Archive of Our Own ^beta

Phil’s pulled from his hazy sleep state by the stilling of the water outside his cave. He’s far from the closest population center, a coral reef, but the fish here are still never all this quiet unless something’s wrong.

Phil instinctively lets his bioluminescence dim as he pokes his head into the gloaming to look around.

Just as he’d suspected from the quiet and the feel of the water, nothing is moving. Every school usually out at this time is hidden in some crack in the rocks, making the whole area feel caught between finstrokes, waiting for something to happen.

The water filtering over his gills carries the slight scent of blood, and Phil focuses in on the sensation. It’s not fresh, not something bleeding. If Phil had to guess, he’d say it was the scent carried by a predator, not prey.

Phil might be far from his days in any organized group, but he still has weapons. He grabs his old spear, wishes he’d put more effort over the years into maintenance, and swims out of the safety of his cave. 

Vegetation and shadows conceal the entrance as soon as the water settles, and Phil twists in the currents, trying to locate the old-blood smell.

He navigates toward what must be an intruder mostly by scent, closing or covering his glowing patches. 

The smell becomes close to overwhelming as Phil approaches a rocky outcropping, and he understands why the smaller fish in his territory had hidden. He rounds the outcropping and flashes his bioluminescence, both to intimidate and see whatever’s back there.

It’s another mer, their scales mostly a dusky pink, baring their teeth at Phil. 

Phil tries to hide his surprise, spreading his fins at them. Calling on his rusty memory of the common mer dialect, he makes a humming vibration deep in his throat. Who are you?

The other mer snaps their teeth and rumbles back. Doesn’t matter. Where are we? Where’s the reef?

Phil gives an amused, rippling flash of his glowing patches. Far away now. Who are you?

Technoblade. The other mer is swishing his fins in agitation, but he seems to favor one side, and Phil finds himself wondering if his assumption that the scent was a predator was wrong. Either way, between his name and his coloration, Technoblade is clearly a reef mer who somehow got washed out to Phil.

Phil. Are you hurt?

Technoblade snaps his teeth again. Get out of the way.

With a resigned twitch of his fins, Phil slips to one side to let Technoblade out of the crevice. Technoblade immediately shoots out, turning sinuously in the open water to look at his surroundings. Now that he’s moving, Phil can see that he really is hurt, a mostly closed gash along one back fin that skews his swimming.

What happened? Phil asks, lowering his spear to just watch Technoblade. After Technoblade doesn’t answer for a moment, Phil sends another wave of vibrations toward him. You won’t reach the reef tonight, or ever hurt like that. Tell me what happened, and I can help.

Slowly, in fits and starts and while still trying to see the direction of the reef, Technoblade explains himself. He lives at the reef, he tells Phil, one of the stronger fighters and valued by the community. He’d been attacked by someone he didn’t recognize, got cut on the fin and knocked out, and even though the movement of the current had let him keep breathing it’d also washed him all the way out here before he was strong enough to get out of it.

Phil twists through the water while he thinks, glow traveling in slow waves over his body. I can help, he tells Technoblade finally. I live here, and I can keep you safe. He tilts his head playfully. If you’re not too strong to accept help?  

With a reluctant finstroke, Technoblade starts to follow him to his cave.