Chapter Text
Light made a wide shaft on the kitchen's floor paired with the sound of rubber and magnets separating suggested the opening of the fridge door for the fourth time that evening. Despite the resident who owned the fridge in question's attempts, no magic food appeared between the opening and closing of the metal door. With a sigh and a disappointed expression, the shaft of light was exterminated as the magnets once again snapped together in frustration.
The ever-lasting ticking of the wall-mounted clock rung in the agitated resident's ears as he crossed the apartment to retrieve his keys. It had been-what? Two weeks since he had last gotten groceries, and he had been doing ok. Although it seemed that his luck had run out, causing him to be out of everything but butter, crackers, and a few drops of long-life milk.
He ventured back to his desk to grab his coat, pausing for a second to see the time on his monitor, before walking towards his front door. A small table sat awkwardly next to the door,
Keys now in hand, the man-made his way into his building's hallway. Bright automatic lights harassed his eyes, which were more used to the softer light of a lamp and monitor. Squinting, he pursued. Walking towards the shiny metallic doors covering the lift.
Technoblade leaving his apartment? Unheard of! The voices joked with him lightly.
They had been getting worse. A new addition to the echoing voices in his head was the one that kept shouting E. It was average, except for the fact that it was just popping up at the most inconvenient of times.
The lift dinged and the doors opened, closing after he slipped into the metallic box. On one wall there was a mirror, the one next to it had a poster advertising a market. Then the door, and the buttons with level numbers on them. There was no music, so he just sat in awkward silence with his thoughts.
Ok, so, first time going out in a while. So, what we're going to do is not talk to anyone, don't make eye contact, and fuck politeness. You got it? The voices discussed.
No greetings, at all. ESPECIALLY not children, they'll just try to talk to you. Jee, they had an entire plan. His voices sometimes did something like that, planning out every action he took with extreme caution. Other times they chanted for blood or teased him.
The doors opened once again with a small dinging sound. The grimy tiles squeaked slightly under the souls of his shoes as he made his way across to the glass door that stared out onto the dimming street. The 8 o'clock rush was small yet bustling.
A green button was pushed, the door emitting a soft snap as it unlocked. Techno pushed against the cool glass, the brisk dusk air slapping him in the face. The sound of cars passing and people speaking entered his thoughts as it slipped peacefully into his ears. He walked into the parking lot residing next to the building.
His car was relatively close to the door, making it more convenient for him when it came to unpacking groceries. Technoblade clambered into the car, closed the door behind him and sat there for a few minutes to remember how to drive, before starting up the car and backing out of his spot.
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The drive was quick, as the pink-haired man intended it to be. He stepped through the sliding glass doors to be hit with air-conditioning.
It's not that fricking hot Walmart, calm down. He silently complained.
He swiftly walked into the store so as not to make him look suspicious. How would he look suspicious? No idea, but voice No.12 said that it looked weird for a man with pink hair to loiter in front of a shop. He grabbed a basket, which just had the sudden desire to latch onto the baskets below it, catching onto the pile and giving him a small heart attack as the stack of shopping baskets leaned to the left and swayed for a second.
He took that as a sign from the universe to not get a basket.
The unfortunate piglin hybrid power walked to the bread aisle; empty-handed. If he was being ushered out of social interaction by the universe itself, he at least wanted to be able to make a damn sandwich. No matter how bland that sandwich may taste.
About halfway down, near the bread, he heard shuffling from the other side of the aisle. He froze, humans, social interaction, not online, in real life. what if I turn around and they're looking at me, what if they start up a conversation? Questions filled his head at the thought of seeing another person until he heard it.
Sniffling, sobbing. Someone was crying.
Techno's first instinct was to shout 'nerd' and run but decided that if a worker came in, he would probably be thrown out for assaulting a fellow customer. Instead, he did the mature thing, and try to ignore it. It is hard to ignore someone crying, even for someone who has no emotional reaction to the death of children.
He glanced over to see, what seemed to be, a blob of black and white crying under a display table.
Oh, wait shit that's a child. There were two things he could do in this situation, grab his bread, and continue his merry way, or take the sad child to Phil. Though his common sense said to leave the crying child to cry until a worker heard it and took pity. Although the Dadza in him was pulling the emergency stress lever to take two-toned-child-creature-thing to Phil.
That was why he was now crouching next to a display table staring into the soul of a tiny... human? He wasn't quite sure what this creature's species was yet. All he knew was that the goal was to get this thing to Phil and book it home before he had to talk to another person.
"Hey, kid, what're you doing here?" he asked in a monotone voice, not conveying a single emotion. The child's head snapped up, fear in its shallow eyes, their jaw was sharp and the line of white and black from their hair continued down its face.
"salve? tu quis es?" the child's expression had switched from fear over to hope, searching Technoblade's face. Although looking for something familiar in his features.
"Look, kid, I can't understand you, and you probably can't understand me, so what we are going to do is take you to a man I know. This man will take care of you, and you will forever leave me alone." The small child's face dropped into a disappointed frown.
Children, can't ever be pleased. The pink-haired man sighed internally, trying to keep his expression neutral. Now came the bigger issue, how the hell would he get this thing to follow him? From what he'd seen with Tommy and Wilbur, children are hellish creatures that follow no leader. Kind of like an anarchist. The child was staring at him once again. Wait, would they follow me if I just stood up and left? The thought lingered in his head. Sure, Tommy and Wilbur were batshit crazy as kids, but this kid is quiet, not like them at all. Almost like himself, quiet, reserved but secretly planning everyone else's demise.
He got up from under the table and started towards the end of the aisle. Stopping, he looked behind him to see the kid following him, slowly walking towards him. Techno continued down until he was more than halfway down the aisle, looking over his shoulder every few seconds to make sure the thing was still following him.
By the time they had got into the parking lot, it was dark and the sun had abandoned the sky in a retreat against the battle of time, the moon rising across the horizon to make chase. Do I look suspicious? I am just leading a child to whom I have no connection into my car. The kid was willingly following him though, so that may not define it as a kidnapping. But it was still evening, it would look suspicious no matter what he did. A cool gust of wind swept through the humid parking lot, grounding him. He turned around to face the child, which was fiddling with its fingers awkwardly.
"Ok, so, kid. I'm going to need to unlearn everything you know and get into this car." He opened the door to the backseat and honestly expected to sit there for another four hours until this weird child understood what in the world he wanted it to do. Surprisingly, the kid looked at him, looked at the car, looked around, looked at him again, and got in the car. Holy shit Phil needs to teach this kid stranger danger.
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They had been driving for about three minutes now and the kid hadn't even spoken, he was just gazing out the window in sheer wonder. A different building caught his attention every few seconds. It was as though he'd never seen the city, even if he had lived here.
A red light stopped them, and techno took the opportunity to call Phil to let him know he was coming. He fumbled with his phone for a second before hitting the call button.
"Hey, Dadza." I may have just abducted a child that could have just lost its parents in a grocery store and may be tempted to kill it, so I need you to take it in.
"Hey mate, how you been?" the sound was crackly through the phone, making the quality of sound downgrade. He saw the kid's ears prick up at the sound of another person's voice, looking around like he expected someone to pop out of nowhere.
"So... I found a child." Only silence from the other end of the call.
"Techno, I can't cover for you again, where's the body." Not the response he needed, but understandable.
"No- it's alive, but... look they were just crying in a Walmart, and I was the only one in the store and its parents were just not there and it didn't belong to anyone working there because only one staff member was there, and they didn't stop me, so it wasn't theirs and no one was outside searching for them, and the child was following me and-" he was stopped mid-sentence by Phil.
"Woah ok, wait up, you found a kid, and you didn't kill it?" he sounded surprised, shocked even. Techno looked in the overhead mirror to see the kid glancing under the seats nervously. Looking back at the road he watched as the light turned green.
"we'll talk in person; I'm driving to yours now. see you in a bit."
"Wait wha-" Phil was cut off by techno hanging up. He put the phone back into the cup holder, paying attention to the road again. He knew that Phil would be angry with him, but he wouldn't deny the kid. At least not for the night.
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"Techno, mate. I can't." The crow farther himself stood in the doorway to his home, light pooling onto the porch where Technoblade stood. The brisk night's breeze drifted lazily through the grass.
"What do you mean you can't? what do I do with them?" the kid was sleeping in the car; it had taken them 2 hours to get out of the city and into the country where his family's house resided. He had not just gone all that way for a no, sorry.
Phil shook his head "Tommy's already too much to handle, and Wilbur's girlfriend just found out she's pregnant. I've got too much on my plate right now." Techno seemed to deflate; he had no ideas left. Then the information he had been given sank in.
"Wait- Sally's pregnant? When did that happen?" Phil sighed at the question.
"a few weeks ago, Wilbur's ecstatic, but that doesn't matter right now- "
"Dadza, you know how murderous I am, for the safety of this kid and my criminal record, I need someone to look after the child." His voice was calm, but even he could hear how desperate he sounded. Dadza sighed once again, pinching the bridge of his nose and shutting his eyes with a small huff.
"I'll call up everyone I know; someone might be able to take them in. are you able to keep him for the night? Maybe tomorrow if necessary?" He gave in, to Techno's delight.
"Thank you, also tell Wilbur he's a dumbass and is in deep shit with me." Techno heard Phil chuckle as he turned and started walking back towards the car.
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He opened the door to his apartment for the second time that night, with no groceries and a child. The child was still half asleep, making it lean on techno's leg a lot, making his leg hurt. He simply just guided the child into the only other room in the apartment with a bed, which was located directly across from his room.
The child was too tired to notice anything that was happening, which didn't help him with getting the kid in the bed. They climbed in-between the cover and sheet and he took that as a win. Walking back across to his room did he pick up the sound of a slight purring.
What a weird kid. His brain was frazzled and messed up from the lack of sleep recently, and for the first time in over a week, he slept.
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