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To drink a god’s blood is worse than to drink a river of poison.
It doesn’t break your body down, no; it twists and changes it. Regardless of the outcome, whether you live or die, your body will change. Even if you’re worthy, it brings with it pain only the gods of void know. Ichor takes your soul and rips it to shreds and pieces it back together, and then it does it all over again, over and over, for what feels like a repeating eternity of agony. There’s no immediate mercy of death, and they cannot die until fate lets them, or until one kind soul grants them an end to their misery.
Phil had gotten mixed up in the wrong kind of crowd before. Being old enough (but still young!) had thought him a few lessons that only age and experience can bring. Were Techno with him, he wouldn’t have gotten all mixed up to behind with, but it’s fine. This is fine. Surely this isn’t that big of an issue.
He just wishes they hadn’t bound his wrists so tightly. It’s no matter. He’s been in these sorts of situations before, maybe not often, and maybe not quite like this, but he has a belief that his friend is already aware and preparing a rescue. Phil has made these sorts of mistakes before. It’s never gone badly before, so why would the gods forsake him now, right? (He distinctly ignores the part where there is directly a god involved this time, and this god is not on his side)
The cult of the Blood god was a peculiar one, to be sure.
It’s not often that gods will bleed for their followers, and even less so that one would manage to make a god bleed to get their hands on their ichor at all. This makes Phil wonder just how on earth these people have managed to get themselves an entire room with fountains of ichor, making the entire room reek of copper and gore. He supposes they’re living up to their name- he just hadn’t put much thought into the group previously. How was he to know they were this big of a deal? He makes note to be wary the next time he encounters people like these on the road.
He’s gagged, wrist are chafing against the cheap rope, and he’d shoved to his knees before an altar in the bottom of a pit. Surrounding him in an inverted ziggurat are many robed figures, chanting, chattering, their voices overwhelmingly grating despite them all whispering, hissing in his ears. Phil’s vision swims, the effects of a weakness potion still lingering.
“Blood god, we bring before you another vessel, chosen by your devising-” Phil doesn’t think being randomly kidnapped from the side of the road is necessarily the devising of a god. He’d just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. It’d been pathetic that he’d managed to be caught off guard like that. Really, Techno would be so disappointed. The priestess continues, ignorant to Phil’s eye-rolling. “We feed him your flesh and blood, and through his agony you will be reborn!”
Phil notices another robed figure walking down the stairs, in their hands a goblet dripping with blood- likely freshly collected from the fountains surrounding the place.
Fuck wait- that’s not a metaphor? They’re not actually feeding him a god's blood? Just how fucked is this church?
Where the fuck would they ever get shit like this!? Phil had never seen such things in his adventures before, not in all the time he’s spent with techno. He’d never thought he’d ever see gods blood in his lifetime.
They bring the goblet, made of some rusty-looking metal with gems embedded looking like they want to fall out. The blood is dark, but it has this iridescent glint as the fire catches it. Like oil on water, or magic one full moon. It’s twisted, the smell alone makes him want to gag. This is not meant for mortal consumption, and now they want him to chug a whole glass full of the shit–
They start speaking in tongues again, something in some terrible language Phil has never heard before, likely an incantation from ancient hieroglyphs. Something that should have been long since forgotten. He starts swinging his head this way and that, tugging at the bonds on his wrists, trying to find someplace to run off to, but he’s surrounded by the figures. The best he can hope for is to struggle and resist, pray someone stops them and that Phil keeps from getting any of the blood near his mouth. As though they’d heard him and decided to smother his desires, the chanting stops, and his hair is grabbed by a fistful and the gag is removed with a swift motion.
“Blood for the blood god!”
He can’t seem to breathe with his heart in his throat, panting like he’s run for hours on end without rest. The goblet presses to his lips and he can’t turn away, not with the absolute vice grip keeping his head still. He can’t stop them, he can’t get out—
Techno bursts through the doors, sword in one hand, cape already splattered red with fury in his eyes. Phil lets out one hell of a sigh of relief. Gods, this nightmare isn’t actually happening - his friend is here to save him and everything’s going to work out! Everything is going to be alright. It’s fine. He locks eyes with Phil for a second before he dashes forward, swinging his weapon at the unlucky fuckers getting in his way.
Phil’s about to launch himself up and rush towards him, but he’s yanked back by the collar. While Techno slaughters the robed figures, some scattering like rats and others clenching their rusty daggers with a vice, the two figures grab Phil by the arms, dragging him out of sight of the chaos and into the shadows. He yells for Techno, but he’s not even sure if he can be heard over the chaos. Then the goblet is again pressed to his lips. He pulls back, but the other bastard takes him by the arms while the other leans him back, again by grabbing his hair– they’re fucking desperate to get Phil to drink this shit, aren’t they? He tries everything to shake him off to no avail. The other priest seemed unperturbed, using her free hand to press down on his jaw, like trying to rip something from a dog’s mouth. Phil continues to struggle, putting in his best effort, but being tied like this makes him so helpless to their strength.
Thick bitter liquid is poured down his throat. The head priest held his hand over Phil’s mouth and nose, forcing him to swallow or choke on the blood. The taste of something vile spreads his mouth- again he tries to curse but that makes it so much worse- opening his mouth further to force more of the ichor into his system. He coughs, choking, trying desperately to spit it out, to retch on the floor but the hands clasping his mouth shut remain, whispering in languages he can’t identify, it makes his skin crawl, and something in his throat burns like fire.
He hardly even registers when Techno bursts into the scene, slicing his sword at the two, striking down the pathetic pests who’d dared to steal his friend. They go out screaming, collapsing into a bloodied pile, leaving Phil to fall over in their absence. Techno rushes forward, lifting Phil into his arms, saying something with the most frightened expression he’d ever seen on his face. He doesn’t hear his voice, can hardly even speak when he looks his friend in the eyes, begging with hoarse words he can’t remember speaking. He collapses, falling into the worst sleep he’s ever had. At the back of his mind, he begs for it all to be a dream- for the bitter taste to be gone in the morning.
—
“Tech, Technoblade. I’m not going to be in my right mind. Hell, I might not even make it, but, keep me alive? You don't have to kill me.” Phil isn’t speaking his mind. He's pretty sure in just a little while longer he'll be begging Techno to end him, but he'll give his friend this while he's still able to string thoughts together. Of the few times Phil has ever lied to his friend, this moment is probably the best time to do so. Anything to keep his hope. Techno looks beyond crestfallen, realizing what’s about to happen.
What a way to go.
People don’t just survive drinking god’s blood. They don’t, but there’s not a chance in hell Phil could ever bring himself to ask his dearest friend to kill him. He couldn’t bear throwing the burden on Techno. So he will brace for the storm, no matter the terror of how much worse this is about to come, no matter how much longer it’ll be. He’ll likely be out of his mind in just an hour’s time, so there’s something to be thankful for. Maybe, if he’s lucky, he’ll be so far out of his mind he won’t even remember any of the pain at all when he draws his last breath.
“I promise you Phil, it was never in my plans to let you die.” Techno holds him close. Phil listens to his heartbeat. “I can’t imagine living if I have to do it without you.” Phil feels something other than the poison wrapping itself around his heart. This is something darker, something possessive. He does nothing but let it coil around him, taking him further into the dark.
With another flare of pain ripping through his soul, he can only hope there’s nothing Techno can do, because gods know this man has never lied to Phil.
—
Hours later and Phil finds out there is so much Techno can and will do.
When Phil’s energy drains, Techno is there to feed him potions. So many potions, the crewing stand is constantly alight. When there aren’t any potions, he feeds him stew with Oxeye Daisies giving him restoration. He feeds him anything with ingredients granting health and energy, and all of it has never tasted so bitter.
All the while, the pain digs deeper and deeper. Clawing at Phil’s mind, soul and body all at once, and somehow there’s hardly any time to readjust as it powers on, getting worse. It doesn’t let up, it doesn’t get better. Just when Phil thinks he’s reached a point where pain can get no worse, the universe laughs in his face. By the one hour mark he’d already screamed his voice hoarse, and tonight there will be no sleeping for either of them. The potions ware off, but Techno has taken careful measurements to be sure to feed them to him at the right time, just as his energy starts to wane and he looks close to slipping into a nightmarish slumber, Techno is there to help him out to continue the battle. It’s a form of torture all on its own.
—
His pain isn’t all just screaming in agony for hours. No, for Techno, the worst part is when Phil becomes so weak and tired. It becomes too soon for him to feed his friend more potions to give him energy, but it’s too soon to give him any magic more while he’s still lingering on the scraps of the previous potion’s effects. It leaves Phil in a limbo of limp, quiet agony. He hears rasped whispers, he sees how his friend closes his eyes, eyes rolling behind his eyelids frantically in some haze of a nightmare. He becomes sensitive to sound, to lights, but can do nothing more than whimper at it. It devolves into hushed panting. No energy to writhe and thrash, no energy to cry. Just quiet suffering.
“Here Phil. One more.” He tries to coax his friend into lifting his head.
Phil, with the barest scraps of strength he has left, leans away from Techno pressing the potion to his lips.
“No more, please Tech. Let me die.”
“Even if this wasn’t your wish Phil... as much as I love you... I can’t let that happen. You're my friend.” It’s beyond selfish. It’s his greatest low and Techno... he can do nothing but accept himself as the villain right now. This is cruel, but he can’t imagine doing anything else. He doesn’t want to live a second longer if it would be to do so without Phil.
So he takes his friend by the jaw, forcing his mouth open, and makes Phil drink.
Neither of them will be sleeping well tonight.
It’s hardly ten minutes later until the screams return, and Phil pushes away from him in anguish.
—
He thrashes around and screams again, hot and sour bile burning in his throat as he convulses. “Techno my back, please — Something’s happening—”
“Phil?”
“Take it off, my shirt. My back—”
Phil clings to Techno, sobbing all the while, clawing his bloody fingers into Techno's shirt all the while he struggles to get his shirt off.
“Shh, shh it’s okay,” he lies. What’s even happening now? Why is this different? Phil hasn’t said anything about specific pain so, why his back?
He leers over Phil’s ratty blonde hair for a second to see. What he finds disgusts him.
Two dark lines vertically on his back. The skin is a bruised purple and blotches of grey and black. All along there are these horrible bumps with tiny what seems like needles poking through. The lines themselves seem to be raised up slightly, nearly pulsing as Phil cries out, as though there’s something underneath the skin trying to break out.
“Please help me,”
Techno knows that Ichor can twist the body but- he hadn’t imagined they meant it would literally break from the skin. Something about Phil’s body is changing. He’s lived long enough for his body to begin to warp. He feels sick.
Unintentionally, Techno digs his fingers through Phil’s scalp. He’s not sure if Phil can even feel it through what must be torturous pain searing through his nerves now, none the less Techno feels guilt cut through him. He pressed kisses and mutters prayers into his hair, begging the gods, the blood god, anyone, just to let his friend’s pain end. All he needs to do is survive just a little longer, but for how much more he couldn’t know. All he wants is for it to end soon, as long as it’s not in death.
Phil let’s go to start scratching, hard enough to draw blood. Techno grabs at his wrists.
“Stop, you’re hurting yourself.”
Phil giggles with a lilt of hysteria.
“I’m already hurting Tech— you have to cut it- cut the thing out of me! Please help me, you have to do something, I can’t take it. If you won’t let me die, at least make it easier! Please.”
Techno tries to argue but Phil keeps shivering and begging, tears from bloodshot eyes pleading to his own. It’s too much. It’s too much, and he’s seen Phil suffer for too long. All it takes is a few whimpered pleas from his friend before Techno relents, taking a knife in hand with a heavy fist and a heart of lead.
It’s hard for Phil to stay still from how he cries out, but he does his best to stay sitting, facing away from Techno while rocking back and forth, scratching at his shoulder blades.
“Careful your fingers,” he carefully guides Phil’s scratching nails- no- claws from taking down his back and in the way of his knife. When did Phil’s nails grow to be so sharp? He supposes he’d hardly noticed from all the blood and gore; the man is crying blood, blood pours from his nose and it drips from his mouth and it just doesn’t end. There are dark circles under his eyes and he has random scratches all over his body from drying to distract with self-inflicted wounds that Techno caught too late to stop. No, his fingertips and nails have turned the same shade of plague as whatever’s happening on his back. If he’d spent more time staring he’d see the scales growing over his knuckles and the feathers falling from his hair.
The things under Phil’s shoulders bulge through the skin. After a moment of deliberation, the blade presses against his right shoulder.
Phil lurches backwards into the knife and blood splatters everything.
“Fuck!“
Techno grabs him, holding him steady as not to let the blade impale him entirely and then it slides easily down, slicing through the skin. From the dark wound bursts something wet with blood, freed at last. A new limb tears away from the skin and slaps wetly, splattering the floor red, but not without shoving away Techno first with the force that it emerged with.
Phil gasps as though he hadn’t had a good breath of air in hours (it’s most likely that he hasn’t) and for a few seconds longer, he’s silent. No begging or crying, just a brief moment of silent tears of relief rattling his frame. And then he lurches forward and screams again, with a pitch too high to be entirely human anymore. It’s shriller and louder now, like the sound of a bird, Techno realized.
Right. The other wing.
This one goes easier, now that Techno has the slightest idea better of what to do.
Keeping a reasonable distance to avoid getting hit by the new limb, the blade cuts through the skin as easily as the first, the thing— the wing, burst through with bits of flesh clinging to it as it stretches up and slaps wetly onto the floor.
Phil falls over limp.
Techno feels just as numb, staring wide-eyed and feeling a foreign curiosity as to what in the ever-loving fuck has he just been a part of. Two dark things that sprouted from Phil’s back lay flat at his sides. The tang of iron burns at the back of his nose. He tastes copper on his tongue and the taste of sour bile crawls up his throat.
They’re both shaking, panting silently, taking in the moment of silence.
“Phil,” Techno dares break the silence. “Are you still hurting? Is there more pain?”
“There is.... nothing.”
Phil falls over, limp, drained of all energy. Techno rushes forward, his heart lurch into his throat, but is relived to find a faint heartbeat, weak but steady, no longer faltering.
Phil has survived drinking the blood of a god. Somehow. And then... grew wings.
His friend is a demigod.
—
“Am I immortal, then? Am I just going to watch the world die around me?” It’s a lonely life. It’s easier knowing you’ll die soon, that you might meet someone who might die with you too.
Phil echoes, “I don’t want to live if it’s without you.”
Techno sees the darkness in both of them. He can’t bring himself to disagree, to comfort Phil, to go on without him.
But he knows Phil wouldn’t want the same for him.
—
Techno walks the same road he’d rushed down that one terrible night. They should have collapsed the cursed place as they’d left, but now Techno’s never been happier that they haven’t. In a way.
The blood is still there, unending, ever fresh. As long as the blood god's heart still beats, so his blood will still flow. Techno is no follower of the blood god, especially not after what has happened to his only friend. Phil has endured too much for him to have any respect for gods. But this is the only way. There are only so many ways to kill a god (Techno has never killed a god before, but for Phil? He would kill thousands), and even then, would he manage to get his hands on the blood before the body evaporated? No. The risk is too great, and the temple is right there. The blood is still fresh, and it’s just so easy.
He kneels at the fountain, reluctantly; he bows his head, staring blankly at the deep dark red, swirling in the shallow pool.
He says no prayers, and makes no wishes. Simply, he sits there, and hopes for the best before committing himself entirely. He will spend eternity with his friend. Phil will never have to go on alone.
So he cups his hands, plunges them into the depths of the blood and he drinks as much as he can stomach.
To the ends of the earth.
—
He collapses in Phil’s arms, his own voice spinning in his mind becomes many, the echoes of his fear and his hatred, he hears voices of long dead divine souls, of hating souls the worlds never known, and they lead him by the hand and they drive him to madness, handing over bloodied corpses and rotting bodies to the angel to carry them away.
But no matter the eternal fury or the never-ending pain he’d endured, he can’t say it wasn’t worth it.
Because at the end of the day, he gets to sit on the porch next to his best friend who will never die, and he gets to smile alongside him, two sick souls ready to spite the gods.