke, flailing his arms around uselessly as if it will help.

"Technoblade!" he coughs, blue eyes wide and pleading. "Defender of men! Help me!"

Techno stares, gaze neutral.

Eventually Purpled manages to manipulate him to the floor, and he sprays his bottle directly in Tommy's face. Tommy gasps in mock pain, then drops, limp with his eyes rolled back.

Techno chews absently on a carrot.

So the rest of the party goes without a hitch. Techno clears the snack plates (a part of him thinks it's rude, but it's not like the children were going to eat celery and pepper sticks anyway), and the boys gradually tire themselves out enough to sit and wait for their parents to bring them home.

"Thanks for the party, Tom," Eryn says, waving goodbye.

"Bye!" Freddie adds.

"Have fun being old," Tubbo says as he hops away.

Tommy gapes at him. "You're older than me!"

"Bye, Tommy. Bye, Mr. Blade," Purpled says.

"Bye," Techno murmurs.

The door shuts behind them. The floor boards squeal as Techno gets up on his feet and looks down to Tommy.

"Is your brother gonna pick you up?" he asks. Not that it's any of his concern.

Tommy nods. "Yeah yeah, I'll just go and tell him."

Techno expects him to leave the pub and go search for his brother, but instead, he clenches his fists, takes a deep breath, sticks out his chin, and screams, "WIIILLLBUUUUURRR–!"

It takes all of Techno's willpower not to flinch. Sure, the boy himself isn't at all scary, but his lung capacity sure is.

Within a minute, the entrance goes flying open, and four people stand in the doorway, panting.

"What's wrong?" one says airily, grabbing onto the door handle. "What happened? Is something on fire?"

Tommy shakes his head, unfazed by his brother's panic. "No, I just want to go home now."

Wilbur freezes, eyes wide. His strangling grip on the handle loosens a little and he hangs his head in exasperation. "Oh, my fucking Prime," he whispers, before straightening up. His three friends follow suit. "Yep, yep, alright. Alright. Let's go home, then."

The kid turns and waves to Techno. "Bye, Technoblade," he says happily, then hops out of his seat and joins Wilbur's friends. "Hi Niki, Eret, Fundy."

They greet him back with varying levels of enthusiasm. Techno, noticing the way they're all looking at him, takes it as his cue to leave.

He squeezes past them and makes his way to Carl, his thoroughbred, tied up at the front. "Oh, matching hair, heh," he tries to joke to one of the friends, a girl with pink hair. She doesn't respond. Silenced, he hops onto the saddle and flicks his horse's reins, excited to never do this ever again.

Dear Technoblade,

HELLO!! It is me, Tommy Innet, again. I am writing this letter for the purpose of asking you to come to my school. I keep telling everyone that you came to my birthday party and they DO NOT BELIEVE ME!!! Not even Jack and Ranboo now that they are back in school!! Freddie and Eryn go to a different school, Tubbo has caught the stomach bug from Ranboo??, AND Purpled is a horrible horrible person who won't back me up when I tell everyone about my party!!! (On the back of this letter you will find a picture of me stabbing him.)

Please come to my school.

Sinceerly,

TOMMY INNET

...yeah, no, Techno would just rather stay home.

Innet is a fun kid, Techno has no shame in saying that. He's loud and abrasive and stubborn to a fault but he's also so painfully normal that it's... well, it's interesting, to say the least. It reminds him of life before the monster slaying.

But he's had enough social interaction for now, so he stays home. For days, even. The letter remains open on his desk, untouched aside from when he sweeps it away to observe maps and scrolls. He's perfectly happy living in ignorant bliss of Tommy's day-to-day life, maybe being teased by his friends for lying about his so-called birthday guest, probably thinking about acne and homework and girls and whatnot. He'll go to school, tell his friends about The Blade and his party, likely get laughed at, and go home. Techno has nothing to do with it.

...although it does beg the question, how does Tommy get home every day?

He has at least a million uncles– that at least he knows, what with Tommy's ramblings about them: Dan and Jimmy and Mumbo and Grian and about ten others. But Techno can't be sure that they could take him home, let alone if they're even in the country. Then there's his brother, Wilbur, but he looks no older than eighteen, meaning he's still in school and there's a chance he might still be in class by the time Tommy arrives home.

But it's none of his concern. Really, it's not. The kid's thirteen, he's not pathetic enough to immediately be mugged as soon as he steps off school grounds, even if Techno is still under the impression that his attitude will get him killed one day. Maybe he was bleeding out onto concrete right now with nobody to notice his absence. 

He shakes his head. No, no, that's stupid. The little brat isn't so little, even if his build looks like a cobweb string and his arms look like two gangly noodles. He shouldn't even be considering this! Innet is a teenager.

Innet is a teenager.

Techno groans and throws his head back. This stupid question, how does Tommy get home every day? won't stop bothering him, and it's awfully inconvenient. It shouldn't matter to him. Really, it shouldn't. He shouldn't be dwelling on this for so long. He shouldn't. He has more important things to think about. He does. He swears.

Besides, he's already been ignoring the letter for a few days. Wouldn't it be awkward to show up after so long? His classmates have probably already forgotten about the whole debacle. Yeah. Probably. Maybe.

Maybe not.

And before he even realises what he's doing, he's mounted Carl and is heading back to town.

There's already a plethora of parents waiting for their kids outside the school gates, but unfortunately, none of them have tusks or pink hair, so he's still the odd one out.

He seems to catch their attention. A man well nearly seven feet tall atop a perfect thoroughbred; he can see why they seem so enraptured. Plus, not to brag or anything, but he is sort of a living legend.

He hops off the saddle and leans on a nearby wall, next to a middle-aged man who's been staring at him since he could first see him in the distance. And Techno can understand why, since the abundance of swords and potions at Carl's saddle that he forgot to remove most definitely make it seem like he's about to kill someone. When the man looks strangely at him, he just diverts his gaze and says, "Waitin' for a kid."

The man narrows his eyes, and backs away.

Suddenly the doors to the school swing open, and children flood into the playground, jostling and screaming and chattering and giggling and all the sounds make Techno want to lie down and curl inside his cloak for a bit. But no, he has a kid to wait for.

A teacher follows them outside, ringing a bell. She stands at the doorway and keeps swinging it in her hand as more people scamper out. Namely, Innet.

Three of his friends– he's assuming Jack and Ranboo, and he can distantly make out Purpled's face– wave him goodbye and run off in another direction. Tommy starts heading his way towards the front gate, apparently not seeing Technoblade waiting for him, unlike a couple of other kids who've gone past him on their ways home, with his gaze on the ground like he's trying hard to shrink down. Techno can't imagine why, until another boy comes at him from behind and barges him to the ground.

He lands painfully onto concrete and cries out, but his voice is drowned out by the cacophony of everybody else, and the teacher at the doorway is busy reprimanding a young girl. The other boy keels forward and laughs so loudly that he sounds like he's shouting.

Tommy jumps to his feet and shoves the boy back– good lad, let him know you're not a coward– and snaps something in response.

Behind the antagoniser, a group has formed, presumably his friends. They coo at whatever Tommy said, then one of them elbows the boy, and Techno can faintly hear, "Wouldn't be taking that, mate!"

He scowls, puffs out his chest like an angry goose, and kicks Tommy hard in the leg.

He falls again, screaming an imaginative string of curses when he hits the ground, and the boys recoil, laughing and flinching all the same. Cheering, they watch as Tommy tries to kick the angry goose away but gets his trouser leg grabbed and pinned to the ground. Goose grabs a fistful of his shirt and pulls back his fist.

Tommy stretches back, palms scraping against stone as he tries to squirm away. "No, no, stop! Stop– FUCK OFF!"

"Get Technoblade to save you!" he jeers.

Techno recoils. Oh nonono, this CANNOT be about him. Sure, he gets into conflict, but he'd rather not have two infants fighting over something as menial as himself.

He sighs, prays to his future self for forgiveness in case things go awry, and walks through the playground.

The noise settles, like his very presence is a silencing blanket over everybody. Eyes fix on him from every direction and a poisonous unease swirls in his gut. None of the boys fighting have seemed to notice him yet, but half of the playground has, and they don't even have the gall to whisper to each other while he walks past. The crowd almost seems to part, producing a streamline path towards the scrap.

Eventually, Tommy and Goose are only about a metre away, and he coughs to get their attention.

He better not regret this.

He steps forward and immediately the boys stop to stare up at him. Tommy's eyes are wide and his mouth goes a little slack but nothing in the universe could diaguise his elation, as a grin slowly starts to form.

Goose's grip loosens, if only a little. It gives Tommy enough room to wriggle away and sit up.

Techno looks the bully dead in the eyes, trying his best to not make any sort of expression. If he smiles, he'll look like he's ready to kill the kid. If he frowns, he'll look like he's ready to kill the kid. Oh Prime, Techno might just have a terrifying face.

He eyes the boy's friends, and they all go pale and their shoulders go stiff. Then he turns back to Goose, who looks like he's about ready to throw up from fear.

He narrows his eyes by a fraction of a millimetre, and Goose gulps heavily.

"Is there a problem?" Techno finally speaks up, breaking the silence. Tommy doesn't respond, too busy grinning with all his teeth like he just won the lottery, but his attacker quickly stands up straight and shakes his head.

"No, no problem here," he says, smiling. He looks like he's being held hostage.

Techno doesn't dwell on it and instead turns to Tommy. "Come on, kid," he says, beckoning him to stand up, which he gladly does so. Tommy steps forward with his hands held out, aiming for his arm, but then seems to think better of it, and instead grabs hold onto his cape. When Techno doesn't protest and starts walking back through the sea of bug-eyed students, Tommy drapes the cloak over his own head and walks behind him, hidden underneath the velvet folds and white fur lining. He laughs softly to himself, then trails along blindly, like a piglet would its mother.

Ew, don't make that comparison, Techno tuts to himself.

The silence hasn't lifted even by the time Techno makes it to the school gate, save for Tommy's muffled giggles behind him. It's beginning to make him uncomfortable, and he's been through a lot of uncomfortable silences.

He nods politely to the man that spoke to him earlier, and then looks around.

"Which way is your house?" he asks, observing the different cobble roads and all their branches.

Tommy sticks a hand out of the cape and points. "That way."

He nods, and marches onward on foot; because frankly, Carl isn't going to allow two passengers on his back, and the idea of Techno riding the horse while Tommy stumbles along beside him is just plain cruel.

"Can I have a go on the horse?" Tommy asks, with all the innocence and excitement of the infant that he is, blind to the world's monsters. He points towards Carl and Techno can imagine him grinning cheekily like to a toddler nagging to go on a ride at a funfair. "I've never ridden a horse before."

Techno doesn't want to prolong this conversation any longer than it has to be, what with the deafening muteness of the playground encircling them like miasma, but he leans in awkwardly, anyway, to speak. "Carl doesn't usually like people."

"He likes you!" Tommy points out, and Carl snorts.

Techno sighs at his own horse's mutiny. "I'm not really a person."

Tommy urges him on, "Come one, it'll make everyone else jealous!" he whisper-shouts.

Techno drops his voice to a hushed tone, and leans back a little. "Jealous?" he repeats with a sly grin.

His cape bounces a little, and Techno assumes that the boy is nodding.

"Wow!" he continues. "Do I look like a care?"

A head of blonde fluff pokes out of his cloak, with round blue eyes and an immature pout. "Please?" he says, and from what he can tell, he seems to have his hands clasped together beneath the cape, as if he were praying for something.

The very notion makes Techno crack a smile. When people pray to him, it's usually for strength or for the spilling of blood, or even to ask him to kill some bane. It's not usually for the sake of asking to ride his horse as if he were a donkey at a beach.

Humour him, a voice says. Techno rolls his eyes.

"Get out of my cape," he says sternly, and the boy scurries out into the open, only to be grabbed by the waist and plopped unceremoniously onto Carl's saddle. Tommy yelps a little, but grabs onto a tuft of mane and quickly swings his leg over the side so he's sitting properly.

Carl shimmies and shoots Techno what he assumes to be a deadly scowl. Fortunately, however, Carl is a horse, and therefore this has no impact on him.

"Come along," he says, giving Carl's reins a tug, and they set off.

Cobblestone streets wind this way and that. Stone leads into brick, roads become bridges, and idle small talk becomes awkward silence. And after only a few minutes, Tommy decides he's had enough of silence.

"That was badass, what you did back there," he remarks. Carl sweeps his tail.

Techno doesn't turn, but his eyebrows raise a little. "Yeah?"

"Yeah!" he says. "You and your deep fuckin' voice, mate, you were terrifying."

"I'm not that scary."

"Bollocks. Did you see Oliver? He was about to piss himself!"

So Oliver's his name, huh.

"You should have seen him up close," the boy continues, snickering. "Aw, dude, he thought he was about to die, seriously. I was on the fucking floor and I was less scared!"

"Do those boys bother you often?" Techno asks. Seems a good a time as any to bring it up.

He shrugs nonchalantly. "A little. Like, they try to fight me at least once a week. I punched Bryson once, though!"

A surge of pride glows in Techno's chest.

"Yeah, he scratched my face for that. Hurt like a bitch. Anyway, yeah, they started going after me more once I told them about my party. Tryna go on and batter me after school, y'know? Puffin' up their chests, thinking they're hard."

...interesting.

Tommy doesn't stop talking for the entirety of their trip home, which is both endearing and the most painful things Technoblade has been through. And he was once turned inside-out by a giant snake with ice breath.

Upon telling Tommy this fact, the boy's eyes go wide and shiny. "Woah!" he gasps out, which is– well, it's not usually the reaction he gets whenever he tells it. "That's fucking disgusting!" he continues, which is a more conventional response, but it's offset by the delighted grin on his face. "Did you die? Did you see all your organs? Ough, that sounds fuckin' awful! I'd shit myself if I saw that! Prime, were there people watching? Did they all shit themselves? Wait, did you kill the snake in the end? I've never heard this story!"

"You talk too much," he responds, smiling.

Humour glints in Tommy's eyes, but he fakes a gasp of offence. "Dickhead!" he squawks. "But did you die? And, more importantly, did you kill it?"

"I did die," he answers honestly, "and I injured it enough for it to slither back to its giant glacier cave. That was its hideout," he says, revelling in Tommy's half-excited half-mortified expression. "I don't know, nor do I care if it's still alive. Not exactly eager to ever see it again."

"Oh shit– you died? Prime, I was just kidding," Tommy says, aghast. "But, you're still here."

"An ancient deity named Foolish was there. He's basically a walking totem of undying, and back then, that meant he could revive anyone who'd died within the last seven days. Have no idea what he's getting up to these days."

"Woah," he says again. "That's cool as shit."

The boy curses far too much for his age. He's thirteen, he should basically be just learning what swear words even are.

He says as much, "You kiss your mother with that mouth?"

"My parents are both dead," he says mildly.

Carl whinnies.

"Wow," Techno says. "Same."

Tommy lights up. "Fuck yeah! Dead parents gang!" he cheers, holding out his fist for a bump.

Techno chuckles and shakes his head. "Kid, I'm not fistbumping you on the grounds of both our parents being dead."

The kid shrugs, and bunches up Carl's mane in his hands again.

The walk to Tommy's house, as it turns out, is a whole half an hour. Which isn't a lot of effort for Techno, and even less so for Carl, but he can only imagine how torturous it is for Tommy, hauling himself in raggedy footwear for long enough to see the sun disappear behind clouds, five days a week. His body must hate him. Not to mention, he might not even have company when he arrives so home, so the poor sod just has to sit there in silence and wait for his brother to arrive.

And to make matters worse, it's apparently not any better on Fridays.

"Yeah, so the shop down the road of Eryn and Freddie's school, they do fish and chips on Fridays," he explained as they passed through another street of shops. "So I go and visit them every Friday and we get some food and hang out a bit. The walk home is a bit shit, though. A whole fucking hour. Can you believe?"

It's pitiful, really.

...well, not his problem anymore.

"This is my stop!" Tommy announces, pulling on Carl's mane. And while Techno would have probably gotten his hand bitten off if he tried a stunt like that, Carl just stops obediently and waits for Tommy to step off. Stupid horse.

Techno decides to amuse himself with Tommy's struggle to get both his legs on the same side of the saddle, and then step onto the stirrup, so he can hop off. His shoes get stuck in the metal and he spends the next few seconds struggling to get at least one of them free. Carl idly flicks his tail, but the movement startles him, and soon enough he's wobbling dangerously in place and on the verge of outright screaming.

Rolling his eyes, Techno grabs the boy and places him on the ground.

"This is your house," he says flatly. "Bye."

Tommy's gaze lingers on him for a few more seconds, although instead of staring at him as if he carried the sun and moon on his shoulders, his expression is more mutely apprehensive. He fidgets with his hands for a few seconds, eyes dropping down. When he realises Techno's looking, he stuffs his hands into his pocket and works his shoulders.

"Spit it out," Techno says, able to spot a nervous kid from a mile away.

He scrunches up his face, then finally asks, "Can you stay for a bit?" He shrugs his shoulders up to his chin. "Until Wilbur gets home. I promise it won't be long."

Resisting the urge to immediately oblige (because that's kinda what he's been doing for the past week or so), Techno huffs. "Can you not be home alone for a bit?"

"I can! I'm grown up," he says, nodding. "It's just, I don't like being alone. My brain gets all loud."

"Is there something bad about your brain?"

"No, my brain is good. I just like hearing about other people's brains more."

He mulls it over.

Then he realises he already made his decision.

He ties Carl to the garden fence. "Let's go inside, kid."

Tommy nods, and bounds past him to reach his door.

"So, Technoblade," he says as Techno follows him inside, "what are you thinking about?"

Dear Technoblade,

IT IS I!! BIG MAN TOMMY INNET!!!!

I am very very sorry to keep inconvee incom inconvea in bothering you like this, but I am in dire need of assistance. My friends Eryn and Freddie (black hoodie, red hair) have told all of their friends at school about you, and guess what??!! They! Do! Not! BELIEVE them!!!

I realise it is rather rood rude to keep asking favours of you like this, so if you would prefer not to come, that is completely fine!!! (I PROMISE!!)

But if you would not mind, then please do attend this Friday. I think their classmates are bullying them both and even thought that is funny I would rather NOT have my friends be helpless innocent victims to those knobheads.

The address is on the back of this letter, if you so wish to comply.

Sinceerly Sincerely,

TOMMY INNET

Below him, Steve huffs, as if he were laughing at the letter.

Techno settles his hand into the pile of fur on his lap. "Couldn't have said it better myself."

Tommy would love Steve, Techno decides. The boy absolutely adores animals, as it turns out, even the scary ones. No, scratch that, especially the scary ones. There was a spider on the corner of the kitchen that he affectionately named 'Shroud'. He let a giant moth crawl over his hand before explaining that her name was Clementine and that they were best friends. He passively stared down the behemoth of a horse that was Carl and then stroked down his coat.

Techno looks up to the crow. "Tell Phil thanks."

The crow caws, and flutters off.

He'll be needing more crows soon. In just three days he'll be off again, venturing through villages and cities alike, probably attending more birthday parties and scaring off young delinquents.

Maybe he should check on his own little delinquent, now that he's thinking about it. He'd listened to Tommy ramble about his school life, how Mr. Brett had sent him out of his class for the third time this week, how he got a detention for helping his friend Puffy skive her Health & Social class, how he'd been sent to the nurse's office after holding an impromptu fencing match with Purpled using rulers and pencils. Perhaps he should make sure he's doing alright.

Oh, Prime. The Almighty Monsterslayer has just become this kid's protector.

Nope. Not thinking about that right now.

Whatever. He should probably say goodbye to him, anyhow, so it wouldn't exactly hurt to go visit him and his friends. Ahem, not because he'll miss Tommy or anything, it's just that maybe he wouldn't appreciate it if his apparent hero up and left without saying a word about it.

No time like the present, then.

"I hate myself, I hate myself, I hate myself, I hate myself," he mutters over and over again, like a chant as he takes Carl's saddle and begins removing all the potions and sheathed weapons he has tied to it. He looks up and spots Carl staring at him. "Don't you look at me like that. You like the kid, too."

This was evident due to the fact that Carl let the boy play with his mane and attempt to decorate his saddle, when Techno would probably be trampled to death if he did anything of the sort. The saddle, by the way, is made from the leather of a bat-person's wings after Techno'd killed it with its own acid by making a deal with the goddess of death. (And it didn't hurt that her husband was also his best friend.)

Tommy had a penchant for poking fun and and making games out of importantly unimportant things. Techno isn't sure how to feel about that.

He sweeps all of those thoughts to the side as he settles down the last swirling bottle and looks up to his horse. "You okay to go on one more detour?" he asks, raising an eyebrow.

Carl snorts disdainfully, but doesn't argue as Techno replaces his saddle and fastens all the straps under his belly. He pats his horse's side, and mounts, the letter still in his hand. "C'mon then, boy," he says, grabbing the reins. "Let's go pay our kid a visit."

Tommy's friends' school is even farther away than Tommy's, as it turns out, so they have to make a pit stop or two to rest Carl or to get snacks (because dammnit, Technoblade might have once survived three months in a cave of bones without food but he was still hungry on a regularly basis. Maybe he and Steve had that in common). So by the time they turn up to the actual school, most of the students are already gone, and he's left sipping at his drink and trotting around to look for Tommy.

There are less people staring at him this time, which he is thankful for. Sure, he was used to fans (blegh) swarming him every now and then when he passed through civilisations, but being looked at by a bunch of toddlers who barely looked like they were old enough to hold a crossbow? Yeah. Worse.

But he's determined not to waste his time. He rides Carl all around the street, looking for anything that could serve as a sufficient after school hangout spot. His drink is going cold by the time they return to the school gates, but Techno refuses to have ridden all the way just to turn up late.

"Where is that brat?" he murmurs, and Carl flicks his ear. Techno pats his mane. "I'm glad you agree."

He squints against the light as he looks to the sky. From the sun's position, he guesses that Tommy would still be hanging around somewhere with his friends. He couldn't have possibly been late enough for the kid to be on his way home already.

He looks back down to his horse. "You don't happen to smell him anywhere near, do you?"

"Holy shit."

A voice interrupts them. He turns around, Carl's tail twitching, and they find a person standing at the gates.

They bring a hand to their face and sweep away a lock of dark hair, tucking it into a red hat. They go through the familiar routine, looking him up and down, jaw dropping, blah blah blah, but what catches Techno's attention is the way their eyes are blown wide as they fixate onto his face. Not in surprise or recognition, but realisation.

They promptly spin on their heels and walk back into school.

When they re-emerge a couple seconds later, they're less fazed, but still somewhat confused. "Oh my Prime," they say. "He wasn't kidding."

It doesn't take take him long to deduce who 'he' is, but still, he asks, "Who? Tommy?"

"You two really do know each other," they whisper.

"Do you know where he is?" Techno asks, dismissing the shock. Sure, it's flattering and all, but he's beginning to get a little annoyed after centuries of the exact same reaction.

The person nods slowly, then shakes their head as they gather their bearings. "Uh, yeah. Yeah. Follow me, I guess."

They walk ahead, shoulders tense and constantly checking behind them as if Carl's snorting isn't a good enough reminder that they're following. "Er, I'm Aimsey, by the way," they introduce themself as they lead Carl down yet another cobble road. "Tommy's friend."

"Nice to meet you," Techno says gruffly, because that's how you're supposed to respond to that, right?

He goes to introduce himself, but then stops. This Aimsey should already know who he is, right? Or is it arrogant to think that? Wait, but they clearly recognised him earlier... still, should he introduce himself? Would that be redundant? Oh, Prime, it's already been an entire five seconds since his last sentence. It would be weird to introduce himself now. Right?

He's saved from the tormentuous task of saying his own name when Aimsey turns and leads them to the entrance a sparse forest. There's clear sighting of all the nearby roads and the grass is mostly dry and trodden. Not exactly easy to get lost in, so it's perfect for a couple of kids to frolick through once school is over.

Aimsey cups their hands around their mouth. "TOMMY!" they shout. "YOU HAVE A GUEST!"

There's rustling from a few feet away. Whilst Aimsey is trying to decipher where it's coming from, Carl has already turned his head towards it, and he paws the ground and whinnies.

Eventually Techno spots a blotch of red jogging towards them, followed by two other blots. They're obscured by the thin trees and brown brush but Tommy's grin is unmistakable.

"Carl!" he cheers, then cries out as he trips on a root, but keeps on his way towards them. Carl himself stamps on the dirt a few times, until Tommy finally reaches him and combs down his mane with his hand. "Hi, boy!"

"Hi, Technoblade," Freddie says from behind Tommy.

"Hello, Technoblade," Eryn adds, slowing to a stop. "Nice to see you again."

"Boys," he greets politely.

Tommy, not sparing a single moment on formalities, points an accusatory finger towards Techno. "You were late, dickhead!" he cries. The horse bobs his head in agreement.

Aimsey frowns. "Tommy!" she scolds. "That was rude."

"It's fine, I'm used to it," Techno deadpans, disembarking and making a thud! as he jumps to the ground. A couple tree branches shake and he winces.

Tommy laughs as a leaf falls onto his face. "Prime," he mutters and brushes it off. "Hey, in all seriousness, thanks for coming, big man. I owe you one."

He shrugs. "Eh, maybe you'll be able to return the favour one day."

"Totally not ominous, ha. Anyway!" He sucks a breath through his teeth. "Uh, you are bit late though, Blade. It's sick that you came but I don't think anyone's even in school."

Aimsey lights up suddenly. She seems to have gotten an idea.

"Oh, wait–" she murmurs. "Alright. Stay here, I'm gonna go grab someone. Sniff! SNIFF!"

She turns and runs off, shouting.

As soon as she disappears, Tommy turns to Technoblade. "Nevertheless!" he announces, puffing out his chest like he's trying to sound important. "Even if you're late as all dicks, I still think you're cool."

Behind him, Eryn whispers, "Late as all dicks?" and Freddie just shrugs.

"It's nothing," Techno says instead of dwelling on that, and he means what he says. "I mean, I didn't really have anything to do anyway."

Freddie's brows go up. "You?" he repeats. Then, realising his tone, he continues, softer, "You didn't have anything going on?"

He shakes his head. "I mean, no? I'm not always questing or fighting, or whatever. I'm just a dude."

A dude with scarlet hair and tusks and the biggest kill count of just about anyone, he realises after the boys' expressions change.

He squeezes his eyes and wills the thought away. Don't think about death whilst surrounded by kids, maybe. "Uh, so are we going home?"

Tommy nods. "Yeah," he says, then points behind him. "Also, can Eryn come with us?"

Eryn grins innocently behind him.

Freddie frowns. "Hey, what about me?"

"You live five minutes away from school, bitch," he says. He spins back to face Techno. "Can Eryn come?"

He huffs out a raspy laugh, "Eryn can go by themself. I already have you to deal with."

Unoffended and apparently undeterred, Tommy keeps pointing. "We won't cause any trouble! Eryn just lives really far, and his mum isn't able to pick him up today."

"Get a chariot."

Eryn screws up their face. "Hey, what?"

"Please?" Tommy repeats, softening his expression as far as it can go.

"Carl wouldn't let two brats on his back," he argues, and Carl flicks his tail. Techno can't tell if he's agreeing or not. Tommy just clasps his hands together and leans on the horse's side, pouting.

"Please?" he nags, voice shrill.

Techno gives him an unimpressed grin.

He grabs Tommy and practically throws him onto the saddle. And, not watching to make sure he hasn't fallen and cracked his skull or something equally as stupid, he instead turns and grabs Eryn from under the arms. Freddie points and laughs at them as they squirm.

"Oi! What are you doing?" they protest, but shrink back when Techno just looks at them blankly.

He holds Eryn, who can do nothing but hang limply in Techno's grasp, up in front of Carl. Carl sniffs them, snorts, then lowers his head and gently butts Eryn in the chest.

"Ow," they deadpan.

"Carl says it's all good," Techno says, and tosses them into the saddle. "Let's go."

They're about to set off, heedless of Tommy and Freddie's giggling as Eryn haphazardly adjusts themself to the saddle, when a pair of voices come shouting from the school, bickering and shoving each other.

"–not cooperating, because I still think this is some of your weird bullying-slash-lighthearted shit," a person with fluffy hair and a small pair of antlers says.

The person from earlier, Aimsey, strings her along. "No, no, seriously! Sniff, I'm not lying! Also, when have I ever bullied you?"

"I– you do it all the time! Remember when you rugby tackled me out my chair in the middle of class?"

"That was one time!"

"Mhm, yep, one time."

"C'mon, I promise, I'm not lying."

"I just don't see how Mr. Monsterslayer could possibly be just hanging around our forest, that's just not– oh fucking Prime."

Aimsey looks up, smiling proudly. "Told you!"

They all stare for a moment. Techno doesn't know what to say, he's met far too many people within the past month and has run out of conversation starters.

"Hi, Snifferish," Tommy says, waving.

Techno pulls Carl's reins. "Bye, Snifferish."

He turns his head and pretends to check on Carl, so he doesn't have to keep looking at Sniff's astounded face from the corner of his eyes.

"So you're leaving."

Techno must have told him four times by now, but still, he nods tersely and continues packing up Carl's saddlebag. "Yep."

Tommy goes all droopy, mouth pulling downwards. He slides a hand through Steve's fur, who thrums appreciatively. "Will you be back?"

He shoves in another potion. "Not for a long time."

Tommy takes one step forward.

Pauses.

Another step.

He takes Techno's cloak and bunches it up in his fists.

"You're really cool," he says quietly, and Tommy doesn't do quiet, so immediately Techno is on high alert. "I wish Jack and Ranboo actually got to meet you."

He sighs. "Ah, well, they still have Goose's sob story. Along with the rest of the school."

Tommy pouts, and Prime, he looks like an abandoned puppy. It makes him want to retch.

"You won't miss me," he assures him.

The kid shakes his head. "You better write to me," he says, half-buried in velvet.

Techno chuckles. "Sure, kid."

"I'm serious!" he exclaims, and Steve looks up, too. "Write to me. Every chance you have. Or I'll stab you, and there'll be nobody to save everyone anymore."

It's hard to believe a boy can want to keep on touch with him so badly after just a few days, but either way, it makes Techno laugh. Not mockingly, just...

Stiffly, he pats Tommy's head. "Keep your window open then, yeah?"

"Yes!"

He raises his arms and holds out the cloak, like he's giving him an offering.

Techno takes it. Stares at. Keeps staring, longer than he should be. The fabric is heavy and hot and Techno's not really sure how much protection he'll be needing in battle nowadays.

He unfolds his cape. Drapes it over Tommy's shoulders and clips it around his neck.

"It'll give you great strength, young hero," he says.

Tommy looks down at himself, and then back up. Red suits him, it seems. He bounces on his feet and shimmies his shoulders and gives Techno a smile that rivals the golden slivers of the setting sun in its beauty.

Some weeks later, Tommy's neighbours are chattering.

"Have any of you seen that Technoblade recently?" one lady says, hauling a bag of laundry into her garden and beneath a washing line. Her neighbour, an older woman with far too loud of a mouth, shakes her head as she sorts through her mail.

"Haven't seen the brute since he left two weeks ago," she tuts.

"Technoblade?" another man pipes up. A crate of fresh food is strapped over his shoulder and he carries a pouch of money on his hip. An apple sits in his hand, as if he were about to sell it off to one of them, but clearly his interest has been redirected. "Oh, he's gone off to another village. Probably continuing his quest for those ancient scrolls of The Inbetween."

"The Inbetween?" the old woman sneers. "Please, no sane man would take a detour to visit some random scamp in our village if The Inbetween was at stake."

"Surely not a scamp, then!" the man says firmly. "No, they must know each other. I saw the boy invite him into his house."

"Not surprised," the lady nods. "Anyone would invite the Almighty Monsterslayer into their home. I'd fear for my life if I were ever to reject him!"

She chuckles to herself, and the man does the same. The old woman, however, isn't so convinced.

"Then how have we never seen him so close before?" she says. "Tommy's a young lad, searching for popularity at every turn. A thousand gold pieces wouldn't be enough to keep him quiet about The Blade's endeavours."

"Not if he truly cares about him," the lady says. "No, no, there's something else."

A bird's squawk interrupts them. They look up, and upon the windowsill of the Innet household's kitchen, a crow is perched. Tommy, decorated with a heavy red cape, is quick to open the window and hold out his hands, grinning madly. The crow leans down and drops a roll of parchment in his palms.

"Thank you!" the boy says excitedly.

The lady lowers her voice, "See that? He's been getting one of those every day since Technoblade left. They must have a relationship of sorts!"

"Perhaps he saved him on a previous quest, and is keeping in touch," the man suggests. "He is only young. I, too, would like to know the wellbeing of any child I may help."

"Technoblade has no time for casual conversation!" the old woman says. "Besides, my point still stands, why has the boy never mentioned him before?"

Just then, there's another voice in the Innet kitchen. Wilbur comes rushing to the window with a scowl, and he shoos the crow away. The sleek black bird pecks indignantly at his hand before making its annoyance known and taking off. Wilbur shuts the window and says something to Tommy, then walks away.

Their audience of three all perk up, and look to each other. Of course! It's so obvious!

"Ah, now I see it," the old woman says. "The older one dislikes The Blade. He wishes for Tommy to not be so close to him."

"But why?" the lady questions.

"Maybe he is ashamed," the man says.

"No!" the old woman protests. "No, he is not ashamed. He is disappointed. Imagine, thirteen years and we haven't seen hair nor hide of him until now?"

The lady nods, finally understanding. "Oh, I get it!" she smiles. "He wishes to protect the younger. Perhaps he doesn't want for him to follow in his footsteps and get himself into danger."

"Or perhaps he is absent," the man says.  "A deadbeat, if you will."

"Surely not his father!" the old woman says, shocked.

The man shakes his head. "No, something closer. He does not want the younger to hold out hope for his return because he knows that he may not return for another thirteen years. He hides the truth of their relationship because... well, if the mighty Technoblade abandoned them, then, in his mind, why shouldn't the rest of us do the same?"

"Then why send letters?" the lady wonders.

"To feign his endearment," he says. "Now, the only question is, what is he to them?"

"An estranged uncle," the old woman says confidently. "My own uncle displayed this exact behaviour. Leaving our family alone, and then returning with tall tales of his heroism and adventure. As a young girl I thrived on those stories as much as I did food and air."

"Not an uncle, surely," the lady shakes her head. "He didn't show face when the poor lads' parents died. Now, no matter how much you hate your family, Prime says you must pay respect when they languish."

They fall silent and ponder the possibilities.

Tommy opens his front door, and they're all quick to pretend they were doing something else. The man offers fruit for the old woman to buy. The lady hangs up her laundry on the washing line and uses the cover to watch what the boy is doing.

He sits down cross-legged in his front garden and eagerly scans over the letter, laughing at one sentence and gasping at the next and rolling his eyes at some quip near the end. When a crow lands on his hand, he sets down the letter and scratches the plumage under its beak.

The audience of three spare a sly look to each other. The naïve idolatry, the absence of a loved one who isn't a parent, Wilbur's disapproval... well, it's all so clear now!

"Brothers," they mouth, and break into knowing grins.

Brothers! It makes so much sense.

Technoblade and Tommy Innet are brothers.

It's the only possible explanation.