Chapter Text
Technoblade knocks on the familiar elm door.
He breathes heavily, feeling fragile and timid. The skies broke their tears long ago, concealing the streaks on Techno’s face. A flickering lamp illuminates the great crack on the door and with a sudden strength in his heart, it seems that maybe things have not changed here. That the five year gap is a quick blink in this place, and when the door opens, he can sprint through the corridors like a thirteen-year-old again.
The door opens crookedly, as if its hinges are broken. The face on the other side peers through the crack and sighs, letting the door swing open completely.
“Hello?” Technoblade says, half-expecting to see the old caretaker. Instead, it’s a middle-aged woman, dressed in black, looking far older than what she probably is.
“Yes, come in, come in. Don’t stand in the rain- uhm-” she stutters, rushing behind the reception desk and pushing a wreckage of papers to the side. Techno slowly walks in, taking in his surroundings. The room is emptier than he remembers; any previous furniture, except an ancient armchair, is absent, paintings are missing and it makes the room naked and lifeless. Techno’s thoughts jam, reaching a blockade of ‘what ifs’ and the beat in his chest becomes more prominent.
“What- what happened?” he mutters, mostly to himself. The receptionist grimaces and gulps. She scratches her head before replying.
“What can I help you with, sir?”
Technoblade steadies his breathing.
Like Wilbur taught him.
“I’m here to take my brother home. I’m eighteen. I’d- I think he’d rather live with me,” Technoblade says confidently; like he had been rehearsing it for the majority of the five hundred miles he has walked in the past two weeks to get here.
“Ah- um-” the receptionist blurts, and she starts shivering, pushing files to the side pointlessly, dropping papers and leaflets everywhere. Techno simply stares, silently thinking.
And it hits him.
It’s late afternoon. In an orphanage.
“Where are all the children?” Technoblade demands, slapping his hand on the desk. The receptionist flinches and shakes her head fearfully.
She trembles and can barely let any words out, but manages to mumble enough for Techno to understand.
“They came back. The- the miners-”
Technoblade doesn’t wait a second.
He sprints down the corridor at the same pace as when he was thirteen and chasing Wilbur through dormitories. Techno skids to a stop before his and his brothers’ old room. As he reaches for the rusting key in his pocket, he realises the lock is broken. Technoblade pushes his way inside.
Two neatly made beds, one with a guitar on, the other with a crown. In the corner is a pile of unironed clothes, practically thrown to the floor. Opposite is a small mattress with a thin crumpled red blanket.
A cow plushie lies in the dead centre of the room, lonely and forgotten.
Technoblade doesn’t count the hours he cries for.
—
Tommy counts every second he is in the van.
About twenty kids, stuffed in the boot of the white van that pulled up outside the orphanage yesterday. The same van that pulled up outside the orphanage five years ago.
Tommy remembers the number plate. As if he would be able to track it down and find his brothers one day. Turns out that the van will personally uber him there anyway.
That’s the one positive that plays in his mind. Any anxiety is drowned out and replaced with hope that his brothers will be waiting for him. He’s fully aware of the dangers of being brought into the world of trafficking and potential child labour; they say it’s worse than torture. A day where you are ill and too sick to work is the peak of all dreams. Thinking of freedom is futile and naive.
Tommy is curled in the back of a van, terrified for his life, desperately clinging onto a burning passion. Given the choice, he would rather see his brothers than stay stuck in the walls of the orphanage.
Only Tommy can be kidnapped and feel like he’s going home.
—
Technoblade disturbs almost every nearby house the whole night, asking for information. He doesn’t notice the sun rise, until people start walking out of their houses. And he has learnt nothing.
The only knowledge he has is of his own capture, assuming that the mining industry has been using the same techniques for over five years. Considering the way the government has dealt with the issue of child trafficking (ignored it entirely), it isn’t surprising that they were able to kidnap children in the exact same way, from the same orphanage as five years ago.
Technoblade had been so close. A day ago, he was on his way home, far, far from his prison.
He starts retracing his steps, ready to walk another five-hundred miles if it means seeing those bright blue eyes again.