this world we have built is burning down around us | Dream SMP Time Travel Fic

we may no longer matter but vengeance is still within our grasp

"You don't have to stay."

Techno stared at his brother, greyed-out smile making the piglin hybrid's heart beat against his ribcage. It wasn't cruel; it was kind, rather, and yet Techno could still see the warning in his gaze.

Dadza! Killza!

Killza pog! Philza supremacy!

E!

E!

Ghostbur? Double ghostbur?

Technosad! Technosad!

Blood!

Spooky boi!

Technobro! Stay!

Will he bleed? Watch him bleed!

EEEEEEEE!

#modsupport

Blood for the Blood God!

Hey, deja vu!

Lol!

The dawn of the day! November 16th!

Ouch, really wants you to fuck off.

L!

L!

Poor baby wants his baby. Can we have the baby back?

Make him mad! Alivebur's more fun!

Mean Alivebur! Brother Wilbur supremacy!

Ghostbur was pathetic, admit it.

#modsupport

Idiots.

He closed his eyes a moment, trying to drown out his chat as he recalled the chill of the air on November 16th, the image of watching through the hole in the mountain as their father had shoved his blade through Wilbur's chest, cradling him moments later as the madman took his last breath and fled from their lives before his eyes.

He remembered the way he'd touched the grief in his chest, feeling it's sharp sting and despising it, the way he'd turned away from it and continued to destroy the last of his brother's legacy, how he'd wanted to cry and turned what were supposed to be tears into ash and debris as he declared his kid brother a hero and told him to die, withers firing from the smoke-filled sky at the land and people below.

Vividly, the image of Tommy shaped itself in his head, vibrant and sharp against the foggy background of the ongoing destruction and death that had occurred that day. The blond had stood across the crater from him, wobbling atop a stray chunk of rock that had tossed itself from the pit in the ground when the bombs had gone off, and his piercing blue gaze had never looked more like all of Techno's regrets than in that moment. He pictured the way the wound on his cheek from Wilbur's sword was still slightly raw, the green neckerchief that was wrapped around his arm instead of his throat to staunch the flood of a bleeding wound to reveal the prominent scar tissue on his jugular that the hybrid recognized from an arrow, the open cut on his brow that bled sluggishly but would no doubt become a new scar amongst Tommy's collection, the bare, skinny arms that shook from the cool air and simultaneous exhaustion of war and betrayal, the pallor of his skin that seemed to be draining of blood as the minutes ticked by; most of all, he recalled the way his little brother had stared at him with a vigor of hate and odd veil of shame. There was no disappointment or regret, just the everlasting gaze of fueled rage that followed the boy's own self-loathing.

Tommy had lost one brother and then was forced to witness as he lost the other, Techno realized, and abruptly understood that the blond might have truly considered death on that battlefield then and there, long before his second exile, if it would have made Techno proud of him.