Chapter Text
Time goes by.
One day, then one month, then one year. Then another, and another, and year after year after year goes by.
At some point, during one early morning, in the middle of the rush of worlds being built and worlds being shut down, players jumping from one server to another, names climbing up leaderboards, friendships being made, light-hearted wars being declared, games being won-
Technoblade is marked as a missing player.
He’s only a name amongst plenty, though. Players go off the grid all the time, some of the more well-known ones wishing for some time out of the spotlight, wanting a vacation from the constant adventure of the servers. Most who knew him assume this is the case, and brush off the [Missing] label placed beside his name whenever he pops up in leaderboards, in highscores that still no one can quite beat, even after a decade.
Players keep playing, exploring, creating. A select few from a server before, where there used to be an empire hidden away in a mountain of ice, find the time to meet up again, to share their memories and reminisce over the anniversary of that certain server being made. It was a fun one, after all. A constant fight for territories and land.
Three players sit around a fire, sharing food and drinks, pulling up old files from past servers. They read out name after name, calling out what experiences they had with each person, silly wars and long arguments.
“Technoblade.” They eventually read out, and there is a falter at saying it aloud, at seeing the bright red label put next to the name. “He’s…missing?”
“What?” Someone leans over, looking over the list of old names, seeing the [Missing] mark standing out. “Seriously?”
“It says it right there!”
A scoff of disbelief. “How could they have registered him as missing? Doesn’t he always linger around the hub?”
“When’s the last time you saw him, though?”
“Well, it’s not like we’re friends.”
“You said you saw him.”
“No, I said he usually lingers!” Worry presses over them all for a moment, concern for a well-known name. The [Missing] label glows up at them like a warning sign, then Techno’s name flickers, and leaves the player list entirely. With it, three other names disappear as well.
The fire pops, and one of the players jolts with a yell as a spark jumps at them.
The friends laugh at the dramatic reaction. The player with the list reads off the next name, continuing on as if they never brought up Techno at all. They cackle over a shared story of stolen lands, and that empire in the mountain is never brought up.
---
The leaderboards of the hub are a constant moving thing, nearly alive with how often the names on them jump back and forth between new players and old, skilled and struggling. Thousands upon thousands of eyes read over it every day, and on this day, one new player cranes her head to the very top of the board, mouthing out the name stuck there.
“Technoblade.” She murmurs, and she raises his eyebrows at the numbers next to the name, scores that she could only ever dream of reaching. It’s no wonder his name is practically burnt into that spot.
Someone notices her staring, and leans into her side, giving a small frown. “Is he still there? It hasn’t even changed, huh. He just took first place and fucking left.”
The new player laughs at the sheer annoyance in their tone. “Is he an old time player?” She wonders, and surely he must be, with a score that high. He must be skilled, years of experience under his belt. Or maybe he’s just outrageously, terrifyingly persistent and got a moment of good luck.
“Yeah, he’s-” The player goes to explain, to tell the tales of Technoblade, that victory hungry player who is always traveling around--- but then they pause.
They stare up at the board, a few names swapping out with new numbers beside them. Technoblade sits steady above them all, never changing. Frozen.
“He’s…?” The new player asks, and the person shakes their head, blinking quickly. They continue.
“Yeah, he’s probably an old player, I think. It’s funny, though, for a guy who has the top scores in so many leaderboards, I don’t think I’ve ever actually heard of him.”
---
There’s an old, barely-used base tucked away on a private server somewhere out in the universe. In it, there sits a house, a farm, and a bed with its sheets still tucked in place. Weapons of all types-- swords and axes and bows, are scattered around the room, but they’ve gathered dust with time. Books sit on shelves on the walls, but their words might never be read again.
One of the books is hand-written. An old journal, half-used.
Technoblade , the book is signed, the handwriting scrawled neatly with ink.
The journal is doomed to always stay unfinished. Its author has no interest in writing anymore these days. That house was never meant to be his home.
---
A village sits at the edge of a forest, living their days out in blissful peace. It is a calm area around here, and the most excitement the villagers ever get are travelers coming by, sharing their stories before leaving and never being seen again.
An old man lives in the village. He’s lived there a long time, and he plans to live there for a long while more. One late night, he stays out on his porch, watching the sway of the trees with the wind, watching the twinkle of the stars in the sky. The moon sits bright, full and large, and something feels wrong about it today.
He shifts in his old chair, the wood creaking underneath his weight, and he tilts his chin up, staring at the shape of the moon, and watching as it quickly begins to dim. Bit by bit, second by second, it goes darker and darker, as if being pulled away into the darker depths of an ocean. With it, the stars begin to blink out. One, then two, then three.
The sky goes dark. The wind fell silent at some point. The old man looks down, and realizes that his streets have turned awfully quiet.
Something creeps out from the forest.
The old man goes still, as still as a statue, and he watches with wide eyes as a creature stumbles onto the path, crawling on all fours, before then standing up on two legs. He can’t tell if it’s a person or an animal, because every time he tries to make out the shape, it’s like the shadows are digging into his sight, making it impossible to see. Maybe it’s a mercy. A protection.
The creature doesn’t come close. It doesn’t even glance his way, at first, and instead it pokes around, looking into windows and knocking gently at doors, as if curious, or maybe as if it’s remembering something.
The old man breathes in, vision blurring into a black void, and the creature snaps its head towards him. Red eyes, red eyes, red eyes, red eyes, red eyes-
When the morning comes, no one notices how the stars and the moon disappeared the night before. What they do notice is the body of an old man, slumped in his seat, seemingly having passed in his sleep.
His skin is frighteningly pale. As if the blood in his veins had soured.
---
There’s a song that echoes through the trees sometimes. If anyone were around to hear it, they would clutch their ears and scream until their lungs withered away.
But with the forest being so vast, and the trees being grown by an ancient hand, not a single note escapes out into the world.
The song goes on, one sweet voice. Sometimes a louder, enthusiastic voice joins in. Sometimes a softer, lower song tries their hand at singing along too. Sometimes, they don’t sing at all, and instead they all laugh together, brothers making fun of each other’s noise.
---
Technoblade has his moments where he misses his scars sometimes. It’s not as if they were anything pretty to look at, but they were his, and they were memories.
Now, his skin can’t hold a wound. His blood doesn’t dare drip out from where it’s meant to be, and his bones hum with an everlasting energy that makes him want to take a heart from its cage and consume it whole.
He’s restless most days. Trees cracking apart, the ground splitting into two, stone and wood crumbling away like dust. Phil says he’ll calm with time. Techno supposes he has plenty of it now.
The sun hasn’t returned from sunset since thousands of days ago. All Techno knows and sees are the stars and the moon, and even then, those sometimes drift away, leaving only the void behind. It’s a gaping, endless, looming thing, threatening to envelop the world entirely, but all he ever does in the face of it is smile, and oh, how it smiles back, too fond.
On some rare occasions, Technoblade speaks to the chattering voices scattered around his skull. He tells them his thoughts, like they don’t already know every crevice of his mind, and he asks them curious questions, as if his father doesn’t have the answer to every single one. He wonders time and time again if this is what it's like to have a family.
He wouldn’t really know. He’s never had any experience, really, but he supposes with each family, there is always a sense of belonging.
And Techno is sure he’s found where he’s meant to be.
Surely, this is home.