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“Techno?”
The man hummed, eyes skimming the lines in his novel passively while scarred hands fiddled with the pages. When no further questions were asked, he pulled his eyes from the text and looked at the boy standing in front of him. Frightened blue eyes meet his own red, teeth gnawing on the skin on the sides of the boy’s fingernail while the other held steady to his crutch.
“Everything alright?”
Small hands twiddled with their own thumbs, fingers petting over scars on the kid much too young to have them. His waterline was wet with tears threatening to fall as he shook his head. Still, he didn’t explain.
Technoblade signed, bookmarking the page in his story and folding the book closed. He leaned over to place it on the coffee table in front of his recliner before laying his head on his intercrossed fingers, elbows to knees. “Alright, what’s got you so bothered?”
Tommy, blonde hair frazzled and eyes grayed in fright, look at him with the most pathetic expression only a young child can master. He doesn’t comment on the look beyond huffing under his breath. “Not going to tell me?”
Blonde hair shook violently with the dramatic shake of the kid’s head again. “No?” Techno asked. “How am I supposed to help if I don’t know what’s wrong?”
“You don’ need to know what's ‘rong to comfort me, dick’ead.”
Little scruffy eyebrows furrowed as the kid huffed and puffed and crossed his arms over the crutch. Tommy’s got a mouth worse than a sailor, ever foul, as if to sprinkle swears and insults like accentuations to his sentences. Every time he hangs out with Uncle Wil, he comes back with another unsavory word in his arsenal.
“You’re right, but it would help me understand better.” Tommy seemed to think that over a little longer but Techno could still see that sparkle of stubbornness in his eyes. “How about this? If you tell me what’s on your mind, we can grab some hot tea and getcha comfy in bed?”
“I don’ wanna go to bed! The smiler is in there!”
Ah, so, the Smiler, huh? Techno and his kid were much too familiar with that thing.
Ever since his adopted son was dropped on his doorstep as an unruly emergency foster, Tommy has been plagued by ‘nightmares’ about the smiler; a tall figure fully cloaked in black with a white disk for a face, a crudely drawn smile over it. Tommy was even prompted to draw the creature in his therapy session and the drawing itself was fairly well made and unnerving as hell.
It was apparent that it was a manifestation of his trauma, the court case between Child Protection Services and Tommy’s old foster placement still ongoing after discovering the child covered in scars and wounds to rival Techno’s own. Clay Taeken, public alias Dream, was a despicable man and it only got worse the longer the court went on.
Tommy, at the age of thirteen, was full of emotional baggage and physical wounds. He was missing a few fingers due to hypothermia, left outside in the winter months long enough to blacken his extremities, his right foot was lobbed off with precision technicality and left him limbless. Assumed mentally regressed on top of it all, with the way his mind seems a little under developed than a regular thirteen year old.
His ex foster home was manifesting as a ‘Dreamon’, as Tommy claimed– a mixture of the name Dream and the creatures in Techno’s novels. Haunting his dreams and triggering awful bouts of PTSD.
“Alright, how about this? We both get in bed– my bed, Toms –and have a cup’a hot tea to settle our brains. That way, when we go back to bed, we have each other if we get scared.”
Using plural language, making it seem as if Technoblade was scared too, often helped Tommy to agree and do things out of his usual comfort zone under the guise of aiding someone else’s fear. The kid was selfless like that.
Tommy squinted at Techno, looking into his eyes as if to see if the bribe was real or not. When he found what he was looking for, scarily smart for a young teenager, Tommy nodded with determination.
The kid grabbed Techno’s scarred hand in his own and dragged them both to the kitchen. They remained in quiet companionship. The kettle was on for a boil as they worked together to prepare their preferred teas, Techno’s particularly sweet compared to his thirteen year old.
As they waited, Techno pulled his kid in for a side hug and held him close, rubbing his hand against the back of Tommy’s night shirt. The kettle screamed and Tommy jumped with wide, frightened eyes before schooling his expression and huffing angrily at himself. Technoblade apologises softly before pouring them both their teas.
Techno holds both teas in his hands as Tommy and himself shuffle their way to his room, the kid’s crutch tapping against the floor every other step. They make it to the bed and snuggle themselves under the covers, Tommy pressed against his side with his head tucked against his chest. Techno wraps his arm around the kid’s shoulder and hands him his cup of tea, mindful of the missing digits and helping to hold it steady.
“Can you read me a story?” Tommy’s large, bluer eyes stare up at the brute of a man much like a puppy.
Techno smiles softly and pets his hand against the curls on the nape of his kid’s neck. “Of course, kid. Which story?”
Tommy sips his drink as he thinks over the plethora of stories he’s been told so far before settling on wanting a new one. “One from your mith-all-oh-gee stories!”
“Alright, I gotcha. I know just the perfect story.”
The kid rubs his head against Techno’s chest while he settles in for the new story, done with the tea already and ready. Tommy can feel every word as Techno recounts the story of Persephone and Hades, the baritone voice vibrating the man’s chest each time he speaks. It doesn’t take long for Tommy to fall asleep and, when Techno notices, he closes the book and kisses his son on the top of his head before resting his own head back.
He knows that his neck will be in for one hell of an ache in the morning but
it was worth it to see his kid sound asleep against his side.