Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Life has really interesting ways of biting you in the ass, and it just happened to be that it decided to mess with Techno by turning him into an oversized pink bunny.

Sounds like a joke?

Techno really wishes it was. Especially when he first realized that no , it isn't that this plant farm is giant, it's just him who is the size of three potatoes put on top of each other. Him who is the size of three potatoes and covered in soft pink fur, has a nose that never seems to twitch and a fluffy tail sticking out of his back.

Obviously, Techno had mornings much better than this one, when he didn't feel an overwhelming urge to dig into that carrot over there, but his day gets exponentially worse when a shadow falls over him, and a very familiar voice says, "Hello there, little guy."

Now, what happens after that is not Techno’s fault. It might be his paw that slams into Tommy’s face but he should’ve known better than to jumpscare Techno. Even in this body, his reflexes are strong, and so is his punch; Tommy gets sent into an absolute knockout as he screeches, “ Fuck !”

“What the fuck,” Techno echoes, as Tommy stares at him with his hand flying up to his face. His feather-covered face with inhumanly large pupils.

Last time Techno checked, Tommy was not an avian. But something must have changed apart from Techno getting turned into a literal pest, because now he seems to have all the features that an avian would bear, with a few extra bonuses here and there. Apart from two folded wings and a short tail, all covered in red feathers, he somehow acquired a pair of bird feet with curved talons that glint sharply as he flexes them and stands up.

Before Techno knows it, he’s bolting into the farm that he woke up next to. His paws thump against the soft soil as he throws himself into the tall ears of wheat. Tommy doesn’t chase him; Techno waits a second, two, three – then dares to peek outside and meets a surprised blue-eyed gaze.

From the height of his own, well, height, Techno usually doesn’t acknowledge how tall Tommy actually is. He’s a giant in comparison to the bunny glaring at him, especially when the boy spreads and bristles his wings, and if that doesn’t strike Techno’s ego dead at this very moment, it certainly pokes it painfully enough to make him wince. Or, oh well , twitch his nose, because apparently that’s the peak of his expressiveness now.

A classical Tommy thing to do would be to gloom. Look, what a loser: I got wings and you’re a fucking bunny. Techno would retaliate with another punch – as a friendly reminder that the Blade is deadly, in any shape of form – but would eventually offer a temporary truce so that they could figure out what in the world is going on here.

However, all Tommy does is put his hands on his hips and pout. “What was that for?” he asks, and Techno –

Techno makes a quick and logical conclusion that Tommy doesn’t recognize him. Which sucks. Really, really sucks, because that means that Tommy has no idea what happened to Techno, either.

L . That’s it. That’s what Techno expects to hear from his Chat – always ready to support me, thank you, Chat – but they stay surprisingly silent, which is a huge red flag on its own.

“Chat?” he tries, nonchalantly, already feeling a pang of suspicion in his guts. “Anybody’s home?”

Nothing. Still absolute silence. Techno isn’t sure if this is a good sign or not; on one hand, he can hear his own internal voice now – something he wasn’t able to do in literal years, thanks to the never-ending streak of ‘E’s – but on the other, if Chat’s not here, he can’t even try looking for clues from a few helpful voices flashing in the cacophony of their chants.

Out of his own thoughts Techno is pulled out by a screech of surprise. The sound makes Techno jump a literal foot up and dash even further into the ripe wheat. He didn’t talk to Tommy in ages and forgot how loud the kid can sometimes be.  Techno doesn’t even blame him all that much, not when something suddenly appears straight out of the ground and-

Is that a head ?

“Wilbur, you scared the living shit out of me!” Tommy glares, one hand on his quickly rising and falling chest and the other one on the handle of a sheathed sword. “How long have you been hiding there?”

Techno blinks, once, twice, when a whole transparent figure floats out of the ground. Glowing pale-green eyes, a mop of brown hair, a hooded cloak thrown over a well-worn, yellow sweater; the person- Wilbur flexes a pair of bat-like wings. Techno stretches his neck to get a closer look at the weird structure of bare skeleton and thin purple membrane - something he has only seen in phantoms before.

“Long enough to witness you getting drop-kicked by a literal bunny,” Wilbur grins.

Tommy turns a bright shade of red, almost matching the color of his feathers. “I was not drop-kicked by a bunny.”

“You screamed bloody murder, though.”

“That’s just because I was surprised!”

They continue to bicker around back and forth. Techno doesn’t bother listening, because he’s still busy processing the fact that Wilbur is dead again- or is he, though?

Techno heard from Phil that Wilbur was brought back to life back in spring. He was hibernating at the time, and never got to meet the guy afterwards, either – Wilbur’s spontaneous theatrical appearances simply didn’t seem to align with Techno’s sleep schedule.

The person in front of him is half-transparent like a ghost would be. Unlike Ghostbur, however, he doesn’t have an echo to his voice; instead, there is a sharp bite to it, an ever-mocking tone and tease and laughter bubbling just beneath his throat. This guy sounds like Wilbur, the actual Wilbur, the one that Techno remembers from Pogtopia.

Well. With slight differences. It’s been over a year now; Techno’s memory might be messing around with him – but he doesn’t remember Wilbur being this… lively. Who Techno sees is not a paranoid man with obviously more than one gear missing in his head but someone relaxed and carefree in a way that only a person deeply content with their life can be.

Tommy swings a punch at Wilbur. Wilbur sinks into the ground, only to appear behind the boy and tap on his shoulder with two fingers. Tommy whips around and lunges himself at him with a battle cry. Wilbur yelps, and they both end up rolling on the ground, exchanging screeches and half-hearted hits.

Techno hears a flap before he sees the bird. Distant whistle of wings cutting through the air fills his ears; he throws his head back and, for what feels like the tenth time this morning, gets thrown off completely off-guard.

“What’s going on here?” Phil, with wings completely intact and covered in obsidian-black feathers, lands near the farm and hops over to Tommy and Wilbur on his long bird feet. It looks kinda dumb, if somebody was to ask Techno, but probably not as much as his expression at the sight of three his frie- acquaintances , all suddenly much less human than he last remembers them be. And that’s when neither Wilbur or Tommy were ever hybrids in the first place.

Techno is officially out of all assumptions. He has no idea what’s going on, and what else is left for him other than to watch and try to figure that out?

Wilbur phases through Tommy and springs to his feet with a smug expression on his face. “Phil, Tommy was almost murdered by a wild bunny-”

“I was not !” Tommy screeches in frustration. “You just keep making things up! There was this bunny – bright pink, which is fucking odd , man – that was stealing my carrots. So naturally, I tried to make friends with him, but I got punched in the face and he ran away.”

Phil sighs, and it really makes him sound not just like an old man but also a parent of five children coming home after a long work shift. “Tommy, you shouldn’t try to approach wild animals,” he scolds. “You’ll just spook him, and you’ll get bitten or scratched.”

Wilbur crosses his arms in triumph. Tommy flips him off and puffs up his wings. Phil makes a sound of disapproval that sounds like a scolding, low caw, and Tommy folds his wings with an exaggerated eye roll. “Okay, Dad.”

Wait, wait, wait . When Techno compared Phil to an overworked parent, he didn’t mean it like, literally. He knows for a fact that Phil has only one son, that being Wilbur; but the avian doesn’t seem to be at all bewildered with the way he was addressed. Unless Techno’s mind is playing tricks on him, there is a flash of fondness in his blue eyes as he ruffles Tommy’s hair with a passing motion.

Come to think of it, they do really seem like a father and a son. Or an adult bird and its fledgling. With the renewed height of long bird feet, Phil is a lot taller than Tommy; his wings are so large that draping one of them over the boy makes him get lost entirely under the cover of black feathers. Wilbur coos at him with amusement; Tommy makes a face, but only scoots closer to Phil, trying – and miserably failing – to hold down a series of chirps that leave his lips.

Techno isn’t on the Dream SMP anymore, is he?

Chapter Text

Techno spends almost two weeks just observing the inhabitants of the small community settled in a plains biome, and a single conclusion he comes to – this place is weird .

He has only seen a couple of dozen people this far, but almost each of them he personally knows and comes across regularly on the Dream SMP. The thing is, he distinctly remembers most of these people being normal, regular humans – and not the hybrids he keeps stumbling into here.

Niki rests on warm rocks near a lake shore. Where her legs are supposed to be is a fish tail covered in sparkling pink scales. Jack Manifold almost stepped on Techno the other day, suddenly popping out of a Nether portal – and when Techno tried to bite him, he found that his skin burns, and it burns hard . Tubbo, with a double pair of transparent bee wings, floats around the afternoon sky; from time to time, there is a flash of black amongst the white clouds that Techno logically and instinctively knows to be Phil.

It’s quiet. It’s idyllic. Even if it happens that there is an occasional brawl over some stolen object, it’s nowhere as bloody and loud as Techno was used to. There is no three death limit here, either – it seems as though everybody sees it as their duty to turn over a bucket of water on Jack – and the worst thing he does when popping back up in a nearby bed is make an angry face and cuss them out.

As much as it warms up Techno’s heart to see Phil spread his wings to their full shining glory – he can’t help but feel as though there is something inherently wrong with this place. Starting from the fact that nobody seems to remember anything from Dream SMP (Techno has never heard anybody ever bring it up in a conversation, at least), which eliminates the possibility that the server decided to move onto a new place for a fresh start, gluing extra wings and tails to cosplay as different mobs along the way.

It’s wild, it should be impossible – but Techno somehow ended up in some sort of parallel universe. He doesn’t have any other explanation as to why people he knew for so long look and act so blatantly different from what he knows of them, Tommy – the most of all.

Techno hasn't talked to the kid in months, but he has seen him in the distance more than once or twice. Not that he was spying on Tommy. Hell no , he isn’t some kind of a creep. Believe it not, living in the middle of nowhere with just two other people around can get boring sometimes, so Techno was just curious about what Tommy’s up to these days – especially after that one time when people kept insisting that he was killed by Dream.

Techno got an opportunity to confirm that information during his two-months-long prison confinement. It’s not that he suddenly felt sympathetic towards Tommy – but remembering that empty look on the kid’s face, and seeing a splash of dried blood on an obsidian wall in the cell that looked suspiciously like somebody’s skull was cracked open against it – it made him feel sick.

This Tommy seemed to be doing just fine. Getting into other people’s business, poking his nose here and there and sprinting away, wings beating, at the first sign of trouble – he reminded Techno of that that loud brash kid that greeted him when he first entered the Dream SMP, stirring up a weird tight sensation in his chest that Techno doesn’t know a name for.

Unlike Tommy that Techno remembers, though, the fledgling avian acts a lot less risky. No rushing into unwinnable battles. No music discs to get unhealthily attached to. Just a bag of seeds, a pair of red gloves and a bunch of garden tools that he shuffles around his farm with. 

The same farm that is currently Techno’s primary source of food. He is honestly surprised with how much food this tiny body can demand – during the day, the night, in the mornings and before going to sleep, carrots are the only thing that he can think about. 

Good thing that Tommy’s an idiot and can’t come up with a decent way to protect his farm. He first tried setting up a scarecrow – and Techno doesn’t even need to explain why that was a dumb idea. Like, come on, it’s literally in the name that it’s meant to keep away birds and not bunnies.

Next morning, Tommy walked out of his dirt shack, carved in a hill slope (some things transfer across universes, it seems), yawning and rubbing his eyes. The moment his gaze fell on the scarecrow, his soul left his body in a form of a deafening scream. Tommy stumbled over his own foot and the gravity sent him plummeting off the bridge. As the avian crawled out of the river, soaking wet and angry, Techno smugly demonstrated him the carrot in his mouth and bolted away.

It became sort of a routine between them. Tommy tries to protect his carrots and Techno proves to him how dumb and pointless that is. 

Tommy digs a trench? 

Techno hops around it back and forth and Tommy falls first face into mud as he chases him. 

Tommy stays up a whole night on guard? 

Techno tricks him into stepping on a rake and the handle slams him square in the face. 

At some point, Tommy gives up. Techno hops up to the farm only to find him sitting on a tree stamp; one elbow on his knees, chin propped up on his hand. 

“Eat, you overgrown candy cone,” he grumps, tossing a carrot at Techno.

Does Techno protest? Techno does not. One carrot can take up to a minute to dig out – truly, an immense amount of work – and if somebody offers to do some labor for him, he isn’t going to complain. Only snaps his teeth at Tommy when he gets too close to his liking.

His tolerability does increase with the number of carrots sacrificed to him. For one carrot, Tommy is allowed to sit next to Techno. In order to get to touch him, Tommy needs to bring at least three. He gets bold after a few times, and before Techno realizes it, there is a hand on his head and tenderly scratching the soft fur.

Techno’s brain turns into a mush. Oh, the sheer amount of betrayal that he feels as his body melts into a puddle against his will. His head twists the other way so that Tommy could reach one particular spot behind his ear and –

A part of Techno’s mind is dying from embarrassment. The great Techhnoblade, defeated by head scratches – Chat wouldn’t allow him to live this one. Chat is not here, though, and in the back of Techno’s mind there is a faint acknowledgement that this feels kind of good.

Okay, maybe Techno is a little bit touch-starved. Not exactly him, but this pest body that he is currently confined to. Techno can do just fine without human contact for months on end, but bunnies are social creatures. It gets lonely when the night falls and he retreats into that tiny hole that he dug himself out for a den, especially when he can see the lights of the Pube above and hear the voices coming from open windows. The voices and the laughter of his friends amongst them – happy and content and together all while Techno is alone, not missed or recognized by anyone in this strange world.

Does another Techno exist on another server? Perhaps somewhere far away, traveling through a dense forest, or drowsing off next to a cracking campfire. It doesn’t matter all that much if there is, not when Phil is here and fine on his own… Or not exactly, since he has a son, Tommy , of all people.

Techno has no doubts that the real Phil from the Dream SMP will start looking for him as soon as he realizes that he is gone. Unless he lost track of the time again, like with the prison situation– in that case, Techno is screwed.

As much as he despises inaction, there is not much that he can do when he has paws for hands and no means of communication with other players. His best bet would try and figure out who the admin of the server is and see if they can help- but it’s not like there is a glowing label above that unknown’s head.

Techno assumed it must be Phil, seeing as everybody seems to look up to him and his advice, but he hadn’t had a chance to attract his attention with how the man rarely stays on land for long, preferring to roam the skies or stay high above in the Pube.

“TOMMY!” A shrill scream makes Techno snap his eyes open and bolt to the side. What’s wrong with these people and screeching like everybody’s on this server is completely deaf?

Tommy throws Techno an apologetic look that turns into an angry one as turns to Wilbur. It’s evening, and the sun has already disappeared over the horizon, and Wilbur has his hood down, torchlight glistering through his half-transparent skin. At day, he has to keep it on at all times, because apparently he burns under sunlight like a lame vampire. 

Back to Wilbur – for some reason, he sticks out of the ground half-way through. His arms are crossed, his face is in a mix of a frown and an accusing pout.

“Are you stuck again?” Tommy asks, walking up to him.

Wilbur throws his hands in the air. “I’m a fucking phantom , I’m not supposed to get stuck. Fix your damn server, man!”

“Oi, you dickhead,” Tommy slaps Wilbur’s hand away, “Maybe I should let you stay right here, as a revenge for that time you laughed at me for getting stuck under a piston in Pogtopia-”

“What’s Pogtopia?” Wilbur raises a brow.

Silence. Techno can hear the gears turning in his head, puzzle pieces clicking together into a picture that he likes less with each second that he thinks of it. Could this slip-up mean that Tommy is from the Dream SMP, too?

Tommy turns pale, like somebody has smeared bone-meal all over his face – and suddenly his eyes are duller, his hands are fiddling with his shirt and he bites his lip so hard that Techno knows that he tastes blood on his tongue.

“Just a funny word I just came up with,” he barks out. “Ahaha. It is funny, right?”

Tommy is still as bad at hiding things as Techno remembers. This is the same fake laughter Tommy answered him with to the questions he asked about exile shortly after the boy came to hide in a hole under his house.

“…Right,” Wilbur’s voice is nothing if not suspicious. “Maybe you’ll let me out of here already?”

With a flick of his hand, Tommy – the admin of the server– summons a glowing panel full of weird numbers and symbols. He navigates through it with visible uncertainty, mumbling something under his breath. Wilbur waits with patience, though Techno can see him growing more and more frustrated the longer Tommy keeps typing something into a command line one second, only to erase it the next.

Finally, Tommy presses a button, and his hand glows a faint white. He offers it to Wilbur and plucks him out of the ground with one swift motion. Wilbur kicks a nearby torch experimentally – his foot phases through it without any problems.

“Thanks,” he says, with a sigh of relief.

“No problem,” Tommy replies back. His smile is strained, expression nowhere near as relaxed as it was a few minutes ago. “Phil’s cooking dinner today in the Pube, you’ll be there, yeah?”

“Of course,” Wilbur nods. He fixes the cloak on his shoulders. “I promised to help Sneeg out with something, and then we’ll both join you.”

Wilbur and Tommy part ways. Wilbur floats away in the direction of Sneeg’s house, while the avian watches him go, not taking a step to the side until the phantom disappears out of his line of sight. Tommy then looks around, with the attitude of a thief almost caught in the act – and his eyes momentarily fall on Techno.

Techno stays standing where he is as Tommy comes up to him, pulling something out of his inventory. Honestly, maybe he should be more afraid of it being a sword or a potion – but Techno is fast enough that he can run a circle around the boy in the time that it takes him to blink. And, which is more important, it’s Tommy who is in the question right now.

Tommy who took it as his duty to personally snuggle with every dog in Techno’s hound army back in the Dream SMP, Tommy who adopts every chick that he finds on this server. The kid clearly has a soft spot for animals and Techno currently counts as one.

What he takes out of his inventory turns out to be a carrot. And not just a regular one but glistering pure gold. Techno’s mouth instantly fills with saliva.

“You haven’t heard anything,” Tommy says. Techno actively twitches his nose. For this carrot, he is ready to sell his soul , let alone keep silent about a secret he couldn’t spill around anyway.

Tommy extends his hand. Techno digs into the golden crust, almost biting off a part of Tommy’s finger in the process. Rich taste fills his mouth, making his bunny entirety sing in delight even as though his head feels like it’s spinning.

This new information that he just received- it changes everything. For one, he finally knows who the server admin is. In any other scenario, Techno might’ve been relieved – Tommy’s already fond of his bunny form, so he probably wouldn’t mind helping him with getting his human body back and returning to the Dream SMP; but this Tommy, it isn’t just a less jumpy doppelganger of the kid he knows. It’s the actual Tommy, or at least one who has the memories of what happened on the other server.

About three weeks before Techno woke up in this world, he helped Dream to escape the prison. He heard from Phil that less than an hour after that, Tommy came running to his house, claiming that Dream was chasing and threatening to kill him. Phil didn’t actually see Dream, but looking at Tommy’s panicked form and fresh wounds littering his skin, he took the boy’s words to heart.

Techno, however, did not. He had a hard time believing that the same guy who spent months in terrible prison conditions, tortured and maimed and starved, and who had nothing to his name but a netherite sword Techno has sent him away with, would go straight to targeting Tommy. Homeless, without any decent resources, he wouldn’t stand a chance against a trained soldier wearing anything stronger than iron.

Whatever had spooked Tommy into seeking Phil’s protection, couldn’t be actually Dream. Phil insisted on keeping Tommy around; Techno only shrugged his shoulders and stayed out of his sight. A week after that, however, the boy went missing – nobody on the server knew where he had gone off to.

Phil wasn’t that worried. He said that Tommy talked to him about starting some sort of a project on an unexplored part of the server– and yet Techno couldn’t help a twisting feeling in his guts that was telling him that it wasn’t the case. Now that he’s in this world, and Tommy has knowledge about the Dream SMP… Could it possibly mean that he somehow got transported here, like Techno?

Regardless, Tommy doesn’t know that the bunny in front of him is not actually a bunny; he wouldn’t reach out and scratch his head otherwise. A smart thing on Techno’s side is to keep it that way – who knows what the admin would do if he learned that the person who destroyed his home and helped his greatest enemy escape the prison is currently at his mercy.

Techno never dies. That applies to Technobunny, too. He needs to play his cards carefully if he doesn’t want to get tossed into the void or teleported to the top of the world and fall to his death.

“Tommy!” Tubbo leans over the edge of the floating island and waves a hand at them. “Are you coming?”

“Give me a minute!” Tommy shouts back, bringing hands to his mouth.

He turns back to Techno, who, at this point, is almost done with the carrot. He searches the ground in case he dropped any small pieces – but alas, it’s fully and completely gone. What a shame.

Looking at him, Tommy chuckles. “I have to get going, now, but I have a few more golden carrots back in the Pube.”

Oh, so it’s a bribe . Techno’s ears stand upright as he weighs his options. He could come along and risk his death chances spiking up to the Nether roof in hopes to gather some useful information- or stay behind in his loser hole and contemplate the misery of his existence for another whole night.

The bunny jumps into Tommy’s arms. Techno twists around in search of a more comfortable position and settles on putting his paws on Tommy’s shoulder, his head slinging over it. He doesn’t huff in amusement when Tommy makes a high-pitched, happy sound, and his eyes shine with childish sort of delight. 

Chapter Text

All the people who try to approach Techno – or worse, pet him – receive a swift and immediate punch. Some ask for him to be removed from the Pube altogether, but Tommy comes to his defense.

“Bitches and pussies, the lots of you,” he announces. “Are you scared of a literal bunny?”

They should be scared. Even when Tommy scratches Techno’s head, making his two ears go slack and move to the sides, he is the most threatening being on the entire server. When players settle around the table, half of them have very visible red marks on their faces, throwing looks with different degrees of annoyance at the bunny sitting under Tommy’s chair.

The dinner is loud and messy. Techno tolerates it for two reasons – one, for the hope that he’ll learn anything that could be of potential use for him, and two, because Tommy sneaks him a golden carrot every once in a while.

At some point, guests start to leave. Niki waves them goodbye, splashing a few drops of water with her tail as she disappears down the waterfall; Wilbur, with Sneeg on his shoulder, takes the ladder; Jack jumps into the Nether portal and so on.

The only people left in the Pube are Phil and Tommy, who stay to clean up around the table. Well, Phil cleans up, while Tommy sits on a ceiling beam, swinging his legs back and forth.

“My wings are a mess,” he complains, stretching one wing and running a hand down disheveled feathers.

“If you help me with the dishes, I’ll get to preening them faster,” Phil offers.

Tommy makes a face but floats down from the ceiling and takes the dirty plates from Phil. The two of them quickly tackle the rest of the work, while Techno cracks an eye watching them – imagine having to do housework. Couldn’t be him.

“So, what are you going to do with the rabbit?” Phil asks, as soon as they are finished.

Techno’s drowsiness clears up a bit. They’re talking about him. To be honest, now that he’s in the Pube, where it’s bright and warm, he is even less keen on returning to his den where the best thing for bedding he has is a blanket he stole from Fundy the other day.

Tommy extends his arms. Techno hops on with ease. “Can I take him to the nest?” Tommy asks.

“It’s a wild animal. I don’t think that’s a good idea, mate.”

Come on, Phil. Turn off the responsible adult logic that tells you that Techno might have rabies or something even worse than that. Tommy wraps his arms tighter around him. “Please?”

With the combined force of Tommy’s puppy eyes and Techno’s deadpan – an adorable deadpan, might he add, which comes as a privilege of being a small animal – Phil gives up. It’s obvious from the way his wings droop and expression turns into sour acceptance. Tommy, lips stretched into a smile of victory, brings Techno upstairs.

Behind a spruce door, there is a room with a non-existent wall for a window with nothing but a giant nest occupying it. Techno can recognize an avian nest when he sees one – Phil made enough of these for the two of them that Techno learned to see a certain order in the mess of pillows and blankets.

Tommy drops him on the edge. Techno hops around and inspects. He can distinct Tommy and Phil’s smells really easily, and there is also a trace of Wilbur’s old presence – maybe a week or two ago, he’d joined the two avians for preening routine or sleep.

It’s a nice place, Techno will give them that. Fresh air sweeps in and out easily, and there is a swarm of stars on the night sky above. Techno finds a particularly soft blanket and crawls under it whole, circling around three times before he finds a comfortable position for sleep.

Phil enters, maneuvering his wings into the doorway. He and Tommy climb into the nest, exchanging glances of amusement at the sight of Techno’s twitching nose sticking out of his impromptu den. Excuse you , they don’t have the right to make fun of his animal quirks when they spend up to several hours a day preening just to keep their wings in good condition for flight.

Speaking of preening. Tommy wordlessly turns to Phil, slumped slightly forward and wings outstretched to the older avian. It’s calming to see Phil work his way from the base of Tommy’s wings down to the very tips of flight feathers with thoroughness and gentleness of somebody who repeated the same process for years on end. Techno’s own skill is nowhere as good, even though Phil didn’t have anybody but himself to practice on at least for the last few decades.

The next closest thing Techno could offer was to braid his hair, but he always had a suspicion that it couldn’t compete with having another avian to preen. Birds are meant to live in flocks, after all. Soft chirps and coos and trills are exchanged on both sides, obviously having meanings and tones to them that don’t register to Techno’s instincts.

It’s almost enough to make him forget that Tommy is not actually Phil’s son. Come to think of it, if Tommy is really from the Dream SMP – and he has to be, since he knows about Pogtopia – how exactly did he end up being so close to Phil, and how in the world is he the server’s admin?

From what Techno knows, it’s something that one has to be born with, but the actual admin powers don’t show until the person defeats the Ender dragon and goes through the portal, made from the void, that leads back into the overworld. On the Dream SMP, the End was blocked off from the players completely- so how did Tommy get his?

With that question on his mind, Techno slips into the world of dreams.

***

Techno wakes up to the sound of something crashing downstairs.

He opens his eyes. The room and the nest are bathing in moonlight, and Techno can very clearly see that there is one less person in the nest than there was when he fell asleep. Where Tommy previously lied, curled up into a ball of soft red feathers and with Phil’s wing draped over him like a blanket, now is just an empty cold spot.

A tired voice at the back of Techno’s mind just offers him to go back to sleep. It turned out that bunnies have much better hearing than Techno normally, and all the shuffles and whispers and noises of nighttime plains wouldn’t slip by without catching his attention. His skills of ignoring Chat’s rambles have come in handy in sleeping through them- he would do that now, too, if it wasn’t for another noise coming from under the floorboards. He can’t exactly tell what’s going on, but from the sound of it- there is a voice, Tommy’s voice, panicked and high-pitched.

Okay, this is not good. Either Tommy had a nightmare and is now freaking out over it, or somebody decided to pull a prank on him by showing up at the Pube at a wicked hour. Techno doesn’t know for sure what’s going on, and it’s not like he cares – but a bunny of people or mobs is certainly not equipped to deal with it.

Phil is still here. Sleeping, when an entire fledgling slipped past his arms. Techno taps his foot on Phil’s arm twice, and when the avian doesn’t react, straight up slaps him on the face. He continues to snort- which is strange, since for as long as Techno has known him, he was a fairly light sleeper.

“Alright, I really don’t want to do this,” he says, “but it seems like you’re not giving me another choice.”

And with this, he sinks his teeth into Phil’s hand.

One second passes. Two. Three. Techno lets go of Phil’s hand, and there is a distinct mark of his teeth on raw skin, but the avian doesn’t do as much as twitch or crack an eye open. Now this isn’t just odd, it’s alarming. Phil’s chest rises and falls evenly. His skin is warm, so he’s certainly not dead, but why isn't he reacting to anything that Techno does?

Another voice downstairs makes his fur stand upright. It has to be Techno’s imagination acting out, but just in case, he hops down from the nest and in the direction of the slightly opened door.

On top of the stairs, he can already make out certain words. And no, Techno is not going crazy, it’s an actual conversation between two people.

"So, for how long is this going to go on for?" the second voice says.

Without any context, it’s a seemingly harmless question, but the tone with which it was said sends a chill bolting down Techno’s spine. He jumps down the stairs, one step at a time, trying to keep it quiet – each scratch of his claws against polished wood sounds like a crack of a lighting.

The silence is broken by an all-too much recognizable shaky breath. "You're not supposed to be here, Dream,” Tommy mutters out.

Finally, finally , the wicked stairs are done with. Techno peeks around the corner and shudders. One thing is to hear Dream’s voice and subconsciously convince himself that it isn’t real. The other one is to actually see him in bone and flesh, perching on a chair on the far side of the room.

"And yet I am,” he says.

"You must've done something. You're invading my head,” Tommy insists. He stands near an empty barrel toppled to the side, hands clenching and unclenching, shoulders spiked up to his ears. It seems like Tommy was sitting on the barrel before something – or rather someone – had spooked him, and the sound of it falling must’ve been what had woken Techno up.

Dream tilts his head. The lamps and candles have long since all burned down; his white porcelain mask seems to be floating around in the darkness on its own – each abrupt jerk makes Techno’s fur fluff up a bit more. Logically, he knows that nothing is of threat to him, but the nervousness that Tommy radiates – it’s contagious. Techno becomes sharply aware of his own flamingo-pink coat – the worst possible color he could have on a mission as stealthy as this.

"I'm not doing anything, Tommy,” Dream says, in a tone that one would speak to a child with. Patronizing, but also tired of repeating the same thing for the hundredth time. “Each time I fall asleep, I appear here.”

"I don't control who I pull in,” Tommy shakes his head. “It just... happens, when I think about them for long."

"Aw, have you missed me then, Tommy?" Dream croons, leaning forward and balancing on the very edge of the chair.

Tommy’s eyes go wide. “No I fucking didn't! Get the fuck out of my server!”

He makes a step forward, his talons clicking against the floorboards, a growling sound bubbling in his throat. His wings snap open to their full length in a threatening display of bristling feathers. Beneath that aggressive bravado Techno sees a cornered animal – scared to half-death, whose fear pumps adrenaline through his veins and fuels his desperate confidence.

Dream seems to understand that, too. He hops off the chair, nonchalant and slow. "Sooner or later, I'm going to find you, Tommy,” Dream says, in an even tone. “Or better - one of your ‘friends’ here will start suspecting that the odd dreams that they were having are not actually dreams.”

He throws a pointed look upwards. As if he knows that Phil is sleeping in the room just above their heads; Tommy flinches violently and gulps loud enough for Techno to hear. “I wonder what they'd think if they learned that every night, you block their memories and drag them into your little dreamscape."

Dreamscape. Techno appreciates the irony but his mood is the furthest possible from humorous.

Techno didn’t feel much sympathy towards Dream, ever. Breaking him out of the prison was just a matter of returning an old favor so that it wouldn’t come tugging at his neck at an inconvenient time. He had his disagreements with the imprisonment system on the server; mostly because he was stuck on the same side of the bars as Dream. Intentionally starving the prisoners, stripping them of any way to make sense of time and reality, let them be tortured – all of that was, frankly, inhumane and messed up.

But what else is messed up is what Dream is going through right now. The only thing that is louder than Tommy’s ragged exhales is the sound of his thumping heart. Sweat rains heavily down his face; he isn’t just shaking now but straight up shuddering with his entire body each time Dream takes a step forward. The way Dream lingers on putting his foot down, savoring Tommy’s dread, makes Techno feel sick to his stomach and realize one important thing – some favors are better to be stayed unpaid forever.

Dream continues to stalk forward. Tommy stumbles away from him until his back meets a wall and there is nowhere to retreat anymore. "Don't come any closer!" he screeches out, his voice breaking towards the end.

"Nobody cares about you,” Dream continues. He makes the final step separating him and Tommy; it’s just a few inches between his mask and the boy’s terrified face. “The moment I find you, I'll drag you back into exile and nobody's going to stop me. And you know what, Tommy? I'll make it as slow as possible, so you get to experience exactly what you forced me to go through in the prison."

Tommy closes his eyes shut. Tears burst from under his eyelids and stream down his cheeks. He sinks to the floor, curling into himself, his hands pulling at his hair. "Please, stop-"

"Oh, I won't stop,” Dream continues, looming over Tommy and practically whispering into his ear. “I’ll kill you, again and again, in every way physically possible. But don't you worry, Tommy -  maybe a month, maybe ten years later – but I'll always bring you back."

That's it. Techno can't watch this anymore. He might be a mere bunny with stupid pink coat, but the entirety of the server be damned if he isn’t going to murder a certain homeless teletubby right now.

Techno lunges at Dream with the full intention of tearing his throat out. Instead of turning into a bloody mess under his claws and teeth, Dream dissipates into the thin air, and he ends up slamming full-force into the barrel. 

“You can’t hide from me forever, Tommy!” Dream says, and with that, he is completely gone.

What a sicko .

Techno stands up, shaking his head. There are stars floating in his vision, and the paw he stuck out for protection pounds with pain. That is the thing that concerns him the least, however, because Tommy doesn’t react to Dream’s disappearance. He is still cowering on the floor- backing away even when he physically can’t press himself harder into the wall, breathing in a way that Techno knows hardly brings any air into his lungs.

“Tommy?” he hops closer.

With a terrified noise, Tommy scoots away from him, wings flaring and slamming into a chest. Scoots away from a fluffy, pink bunny. Granted, Tommy can’t see that with his eyes closed tight and hid away in his knees – at this point he is just reacting to the movements around him.

Phil would be fitted better for this. Wilbur would’ve done a better job. This feels like the few weeks Tommy has spent in Techno’s house after escaping the exile, but ten times worse. At least then Techno could scoop him up into his arms, talk to him in a calming voice until he was coherent enough to recognize his surroundings.

None of this would have happened if Techno wasn’t so blind to the obvious signs. He knew what Tommy was like after the exile, he had seen him slip into a panic attack more than once, but he brushed it off as mere jumpiness after living in the wilderness on his own for so long. Sure, he was quieter than usual. Sure, he muttered odd things under his breath and gave very confusing answers to Techno’s questions – but who would be in the right state of mind after getting betrayed by their close friend?

Techno, for once, never was. It’s a type of pain that never seems to disappear completely, only turning into a dull, constant throb that you learn to ignore. His resentment and anger towards Tommy – they became small and insignificant with time. At the point Techno was writing a will, just in case, before leaving off to the prison, he found himself genuinely wishing the best to him.

He believed that Tommy’s wounds would be healed by now, too. But it’s been almost a year now, and one interaction with Dream is all it took to send him spiraling and panicking into half-consciousness. Techno takes another step forward; Tommy whines, high-pitched and scared. The sound wrenches Techno’s heart and, for once and for all, forces him to realize how much he cares for this kid. No use of denying it anymore – not after what he had just seen, not when Tommy might pass out from panicking on him right now.

Techno messed up, and he messed up badly, but it’s not too late for him to fix this.

Okay. Alright. Properly trained dogs are great service animals. Bunnies are not that far off from dogs – less body mass, sure, and a couple of key features missing here and there – but Techno can make this work. He hops up on Tommy’s lap – trying not to feel so guilty about the way he shudders – and presses his paws on his chest.

Nope. This doesn’t work at all. “Come on, Theseus, I’m trying to my best here,” Techno sighs, and a sudden idea comes to him – a dumb one, but he doesn’t have any other, so-

Techno puts his front paws on Tommy’s chin, his fuzzy twitching nose touching the boy’s. Momentarily, he freezes, his inhale deeper than the one before – Techno takes it as a good sign and continues to poke his puffy red cheeks and whole face.

Tommy’s eyelids flutter open. He stares at Techno, blinking away the last of his tears, his hazy gaze struggling to focus.

“Did you just fucking boop me?” he asks in a scratchy, raw voice.

“It did work, did it not?” Techno would roll his eyes if he could. Instead, he shoves his head under Tommy’s chin, trying to share as much warmth of his own tiny body as he can. Look , a huggable animal willing to contribute. Take the treat, kid, while he feels generous.

Oh so carefully, Tommy wraps his arms around the bunny. He buries his nose into Techno’s soft pink fur. His breathing is still too quick to Techno’s liking, and the whole conversation with Dream will need a lot of therapy to get through – but they’ll take it slow, one step at a time.

From this moment on, in any body and shape he might end up in –Techno takes Tommy under his protection. 

Chapter Text

After leaving the Pube the next morning, Tommy brings Techno down with him. He then heads off to meet Niki at the river. Techno watches them from afar; and with the knowledge that Dream’s words had brought to him last night, starts coming to certain realizations.

Last time Techno remembered, Niki despised Tommy’s existence. She even first postponed a Syndicate invitation just for the sake of her plan of killing him. And now they sit together on the shore, chatting with each other; Tommy weaves a flower crown from daisies and dandelions and offers it to her. Niki takes it as if it’s the most precious thing in the world and shows it off to other server members, a flustered avian in the background struggling to keep his wings from flapping up and down with pride.

If Tommy ever got a chance to create a perfect world for himself, Techno would assume he’d make himself something ridiculous like a superhero with flashy powers or be the best player in the entirety of the universe and all its servers. Instead, what Tommy does is acquire a pair of lame wings that are too small for proper flight, and are only good for gliding and propelling himself forward while sprinting – for what?

Looking at how Phil runs a caring hand along the curved form of Tommy’s wing, how the two of them take a short flight and then spend almost two hours just preening each other and drowsing off in the afternoon sun – Techno thinks he might know the answer.

People who hate Tommy back in the Dream SMP, are his friends here. There are no wars, no petty conflicts; and most of his time the boy spends either farming or knitting wool sweaters. Dream called this world a dreamscape, a place built upon Tommy’s deepest internal desires and-

Maybe Techno has really gotten sappy, but he kinda wants to cry.

When the night comes, he goes around the houses on the whole server. No amount of punches or bites can pull the players out of sleep- almost like there are elsewhere now, awake in the world that they are supposed to be in. It finally makes sense to Techno why he can’t leave the server – the last thing he distinctly remembers before waking up here is preparing for one of his longer hibernations.

So, this whole world is a one ongoing, conjoined dream, and Techno is stuck here for as long as it takes his real body to wake up. But if he is asleep, then it means that Tommy is, too-

Not hibernating. Probably in a coma, one that he is perfectly aware of.

Admin powers are weird. Normally, they should allow a person to create and control a server of their own. They’ve been stuck on the Dream SMP for ages now, and not only Tommy managed to find a way to create one server inside of another- he also pulled other people into it.

Perhaps it’s a bit unfair to Phil and others that they are shoved in here regularly without their knowledge – but one, Tommy doesn’t control it, and two, would they really mind if they knew? A lot of them look happy to be here, a lot happier than Techno remembers them being back on the Dream SMP.

And yet, he can’t let this dream go on forever. These are real people, and under all those layers of grudges and old, poorly healed scars, they care about Tommy, and it couldn’t be more obvious that Tommy cares about them. He doesn’t need to dream about having family and friends when he can have it all for real.

So Techno makes plans. Rushed plans, sloppy plans that might not work out at all- but he never knows when his hibernation might end, and he is certainly not leaving this place without Tommy. Three days of demanding carrots and fighting the urge to devour them all, a sleepless night when he drags them around in the darkness – and Techno is finally ready.

The sunrise comes. The hinges of the Pube’s front door creak. Techno can imagine Tommy stepping outside, stretching his back and wings; he can hear the boy’s yawn, even, as he nears the edge of the floating island.

Tommy stares at the snow-covered mountain in the distance. On the ground, Techno jumps up and down in an attempt to attract his attention. Damn it. Tommy chose the worst possible moment to appreciate the scenery.

His heart sinks, and there is a dreadfully bitter moment where Techno thinks Tommy might not look down at all, but then a particular high jump allows the bunny to flicker in the very edge of his vision and-

“What the fuck?” can be very distinctly heard from above.

It’s a valid reaction to seeing a giant message, made entirely from carrots, on the ground. Techno spelled ‘WAKE UP’ as evenly as he could and really hopes that it looks recognizable from above. Judging by Tommy’s shocked expression, his pale, wide-eyed face – he succeeded.

Tommy jumps off the edge and glides down. Techno can see his hands shaking, the sweat already littering his forehead. Tommy lands near the message, kicking a carrot out of the way– nooo, Techno efforts! – and scowls, “I swear, if this is some sort of sick prank-”

His eyes fall on Techno. Techno, who throws him an impressed glance, standing on an open book about gardening or something equally irrelevant – he doesn’t care as long as it’s full of letters. Turns out he isn’t good at stealing just carrots; there is a quill and an ink bottle on the grass next to him and a vinyl music disc under his paw.

Tommy jaw clicks shut. One uncertain step at a time, he walks up to the bunny and the book. His brows are furrowed, his forehead creased. To Techno's triumph, Tommy sits down and takes the disc, and his eyes lit up with recognition.

‘ Wait’ . That one disc that Techno gifted to Tommy back in December.

“…Techno?” Tommy asks, and when the bunny nods, he lets out at a gasping, choking, “Oh fuck.”

Fuck indeed.

Tommy’s first reaction is to cover his face with his hands and take in a sharp gulp of air. He then glances at Techno, guilt written all over his expression, “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to-”

Techno slaps his paw over Tommy’s lips, prompting him to shut up. His beady eyes stare into the boy’s blue. Techno wants Tommy to know that he isn’t mad, so he goes as far as to rest his chin on his shoulder.

Tommy blinks in confusion, but rubs his back carefully. Oh so slowly, tension melts from his body, and he lets out a small chuckle. “Technobunny, huh?”

A weak slap, just to let Tommy know that Techno is not at all okay with being an overgrown flamingo rat. Techno hops down from his lap and points at the carrot message with the tips of his ears.

Tommy’s face darkens, and he looks away. “I don’t think I’m going to do that, big man.”

Of course. He knew that Tommy wasn't going to give in right away. Techno bites his hand, not hard enough to draw blood, but it makes Tommy look at him again. The bunny tilts his head in a silent question, ‘Why?’

“You heard Dream,” Tommy says. He brings his knees to his chest, his wings wrapping him into a tight cocoon. “He’s not- he’s not going to let me go. While Dream is still out there, looking for me, I’m never going to be safe.”

Even though Tommy was simply stating a fact rather than accusing Techno, he still feels a sharp stab of guilt. He deserved this, he really did. Instead of pondering on that ugly bitter feeling, he taps on the open book, bringing Tommy’s attention to himself.

“What are you trying to say?”

Techno puts his paw above a capital letter, ‘I’. He then moves onto ‘m’, then to an open space – Tommy gets the memo quickly and starts writing the symbols down.

It isn’t long before the page says, ‘I’m sorry.’

“For what?” Tommy chuckles, but it sounds dry and humorless. “For helping Dream escape the prison? For siding with him and destroying my home?”

Tommy’s voice hitches towards the end. He looks like he is going to cry. Techno, obviously, can’t have this; he shoves his head into Tommy’s hand, poking his fingers and palm with his nose. At this point he may be appointed as the world’s first and best service bunny – Techno can hear Tommy’s loud breathing evening out.

“I’m sorry, too,” Tommy sighs, scratching the bunny behind his ears. “For betraying you and all that. Didn’t want it to turn out this way. I guess that whole situation was just a bunch of shitty decisions and misunderstandings piling up on top of each other.”

‘On both our sides’, Techno agrees. He tries not to break the sentimentality of the moment, but his paw won’t stop drumming on the ground. Tommy laughs at him – well, this is better than him breaking into tears, at least.

He taps on the book again. ‘Where are you? I’ll come and get you.’

Tommy frowns again. He moves a bit away from Techno, chewing on his lip. And when Techno starts dreading that he might’ve pushed it too far, and the boy will simply run away from him- Tommy braces himself with a shaky inhale and speaks, “Do you know Tubbo’s old house?”

***

Tommy opens his eyes.

The room is small; three blocks long, one wide and two tall, each inch of obsidian bearing the marks of Tommy’s nails from where he scratched them down to skin and blood.

He didn’t think he’d wake up here again. About three weeks ago, he fell asleep with a thought, ‘I wish for this dream to never end’. Tommy’s wish was coming true – except the dream turned into a nightmare each time the sun set in the other, the perfect world.

It all started the night after he fell into Dream’s trap underneath his house. Tommy couldn’t sleep at all; he kept imaging shadows moving outside the door, non-existent steps echoing in his ears and making him grip the handle of a sword tighter. Phil had told him that he can get better, that he should get over his paranoia – but is it really paranoia if he is being actively hunted by his abuser?

Against any better judgment, Tommy returned for the disc downstairs. The small room constructed of blackstone and obsidian felt like it was going to collapse on him, so he grabbed what he came for, quickly returned to his bedroom and pulled out a spare jukebox out of a chest.

Hearing the disc second time didn’t freak him out any less. And yet, as soon as it stopped, popping out of the slit, Tommy stood up shakily from where he was cowering in the corner and pushed the disc back down. He listened to it ten times, maybe twenty – to remind himself that he’ll never be able to get away from Dream, neither while he is still alive or if he dies.

And then it hits him like a truck.

In order for Wilbur to return, Ghostbur had to die first. Tommy’s own lifeless shell has never left the prison in the first place – all what Dream had to do was to pull out the revivebook and read it aloud. He never tried to do the same for Schlatt, whose remains are so scattered around the server that it would be physically impossible to collect them all together.

Dream needs a body to bring a person back, so Tommy wasn’t going to give him one.

When the sunrise came, Tommy stumbled into Phil’s house.

“You look awful, mate,” Phil informed him, looking up from where he was brewing a potion – slowness or something like that, Tommy couldn’t really tell from where his vision swam before him. “Did you get any sleep last night?”

“Plenty,” Tommy lied as easily as he breathed. “Look, Phil, I’ve thought about your words yesterday and- I think I want to start a new project, far away from the rest of the server.”

“Oh?” Phil perked up, putting the potion down. “That sounds like it could be a good idea.”

“Yeah,” Tommy nodded along. “So, since it’s going to be so far away, I’ll need to construct a new Nether roof path. I was thinking… could you please show me how to use the bedrock-destroying glitch?”

Phil did, not suspecting the real reason behind his request. He even handed him the resources needed for the glitch, and that evening Tommy came to L’manburg’s crater with a piston in one hand and a block of TNT in the other.

He found a block of bedrock, not covered in water. By the time he broke it, his knuckles were black with soot, and his hands shook violently.

The void was beautiful. It was nothing and everything at the same time. Tommy kneeled by the hole and stared into it with a mix of dread and relief, and when the sun set above the ruins of Lmanburg, he jumped.

Instead of swallowing him whole, the void swarmed and thickened into the shape of two black wings. They carried him up, back towards the moonlight spilling above - and were gone, melting, as soon as they dropped him on the ground.

The void made its decision. The young admin was to let live, and it’s the night after that he started getting strange dreams.

The sound of footsteps and voices makes Tommy freeze. They repeat after a few seconds, and he scrambles backwards, to the far corner of the room, feeling the scratchy obsidian with his back and hands. Techno said he'd come and get him, but what if Dream found him first?

Two strikes of a netherite pickaxe, and obsidian wall crumbles. Tommy covers his eyes with a hand and stares at the person standing in the doorway.

"Technobunny?" Tommy’s lips crack into a smile.

"I'm not-" there is a sigh and an eye roll, and Techno says, "You know what? Whatever."

He offers Tommy a hand. Tommy takes it. He leans on a wall for support, his vision bursting in colorful stars. Techno patiently let's him wrap and arm around his neck for support, and together, they step into the light.

Tommy flinches at the sight of four people on the other side. The attic is barely big enough to fit them all: Sapnap and Phil dip arrows into potions of slowness; Niki sharpens her sword, and even Wilbur is in full netherite gear, loading an enchanted crossbow.

Tommy stops in his tracks. "What are you all doing here?"

They exchange knowing glances with each other. Techno huffs out a dark chuckle, and Sapnap slings an axe over his shoulder.

"It's about time we had another manhunt,” he says.