Things That Need To Pass (passerine!Technoblade x OC) {COMPLETED}

The Nights Are Long

(3rd person POV)

"Are you done, then?" Wilbur asked, his expression caught between furious indignation and the fear of losing yet another brother. "Do you think you've done everything?"

"My life was fulfilled the day I met you and Tommy," Techno said. "Everything that came after was an epilogue I frankly didn't deserve. After we get him back, someday—not someday soon, I hope, but someday, I want to get to follow you to wherever finished stories go."

Wilbur's eyes shone in the gloom. "Techno, I—" he began, his words barely a whisper.

"But," Techno cut him off briskly, suddenly rising to his feet, "that's only our last resort, isn't it? I don't have to sacrifice anything until push comes to shove, right?" He gave Philza a pointed look until Phil nodded hesitantly. "Right. Well. I'll go hunting for dinner. "

"Try not to kill each other while we're gone." Eryn added with a smirk.

And then Wilbur and Philza were alone.

Techno ran. He ran until his lungs were free of smoke and cave and talks of mortality. He ran until he was more blur than man, more air than body. He ran until he fell to his knees in front of the cracked ice that almost claimed the last life Techno gave a shit about. He stared into its dark depths, the shifting waters like a grim invitation.

Technoblade never dies, the voices urged, promised, cursed.

"I guess we'll have to see," Technoblade replied, and began to laugh.

Wilbur fell back against the cave wall, staring at the space where Techno had been just moments before. He was familiar with this side of his old tutor, so easily startled in moments of vulnerability, like a newborn fawn just starting to learn about a world capable of hurting it. 

My life was fulfilled the day I met you and Tommy. He'd sounded so sure as he said it. Wilbur wished he could say anything with even the fraction of conviction Techno had. It must feel so light, knowing your story's ending—but Wilbur could spend a thousand years wondering, and he would still feel like he was running out of time.

A boy-king first, and then just a king, and now a brother far from home. Who would he be the day he died? Would he meet death clumsily, slipping into its arms at the age of eighty with his crown askew and his legacy secured? 

Or would it have to drag him, kicking and screaming, into the dark—frigid water filling his lungs, praying, Father, Father, save me, with no one to remember him but two gods and a kingdom without a king?

He did not even know how he would face them, if he returned. Would they understand what he did in the Blue Valley? Would they know it was all for them? Would they care?

King or pariah. There was only one other man who knew what it meant to be both.

"Would you have done it?" Wilbur asked, once again a little boy looking for approval in places he would never find it. "Would you have buried them all in rubble?"

His father stared at him from across the flames, his blue eyes—Tommy's eyes—sparkling in the dim light. "To save you? To save our kingdom?" He shook his head, a conclusion reached. "It is a sign of your goodness that you hesitated. I would not have spared a single thought to it."

"And how did you know if I hesitated?"

"Because I like to think I still know my own son."

"Well, maybe I'm more your son than you think," Wilbur said, "because I didn't hesitate at all."

The voices chuckled. Little killer king, you've finally grown into your role.

For a moment, his father only stared at him. Then he said, "I'm sorry."