Archive of Our Own ^beta

After his three-month-long stay in prison, Techno had decided that life was too short and too filled with people like Dream for him to keep a grudge forever, and he’d started working on rebuilding some of the bridges he’d burnt.

Thanks to his cellmate’s endless ramblings about him, Tommy was the first he’d thought of contacting. He had an excuse to do so, since he had a warning to deliver. He knew that the teen had gone to visit Dream a couple of times already. Heck, he’d heard every single excruciating detail of those visits! And he wanted to make sure that the teen wouldn’t be repeating that mistake any time soon. Or ever, preferably. It was crucial. Techno couldn’t handle another awkward conversation about why it was completely reasonable to view that greasy raccoon child as the key to unlocking godhood, and since most others were far more weak-willed than him, he wanted to spare them the torture.

Relief washed over him when Tommy, albeit with some hesitance, agreed to go over to his cottage in the tundra to get some tea together.

The teen had every reason to think that his out-of-the-blue invite was a trap. After all, they hadn’t split up under the friendliest of circumstances (Techno still wasn’t over Tommy betraying him and abandoning him among a hoard of enemies, but the pain was duller now, more tolerable, and there was enough distance from that event that he could admit he hadn’t been the greatest ally either), but it still stung when he appeared on his doorstep looking ready to bolt at a moment’s notice.

Silently, he moved out of the way and let Tommy in.

The fireplace was lit, and the temperature inside was bordering on hot more than cozy. Despite how much he’d adapted to life in the Overworld, Techno was a piglin at the end of the day. If he had let his abode get any colder, he would have inadvertently triggered a hibernation. Still, because of that, he wasn’t surprised when his guest removed the heavy brown winter coat he’d been wearing. He was, however, rather shocked when he noticed a flash of gold underneath it.

There was a ring hanging from a silver chain around his neck.

Not any ring, oblivious as he may have been to most Overworld costumes (even after all those years, they’d never gotten any less bizarre to him), his best friend had one of those things. He wore it on one of the fingers on his left hand at all times; it was impossible to miss. It was a wedding band. A golden wedding band with a series of numbers engraved on the inside of it; the date the wedding had happened, most likely.

Tommy got married at some point that very same year. It had to have happened soon after he’d visited Dream a second time if his old cellmate had been right about how that timeline of events had unfolded. That felt… like a bit of a rushed decision. The teen had died that second time. Had he even been lucid enough so soon after his death to know what he was agreeing to? And why was Techno of all people the one who was worrying about it? Wasn’t Wilbur back from the dead? His best friend’s son always used to go on and on about how he and Tommy were brothers from different parents, and yet he hadn’t noticed that little detail yet? How? He would have wondered the same about Tubbo if the chasm between the two teens hadn’t been obvious enough for even him to avoid stumbling right into it.

Tommy caught him staring and quickly shoved the ring under his t-shirt. “’s nothing” he grumbled.

Techno didn’t believe him. He knew what he’d seen. He wasn’t so easily fooled. “You’re married” he deadpanned. “Why? To whom?”. When all he got in response was an eye roll, he, as gently as he could manage, grabbed Tommy by the shoulders, lifted him up, and carried him over to one of the chairs that surrounded his dining table in the kitchen. Some warm tea was already waiting there for them. According to Phil, that was the secret to a pleasant conversation. Of course, he hadn’t missed the way the teen had flinched, or how light he was, or the way his breathing only resumed once Techno’s hands had left him, but he didn’t know how to fix any of that. So he decided to take care of all of that another day and just note it down in his mind for the time being. What Techno cared about most and was somewhat confident he could do at the moment was getting to the bottom of the ring mystery. “I just- well, I was in prison with Dream-”. That name got another full-bodied flinch from the teen that added another layer of worry to his already heavy heart. “And he talks a lot about you. And a lot of the stuff he said, about you, but also in general, was worrying. Scratch that, everything was. Aside from when we accidentally summoned God, that was hilarious-”.

“You’re losing me” Tommy mumbled.

And, yeah, that was fair. Techno had a bit of a habit of rambling. It was why, when, in the past, he’d known he’d have a confrontation with someone, or that the possibility of it was high, he usually rehearsed a script that he could use in front of the mirror or one of his pets, and hardly ever deviated from it. Doing so for that chat, however, would have felt counterproductive. It had been meant to be an honest heart-to-heart. Something that could help them both move on from past slights. He didn’t want it to feel scripted. Although he was kinda regretting that decision now…

Nevertheless, he had to persevere.

He gave himself a moment to focus again and then picked his thoughts back up from where he’d left them. “Anyway, point is. I wanted you here to warn you to stay away from the prison because I was concerned about your pattern of visiting that place every few weeks or months. And now I find that you got married soon after you died. I don’t know to whom, but I can only imagine they didn’t have your best interest at heart-”.

Tommy interrupted him yet again. “It was Ranboo” he stated. “They didn’t know what was going on, they hardly ever do. No malicious intent there. Can we stop talking about uncomfortable shit now? I can feel my skin crawl…”. As if to underline what he’d just said, he wrapped his arms around himself and let a shiver run through him. It was hard to tell if it was just a matter of theatrics or if it was an honest reaction. Although Techno supposed, he could kind of imagine why the topic of Dream would make him so viscerally uncomfortable. After spending countless days doing nothing but talking to the man, he felt the same way.

And, well, Tommy was right. Ranboo had never hurt a fly. He was neither able nor willing to do so. He was kind of like an absurdly tall golden retriever.

Knowing that they’d been the one to marry Tommy put his mind at ease.

He let the conversation shift onto lighter topics after that. He started talking about his animals instead: his dog army, his foxes, his cow down in the basement, and even his two polar bears. The teen was a particularly big fan of Baba, one of the two polar bears, and ended up demanding to see her. It was kinda sweet to see him so at ease pressed up against her fur. It brought back memories of a simpler past.

Techno hoped they could return to something similar if they gave it enough time.

---

Tubbo was next on his list.

The two of them never could see eye-to-eye. They were too different. That was what he’d been telling himself ever since the day the little goat had tried to execute him. That almost-tragedy hadn’t been preventable. There was nothing he could have done to solve things peacefully. Governments corrupted even the most upstanding of their citizens, and, as the President of a country, Tubbo had been the very embodiment of that corruption.

Looking back on all of that now that his mind was less clouded by anger and grief, he could tell that perhaps things hadn’t been so clear-cut. Maybe, if he wanted to give his butchers the benefit of the doubt, back then, he might have committed a few missteps that could have aggravated their resentment. Like bending to Schlatt’s will and killing Tubbo at that festival when he could have just… shot the dictator instead. Or releasing those withers on them. Twice. Or telling Tommy to go die in a ditch in front of all of his friends. Also twice. Kinda.

Yeah, he hadn’t been perfect.

But that was what reconciliations were all about, right?

There would have been nothing for him to fix if nothing had been broken. He would have had no character development. No growth. And, while he knew that Chat was stuck with him no matter what, even if they grew bored of him, he didn’t want them to eventually go quiet on him. They couldn’t be amused by carnage forever after all.

That said, while he did fully intend to mend their relationship, he didn’t trust Tubbo enough to remind him of where his house was. Things with Tommy were different. That little raccoon had only ever been a threat to himself. His old best friend, however, actually had some power at some point. People followed him. They listened to him. They liked him. And that could be dangerous.

So, instead, he invited him out for a burger at McPuffy. Phil had eaten there once, in an attempt at bonding with his son that, from Techno’s understanding, had ended rather poorly (Wilbur wasn’t a fan of funding his direct competition, and when questioned about how a burger joint could now be an enemy of his, he'd insisted that he had opened a legitimate food track that time around). Still, his friend did say that their veggie burgers weren’t bad, and the ice cream machine was rarely broken. Techno wasn’t too big a fan of frozen treats, but maybe the same wasn’t true for Tubbo.

He arrived there with a good twenty minutes to spare on their agreed-upon time, and yet, Tubbo was already sitting at one of the tables with a cup of coffee and a half-eaten serving of fries in front of him. Both items were forgotten as he focused on typing furiously on the communicator in his hands.

“Am I interrupting something?” Techno asked, once he’d gotten close enough to move a chair far enough from the table for him to sit down. That restaurant really wasn’t built with piglin brute proportions in mind. Everything was so small…

Tubbo didn’t even look up; he just shook his head and gestured vaguely at the chair Techno had picked for himself. That movement drew Techno’s attention to the golden band around his horn. While the position of it was unusual… he was pretty certain that that one too was a wedding band. It was polished to perfection, clearly less used to being fidgeted with than Tommy’s. Maybe a newer one then?

But who could have Tubbo married? There weren’t that many people on the younger side around that area…

With Tommy, for a moment, he’d feared for the worst. He hadn’t wanted to bring it up even just in his mind, but, after spending so many months listening to Dream’s obsessive ramblings, he’d considered the possibility that the man had forced the teen into a marriage contract to tie him to himself for good. It would have been a creepy move even by his standards, and he was happy that it hadn’t been the case. But with Tubbo, he didn’t know of anyone with a similar level of single-minded focus on him. Which was certainly reassuring, but it did leave him with a few too many doubts.

After a few moments of awkward silence filled solely by Tubbo’s fingers deftly tapping away at the screen of his communicator, he decided to just rip the bandage off and ask. If they were gonna be unable to have the adult conversation he’d been hoping for because the other was too busy, he at least wanted to sate his curiosity. “So… who’re you married to?”.

That finally got Tubbo’s attention away from his screen. “Huh?” he asked, dumbfounded. Techno pointed at his horn, where a sturdy golden ring sat proudly. From so close up, he could tell that, while the object was in pristine conditions, it still looked somewhat rough. As if whoever had crafted it hadn’t had too much experience with jewelry. Maybe it had been a wedding present from his spouse then. “Oh” Tubbo blushed at the reminder, probably out of embarrassment for having forgotten in the first place. “Right, well, uhm… you know… just- just Ranboo”. He let out an awkward chuckle and rubbed the back of his neck while staring at Techno as if to gauge his reaction.

And, well, Techno wasn’t sure how to react.

He knew that Tommy and Tubbo had drifted apart. The rumors about their estranged relationship had made it all the way to the Arctic. But did they really hang out with each other so little that they’d missed the fact that they were both married to the same person? And what had Ranboo been thinking? Had they forgotten that they were already married to one of them when they married the other? Or was Wilbur’s mistrust of them warranted for once? Had they managed to fool him and Phil all that time into believing they were an innocent (if a bit naive and gullible) sort of guy when they were truly a sleazy piece of trash keeping their foot in two shoes?

And, more importantly, how was Techno supposed to navigate that kind of situation? Was he supposed to just tell Tubbo and Tommy about the betrayal? They weren’t exactly close… so what were the chances that either of them would believe him over their spouse?

Besides, he couldn’t just cut that lunch short; he hadn’t even ordered anything yet!

After examining all of his options, he decided to proceed with that meeting as planned and handle Ranboo in private later, once he was a bit more composed. He didn’t think that learning something like that would have affected him so much when he didn’t even particularly care about the two teens. That stay with Dream had truly messed him up...

After that awkward exchange, Tubbo put his communicator away, at least. And they even managed to exchange a few stilted words about the weather. It wasn’t the official burial of the hatchet he’d been hoping for, but, hey, at least it was a start!

---

Ranboo’s original house was carved into a little hill only a few steps off from Techno’s and Phil’s shared front lawn. Unfortunately, as he discovered when he kicked down the door to it, that place had long since been abandoned. Now, some might have wondered how he’d managed to miss that fact, considering that the half-enderman was his self-appointed protege… and he didn’t have a valid excuse for it.

Regardless, after pestering Phil for some answers, he found out that Ranboo had moved to a giant mansion just outside of Snowchester. It wasn’t ideal. Going to the town of one of the kids he was trying to make amends with, fully armed and ready to kick some ass and get some answers, didn’t paint him in the best of lights. However, he was certain that Tubbo would understand if he were to explain. He usually wasn’t that unreasonable of a guy, after all.

Mind made up, he marched up to that snow-coated town and went straight for the biggest building there. Why one person would ever need all that space, he’d never understand. Heck, it wasn’t as if he couldn’t have afforded something similar, but he had a modicum of restraint! Ranboo must have had a materialistic side to them that he’d never been aware of.

He forwent knocking in favor of just kicking down the front door for dramatic effect.

And that turned out to be a bad move for two main reasons. Number one, it was a very sturdy mahogany door, and his bones weren’t happy with the impact. And, number two, his ears were immediately bombarded by the high-pitched screaming of a child, and the choked-out, distressed oinking of a baby zombie piglin. Looking around, he identified the source of the first sound as Ranboo and of the second as the little kid he was holding in his arms.

So… his protege had not only found the time to get married twice, but also to have a child? Techno prayed on the Blood God for them that, at least if that child had another parent, it wasn’t a third person they were cheating on his pseudo-little-brother and his estranged best friend with. Twice could still feasibly be some kind of mistake, but three times? There was no way that wasn’t diabolical.

Techno let go of his grudge for a moment to assess his situation and quickly realized that all that yelling and crying was making it sound as if he’d been killing someone. He had to stop it before the whole town woke up from the noise and got the wrong impression. His awkwardness had already once earned him the title of Orphan Obliterator; he didn’t want a repeat of that. “Alright, alright, no need to make such a scene” he kept his voice even and picked the heavy door back up. He’d broken the hinges with his incredible entrance, so there was no way to put it back in place, but he still did the best he could to leave it standing where it would more or less cover up the hole he’d left behind. “Believe it or not, but I’m here to talk. Mostly” the last word he’d made sure to only mutter under his breath and, to his credit, it didn’t appear that Ranboo had heard it, because he actually calmed down.

It was too late, however.

Steps could be heard descending the majestic central stairs of that mansion. Two pairs of feet hit the ground at the exact same pace. Like trained soldiers.

Looking up, Techno came face to face with Tommy and Tubbo, who… didn’t look all that estranged in their matching pajamas and cozy animal-themed slippers.

“What’s going on?” Tubbo demanded. His eyes were already narrowed in on Techno. He had no weapon on him, or, at least, not a visible one, but he still managed to look somewhat intimidating. Like Phil, whenever he wanted to make sure that others knew he was disappointed in them.

From that position, both Tommy’s and Tubbo’s rings were on full display. And Techno couldn’t help but notice that the same wasn’t true for Ranboo. He didn’t know what to conclude from that, so he went for the most obvious course of action, and immediately fessed up: “You and Tommy are both apparently married to Ranboo. Or so I’ve been told. I wanted to make sure that there was nothing shady going on there…”.

Tubbo’s face immediately softened, right as Tommy gave him a shocked look. “You said that too?!” he shrieked.

“I’m confused” Ranboo remarked.

“Same here” Techno reassured them. The baby zombie piglin in their arms had calmed down by then and was looking at Techno’s golden earring with a great deal of interest. In a show of good faith that he hoped would open them up for some honest communication, he took them off and handed them over to the piglet. His gesture was welcomed with some very happy squeals that had Chat melting into a puddle.

If he ever noticed that the little piglet wasn’t getting the care they needed and deserved, he would take them. However, unfortunately for Chat, the little guy seemed plump and healthy. If he had to hazard a guess, that was probably mainly Tommy’s doing. He’d had to take care of Wilbur, who was a piglin just like Techno, for a long time during Pogtopia. Maybe also before, but he knew little about that. It was reasonable to assume that he’d learned a few of the basics.

“See, we kinda didn’t know you’d met with both of us… and I’m assuming neither of us thought you would have taken it too well if you knew that… well… we’re married to each other” Tubbo explained awkwardly, while gesturing between their two rings.

“He definitely wouldn’t have taken it too well” Tommy grumbled right after, before Techno could even try to deny that assumption. “He was making all types of accusations ‘cause I just… you know... I visited Dream and- and- yeah”. Just mentioning the man had him shivering from discomfort. Maybe it was a real one then. Maybe it wasn’t all theatrics. Techno felt like kind of an ass for assuming they had been before. “I went with Ranboo ‘cause they’re harmless”.

Ranboo let out an offended: “Hey!” but did not otherwise try to debate that fact. He probably knew that there was no winning that argument. His one defining feature was that his backbone was no sturdier than jello. And that led to him being a people-pleaser to his very core. Nobody would ever have blamed him for anything because to do so felt worse than any crime he could have been able to commit. It was like kicking an already dying puppy.

They were working on it together, though. With Phil’s help as well.

Slowly, because they only met up once every few months, but he was sure that they’d be seeing progress in a few years. Maybe a couple of centuries. Did endermen live that long?

“I just didn’t want to tempt fate, knowing you two are family” Tubbo explained, mostly to Tommy, as he was the one he was facing.

Tommy frowned at that. “We aren’t” he shot back, just as Techno muttered: “Only according to Wilbur”. For some reason, he got the impression that neither of them was all too happy about that fact. But he didn’t have the emotional strength to untangle that mess that day. He’d already made enough of a social faux pas by bursting in there with only some half-baked lies to fuel his rage. He didn’t wanna worsen the whole situation.

Honestly, all he wanted right about then was to crawl up under the soft wool blanket that Phil always left folded neatly on his couch and mope around.

That was what caring and mending bridges got him. He should have known that it wasn’t worth it…

“Huh… we’ll talk about that later” Tubbo decided, before turning back to Techno, who had been about to high-tail it out of there. “Still, I’m… happy you cared enough to protect us. In your own Techno way. I didn’t expect that. Thank you. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so curt with you when we met up for lunch… though, I’ll admit, partially it was because our son had been a bit sickly the night before and I was running on no hours of sleep and trying to reassure Tommy, who wasn’t doing any better. I’m sure you can understand”. He couldn’t, not really. He had never been a parent, nor did he have any inclination to ever become one. Wilbur had made it seem like the least appealing job in the world growing up. He didn’t know how Phil had the patience to get through it alone. Still, he nodded. That was probably the correct answer, and he wanted to take the obvious olive branch he had been offered. “If you want, you could come over here for lunch sometime soon. Without destroying our doors again, please. I’ll make it up to you”.

“Only if you bring Baba, though!” Tommy rushed to throw in there. It got him a fond eye roll from Tubbo and yet another confused glance from Ranboo, who, at that point, had probably mostly given up on understanding what was going on.

Techno smiled. “Sure” he easily agreed.

Maybe mending bridges was worth some effort after all…