Chapter Text
The freezing wind batters his numb body as he forces himself to take each step forward. Sheets of white snow give underneath his frozen, trudging feet, some powdered clumps sticking to what remains of his shoes each time he manages to lift them up again and press forward.
His body is tattered, burned, and almost certainly hypothermic. When he catches a glance of his arms underneath Wilbur’s trenchcoat, his hands barely peeking out from the sleeves, they are sickly pale with an icy, bluish sheen. It isn’t good that he can hardly feel his body except for the pull of increasing exhaustion and the overwhelming heaviness that pulls on every step. It takes everything in him to keep pushing forward instead of falling to the ground, letting the falling snow cover him.
Maybe if Tommy were thinking clearly, he would have given up already.
Truthfully, he would have seen no reason to push forward with such tenacity if all it would do is take him stumbling into the arms of the avians who want him dead.
Although all rationality pulls him towards the ground, every inch a makeshift, icy grave, Tommy mindlessly pushes forward with the instinctual need to survive.
Phil’s voice echoes like a mantra in his head, saying, “We’re just up north, through the snow.”
His body is numb, beaten, and burned, and his mind has turned to the part of him that is most reliable. Every thought is consumed by instinct and with every exhale his throat rumbles with small, gravelly, peeping sounds that he couldn’t suppress if he wanted to. They’re lost in the roaring of the wind and falling snow.
With a dull crunch, his foot sinks into a hole, hidden by the thick cover of snow. He falls face first to the ground, buried in an instant and gasping for air.
For a moment he lies there, unmoving. His chest rises lethargically and falls with a silent chirp, muffled in the snow.
Somehow, he gets back up. Tommy braces his trembling arms beneath him, digging his fingers into the snow, and pushes his body up. His head lifts towards the pale horizon, eyes squinting past the blinding brightness of the snow.
Nestled between tall, dark, snow-covered trees, is a cabin. The soft calls of ravens ring from a distance, high up in the trees.
Somehow, Tommy’s feet get back under him and he stands. Somehow, he takes another step forward. His mind won’t let him falter, won’t let him think of the danger he’s in, only screaming for the warmth they once gave him. Not that he would protest much against his instincts. He’d die a fool, but he wouldn’t die alone.
It takes an eternity to reach the doorstep. He drags himself through the snow and claws his way up the steps, collapsing just outside the door. His strength nearly fails him as he lifts a trembling fist to knock at the door. It’s a small sound, barely audible, which is likely why nobody answers.
Tommy sits there for a long time. He sits, leaning against the wooden door with pathetic little noises rumbling in his chest, waiting for the door to fly open and a sword to be pushed between his ribs.
Neither happens.
He lifts a numb arm to the door and pulls down on the handle. It opens with a click and the weight of his body leaning against the door sends him tumbling to the floor inside, clumps of snow sprawling across the hardwood. Tommy wholeheartedly expects for Technoblade to burst into the room brandishing an axe at the intruder, but again, nothing happens. The warmth of the house urges him to get up, so Tommy manages to stand once again and trudges into the room, pulling the door shut behind him.
Unfortunately, the surroundings—as warm as they may be—give him no comfort in the face of his growing paranoia. Any second, they could find him. At any moment, one of them could burst through the door and cut him down, executing him like an animal. He’s done all the hard work for them, wandering straight into their den.
His panic mixes viciously with his instincts. Panic overcomes him as he is wracked with the need to get away, somewhere safe—
Tommy stumbles towards the couch, grabbing a blanket tossed over the cushions and pulling it to his chest with trembling fingers. It’s the softest thing he’s felt in months and the feeling of it calms something in him enough to think slightly past the haze of panic.
In the corner of the room, he sees stairs to a basement, most likely. Clutching the blanket, he quickly creeps down the steps, wide eyes flicking back and forth for any sign of threat. His breathing is ragged but stifled by the overwhelming paranoia coursing through his exhausted body.
The stairs descend into a basement, as predicted, and further when Tommy spies a trapdoor and manages to slip down the ladder into a… sub-basement? There’s almost complete silence in the room, save for the creaking of the wood above and a slight roar of the muffled wind outside.
It isn’t enough. He could be found and there’s no way he could fight in this state. Especially not since he’s in Technoblade’s basement. He has to hide. It’s possible he’s just massively fucked up by dropping himself down the ladder into this…cavernous sub-basement, because it looks horribly unfinished. Most likely, Technoblade has a plan for it but hasn’t done anything for it other than create the space under the cabin as a placeholder. That is incredibly unhelpful, but Tommy glances up at the ladder and knows that trying to pull himself back up will be pushing his adrenaline too far. He won’t be able to do it, his numb limbs would probably remember their pain after the first rung and give out on him.
Tommy buries his shaking fingers in the blanket, whipping his head around the cavern. There has to be somewhere he can just crawl into and hope for the best. In the corner, propped against the wall, is a pickaxe. The weathered, diamond blade glints blue in the pale light and the handle is cold in Tommy’s hand as he stumbles over and grabs it.
His best bet at not being found is to go even further down. So he does.
It feels as though he’s digging his own grave. The loose dirt and bits of gravel underneath his feet give way easily, but moving his body enough to dig into the ground enough is nightmarish. Feeling is slowly beginning to return to his body and Tommy knows that the second he starts to feel his injuries his time to hide will run out and he’ll collapse right on the floor, ready to be caught and skewered.
He barely manages to dig out a small hole underneath the floor before his arms give out and he drops the pickaxe. It clatters to the bottom of the pit he’s dug and Tommy nearly expects Dream’s expectant voice to ring out, telling him to drop the rest of his things in too.
Instead, Tommy lowers himself in, dragging his stolen blanket behind him, and covers the opening, concealing himself in the hole.
It’s dark, cold, and incredibly small, but it’s safe. Tommy curls into himself, hugging the blanket to his chest and burying his face in its soft fabric.
It still feels warm from when it had sat on the couch, next to the lazily burning embers of coal left behind in the fireplace.
It also smells like them. The three avians Tommy is currently hiding from. It shared their space, their warmth, and it carries the barest scent of the fireplace as well as the comforting smell of detergent. Tommy breathes it in, letting it filter the dank, dusty air of his hiding place before it reaches his nose.
Just like the trenchcoat wrapped around Tommy’s twitching wings, the blanket smells somewhat like Wilbur.
But the brown leather carries the smell of a dead man, one who smelled of ash and smoke. The permeating metallic scent of blood clings to it. Tommy could wash the stains but he could never get out the smell. At some point, it’s become difficult to distinguish the old scent of Wilbur’s blood and the fresh, tangy scent of his own soaking into the fabric.
The fleece blanket, soft and warm in his numb fingers, smells faintly of coffee and spice. It's the subtle scent that was covered by the tang of blood and choked out by acrid smoke. He hasn’t smelled it in a long fucking time.
For what feels like an eternity, Tommy sits there, curled into a tight ball with his face pressed into the fleece blanket, breathing. Eventually, his consciousness mercifully fades and he slips into sleep, buried beneath Technoblade’s basement as the wind howls above.
When they arrive in Logsteadshire, Tommy is nowhere to be found.
In fact, Phil can’t spot a single living thing left, save for some very lucky clumps of grass on the outskirts of the area.
They land in the middle of the carnage. For a solid minute, none of them dare to speak, hardly breathing as their eyes race across the scorched land.
“Fuck,” Phil breathes. The bench where Tommy sat just yesterday has been reduced to ashes and scattered shards of wood. Because nothing about this could ever stand to be easy.
“Tommy!” Wilbur yells, panic audible in his voice. The sound of it echoes into the flame-scarred trees. It’s as if a wildfire sprung up, consuming the land and spitting ash back out, but the scattered marks of explosions ruin the image of a natural disaster. So do the arrows, jutting out of the prone forms of crows scattered across the ground in sickening piles. Someone did this. Phil almost hopes Tommy left before the destruction, already long gone.
Technoblade twists his head, pacing in different directions like he can’t decide where to go first. Phil watches as his braid swings, hitting the plates of his armor with each turn.
Tommy said he would be fine for one more day.
The carnage begs to differ.
Phil remembers the sheer relief he felt, knowing Tommy would be safe with them in just one more day. After waiting for weeks, they only had to wait one more day.
They’re one day too late, now.
“Okay, so this was obviously Dream, right?” Technoblade half-shouts in order for Wilbur, who has wandered all the way over to the still-standing cabin, to hear him. There’s a quiver in his voice that betrays his panic.
“Obviously!” Wilbur shouts back. “He practically left a fucking signature!” He gestures widely to the array of brand new, still smoking pits in the ground.
“Why’d he do it?” Technoblade mutters beside him, holding a fist to his gritted teeth. Then he shifts, visibly tensing and placing his hand on his holstered crossbow.
“Is this a trap?” Phil asks him, copying his movement towards a weapon. Technoblade glances quickly at him before his eyes flick back to the surroundings.
“Possibly.”
“Go search the area, Wilbur and I will search the camp.” Technoblade nods before slipping away from his side and into the scorched woods. Wilbur’s gaze follows him as Phil joins him by the cabin.
“We might’ve been set up,” he explains. Wilbur’s eyes darken, flicking from the treeline to meet Phil’s.
“Phil,” he says, voice low and trembling. Crimson glints in his brown eyes. “I am losing my patience.”
Phil breathes in, then out, slowly enough to calm himself ever so slightly. Wilbur is right. It’s clear that the thin strand keeping him from snapping is frayed beyond belief. He can see the same in Technoblade, too. It’s been hard, trying to keep them from going off the rails and employing whatever means they deem necessary to meet the ends of getting Tommy out of exile and safe with them. It’s been so fucking hard to be somewhat of a voice of reason, to remind Wilbur that they need to approach this with strategy and finesse, to remind Technoblade that they can’t fight fire with fire—
But it’s been the most difficult to remind himself of those things. To restrain himself from taking Dream’s throat out.
“So am I,” he says, and he means it. Because he won’t hold back forever.
Maybe it’s the reason why he never became as prodigious in battle as Technoblade and Dream did, or as cunning as Wilbur, but Phil has no patience for games.
Predictably, they find nothing useful.
The only things that haven’t been destroyed are, for the most part, inside the cabin. It remained somewhat untouched by the carnage, but there was nothing that could tell them anything about what happened here or where Tommy could be now.
Phil only finds familiar satchels of food stuffed beneath a loose floorboard. The sight of them sends Wilbur to his knees and Phil has to comfort him through a mixture of spitting curses and sobs.
Fortunately, though, Technoblade returns to the camp and confirms that the surrounding area is completely clear. Of anything. If this was supposed to be a trap, it's a shit one.
“Okay, we’ve established that Tommy isn’t here. Sue me, but I don’t actually care about the rest of this.” Technoblade’s voice is low and his eyes are glued to the horizon. “Let’s stop wasting our time here and figure out where he went.”
“How?” Phil asks. “We didn’t find anything that could tell us where he went. For all we know, Dream could have just taken him somewhere else.”
“Easy,” Technoblade drawls. “We politely ask Dream.”
Wilbur laughs darkly. “Yeah,” he says. “Let’s have a word with Dream.”
Phil can already tell that nothing about it will be civil.
“Fuck it.” He watches as Technoblade grins towards the horizon, approximately towards the mainland. “Let’s find him.”
It doesn’t take long.
Technically, they find Quackity first. He sees the three of them just as they drop from the sky.
“Hey, Quackity,” Phil greets, glancing around the path as Quackity jumps, wings flaring at the shock of their sudden presence. “Have you seen Dream today?”
“Jesus fucking christ,” he breathes, leaning down with a hand pressed to his chest. “You scared the shit out of me.”
“Where’s Dream?” Technoblade cuts in.
“We need to have a chat with him,” adds Wilbur, tilting his head with a slight grin.
“Oh.” Quackity straightens immediately, glancing between the three of them. His eyes widen and his lips twist into a slight grimace. “What happened?”
“Something’s come up and we’ve decided that we need to speak with Dream. Is he around?” Phil explains, voice perfectly level. He’s managing to reign in his tone, but he can only hope it lasts.
“I’ve roped him into a meeting that’ll be happening about—“ he glances down at his communicator. “—five minutes from now. But guys, seriously, what’s going on? You look—um, upset.” Quackity finishes with a deepening grimace, eyes flicking between their expressions. Phil wonders what he sees.
“Well,” Phil begins. “Tommy isn’t in Logsteadshire and we need to find him.”
“What? What happened? Why’d he leave? Or was he taken?”
“No idea. The island was blown to fucking pieces and he wasn’t there. So we’d like to ask Dream where he supposes his charge is. Where is that meeting happening?”
“Uh—right here. On the path.” Quackity points to his feet, glancing behind him. “I was waiting for him.”
“You two just have meetings on the Prime Path now?” Wilbur pipes up. “Fun.”
“Look, motherfuckers,” Quackity leans in, whispering. “I need to waste as much of his fucking time as possible. It’s called community service. He’s so wrapped up in his political circus that he needs to play the part, and if he misses a single one of my bullshit meetings, I get to call him uncooperative.”
“Sounds wonderful,” Wilbur remarks. “And an incredible waste of your time as well.”
“No, man, my time is worth way less than his. Whatever I can do in an hour, he can do in half. He’s only putting up with me ‘cause he thinks I’m still useful to him.”
“Because of the revenge thing,” Technoblade says. Quackity nods sharply.
“Yeah. Speaking of, maybe you guys should take me hostage or something. Or I’ll have to leave because he can’t see us having a nice, friendly chat.”
“Do whatever,” Technoblade drawls tonelessly.
“It might be best to leave,” Phil suggests. “You’re not going to be able to have your meeting. Sorry.”
“It’s fine.” Quackity waves him off. “I wasn’t looking forward to it or anything.”
“Too late,” Technoblade says, staring over Quackity’s shoulder. Phil follows his gaze and is met with Dream, stopped short several meters down the path. Immediately, Quackity’s wings rise with tension. Phil can feel his attempting to do the same, but he stifles the urge and keeps completely still as he watches Dream approach.
“The acting leader of L’manburg and three assorted terrorists having a pleasant conversation,” Dream laughs as he joins them. “I never thought I’d see the day.” He levels Quackity with what must be a pointed look.
“What the fuck do you think you’re looking at me like that for?” Quackity spits. “Did you seriously think I’d just jump them?”
“We discussed some strategies,” Dream says smoothly. Quackity bristles.
“An ambush, Dream. An ambush. A surprise attack.” He throws his arms, gesturing towards the three of them. “We’re the ones getting ambushed right now!”
“Good to know,” Technoblade snarks. “I’ll be expecting an ambush in the future. If you catch me on a good day I’ll even act a little surprised.”
“I’d thought you were a little more passionate about the causes we’ve discussed. You have to understand that I wouldn’t have expected to see you casually—“
“Do you think I’m fucking stupid?” Quackity explodes. “What you won’t see me doing is throwing myself into a fight I won’t win for the pure sake of revenge. We discussed justice and I will not find that by picking fights.” None of them move for a brief moment. Quackity exhales shakily, glaring at Dream’s blank, smiling mask.
“If you’ll excuse me, I’ll be on my fucking way. Dream,” Quackity gestures to the three other avians. “You’ll find that your agenda has changed. We can meet to discuss L’manburg’s fish count at a later date.”
“I hope you have an incredible day,” Quackity cordially snarls, brushing past Dream and stalking away down the path. Phil doesn’t wait to watch him leave, his cold gaze flicks immediately to Dream.
His head is turned casually, watching Quackity leave.
“I feel privileged to be working with such a gracious and hard-working Vice President,” Dream sighs.
“I could have sworn Quackity was the President,” Wilbur points out, grinning. It looks far more like a snarl across his face, as he stares at Dream, eyes glinting with crimson.
Dream laughs. “Sure,” he drawls. “But he didn’t really get elected, did he?”
“Man, could you imagine if all you had to do to become president was wait for somebody to resign?” Dream chuckles. “Makes me wonder where you’d be if Schlatt were a coward, Wilbur.”
“Sure,” Wilbur says. “But I suppose we’ll never know.”
“I have a few ideas. You’d be surprised just how predictable everyone on this server is.” Dream pauses, before muttering. “Well, almost everyone. This place runs like a machine, you know. I do my part to keep it that way.”
“I don’t actually care, Dream,” Technoblade cuts in. “Where’s Tommy?” Straight to the point. Internally, Phil winces at his lack of conversationality but he’s mostly glad that they no longer have to bother with formalities. The confrontation was going to get ugly quick, all Technoblade has done is make sure it’s getting uglier, faster.
“I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean,” he replies slowly.
“It’s very simple, Dream. Just tell us where he is.”
Technoblade rests his hand on the hilt of his axe. A purposeful motion that he makes a show of as he steps away from Phil, circling Dream and stopping directly behind him.
Phil stands in front of him. Wilbur stands to his side. Technoblade stands behind him.
“Dream,” Technoblade continues. “Where is Tommy?”
Phil watches as Dream struggles to pick which one of them to face. There is no right answer, of course, none of them are “safe,” but it’s terribly amusing to watch that realization happen. He’s completely cornered.
“This is an incredibly rude way to carry out a conversation,” remarks Dream as his head swivels to face all three of them. “And I still don’t know what you mean. Tommy is in Logsteadshire, you know that.”
“You should try again,” Wilbur grins, voice smooth. He steps closer, closing the circle. Phil remains silent.
“I will. It is my understanding that Tommy is currently in Logsteadshire,” Dream amends, putting his hands up placatingly. “You have me at a disadvantage.”
“Well, he isn’t.” Dream stills.
“Huh.” He turns to face Technoblade and Wilbur.
“It would seem that Logsteadshire has been destroyed. I trust that you know this already, Dream, because I don’t believe Logsteadshire is a popular spot to visit, these days for everyone except you,” Wilbur challenges.
“What do you mean?” Phil can hear the grin in his voice. “That was you guys.”
Technoblade sighs. “Really? That’s your angle?” Dream laughs.
“Absolutely!”
Even with his back completely to Phil, his stance reeks of smugness.
“Look,” he continues. “The shit I come up with doesn’t even have to be that believable at this point. But here’s what I’d have done: I’d go back to visit poor, injured Tommy, devastated because his new home was blown up, act really surprised, and then tell him that you guys did it.”
Phil’s hand meets the ice cold hilt of his sword.
“See, he thinks that I did it, but all he needs is for me to tell him what he really saw.”
His other hand curls around a splash potion.
“Of course, since you say he’s missing, I have to go get him. Chances are, he’s off bleeding out in a ditch somewhere.” Wilbur snarls, wings flaring behind him. Technoblade’s wings tense. Phil watches as tendrils of red creep into his vision.
“I won’t miss that fucking vermin, but I know you three might—“
A potion of harming crashes into Dream’s back, shattering and drenching him with pale red. Phil shoots forward, gripping his head and forcing the blade of his sword against his throat, pushing him to his knees.
“Thank you for your time today,” Phil tells him. “But I seem to have run out of patience.”
He pulls Dream’s head back and yanks the blade across his throat, slicing deep into his neck and spilling a river of crimson blood. It spurts, gushing like a thick, red fountain, running down his front and pooling around his knees.
Phil releases his head with a harsh shove, listening to the harsh gurgles as Dream chokes desperately on his own blood, trying to breathe even when his mouth and his lungs no longer connect. The body collapses on the wooden path, still gurgling as Technoblade steps forward, holding his axe high above his head.
He buries the head of his axe into Dream’s half-severed neck. Phil watches passively as he reduces Dream’s limbs to pieces.
Technoblade finally yanks his axe out of the mutilated remains and looks up at them with a wild, empty look in his eyes.
“He didn’t know anything about Tommy.” Phil nods.
“Which is why I killed him so quickly,” he explains. “Sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it, I didn’t want to hear another word out of his mouth. I’m only mad I didn’t get the kill.” Technoblade pulls out his communicator, smearing blood onto his clothing as he digs for it. “See, it says Phil,” he complains, holding the screen out for him to see.
“It does say Dream was slain by Philza, which is why we should be leaving right now,” Wilbur points out, idly kicking around one of Dream’s severed arms. “I don’t know how many allies he has left, but we shouldn’t risk involving them in these personal matters.”
“Sure,” Phil agrees easily. “Let’s circle Logsteadshire a few times, see if we see Tommy anywhere.”
“We’ll circle the area until we find him,” says Technoblade, voice tight. His shoulders are wound up to his neck. He grips his axe and raises his tawny wings. “Or until we see a death message.”
“Dream said he was injured,” Wilbur points out. Phil nods, raising his own wings. He casts a poisonous, empty glace towards Dream’s pieces as he turns to the sky.
“He better not be,” he warns softly, unheard by the scattered remains. “Because I’m done playing these games.”
They take off, shooting into the sky and weaving between the clouds, missing the moment Quackity darts out from behind a nearby building and snaps pictures of every angle of the chunky pool of blood they turned Dream into.
Their communicators buzz, beyond their notice, with the pictures being posted to the server. In one of them, Quackity holds the camera to face himself—Dream’s pieces in the background—with his fingers forming an “L” over his forehead and a breathless grin stretched across his face.
They find nothing.
Snow falls around them as a blizzard takes the sky. It buries the tundra in sheets of fresh cover, ruining any hopes they might have had of catching sight of tracks or a body in the snow.
But they find nothing, and Phil tells them they should stop looking and go home.
“We can hardly keep flying in this storm,” he begs them. “I don’t want to give up either, but I can’t let anything happen to either of you, too.” Clumps of snow slide off of his shining, bloodsoaked armor and fall at their feet. They carry the crimson color of Dream’s blood, standing out amongst the sheets of white. Technoblade watches them melt into the rest of the snow with wide, unfocused eyes as the three of them stand beside an outcropping of rock, sheltered from the storm by trees and a cliff above them.
“If it’s this bad for us, then how do you think Tommy will survive until the blizzard clears up? Do you think he can afford for us to find him at our leisure?” Wilbur demands, leaning heavily on the rocks beside them. Technoblade doesn’t think he’d be standing without them. He looks ready to collapse into the snow.
Despite how he burns at the thought, Technoblade knows Phil is right.
“I don’t think I can go home without him,” he confesses. The blizzard rages on and it nearly drowns out the whisper of his voice. Wilbur and Phil both turn to him and he can see the same feeling in their faces.
It would be logical to go home now and continue to search after the storm clears. All that they would accomplish by flying in a snowstorm would be damage to their wings, hypothermia, and almost certainly no luck finding Tommy. The low visibility from the sky, coupled with the fact that there’s already a thick layer of snow recovering the tundra means that anything out there has been buried, and they can’t see it from the sky. It would become a trip on foot, digging through layers of snow for a hint of anything to point them in the direction of where Tommy ended up.
They’d more likely find his corpse than anything else, at this point. Waiting wouldn’t change the fact that this land is not something an injured kid can survive without protection against the elements.
So, the choice is: do they dig up Tommy’s corpse from mounds of snow at their own leisure, as Wilbur stated, or do they tear through a roaring snowstorm at the expense of their safety and health? They’ll be finding a body either way.
Logically, they should go home. Technoblade prides himself on thinking logically, making decisions that don’t bend to emotion. Sometimes, he takes it too far and he makes choices with no warmth to them, but he trusts the cold bite of reason.
There is nothing logical about the instincts raging in his mind that there is a fledgling out there, somewhere. He doesn’t think that he can force his limbs to carry him through the door of his cabin until he knows that the fledgling is safe.
Their fledgling is out there, injured and alone.
There’s no logic, no reason, or truth that could make him stop caring about that.
“Wait here and save your strength for a break in the storm,” Technoblade tells them, shaking the snow off his wings and spreading them for flight. “I’m going back out.”
Here’s some logic: Technoblade is, by nature, better suited to withstand a blizzard than either Phil or Wilbur. He shares his traits with a bird that is designed for this environment, and for hunting from the sky.
“You can’t go out in this alone,” Phil pleads.
“And I can’t go back until I find him,” Technoblade points out. Wilbur examines him wearily.
“We’ve looked everywhere,” he sighs. “Where are you going to search?”
“I’ll do another lap of the area, double checking for anything we missed.”
“Mate, that’s pointless,” Phil points out tiredly. “Anything we didn’t see the first time has been covered in snow already—“
“—And we’ll only be finding a body, most likely,” Wilbur cuts in, his face twisting with grief.
“I know that,” Technoblade snaps, his fingers curling into fists, nails digging into his palms. He deflates with a sigh. “I know that,” he repeats, softer, more like a whisper.
“It doesn’t matter. Dead or alive, we’ll find him. If he’s already gone, then we’ll take him home and we’ll get everything we need to bring him back. We did it for you,” he motions to Wilbur. “And I’d do it for him in a heartbeat.”
They’re silent for a moment, listening to the wind shaking the evergreen trees and whistling past the cliffs.
“I’ll do one more lap, then I’ll come back. We can fly home together.”
Phil sighs, fixing his tired gaze on the roaring sky. He nods.
“Keep in touch on your comm,” says Wilbur as Technoblade braces himself to enter the sky. “We’ll need to know if we need to up the counter of ‘people to pull out of the fucking snow’ to two.”
“I’ll do my best,” he promises, and steps out from the alcove they found shelter in.
He lifts his wings and joins the snow in the sky as he pushes himself high enough to fly against the force of the wind.
Technoblade doesn’t find Tommy.
Failure runs hot under his skin as he leads Wilbur and Phil back to the cabin, without the kid he’d sworn to find.
There were no tracks to follow, no signs Tommy had ever even stepped foot in the tundra, and there wasn’t even a body to spot from the sky. He wonders, numbly, if there was any other direction he could have gone.
Maybe Tommy never did step foot in the tundra. Maybe they’d wasted their time scouring the ice, snow, and mountainous evergreen trees for him. Maybe, Tommy hopped in a boat, injured as he was, and said fuck this to all of it.
(But maybe, he came to the tundra.
Technoblade wants that little bit of trust: he wants Tommy to have chosen to come to them.
He said he’d leave with them, Technoblade just hopes Tommy really meant that).
Tomorrow, they’ll look elsewhere. They’ll split up from Logsteadshire and continue the search. It’ll quickly become a race with Dream to find their lost fledgling.
If they see Dream, past the moment Phil tore a cold blade through his throat, they will kill him. They won’t be able to hesitate, it isn’t in their nature.
Maybe, if they shared the traits of gentler species, they’d give a moment’s pause. But they are built from birds of prey. Technoblade is not Wilbur, he’s never pretended to be any less dangerous than people know him to be.
Although, he’s never given people the transparency to know exactly how dangerous he can be, if he wants to.
Now, with Tommy still injured and missing; Dream with one life down, two still to go; and everything falling apart around them, he’s run out of the desire to hold himself back.
So, he won’t.
Technoblade lands in his yard with a strong flap marking his descent. Phil and Wilbur don’t waste time doing so either, and they follow him up to the door.
He pushes it open and stops short at the sight of half-melted clumps of snow littering the floor.
“Someone’s been here,” he tells them, voice clipped. His hand meets the blade of his axe on his holster, unlatching it and bringing it up to a position in front of him as he moves inside the house. Similarly, he hears Phil unsheathe his sword and the little click of Wilbur’s crossbow loading a bolt.
They move fluidly, like the hunters they are, sharp eyes searching for anything out of place.
Technoblade’s gaze catches on the tracks left sloppily across his floor. The snow left from the intruder’s shoes has melted into little puddles trailing over to the stairs.
He follows it, rage mounting.
Whoever is down here, has chosen the wrong house. Technoblade almost hopes that they won’t be chased out quietly, because his skin crawls, itching for a fight. After Tommy’s disappearance and Technoblade’s subsequent failure to find him, he’s in the mood for blood.
He’s territorial; sue him.
As he makes his way down to the basement, he lets his boots thunk loudly on the ground, announcing his footsteps and presence to the intruder. The snow continues down further, leading to the trapdoor that separates his basement from the extension he’d been working on. It’s a glorified hole in the ground.
This makes him pause. It’s weird for someone to have broken into his house, taken nothing, and gone to hide in the unfinished basement. Illogical. Because he’s stopped to question the situation, his sharp eyes scan the scene and find blood.
There’s a smear of blood stretched across part of the trapdoor. It’s been opened by someone, and that someone was bleeding. Or at the very least, had blood on their hands. With a glance back at the two behind him, he knows they see it too.
Technoblade leans down, grabbing ahold of the trapdoor, and rips it open with a sharp creak. After he’d noticed the blood, he was able to smell the tangy, metallic scent faintly in the air, too subtle to register in his mind past the distraction that the intruder posed. When he drops down the ladder into the sub-basement, the smell gets more intense. Past it is an undercurrent of smoke.
He turns. Nothing is out of place, except for the fact that he’s almost certain he’d left a spare pickaxe down here, and the messily patched floor in the corner of the room. Technoblade quietly approaches it, setting his axe aside. He’s let his guard down, something inside him buzzing with a revelation, or something, dancing on the tip of his tongue that he just hasn’t put together yet. But he tells himself that he’s no longer out for blood because the intruder has already spilt it, and is in no shape to be a clear threat. This is not the behavior of an enemy ready to fight. It’s not even the behavior of an ambush.
Technoblade removes the cover, his senses instantly assaulted by the reeking smell of blood and smoke. His eyes water and he blinks rapidly to clear them as he drops into the little hole.
With a sharp intake of breath, his heart stops.
Staring at him with terror etched into every inch of his face, is Tommy. His glassy blue eyes regard him like he’s a reaper coming to claim his soul.
Technoblade drops to his knees and stares back.
There isn’t a sound, from any of the four of them for a long moment.
Tommy is wrapped haphazardly in a blanket Technoblade recognizes, one he must not have noticed was missing from the couch upstairs. He notes the blood staining the fibers and his ability to breathe returns just as Tommy begins to shake.
“Tommy,” he breathes, lowering himself against the floor, letting his legs fold beneath him to try and seem smaller. Maybe Wilbur should have come down here instead, because the best way Technoblade can think to handle this situation is to approach Tommy like a frightened animal. Although, if Wilbur were better equipped than him, he wouldn’t be peering down into the hole, paralyzed with shock with Phil beside him, just as uselessly dumbstruck.
Technoblade tunes out the frantic scuffling above him and focuses entirely on the kid in front of him. Still scared out of his mind, shaking and pressing himself as far as he can into the stone and dirt behind him.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” Technoblade tells him, hoping to get that delirious fear in Tommy’s eyes to lessen. He lets his hands rest on his lap, limp and open-palmed, his axe long forgotten. Tommy’s eyes flick between them and his face as he seems to choke on his own breath. It takes absolutely everything in him to not grab the kid and wrap his wings around him completely in a near-suffocating hold. Half his mind is crying out with victory that Tommy’s finally here, in his house. It’s not enough to drown out the other half, screaming at the sight of blood on him.
He’d love to take the time to calm Tommy down, to bring him back down from the delirium and hysteria, but he’s injured, and Technoblade knows he’ll probably have to do whatever it takes to take care of those injuries first and worry about everything else afterwards.
The first step is getting Tommy out of this hole.
“Can you stand?” he asks. Tommy only looks at him without any hint of acknowledgement or recognition. Technoblade feels a heavy sigh build in his chest.
“I’m gonna have to carry you upstairs,” he mutters, mostly to himself because he knows Tommy isn’t really hearing him right now.
As slowly as he can, he leans forward, reaching out to Tommy like he’s an injured rabbit with a heart running quick enough to kill it from the inside before it even has the chance to bleed out.
Technoblade scooches himself closer, inch by inch, which doesn’t help Tommy’s panic in the least. Again, he probably isn’t the best one of the three of them to be doing this. He spares a glance upwards and he’s met with the sight of Phil restraining Wilbur, holding him back from jumping in the hole. Although, in the next second Phil shifts, leaning towards him, and Technoblade is able to spot the equal grip that Wilbur has on Phil.
Alright, maybe Technoblade is the best one to do this. He appreciates the restraint, though. Clearly, they all understand just how delicate this is. It isn’t even the hardest part, yet.
Technoblade rises to his knees and snakes his arms behind Tommy’s waist and legs, gently pulling him over his shoulder. It’s not as gentle or slow as it should be, and it’s only going to freak the kid out even worse, but Technoblade figures that the urgency of the injuries on him is enough to have him rushing this a little. Guilt pangs in his stomach as he feels Tommy’s chest heave brutally for a moment against his shoulder, making a horrible choking sound before going completely limp. It only makes Technoblade clamber out of the hole and up the ladder—past Phil and Wilbur’s panicked noises—all the faster.
He doesn’t stop until he’s all the way upstairs. Tommy ends up getting set down on his table, which Technoblade deems to be the best place for any healing he’ll have to do. Phil and Wilbur both join him at some point while he’s tearing through cabinets for medical supplies.
“He’s hurt,” he tells them, slapping a healing potion onto the table beside Tommy.
“He’s not breathing,” he hears Wilbur say past the roaring in his head. Technoblade whips around and rushes to Tommy, placing a hand to his pulse point. He must look half-mad, glaring down at Tommy’s unmoving form like he can implore the life in the kid’s body to stay.
Tommy’s skin is cold. Not the pale, waxy chill of dead skin, freshly deceased—it’s freezing. In his shock, he hadn’t noticed. Tommy’s (Wilbur’s?) coat is soaked, clumps of red stained snow clinging to the lower half of it. It’s certainly not helping and they’ll have to pull the heavy thing from his shoulders before it makes the kid even more hypothermic than he already is.
None of that is important right now. What is, is that Technoblade can feel the faintest, fluttering heartbeat buried in the cold.
Alright, Technoblade thinks, or maybe he says it out loud absentmindedly. What’s going to kill him first? Hypothermia, or whatever injuries Dream’s given him? Probably best to start treating both and figure out which needs more attention.
He blocks everything out except for the task at hand. Phil and Wilbur seem to have done the same, working with him wordlessly. Technoblade grabs the side of the table and pulls, dragging it towards the warmth of the fireplace. He registers Wilbur steadying it from the other side and Phil keeping Tommy stable as they move.
The warmth will help, but the frigid, ratty clothes will suck the heat out faster than the fire can warm him, Plus, Technoblade needs to see where the blood is coming from.
Gently, he turns Tommy over and takes a hold of the cloak, sliding one of his arms from the sleeves.
And that—with the feeling of the ratty, smoke stained cloak being pulled from his shoulders—is when Tommy wakes up.
He wakes up begging.
“No—“ Technoblade hears Tommy gasp as cold, pale hands twist back, reaching for the sleeve in Technoblade’s hold. Carefully, Technoblade takes Tommy’s wrists and holds them still.
“Don’t look,” Tommy chokes and Technoblade’s chest twists. Fear, worry, and rage swirl together in his stomach until they’re unidentifiable— and terribly stronger in their combination. Also confusion, because is there something Tommy doesn’t want him to see?
Phil says something, but Technoblade only hears the fear in his voice that resonates with his own. Somebody takes Tommy’s wrists from his hands, as pointless as it is to keep holding them because Tommy’s gone limp again.
He’s still awake, sobbing, his chest heaving with the force of it. Someone is chirping, loud and distressed, which only worsens the roaring static in his ears. He can’t tell who it is, but his biggest concern is Tommy.
Technoblade blinks and his mind allows him the sharpest clarity, just long enough to focus back on the task of getting the cloak off of Tommy and checking him for injuries.
He fights against the buzzing—the snarling of emotion and panic in his brain like a rabid dog clawing for release.
His hand brushes Tommy’s side. It comes back bloody.
There’s the wound, he thinks. The coat needs to come off.
He grabs the collar of the coat. Maybe Tommy was hurt, last time he tried, because his movements weren’t as gentle as they should have been. He does it, now, as if he’s peeling the delicate skin from a fruit.
Slowly, Technoblade pulls the coat off of Tommy’s shoulders.
And everything stops.
His heart beats like a record scratching loudly in his ears.
Blood rushes through him and Technoblade swears he can feel every drop as it’s pushed through his veins.
He isn’t breathing.
A knife could cleave his head into two separate halves and it would move him less than this.
On Tommy’s back, there are two tiny, grey, down-speckled wings.
If he were any weaker than he is now, any less focused, this would bring him to his knees.
It nearly does.
The last time he’d seen wings this small and new were when they were on his own back. He feels a lot differently about Tommy’s than he felt about his own.
Technoblade stares at the down that’s barely started to grow in as everything fractures into dust around him, falling at his feet like snow. The wings can’t be more than a few weeks old at most.
These are hatchling wings.
And they are amazing.
But something is wrong.
Technoblade lets his hand ghost over them, barely brushing against them as he wonders why they’re struggling to move.
The tiny limbs tremble, stuttering as they try to move but can’t for some reason and Technoblade feels his breath catch in his throat again—
Why aren’t they moving? Are they hurt? Is this where the blood is coming from? What—
His sharp eyes, even now, don’t fail to catch the miniscule glint of light buried in the sparse beginnings of down.
With a featherlight touch, Technoblade brushes through the down. His finger catches on a thread.
Tommy has tiny, delicate hatchling wings.
And they have been bound together, with twine.
Light glints off of the twine, catching on the warm light cast from the fireplace.
It’s a spark, landing in Technoblade’s chest.
Something explosive is surfacing in him. Distantly, he feels the urge to laugh.
He thought he knew rage.
He was wrong.
All he has ever felt—up to where he stands now, with a finger lifting twine from bound wings—has simply been anger. It was mild. Weak.
His hands are shaking.
This—his gaze follows the paths of blood to slashes in Tommy’s side—is rage.
There’s an animal clawing, scratching, and devouring him from the inside.
In the back of his mind, he wonders if he’ll die. He’s never felt this angry in his life and he wonders if his heart might just give out. It wouldn’t be surprising.
Something has snapped inside of him, loudly and irreparably.
Tommy is still bleeding, he notices.
Technoblade picks up a cloth from the table and cleans the blood from the flurry of slashes on Tommy’s side. Another pair of hands is helping him, disinfecting the cuts as he cleans. Together, they douse the cuts in a healing potion and bandage it neatly. Technoblade ignores the telltale damage of a harming potion over the open skin.
(That’s a lie. He can’t ignore any part of the cruelty recorded on Tommy’s skin. He’ll never be able to scrub the sight of this from his memories)
Someone is leaning over Tommy’s wings with small shears, the kind meant for cutting herbs.
Technoblade blinks, and his mind grants him brief clarity once again.
Phil’s hands are shaking too badly to cut the twine. Technoblade steps closer and gently pulls the shears from Phil’s trembling grip and turns to Tommy himself.
He examines the tangle of threads and gets to work.
Not a single breath passes through him the entire time. Technoblade’s mind screams at the idea of anything sharp being anywhere near these wings. It takes everything in him to not break down. This is the worst thing he has ever had to do, and someone will pay for this—
He brushes the threads from Tommy’s wings and searches for any more. It looks like there’s one last thread that’s actually constricting movement, which he takes care of quickly.
The problem right now wasn’t that the wings were bound—not anymore, at least. It was that they had been bound, and then the twine was cut, and it tangled.
Twine had been wrapped cruelly and effectively around Tommy’s wings, wrapping around his chest to secure them. It was tight enough to leave thin lines of bruising and raw skin. Then, a knife was dragged down the side of Tommy’s chest, snapping the twine and tangling all of it into knots in his delicate wings.
It would take nothing less than the focus and precision that Technoblade just afforded to the task to free Tommy’s wings. That was never something he could have done by himself.
Tommy’s wings were bound—
Someone will pay for this.
And Technoblade knows exactly who’s debt to collect.
Eventually, after an eternity of cleaning, bandaging, and trying not to lose grip of his rage, Technoblade is confident that Tommy is no longer at risk of imminent death.
It doesn’t mean the kid is fine, but it’s enough for him to finally let himself breathe.
Which allows him to process…this.
“I’m going to kill him,” he declares. Phil is the only one there to hear him, though. Tommy’s still out cold and Wilbur is…somewhere? Technoblade doesn’t even know where that guy is, and he’s too keyed up to care right now. He can handle himself.
Probably.
“We fucking better kill him,” Phil agrees before shifting his gaze back to the mass of blankets that contains Tommy’s sleeping form. “But not now.”
“Yeah,” Technoblade sighs. “We can take shifts, but I’m not going anywhere for now.”
He knows that it’s only the fact that the instinct to protect and defend is stronger than his rage that’s keeping him here. Leaving Tommy’s side would only make his brain go even more haywire. It’d do more harm than good.
(But the first chance he gets, there will be blood. Dream will fucking pay with his life—)
Technoblade and Phil sit in near silence, unbroken except for the barely audible crackling of wood in the fireplace. Even with the time to process everything that’s happened in the past hour or so, Technoblade just can’t.
“Tommy has wings,” he blurts out into the silence of the room. Phil snorts.
“I know, mate. I saw them too.” Technoblade watches as Phil sighs, scrubbing a hand across his face and pinching the bridge of his nose. It’s a familiar exhaustion to Technoblade, since he’s feeling the same pressure in his head.
He doesn’t really know what he wants to say. There’s no direction he planned to take this, but regardless, he tries to verbalize what’s crawling through his brain.
“They can’t be more than a week old.”
“Yeah,” Phil agrees. “They’re so…”
“Small,” he finishes. Phil sighs again.
“Yeah.”
Neither of them say anything for a while after that. The cabin falls into silence again. Mutely, Technoblade can hear the distant croaking of ravens in the trees.
“I wonder what kind of bird he is,” he muses aloud. Phil glances at him before looking back to Tommy.
“His wings look pretty much exactly like mine did when they first grew in.”
“A raven?” Phil hums.
“Could be, but that hardly proves anything. Lots of birds have black wings. His feathers could even stay that color grey.”
“It’s too early to tell,” Technoblade agrees. Phil laughs tiredly.
“It’ll have to be a hell of a fuckin’ bird to fit him.”
“I would have guessed parrot, but I think we’d already be seeing the colors if he was.”
“Well, he’s just barely started growing out his pin feathers, there’s still a chance,” Phil points out, amused.
“But there’s a lot we can rule out now.” Phil hums in agreement.
“Do you think he could be the same as any of us?”
“Maybe you or Wilbur, but definitely not the same as me,” Technoblade laughs and Phil raises an eyebrow. “His wings don’t look nearly stupid enough to be an eagle.”
“Was it really that bad?” Phil laughs. Technoblade hides a grin behind his hand.
“It was brutal, Phil. Have you seen golden eagle hatchlings? They look like muppets.”
“Fair enough,” Phil says through his laughter. “But we all looked stupid. It’s just part of the teenage experience.”
“Yeah,” he agrees easily. “But I know he’s got different wings than me. Mine were completely white before the real feathers started coming in.”
“Guess not, then.” Phil settles down onto the couch, still carefully watching Tommy’s blanket cocoon. “I didn’t really think he would be, anyways.”
Once again, both of them lapse into silence. It’s easy to simply sit together and watch the slow rise and fall of the bundle of blankets in time with Tommy’s unconscious breathing. The rage from earlier isn’t gone, at all, but it can take the backseat for now. Nothing really needs to be said, and they’re content to just be together, finally, after all they’ve had to do to make this happen.
Except, they’re not all together, are they?
“Where’s Wilbur?” Technoblade asks, turning to glance around the cabin. Phil frowns.
“No clue.” Phil reaches for his communicator. “Last I saw, he was helping with Tommy. I was too distracted to keep track of him.”
“Same.” Technoblade watches as Phil checks his communicator and begins reaching for his own. Maybe he should message Wilbur, just to—
“Oh my fucking god—we can’t leave you alone for two seconds—“ Phil bursts out, burying his head in his hands with a hysterical laugh.
Technoblade flicks the screen of his own communicator on and is met with a few new messages.
Dream was slain by Philza, from earlier. A treasured memory in Technoblade’s opinion. Several pictures, taken by Quackity, were posted to memorialize the event.
Dream: Everyone meet me on the Prime Path. This is important.
He doesn’t give half a shit about whatever that’s about, and it can’t have warranted that reaction from Phil, so he scrolls to the next one.
Dream was slain by WilburSoot
Huh.