Chapter Text
✻ ✻ ✻
Ｔｅｃｈｎｏ
Like all mornings, Techno had woken up to a dog licking his face. Floof wasn’t the most practical alarm clock but it worked. Though, this time he didn’t appreciate the dog’s affection—since Floof targeted the areas of Techno’s face which had been, to put it simply, beaten to shit.
This was his seventh foster home with a bad neighbourhood so school fights, and even the occasional street fights, were normal. It didn’t mean his foster mother liked it, or him for that matter. And that was why Floof was his favourite member of this household; a white, fluffy dog who never judged him when Techno came home from school with a black eye, split lip, bruised knuckles and a probable case of a dislocated shoulder. The other guy looked a whole lot worse, especially in that hospital gown he ended up needing to wear for his surgery.
Regardless, it was safe to say his third month in this house was not going so great. At least he dodged a restraining order against the guy solely because his foster mother was a lawyer, yet that offence would’ve been mild compared to the other statements on his file. Not that he deserved most of them. Despite how he paraded the whole ‘violence is the only universal language’ ideology, he was a product of that environment, it was something he learnt, not a way of living he wanted to live by. But it was the only way he was heard in this world.
Sighing, he got out of bed, ignoring the pain in his side and shoulder so he could give Floof the good petting the dog deserved. He grabbed his toothbrush from his duffle bag and buried it back in after he used it. Even though he had lived in this house for a while, he still hadn’t unpacked anything. Blame it on the fear that Floof would chew into everything in there and also due to his hatred for this place.
Don’t get him wrong, he wasn’t abused or anything; no malnourishment, violation of human rights or simple immorality took place here. Techno just didn’t like them. The mother’s favourite colour was stripes, which was big enough of a red flag on its own, and she watched ‘Loose Women’ every day, where ignorant and overly paid middle-aged women gave their hot takes on things they shouldn’t be talking about. His issues with her were inevitable.
He walked down the stairs expecting to see his foster mother watching reruns of that hellish show with a mug of fruit tea in her grasp, but not his social worker.
Lukas. Someone he also didn’t like. Techno was solely an atheist because he refused to believe there was a higher being dumb enough to let Lukas exist, nonetheless give him a job that required comprehension skills and the ability to blink.
“What are you doing here?” Techno asked, clutching Floof tighter to his chest. He wanted to keep the dog as far away from Lukas as he could—he didn’t know if idiocy and dumbassery could transmit between species.
Lukas, someone even more socially inept as him, flickered his eyes across the living room. Techno followed his movement and wasn’t surprised to see his foster mother with signed papers in her hands and crocodile tears streaming down her face.
It only meant one thing: he was being sent back.
Instead of his eyes brimming with tears, anger curling in his fists or a drop in his stomach, he put down Floof and uttered the single word, “Why?”
He knew what her answer would be. But a little confirmation never hurt—it did, it did hurt but he tended to disregard that part. Amongst everything else.
“I don’t feel safe in my own home anymore,” his now ex-foster mother confessed, bottom lip trembling as if it pained her to say and not him, the person receiving it. His jaw clenched. “I can’t fix this.”
Techno went to pinch the bridge of his nose, already done with this woman and her failed saviour complex but stopped as she flinched back from him. He froze. She really- she really thought he would hit her. She—
He counted downwards in his head, surveying a new detail of the room at each number. He shouldn’t get upset over this, over her. He can’t.
“You hospitalised that poor boy!” she shouted, voice shrilled.
“I dropkicked that child in self-defence,” he bit back.
His answer sent her into another fit of hysterical tears.
“I tried my hardest to be the best mother I could to you but it seems I failed,” she continued to cry. The more she went on about her own problems with Techno’s departure, the more he wanted this to be over. The hurtful side to her words had died the minute snot dripped from her nose—a horrible sight he couldn’t take to heart.
Floof nestled his nose against Techno’s leg.
Over everything, Techno was troubled by not being able to take Floof with him. This woman didn’t deserve this dog, she didn’t deserve anything. But just like with everything in Techno’s life, none of it was fair.
It didn’t take long for Techno to pack his bags, and that was because he only needed to check nothing had been stolen and then just pick them up. Once he was certain that his box of pink hair dye and bleach was in there—things his foster mother used to hide from him—he zipped it up and followed Lukas to the car.
As he grabbed the car door handle, it didn’t feel right. He couldn’t leave just like that. He bit his lip and turned back to face the front door, where his ex-foster mother stood.
Techno made his way closer. The woman at the door opened her arms for a goodbye, tears still swelling in her eyes, but he swerved out the way. Instead, he reached down to give Floof one last head-pat.
“I will always remember your loyalty, so don’t worry, one day I’ll replace you,” he whispered to the dog, hugging him close. “Be comforted by that,” he added for good measure.
He stood up straight, eyeing his ex-foster mother’s displeasure and simply walked back to the car without another word said.
Like he stated earlier, the woman deserved nothing. Especially not from him.
✻ ✻ ✻
As incompetent as Lukas was, Techno didn’t expect him to find another foster family so quickly. But here he was, still nurturing a dislocated shoulder and cut-up face, standing in front of what seemed like one of those houses that would cost millions in California but a hundred dollars a week in Texas.
He took out his earphones and trailed behind Lukas to the door. The man had explained on the way here details of this house, the foster parents, their son who wasn’t that much younger than Techno, and the town itself. For a town called Snowchester, it didn’t really snow that much. They sounded like a normal family, a domestic one. But he said the same about house six and he left that family with a lot more marks on his body than he entered with.
Lukas knocked on the door—well, he slapped the door with his palm instead of using his knuckles to hit the wood, like a weirdo. This entire shit-show just made Techno want to age out of the system even faster or claim emancipation and get a shitty job that exploited runaways and orphans.
At least he wasn’t an orphan. His biological parents were alive, but prison suited them well. He burnt every letter they posted, not letting their guilt-ridden words see the light of day.
The door sprang open and a shorter boy with brown hair and circular glasses came into the frame.
“For fuck’s sake, he’s taller than me as well!” was what greeted him. And then the boy ran off deeper into the house, leaving the door wide open.
Another person stepped into view; a tanned woman with hair as dark as midnight and a smile conveying the ripping opposite. “Ignore him, he’s being extra insecure this evening. Please, you must be Lukas and Technoblade, come in.”
Unlike with the other foster parents in the past who welcomed him inside, where he would normally stand there awkwardly, glowing up at them to see a flicker of irritation in their eyes, Techno listened to her. It was weird. The woman had a strange authority, one he didn’t want to cross nor tempt, but it wasn’t threatening. Quite the opposite, actually.
“I’m Kristin,” she introduced, laying a hand on her chest as she did so, “and this is my son, Wilbur, and my husband Phil.”
Wilbur, the glasses guy, didn’t make his abhorrence for him subtle. The boy practically glared holes into the side of Techno’s head. But he preferred passive remarks of distaste to kicks to the stomach and being spat in the face—not that this guy could do anything like that to him anyway. Whereas Phil looked like the physical representation of walking on eggshells around people. This usually wouldn’t be a bad thing, per se, with how Phil carefully crafted his friendly expression and calm demeanour, presenting no threats or reasons to be on edge. In fact, it would be helpful for kids from violent homes. But Techno didn’t trust appearances.
Lukas nudged his shoulder, reminding him of the Kinoko Fostering Care etiquette. But Techno wasn’t one for appeasing inadequate adults so he shoved Lukas back at a force ten times harder. Lukas winced and rubbed his arm.
“Anyway,” Lukas began, still clutching onto his arm. “Is it okay if I speak to you two alone?” he asked, gesturing to Kristin and Phil.
The three moved into the kitchen, leaving Techno and Wilbur alone.
“You don’t want me here,” Techno stated, wanting to get this over with.
“Yep,” Wilbur agreed as he crossed his arms. “But Mum wants you, so…”
Techno scoffed to himself. He had been in this situation before, where families don’t let their children decide whether they should foster. It never ended well.
“Hey!” Wilbur exclaimed. “It’s not my fault I didn’t want a foster brother with an American voice as deep as the Mariana Trench.”
He furrowed his eyebrows. “Would you prefer if I had a higher-pitched voice?”
“No!”
“Then why bring up my voice?”
Wilbur didn’t answer and instead chose to glare at him again. He thought Lukas said Wilbur was only a couple of months younger than him, making him fifteen, rather than a couple of years. He acted like one of those five-year-olds in the Chuck-E-Cheese arcade section whenever their childish gambling resulted in no prizes.
“Look, you don’t want to be here, I don’t want you here, let’s have a truce on our shared hatred for this entire thing,” Wilbur proposed. “I’m not going to be an excessive dickhead to you since, no offence, you look dead enough as it is.”
“None taken.”
“And because Dad promised me a new Tamagotchi if I behaved,”
Again, this was a fifteen-year-old. Maybe it was because Techno never got to experience the healthy childhood of Tamagotchi’s—whatever those were—and parental love, but it all seemed so foreign to him. All he knew were narrow dodges to avoid impending hits, backhanded phrases of ‘affection’ from foster parents with saviour complexes and the bloodlust in his head that wouldn’t go away. It was his anger that ruined every house, his own actions, whether it was out of self-defence or not, that made him pack his bags and sit in Lukas’ car again. Every single time.
He didn’t know yet which member of this household would be on the receiving end of it.
“Are you coming with or not?” Wilbur said as he snapped his fingers in front of his face.
Scratch that, Wilbur would be on the receiving end if he didn’t get his hands out of his face.
“Come on, I need to show you around the house.”
Reluctantly, he followed Wilbur.
“What’s up with the block game décor?” Techno asked, frowning at another framed picture of a pixel house on the staircase wall.
“It’s my Mum’s Minecraft builds. Dad frames them,” Wilbur said, a smile loaming on his face as he stared at a specific one.
“What’s Minecraft?”
“It’s the reason we can afford this house,” Wilbur said.
“Thank you for flaunting your wealth, that explains everything.”
Wilbur scowled. “It’s a video game that my Dad made.”
Techno perked up. He always liked video games but never got the chance to own a console to play them when he wanted. Yet, he hid his interest quickly. He didn’t want this house to use it against him. Though, at some point, he’d steal Wilbur’s console and try out the game.
They reached the upstairs and Wilbur stopped. “You get to choose which room you have,” he said, waving towards the two doors that didn’t have any decorations on them.
Wilbur’s door had a picture stuck on it. A child-like painting drawn in crayons resembling Wilbur and Kristin sitting side-by-side on a bench admiring a badly coloured sunset. So, as one would, Techno examined the empty room furthest away from Wilbur.
Yet, the second he saw the suicide windows installed and the ugly curtains, he walked straight out. He’d prefer not to be baked alive during the summer. Only an idiot would willingly choose the first. But that meant the only other choice was the room next to Wilbur’s.
“If you play your music loud enough so I can hear it through the walls, consider our truce and everything else gone,” he threatened as he placed his duffle bag at the end of his new bed.
“What counts under ‘everything else’?” Wilbur asked, concerned. Techno ignored him. “You better not mean me, right?” his silence continued and Wilbur grew more concerned. “Technoblade, surely you didn’t just threaten me, right?”
Thankfully, Phil calling them back downstairs halted Wilbur’s panic. The two rushed downstairs—well, Wilbur rushed whilst Techno quietly ambled behind him, amused—and to Techno’s delight, Lukas wasn’t here anymore. He wouldn’t have to see that dumb little look on his face for a while.
“I thought we could go over house rules during dinner,” Phil said, a hesitant smile on his lips.
Techno’s mood instantly soured. He hated family dinners, or family anything.
“Or not,” Phil quickly added. “Or we could not do that.” Techno didn’t think his disapproval over his suggestion was obvious, but according to that, it was.
It was obvious this was this family’s first rodeo with foster care.
“Can we do this tomorrow?” Techno asked. “I’m tired.” He wasn’t, but he was tired of this.
Phil hastily nodded. “Yeah, of course mate. We’ll go over what’s going to happen this week as well since we need to get you some more supplies.”
He stayed silent and walked back up the stairs, hating the stares on his back. Techno closed his door shut, stared at the duffle bag at the end of his bag and left it zipped up. He pushed open his windows and did what any other person would do and scaled down the building until the grass softened his landing.
He needed a break from this house, from their domesticity, bright smiles and Wilbur’s- well, whatever Wilbur had going on. As it was nearing winter, it was already dark outside, so his want for a dark stroll around an isolated town could be achieved.
It was peaceful. For a while, at least.
He stumbled across a figure in the distance standing beneath a statue. A girl with hair blonde enough to stand out in the darkness stared up at the bronze statue of some founding father or president. Two different flowers lay crushed in her tight grip; one magenta and the other a bright yellow.
She threw the flowers at the feet of the statue and stormed away. Her choked sobs and sniffing echoed with every drop of a shedding leaf.
When she eventually left the park, Techno approached the statue. He skimmed the reading on the plaque, something about the founder of Snowchester, Tobias Underscore, and picked up the abandoned flowers.
Petunias and daffodils.
A bouquet of chilling resentment and anger oppressed by forgiveness in its new beginning and rebirth. Bittersweet forgiveness laid in Techno’s hands. A familiar weight.
With that, he called it a day and returned back to his room.
But not before ransacking the kitchen for snacks. He didn’t want to be hungry in the morning after he’d turn down Phil’s offer for him to join them for breakfast, which was inevitable with domesticated families like these. Disrupting the normalcy they had as they ate their toast and cereal was not something he felt like doing.
As he pocketed another Hershey’s bar, the kitchen became colder. Despite how he never turned the light on, it got darker—eerier, susceptible to negligence and gloom. He shivered and turned to go back upstairs and froze in his step.
A cloaked shadow stood in the way of the door. Their hand reached forward and light sparked in the kitchen.
Oh. It was Kristin in a dressing gown.
“Um,” he muttered as his ears reddened. Nothing could stop her from stepping forward and doing whatever she pleased. He was stealing from her kitchen. Punishment was the bare minimum. She could raise her fist and cave it anywhere and no one would object, because no one was here and—
“Can I have one of those Hershey’s?” her soft voice interrupted his thoughts. His shoulders sagged. No threats, no shouting, no crocodile tears over how he had committed theft of all crimes, destroying their little mission to save his soul from a cycle of violence bred in the system. No. Kristin just wanted some of the chocolate currently clutched to his chest. “I’m ordering some more tomorrow.”
Techno placed a bar on the kitchen island surface and pushed it towards her. Kristin picked it up and smiled nimbly, “Thank you,” she said. “Goodnight.”
And that was it.
God, this family was stranger than the house with a taxidermy business. He had to sleep in a room with a boar stapled to the wall and a pig rug beneath his feet but at least he understood what lines he couldn’t cross.
Here it was a minefield and he had no idea where to step forward. A place where sleep didn’t come naturally.
✻ ✻ ✻
Ｎｉｋｉ
Unlike most people her age, Niki had a reason for not being able to use a cell phone. It was a mixture of growing up in a poor area in Germany and also the fact that she was last born in the early 1500s due to a four-century long curse binding her to rebirth and cyclical guesses of Greek myths.
Understandably, when you go from dying on a battlefield before electricity was discovered and gain consciousness at the beginning of the twenty-first century, ways of life did not transfer that well.
She was only reborn twice, with this life included, so outdated beliefs, the nuanced technology and many references to popular culture confused her.
If you asked her what her favourite TV show was, she’d probably describe the weird programme she watched on the plane ride over to the UK—a nature documentary with an old, sweet man as the narrator named David.
Either way, Niki had her curse to blame for this, and for many other things as well, like deep-rooted trauma, trust issues, nightmares, a scar over her heart and a tattoo on her wrist.
With the curse, myths dictated events in your life and Calypso so happened to be her first—Nihachu’s first. The nymph, imprisoned on an island, destined to fall in love with those who will always leave her in some way, whether through death or their willing departure. And despite centuries passing, the burden didn’t cease. If anything, those years in the void, in the emptiness with her fellow cursed, made it worse.
“Niki! Breakfast’s ready!”
She rubbed her eyes, hoping that some food in her system would distract the longing sense of loneliness that had followed her for years. Though, now that crippled loneliness had a new friend: paranoia. She had run away from Germany for a reason yet her fears had travelled with her. Festering under her pillows, hiding in her harsh grasp of the bed covers. No matter how many miles she was away from that man, his weighted gaze never left.
“Niki, you’ll be late!” her mother continued to shout. Well, it was her adoptive mother, but she was a nice woman. There was no need for a separation between the two terms. After all, this family had saved her from the grips of that man and his hunt for her.
Grudgingly, Niki finished getting ready for school and joined the table. They were still new to her despite living with them for a month. Everything was still new. Even the concept of school—she wasn’t allowed to go before because of her history. Apparently being stalked and surviving an attempted kidnapping took tolls on your mental health and a therapist needed to sign her off for returning to school.
She sat down in her normal seat, on the right corner opposite her parents and next to her brother, Tubbo. He was nice too. Well, ignoring how he treated her like dog-shit for the first week. Her adoption wasn’t planned or wanted by every person in this household and Tubbo made that very clear. She was a parasite to him, taking up space in the house, sucking the attention away from him and making it all about her.
His passive disapproval of her entire existence, his rejection of any conversation she attempted, hurt. The curling isolation reminded her of Calypso. Something she wanted to forget.
Niki didn’t blame him though. He was twelve, an only child used to constant attention. A new child, two years older, disrupted that. Yet, just because she understood his anger didn’t mean she wasted any opportunity of tripping him down the stairs and giving him two forks when it was her turn to set up the table. Small things to piss him off.
However now, Tubbo was better. Still distant at times and insensitive but he was trying and that was all she asked for. All it took was her snapping at him in German and a rant of how much of a prick he was being to her—sure he did cry at the confrontation but the little shit deserved it.
“Morning,” Tubbo greeted as he fed Benson another piece of corn. Oh yeah, he had a duck called Benson. “Where did you go last night, by the way?”
She stilled in her seat. He wasn’t supposed to know about that.
It was supposed to be a secret visit, one for the sake of her sanity and splintered process of healing. But with the way she walked home in the pitch-black, crying until her head hit her pillows, it wasn’t very successful.
She had visited Tobias’ statue. Her ex-President and murderer. The man who let her die in the Last War and abandoned their dying country just to make another one. Her first life crossed over with the history of this town and the peoples’ love for Tobias, the founder of Snowchester, chilled the scar over her heart.
It had taken her years in the void to even get to grips to say his name aloud. Even at the mention of him, she felt that crossbow pierce through her and remembered what it was like to die on a pile of the dead; their different uniforms irrelevant to Death’s wishes.
She thought those flowers on his statue would help, that it would ease the pain and ready the peace she chased for. But it didn’t. Niki had accepted what he did to her centuries ago, when he was still in the void with her, though that didn’t mean it hurt any less.
“I didn’t tell Mum or Dad, don’t worry, and they can’t hear us from the kitchen,” he clarified, yet it didn’t ease her panic.
“I needed some fresh air last night,” she lied as she took a sip of water. She needed to remain calm. Tubbo may still irritate her on purpose sometimes, like antagonising Benson to the point where the duck would try to eat her ankles, but he wasn’t malicious.
Tubbo nodded and went back to eating his breakfast. “Are you walking with me and Ranboo or is Mum driving you to school?”
“Mum is driving me,” she said.
“Alright, I’ll see you later then,” and with that, he rushed to leave the house before their parents tried to fix his tie or rub the mud out of his trousers. A common occurrence in this household.
She sighed and took a bite out of the cherries in her fruit bowl but it tasted like lead on her tongue. They came from the laurel tree in the garden. The weighted gaze of that man she escaped heaved.
Her hands curled into fists under the table. She needed to figure out her myth of this life soon. Only seven years left to guess.
✻ ✻ ✻
The tour around her new school was not one she expected.
It was done by another student in her year, who was bald despite being aged fourteen to fifteen, and Niki struggled to understand his accent as he spoke—the thick midlands accent coincided with the British slang she did not recognise made it impossible to translate.
But that wasn’t just it, another new student to the school joined them on the tour. He was in the year above, year eleven, and hadn’t spoken a single word. The older boy just stood there, silent the entire time, glowering. At least his dyed pink hair looked nice.
She had managed to get through the day without any problems. Well, that was until she was taken out of her geography class to have a meeting with her assigned school counsellor. It had been an hour of her avoiding any questions that asked about Germany, or the tattoo of Zagreus on her wrist, or how she was settling in. She didn’t want help in the form of an adult paid too little to care about the mental health of the students they had been assigned. Niki knew that the moment she left that office, the school counsellor wouldn’t give a shit about her, wouldn’t spare her another thought throughout the week, until she next turned up.
The weight of eyes and the overwhelming presence of people worsened after her talk with that counsellor. The second she stepped back into the corridor, it all came crashing down. If it wasn’t for Jack Manifold, the boy who gave her the tour, noticing and talking to her, then she would’ve been elsewhere in her head. Somewhere darker.
It took a while for her to finally understand his accent and he even taught her some of the slang he commonly used. But of course, just like with everything in her life, another problem occurred.
“Niki!” Tubbo shouted, dragging her towards him and interrupting her conversation. His cheeks were red and eyes wide with distress. “It’s Ranboo,” he began, heaving, “these guys tried to take his mask off and—”
“Where is he?” she asked urgently. He tugged her along, pushing past the bigger crowds and shoulders of people.
As they ran, she managed to put more rings on her fingers. She may not have the same strength as she did in her first life, but regardless of reincarnation and being younger, she could still pack a punch.
Tubbo led her to a field. But it didn’t look like Ranboo needed Niki for protection and defence. The same student who stayed silent during the tour, the older one with pink hair, had his fist hurtling towards the boys who harassed Ranboo. Specks of blood stained onto his fists, yet that didn’t deter him from decking the other to the floor and stamping on the boy’s own glasses.
“Technoblade!” another older boy yelled as he attempted to stop the pink-haired boy—Technoblade—from throwing another punch. “He’s down, leave it.”
Techno flexed his fist and shrugged off the hands on him. The taller one scoffed and picked up Ranboo’s sunglasses. He walked back to Ranboo and fit the sunglasses back on his face.
“I’m fine, Wilbur.” Niki heard Ranboo mutter. Wilbur said something back and then returned to Techno, who was busy glaring down at the boy he had knocked to the floor.
Niki pushed through more people to reach Ranboo. Tubbo rested his hand on Ranboo’s arm, pulling him away from the other students surrounding them.
“What if we get you some goggles?” Niki suggested, not liking how easy it was to rattle Ranboo. The single action of stealing away his sunglasses made him like this; vulnerable and exposed. “Harder for people to take it off you.”
“He’d look like that crazy scientist from ‘Back to the Future’,” Tubbo teased, wanting to see the stiffness in Ranboo’s shoulders ease.
Ranboo sniffed but bit out a laugh. “I’ll get some goggles then.”
“Imagine cosplaying an old person.”
“Imagine cosplaying Tweek from ‘South Park’—”
“Shut up!” Tubbo shouted and Ranboo’s amusement seemed a bit more genuine.
Niki excused herself and got closer to Techno.
“Dad’s gonna be pissed,” Wilbur said, loud enough for her to overhear.
Techno shrugged at him, the same deadpanned expression on his face. So they were brothers then.
“This is where you speak,” Wilbur stated, his condescending tone bled with bemusement.
With an eyebrow raise, Techno typed something into his phone and handed it to Wilbur. As he read it, Wilbur glared at him. “Even the way you insult people is American, Jesus Christ,” he grumbled. “Do you have a return label?”
Techno stifled a chuckle and shook his head. Wilbur grinned and gave him back his phone. “Anyway, expect Dad to give you some kind of speech whilst my Mum advises you on how to fight better. You won’t escape her pointers.”
As Techno let Wilbur pull him away, he locked eyes with Niki. There was a flash of red in them, hidden deep in the brown. Then he looked away.
It took ten minutes for a video of the fight to spread, an hour for Technoblade to be a known name amongst the school, and a week for it to be one they feared.
✻ ✻ ✻
Ｔｅｃｈｎｏ
Surprisingly, the talk Phil gave Techno didn’t end up in Lukas turning up at their doorstep, papers in his hands, and a car with enough petrol to drive him all the way back to Kinoko Foster Care’s base. Sure, Phil reprehended him, told him things like how this type of behaviour would get him kicked out and the other school in this town was a shit-hole so it was wise to not do that.
But then Kristin took over the conversation with her questions. Not questions like, ‘Oh, did you do this to get over that lingering anger you can never get rid of, the bloodlust and violence always yearning to be reaped?’ then followed by, ‘Did that fight satisfy it or are you still hollow inside?’. They were very specific questions yet Techno never wanted to admit to being true.
No, her questions were about whether he tucked his thumbs into his fists as he punched or if he kicked more with his leg or his foot. The entire ordeal ended up with Techno learning a new fighting technique, so in his opinion, it went well.
Wilbur didn’t think so.
“Oh so when I break a kid’s nose, I get grounded and my Tamagotchi is taken away, but Techno gets fighting lessons?” he complained.
Phil sighed, almost as if he expected his behaviour. “Wilbur, that kid did nothing wrong to you—”
“He said Marvel was better than Hamilton!”
Phil sighed again and glanced over to Kristin, who just shrugged, giving him a look resembling, ‘This is your problem, not mine’. Techno’s lip twitched, amused.
As Kristin laughed at Phil’s exasperation, her necklace untucked. It was a symbol. Techno frowned. The symbol looked Greek or Cyrillic. She quickly tucked it back under her shirt, her smile twisted into something tight-lipped and tense. He could’ve sworn he saw it glow.
“I just remembered I have a shift at the office, sorry Phil I forgot,” she gasped, her new smile didn’t match her eyes.
Phil nodded, although still displayed his annoyance at having to deal with an upset Wilbur alone. “I’ll leave you a serving of dinner in the fridge.”
She kissed him on the cheek and dashed out of the house, grabbing a case before she went. Why would she need a case that looked as if it could hide a pole inside for an office job?
It worried him when Kristin came back home after work, appearing more tired than before. Too drained for only a couple of hours spent at a desk in front of a computer. She walked in, her back hunched and eyes darker, and stilled when she noticed Techno stirring a cup of coffee at the kitchen island.
They had an unintentional routine of meeting in the kitchen during the night.
“Are you okay?” he asked, not sure why he even cared about the woman’s health. He had known her for a week, he shouldn’t care.
“Just had to deal with an annoying customer over the phone,” Kristin explained, voice strained. He clicked down on the kettle so it would boil again, knowing that she’d need something hot to soften her throat.
She nodded, appreciative, at him and took a seat. “I have something for you,” she said. “I remember you looked interested at the book shop when we went out to get you some supplies, so I bought you this.”
Kristin placed a book on the kitchen surface and pushed it over to him. He stared down at the cover for a minute before picking it up.
Its cover read ‘The Art of War’ by Sun Tzu.
“Why?” he uttered quietly.
“I thought you’d like it,” Kristin said as she made herself a cup of hot chocolate.
Techno had never been gifted anything before. His stifled behaviours, the way he’d hide his perked interest or any inkling of emotion whenever something occurred; no one had commented on them before or even acted towards them. She had observed his want to go into that shop and explore the aisles of books until the shopping mall closed, and bought something. For him.
“Thank you,” Techno whispered.
“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting,” she quoted with a warm smile. “You might learn something.”
“Is this your way of telling me to not get into any more fights?”
“Only the unneeded ones,” she clarified. “Have a nice read, Techno.”
He was caught up in the book in his hands, the quote ringing in his head, and the quiet of the kitchen that he hadn’t even noticed she had called him Techno.
A nickname.
✻ ✻ ✻
School wasn’t so bad when every student knew to keep a two-metre distance away from you. Techno didn’t thrive on violence or the perceived fear he created, but the minimal social interaction was a plus.
He arrived early in his science lesson and waited for everyone else to turn up. These lessons were probably the most interesting. Not because he was invested in the intricacies of ionic bonds or what colour potassium burned (it was lilac, by the way), but because of the two guys who sat in front of him—they made it interesting.
Techno guessed pretty early on, from the first look at him, that the boy was the class clown. Yet not in the ‘I’m a narcissist who wants all the attention’ type way, but more of an ‘I want to make people laugh at the expense of my best friend’s sanity and your education'.
His name was Skeppy and the poor friend he kept irritating every hour in science was Bad. Two weird names but Techno couldn’t complain—his birth name was Technoblade the Third, after all.
Now, Techno hadn’t said a word this entire week. He didn’t even answer his own name for attendance and rather relied on his teacher repeating his name, looking up from the register to see him staring blankly at them, and having the teacher sigh and tick him as present. Despite him not talking, he knew a lot about this school.
He knew the groups, the areas you shouldn’t go unless you wanted to start something with a lower or higher year, what foods to not touch from the canteen unless a stomach virus was something you loved to have, and what students in his year to avoid.
Skeppy was not one of them. He made it practically impossible to ignore his presence with his loud and extreme nature; boisterous cackling, rage-like screaming and what he liked to call ‘trolling’. The term was kinda cringe, but it did accurately explain what Skeppy did.
Like now, for the example, with whatever Skeppy was doing to the glue sticks in period three science. Arriving early like Techno, Skeppy had taken every glue stick off his table, placed them in his bag, and left one his own glue stick which had been coated in another substance.
Techno hoped to God that the substance was another form of glue and not the lubricator he was thinking of. He didn’t know why Skeppy was doing it, but he feared for Bad when he eventually needed a glue stick in this class.
Five minutes later, Bad showed up. Unfortunately for Skeppy, he didn’t need a glue stick until forty minutes had passed.
Techno eyed the glue stick and looked down at the cut-up paper he needed to stick into his notebook. “Hey,” he poked Skeppy in the back, “can I borrow that?” he pointed at the glue stick and Skeppy, although having the reputation for being a pest, was a nice person so he picked it up to give it to him.
Though, he instantly regretted it and threw it to the ground, wiping his hands on Bad’s blazer with disgust. Techno grinned.
“You knew,” Skeppy accused, ignoring Bad’s own disgust at being used as a tissue. “You did this on purpose.”
“I just wanted some glue, man,” Techno said, still grinning.
“Skeppy stop terrorising the new kid,” Bad interjected.
“But he—”
“Skeppy.”
“Just wait until we have P.E together,” Skeppy groaned, glaring at him.
If it was supposed to be a threat, then Techno was far from threatened. Rather than quivering in his chair or shaking to his core, he was ecstatic—not that he showed this—because he had just gained another person he could morally bully. Wilbur was still at the top of the list though.
✻ ✻ ✻
As Techno attempted to find a book on Greek and Cyrillic symbols in the school library, he couldn’t ignore whatever was going in the next aisle. It was the girl he was with for the school tour, Niki he believed, being bothered by two guys in her year.
He frowned and grabbed the heaviest book he could from the shelf before walking towards them. He dropped it on the floor, creating a massive bang.
The three looked over to him and the two boys had the decency to flinch backwards when they recognised him. He walked closer, having no intention to hit or harm them—at least not yet—but they didn’t know this. At his third step, the boys ran off, leaving a disturbed Niki behind.
“Are you alright?” he asked as he picked up the book from the floor.
“You’re American?”
He blinked at her, more confused than anything. “Y’know, a normal person in this situation would say thank you rather than question someone’s nationality.”
“This is the first time I’ve heard you speak, give me a break!” she exclaimed light-heartedly. He couldn’t blame her for that. “What if I buy you lunch as a thank you then?”
Techno’s face furrowed. “Have you seen the food this school produces?”
“Okay fine,” she said, “I know a café nearby.”
She set off and looked back when he didn’t follow her. Niki gestured for him and he moved. Was he currently being adopted by an extrovert? Because he hoped so.
They managed to sneak out of the school and found a free booth in the café Niki told him about. It looked nice, homely even, and it was only five minutes away from his foster home.
“How come you moved here?” Niki asked, not afraid to be blunt with him.
“Foster family,” he grunted out as he bit into his food. There was no shame in it. She looked surprised but in an understanding way. He tilted his head at her. “Adopted or foster care?”
Niki squirmed in her seat, almost as if she was unnerved at how he guessed. “Adopted.”
A silence fell between them, one filled with timid awareness. Eyes assessed each other, trying to read the other as discreetly as possible, yet both knew of their intentions.
“Are they good to you?” Techno asked.
“The best,” she said, tightly.
He knew that tone. He practically lived in it. The family wasn’t violent, they didn’t hurt her but it was different. No immediate clicking or desire for them to send her back. It was almost a limbo, waiting for the shoe to drop or the attachment to begin. And for Techno, that attachment never happened.
“You?”
“The same.”
Recognition flashed in her eyes. They stood at an understanding. He wasn’t pressured to speak or fill the pauses, but he still did. The two quipped in at random times about obscure facts about themselves, their thoughts about the families they currently lived with or vague experiences in the system. He had never shared any of this before, but with her, someone who comprehended every word he said, it felt natural.
“Do you ever feel like you need to repay your parents?” Niki questioned. “Your foster parents in this case.”
He frowned and shook his head. “No. I don’t owe them anything,” he said, though rephrased when she seemed distressed by his up-front answer. “But it’s probably different for you then, with adoption.”
She fiddled with the many bracelets around her wrists. “I feel like I need to make it up to them for taking me in and saving me from that situation,” she didn’t elaborate and Techno didn’t expect her to. “Like, they paid for my plane ticket, somehow succeeded with the German government and its shit adoption system. It took them so much time and money to get me here and…”
“You don’t want to be indebted to them,” he supplied.
Niki nodded, sombre.
“Mine feels too much like an already complete family,” Techno revealed, not wanting her to be vulnerable alone. “A happily married couple and their prodigal son,” he continued, bitterness bled onto his tongue. “They don’t need me there to mess it all up.”
“We both have problems to overcome then, don’t we?” she said yet her words carried more weight. As if she had more secrets and burdens under her sleeve that she wanted to spill but kept screwed shut.
He agreed and sipped on his drink.
As she reached over for a napkin, her sleeve rolled up. A tattoo—a Greek symbol, coincidently. He quickly averted his eyes, both respecting her privacy and because he didn’t want to look like a creep. At least it confirmed something to him, a growing thought: she was just like him. An outcast, new to town, different in some way—whether that meant festering anger or illegal tattoos.
“How do you get to school?” he asked.
“I walk.”
“No,” he stated, stifling a smile.
“What do you mean?”
“We walk,” he corrected.
She beamed as she understood. “Meet at the big tree?”
Techno concealed his smile, though it was getting harder to do, and nodded.
He had made a friend that day.