Chapter Text
Techno planned to spend the night reading.
He’d found some new tomes hidden out in an igloo not too far out, the pages somehow protected from years upon years of frost and melt by an old, warped wooden chest and a layer of old, tattered bedding. Likely, Techno assumed, all left there when the igloo’s occupants had moved on with the warmer season, the heavy wool too heavy to carry for nomads living on the ice.
So, the books that had also been left behind were exceptionally well-preserved. Techno just had to spend a couple days translating them to figure out what the enchantments were—it was outrageously simple, compared to the usual lengths he went to to pull spells from old, tattered texts.
And, honestly, he made good progress through the afternoon. His head hurt a little bit from staring at the complicated runes and trying to work them out in his head, but it was better, in his experience, to keep working than to stop and trust himself to start again in the near future. Especially when there were other people in the house to distract him—the other person being Phil, who was spending the night on his way elsewhere.
So Techno had eaten dinner with Phil across from him, the old leather-bound volume to his left, and his own book and quill on his right. Phil hadn’t seemed to mind. Techno hadn’t thought he would.
Their friendship worked like that.
After dinner, Techno took the book back upstairs and lingered about in the library, letting the seeping magic from the enchantment table help the translation along a bit.
He was usually good at pushing the voices away. No, that was an understatement—unless he was full on incapacitated, Techno hardly paid them any mind. They rose and fell like the layers of snow outside his house, occasionally building up only to eventually melt away. Sure, sometimes he had to work through them, but he could control them more often than not.
But tonight, for who knows what reason, he could not. Maybe it was the magic from the enchantment table messing with his head again, maybe it was how tired he was, or maybe it was the amount of potions he’d downed that day in place of real food—he didn’t know. Most likely, it was just an unfortunate combination of all of it.
It hurt quite a bit nonetheless.
The voices rose up slowly. Slowly, yet surely. Techno would hear one, louder than the rest, here or there, over the course of an hour. Next hour, timed as the candle in the study dwindled into a puddle of its own melted wax, there were more of them. A slight chorus, piping up every now and then.
Once they rose up, though, they were incessant.
Blood for the blood god
BLOODSHED
Murder POG
They screamed, shrill and high-pitched in his ears. Unceasingly—for the voices didn’t need lungs to sustain them. They could scream as long as they wanted, as loudly as they wanted, and never tire, even as Techno was worn down bit-by-bit.
E
BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD
Kill Pihl
E
Techno yes
Techno had long since stopped writing. His hand was clenched on the quill, but the ink on the tip was dry. Somewhere along the line, he’d clenched so hard that the quill had snapped in half in his hand.
Splinters stuck into his hand, but he didn’t hear them. The voices, at the sight of Techno’s own blood running freely down his palm, got louder and louder and louder.
Cringe
BLOOD BLOOD BLOOD
Techno God
E
This is so bad
He dropped the quill as the chorus continued to grow, grunting out as they pounded against the bone of his skull—they scratched and bit and clawed at him, screaming for him to let them out, to let them take over, to just give in already and do what they knew he needed to do.
“Shit,” he said. His hands went to grip at his head, to press at his temples, to do anything in the hope that it would help. It didn’t help, though, and he knew it wouldn’t, but his body screamed at him to try, to just try anything .
Anything to make it stop.
Really, the move just made his crown—damnit, he thought he’d taken it off—fall from where it’d been perched on his head, toppling to the floor and rolling across the room, heavy stones thudding against the hardwood floor. He tangled his hands in his hair nonetheless, still hoping in vain that it would help, and grunted out loud again as his eardrums throbbed in his head.
He should- he needed to pick his crown up. It was important, and he- he wanted it- he wanted-
Techno tried to get up from his desk.
BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD
eeeeeeeeee
This is why I never open chat
Bruh NO
E
Almost predictably, he fell. The candle on his desk went out as he tumbled forwards, dropping the room into darkness. His legs tangled around the legs of his desk chair, and the spindly wood was just thin enough to break under him, cracking in half with a sickening snap —but he paid it no mind. He couldn’t.
Noooo
POG
BLOOD BLOOD BLOOD
Blood for the blood god
LMAOOO HE FELL
GO GET PHIL
He groaned as his head smacked into the floor. It was just a bump, and just like his bleeding hand, it wasn’t bad on Techno’s scale. But it sent the voices into another free frenzy, roaring loud in his head, louder, impossibly louder until there was no space left in his head.
He muttered something, words he couldn’t even make out, into the floorboards.
They would go away. He just had to- he had to wait them out, that was all. It wasn’t the optimal place to do it—he preferred complete darkness and quiet when they got like this, to be isolated from those he could hurt and kept away from any other stimulus that could crank the voices higher, to give himself a place to focus on forcing them away—but he didn’t think he could manage moving much now. His arms were tense, his teeth clenched tight with the effort of keeping them at bay. And he’d already curled up there on the floor. His long hair had tangled up, had stuck to his face and clung to the sweat on the back of his neck, as his bones dug into the wood below him, one-by-one being ground away with every shift he made.
He hated it.
The voices were helpful sometimes—they told him of the enemies’ strategies, took control when he otherwise wouldn’t survive, helped give him the reputation that now kept strangers from seeking him out—but in that moment, he didn’t care. In that moment, he was willing to claw them out of his skull if it meant quiet.
He didn’t know how long he lay there.
It wasn’t long, he guessed, but he had no idea.
After some indeterminate amount of time, a spot of memories that escaped Techno no matter how hard he tried, Phil’s voice called up to him.
“Techno?” Through the haze, Phil’s words were somehow clear. “Are you alright up there?”
Techno couldn’t form a response. He just curled up tighter, grunting out something that definitely wasn’t a word. He was shaking, now. He wanted to throw up. He wanted to bang his head on a rock, if only to knock himself out for the night. He just wanted them to shut up before he brained himself on his own hardwood floor.
“Techno?” Phil’s boots made the ladder creak, one by one, rung by rung, until Phil’s head popped up into the attic, eyes bleary with the sleep he’d left behind. “Did you fall asleep up here again? Jesus, you need better habits.” He chuckled to himself as he scanned the space, confusion coloring his gaze as he saw the desk was empty.
The room was dark, but Techno could still feel the shift as soon as Phil spotted him on the floor.
“Oh my god, holy shit,” Phil said, rushing forward.
The floorboards creaked, and the fabric of Phil’s clothes shifted, and then Phil’s hand landed on Techno’s spine. He just lay there and tried not to flinch, even though he wanted so bad to fling Phil across the room just to get him off .
Phil’s voice was low, quiet in the dark, but it boomed in Techno’s head regardless. “Are they loud again?” he asked.
Techno managed a groan in response. The voices grew excited at Phil’s acknowledgement of them, and Techno grit his teeth harder to keep them at bay. They didn’t have the gall to attack Phil—last time it’d happened and Techno had stuck himself in a closet for a week, unmoving—but still, Techno didn’t trust them in the slightest. He kept his jaw tightened, swallowing hard against the sudden, stronger urge to throw up.
“Right,” Phil said, pulling his hand away. Techno could feel his eyes on him, searching, searching, searching until… “Right. Just your hand this time. Okay, you know the drill.”
Techno hated the drill. He knew it, sure, but that didn’t make it any more pleasant.
Moving slowly, Phil took Techno in his arms. It was awkward—Techno’s robes were all over the place, his hair was a mess, and his legs dangled as he was scooped up, bridal style—but they’d made do before, and they would make do now.
Rather than struggle down the ladder, Phil opened the window and, opening those massive wings of his, floated them down through the air to the ground. Flurries blew hard around them, but Techno didn’t mind—they felt nice against his flushed, sweat-covered forehead. Before he could fully enjoy it, though, Phil was up the front steps and through the front door.
“You’ve gotten a bit heavier,” Phil said with a lighthearted chuckle. “I know I make it look easy, but… a little less training wouldn’t kill you, you know.” He shut the front door with his boot before the mobs could find their way in in the dark—there were way too many zombies and strays lurking about this time of night for Phil to bother dealing with them—before heading off down the hall to Techno’s bedroom.
Techno was plopped onto his familiar mattress before long. Phil put him down gently, as always. Then, there were blankets being piled up around Techno, up until just his eyes poked out of the top and his hair splayed out across the pillow. The warmth was soothing, Techno had admitted a while back; it pushed the voices away, ever-so-slightly. When Techno got like this, Phil’s dad instincts took over, and he had never been more grateful.
Techno used to despise this ritual of theirs. He would try to insist he was fine, that he didn’t need to go to bed, that he’d be better off if he ran off into caves and let the voices have him kill whatever mobs they could get his hands on. He would push Phil away (never attack, not after that one incident) and come back covered in blood a few days later, only to collapse in exhaustion on the floor, his sword still strapped to his back and his armor still bound to his clothes. This newer way was better for both of them, though, they’d quickly realized—Phil didn’t worry as much, and Techno didn’t lose himself quite as much.
Now, Techno welcomed Phil’s help with open arms.
Phil worked quietly. It would be best if Techno woke up comfortable, he always insisted. So, after a brief foray into the bathroom, Phil came up to the bed with a first aid kit in hand, and he quickly wrapped up Techno’s hand with gentle words on his tongue to help try to keep him present. The room was still dark, but Phil didn’t turn on a light. Instead, he then went for a ribbon, and his callused hands gently brushed at Techno’s jaw as he pulled the hair away. He didn’t brush it, just pulled it into a loose bun to get it out of Techno’s face and secured it just as he knew Techno liked it. Then came the clothes—gone were Techno’s robe and boots and socks and chains and belt and even the red cummerbund around his waist. Phil didn’t push him to really change, just put the items in the right places until Techno was as comfortable as he could be.
“This is what you get for staying up so late,” Phil said, as he folded Techno’s robe and lay it across the chest at the end of his bed. He came back up for a moment, leaning in to press a kiss to the edge of Techno’s forehead, then moved to the door. “Goodnight.”
If he’d been able, Techno would’ve said it back. It was only common courtesy, after Phil had tucked him in like a child who’d fallen asleep on the back of a horse and needed to be put to bed once they’d gotten home. Knowing how Wilbur had been, Phil probably had experience with that exact scenario. Still, Phil knew better than to await a response like that, when Techno was like this—he just shut the door quietly, leaving Techno alone in the dark.
Just where Techno liked to be.
Silently, as he closed his eyes and tried to let himself drift into sleep, Techno gave Phil a million thanks in his head.