A Functionally Dysfunctional Family

{19} 𝕆𝕕𝕕 {19}

Wilbur noticed how odd Techno has been acting for the past couple of hours.

For one, as soon as he saw him, Tommy, and Tubbo, he immediately ran over crying and seemingly squeezing the life out of the three, he was hugging them so hard.

Secondly, he was oddly defensive about every little thing. He was always one to have his guard up, but now it seems like he's missing something that makes him feel safer, and without it, he felt like everyone in the building was going to jump him.

And the strangest thing was that he was no longer wearing his glasses.

There were times, and even days, where he wore contacts instead of his glasses, like during the fashion show he was more or less forced to participate in, but today wasn't one of those days. He wore his glasses to the wedding, and Wilbur knew damn good and well that his younger brother wouldn't bother grabbing contacts just in case.

Yet, here he was, walking around and seeing perfectly without his glasses.

It was odd.

~<•>~

"Where did the glasses come from?" Phil asked Techno, after inviting him inside to avoid the nighttime creatures. "I've known you for, what, fifteen years, and not once have you ever needed glasses."

"Oh, uh, well, they're uhm, readin' glasses." Techno lied.

That seemed to satisfy Phil as he just simply nodded as he walked over to an odd contraption surrounded by three large glass bottles. He put a pinch of a white powder, one that he recognized as sugar, into the middle cylinder, as well as a reddish-orange powder after it.

"Techno, you were always a horrible liar. Remember, I've known you for fifteen—nearly sixteen—years, I know you very well by now." He grabbed a bottle full of an odd cloudy clear liquid and handed it to the warrior. "You can always tell me what's wrong, mate."

Techno took a sip of the concoction. It was sweet, and immediately gave him some sort of boost, similar to a cup of coffee in the morning.

"Do you believe in parallel worlds, Phil?" Techno asked. "A world with you in it, but it's so different than the world you know."

"How different?" Phil asked.

Techno shrugged. "Maybe, in another world, Wilbur, Tommy, and Tubbo are alive. Maybe, in another world, you adopted the clusterfuck that is us three. Maybe, in another world, you're married to the love of your life."

He could feel Phil's breath still as he imagined this other world. "That sounds.....amazing..."

Techno smiled softly. "It is...that's my world, and right now, I'm kind of missin' it."

"I knew something seemed off about you today..." Phil muttered more to himself rather than to the male in front of him. "Well, I hate to break it to you, mate, but there's no way to bring you back to your world. Hell, I don't even know how you got here in the first place."

"Dream took me."

Phil sighed, muttering something along the lines of 'Of course he did' before getting up and walking towards a bookshelf. After looking at it for several minutes, cursing quietly to himself every time he failed to find the right book, he eventually walked back to Techno, holding a seemingly ancient book with no title, the leather cover torn to pieces, and the paper torn at the edges and yellowed with age.

"This is a book about portals, written hundreds of years ago by an unnamed author. There is the Nether Portal, which allows us to travel to the Nether, or as you may know it, Hell.

"There's the elusive End Portal, that is seemingly forgotten by humans today, and only I and Dream seem to know about it and its whereabouts.

"There used to be another realm, the Aether, only accessible through dreams, but none alive are able to visit that mystical land.

"There are also plenty of other realms, but none are accessible today. I don't even know what your world is called, which makes things a lot harder." Phil explained, sighing. "If that sounds like a lot, that's because it is. This author went in depth when writing this, which means that finding just the name of your world would take hours, days, even."

Techno gently took the ancient book in his hands. It was heavy and had a sort of musty smell to it.

"I know who wrote it~"

Ugh, the voice again.

Then why don't you tell me?

"Aw, what's the fun in that, Warrior?"

Then at least tell me the name of my world?

"What are you talking about, warrior? This is your world."

Yeah, right. I want to go home, to my brothers.

"Aw, how sweet...fine, go to page sixty-one."

Techno flipped to the designated page.

"The other realm," Techno read aloud, "is a realm much like ours, except that we live an alternate life, whether good or bad. There's only one way to get to this realm, and that is a portal formed by..."

"By what...?" Phil asked.

"The blood of a descendant of a god...? What the hell does that mean?"

Phil hummed. "Dream is a descendant of a god, I believe. He has the blood of them, anyway."

"So do you~"

"So do I?" Techno muttered.

"What was that?" Phil asked. "I didn't hear you."

Techno shook his head. "Uh, nothin', just talkin'  to myself."

Phil nodded, as he walked back over to his bookshelf.

~<•>~

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