[Blankets]

chapter one

Tommy was in his den, a little room in Technoblade's basement where he hoarded pillows and blankets to create a nest this is where he went to sleep, to rest, to eat, to think. At first, Techno hadn't wanted him here. Tommy was 𝑡𝑒𝑐ℎ𝑛𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑦 stealing some items form the upstairs chests. But he saw it as survival, so really there wasn't a reason to get mad... At least in Tommy's mind.

Now, though, Techno allowed him to stay, as long as he helped around the base and didn't cause trouble. During exile, Tommy had begun to develop kleptomaniac tendencies and he shrugged it off as a result of needing to stay alive. Then he stumbled upon Technoblade's base in the middle of the night, during a huge snowstorm, and had to be rescued. He was only going to stay until he was healed, maybe two weeks. That was the plan. But he grew a fluffy tail, and his ears moved to the top of his head, and his teeth got sharper, longer, turning into fangs, he grew claws on his fingertips, his vision improved at night, and he felt the urge to stay up in the moonlight, he gathered nesting materials, and his sense of smell heightened. That had been almost a year ago. Now he couldn't leave as he had claimed Techno's basement as his territory.

He had been a hybrid all his life without knowing it. It sort of made sense to him, after the initial shock, of course. Philza had found all of them as little kids, adopting them with little to no information about who they were or where they came from. Tommy had always thought even though Phil was a bird hybrid and Technoblade was a Piglin, he and Wilbur were the humans of the family. So much for that. Turns out Tommy was a raccoon hybrid, and the physical traits only began to manifest during his late teens. He was 17 now.

He felt older sometimes, like he had lived many lives and carried the weight of each one. Other times he forgot the bad memories of his childhood and felt like a little kid, finally able to live out his childish years as Technoblade's polar bear, Steve, chased him playfully around the base. Philza or Techno usually stopped them, though. A bear and a raccoon boy running around could cause havoc in the carefully organized base. Phil wasn't always around though, he was off on adventures or whatever Philza deemed so. Tommy didn't mind. Technoblade was quiet for a 6 foot 8 Piglin. But it wasn't the bad kind of quiet that Tommy knew from exile with Dream. It was a comforting silence, one that mixed with the soft sounds of the base and actually made Tommy feel like... This was his home. Or more like, Technoblade was his home. He'd never admit it though. If anything, Phil should feel like home, right? That was his dad, adopted, yes, but still. However, Techno was the one who had taken care of him this whole year, not Philza.

Maybe it was unhealthy, to be this attached to your adopted brother. Tommy thought about it a lot. He thought about it too much sometimes, down here in his nest. He thought about the blankets surrounding him. Technoblade had never complained about the missing blankets from the living room, guest rooms, closets, even his own room. He just replaced them when they disappeared. Pillows were the same story. Tommy wondered if Techno knew they were gone because of the raccoon hybrid in his basement.

Tommy's eyes struggled to stay open and he finally let himself drift off to sleep, snuggling into the warmth of the blankets that still smelled like his brother