Chapter Text
Techno thinks he did a good job at resigning himself to his fate. Maybe because back when he was a normal boy on normal earth, he believed that something like this would eventually happen to him.
Well, maybe not something like this.
But reading books until his eyes burned, absorbing worlds and thoughts and feelings, adventures that he could never realistically go on - they screwed up his worldview for the most part of his childhood like it has for most introverted, outcast children. Almost like a rite of passage.
They made him believe that happiness is tied to excitement and fast-paced action. That the normal, the usual, is boring, is mind-numbing, is just not what he needs.
Now, sitting in a cell and scrubbing weird… purple-ish blood off his arms, he can truly and confidently say that he'd much rather be sitting in his too tiny living room slash kitchen slash bedroom and be filing his taxes.
His apartment is probably being rented to some other poor bastard. The thought that they probably gave away his personal possessions pulls in his guts, but he tries telling himself that they gave them over to his parents.
Somehow that thought is not a pull at his guts but a kick to the stomach. Not reassuring at all.
God. Are they still looking for him on earth? Did they hold a funeral for him? No - he couldn't have been gone for that long yet.
He shuts his eyes tight, and simply focuses on the sensation of water running down his arms. Skin scrubbed raw. Scars unhealed. Clean.
There's an empty plate in one corner. Hay on the floor that he calls his bed, in the other corner. The clothes he was wearing when he got kidnapped, now used as a pillow. He crawls over, displaces some of the hay and carves in a tally mark with his fork.
There's a hatch for food and water. A tiny side room that is barely a room, closed with a curtain for the toilet. The big basin he uses to clean himself, that has fresh water ready after every fight. He wonders how they're so confident he'll even get back here. A large glass wall that he can't break open, even with the weapons he sneaked in.
The weapons he sneaked in. He winces, scars pulling at his back. That was when he thought that OSHA regulations probably had a reason to exist. Or was it the Geneva conventions? It doesn't matter.
Other than that he always listened to the ringmasters. There was a temptation at first, to resist anything and everything they told him. To put his morals before his safety. But he's not that kind of person - not really. He actually really hates physical pain. And starving too. Shocking.
It's not a sign of weakness, he told himself over and over. Something about active and passive opposition. Keeping yourself alive long enough to oppose them in a way that matters. Be good, and listen, and the shame and humiliation will become a background noise.
But for now, he is not in a position to oppose them.
Even if it meant scrubbing blood off his arms.
Techno sighs very predictably when the hallway light turns on. It's almost like a Pavlovian response at that point. The hallway light turns on, the footsteps echo all the way into his cell, Techno scoots towards the corner, feeling stones in his stomach and lead in his chest. Same old.
One of the ringmasters stands before his glass cell, face unrecognizable to Techno's human brain. He once heard that humans have very good face detection, so they'd be able to quickly scout out potential danger. That includes animal faces, and faces where there are none.
It's quite unnerving then, that Techno does not see a face at all. There is no texture on them, no dents, no creases. It's so horribly blank that Techno isn't sure if they're alive at all. Maybe they aren't.
It's grotesque is what it is. It's what he sees before his inner eye before going to sleep, traitorous brain imagining this thing towering over him as his eyes are closed.
They let out a series of noises, which Techno can only assume mean 'next battle in 5 minutes'. It could also mean something completely different, but everytime he hears these noises he gets into a battle in the next 5 minutes.
Resigned, he finishes himself up, shoving the now murky-bloody water towards the door. With a sigh, he dries himself off on his own clothes and leans against the wall next to the door.
There's a certain loneliness he feels here.
So different from earthly loneliness. Something existential - he misses the easiness of looking outside his apartment window and watching humans walk down the busy street. He misses weighing his phone between his hands and then finally dialing up his mother's number. He misses-
He remembers a story. The first orbit of the moon, barely remembered, overshadowed by the moon landing.
But a third crew member was there, orbiting the moon with lost connection to ground control, alone and more alone than anyone else.
The loneliest man in the world.
On the dark side of the moon, the sun doesn't reach quite as well. On the dark side of the moon, you float about as the rest of the crew silently waits for your return, the stars, in their infinite patience, waiting with them.
Who's waiting on Techno? Who's waiting on the new loneliest man of planet earth?
Techno thinks he did a good job at resigning himself to his fate.
Well. He thought wrong.
He wakes up with a start as his door unlocks. It makes this horrible sucking noise, like he's in a vacuum and there's suddenly air flooding into his room. But he's pretty sure if anything, it's the other way around.
He sits up and backs into a corner opposite to the door like he was taught to, and waits for instructions.
They don't come in unless he has to fight.
But these aren't the usual ringmasters - the grotesque, faceless being he usually sees is a bit off to the side, instructing another person, their frame taller and wider. They stare at Techno with too many eyes. It's unnerving. He hates eyes.
But it has a face. A mouth is there, with yellow, protruding teeth. From looking at them, their skin seems rough, maybe even scaly if he sees right.
After his eyes finally get used to the darkness, he can see something in the taller aliens arms. Cradled in a way that must be uncomfortable, unmoving and quiet.
A human lies in this alien's arms.
A human person, with two legs and two arms and hair on their head.
The human gets set down in the middle of the room, and his ringmaster retreats, turning their non-face towards Techno before they leave.
The door closes. The hallway light turns off. Techno blinks.
Stumbling, he quickly crawls over to the human body. His hand finds chest and wrist, looking for signs of life.
Their skin is warm. Techno doesn't try to dwell on that. Their hands and legs are tied, but they breathe calmly, definitely calmer than Techno.
He resists the urge to start shaking them until they wake up. Instead, he picks at the cloth that binds their hands together and starts pulling randomly. He doesn't quite succeed on opening any knots, but at one point the cloth starts to open at the seams, so he just rips it apart. It takes a few tries, readjusting his grip on the cloth.
His palms burn at the friction. He decides to just open the knots on their legs once the light goes back on.
Then, basically dragging them across the floor, head rolling left and right, he gets the human in his makeshift hay "bed". They somehow breathe even deeper. Techno scoots away a bit. He feels his skin prickling, his eyes burning.
Before he can process any of his thoughts, he lays down, his head against the hard floor. Neither cold nor warm. He knows that once he closes his eyes he's asleep - like in the military, where they are able to sleep everywhere. He wonders if the military knows about the aliens.
Maybe some higher ups. Maybe he'll get saved by some shady billionaire. And then he's in witness protection for the rest of his life. Or he dies mysteriously on earth. But he'll be saved with the human he's now trapped with. They'll be together in this shit now.
Shaking his head, he closes his eyes. Sleep arrives immediately.
There are hands on his shoulder.
Tentative at first, and then firm, shaking his body like he's a rocking chair. He holds one hand with another and drives his panic into a corner. He can't strike out.
"Can you speak English? Or, I don't know, I can do a few Spanish words. Three french ones at most, and I can read Russian but I can't understand it. We can work with that, right?"
Rapid fire speech all makes Techno grit his teeth as he rolls onto his back to blink up at the person shaking him.
"English."
It's a man. Probably around Techno's age. Dark brown curls greasy and knotted on his head, an off color yellow sweater that definitely didn't originally come in this color.
"Thank god." The man collapses forward, elbows digging into his thighs as he holds his head. "I thought I'd…"
Never meet a human again. "Yeah. Me either."
A sob racks through the man's body. Techno understands the sentiment and puts a friendly, yet awkward hand on his shoulder after sitting up.
Within seconds he's toppled over in a hug. Techno's sharp nails dig through the sweater as he reels over the contact. This is the first time in months that someone-
"Sorry. Sorry." He pats Techno on the back for good measure and pulls away with a sniff. Rubbing his eyes, he looks somewhere else. "You unbound me, right?"
"Your hands."
He nods. "Thanks." Then he shakes his head. "Still can't believe that. The endless galaxy and I somehow find another human. I'm Wilbur."
"Technoblade. I've been the only human here as far as I know."
"In here… yeah, what is this place by the way?" Wilbur sniffs one last time for good measure. "Before I was taken here I was just sitting in a cell on a ship. They fed me okay enough."
Techno hums. "We fight."
Wilbur raises his eyebrows.
"There is an arena down the hallway. Gladiator style. Like-" he motions with his hands. "A circle. Occasionally they'll change up the environment." Techno tries to think what he mentally mapped out. After a while he stopped paying attention, not seeing why he should continue. But there definitely are things he just can't ignore no matter how hard he tries to block things out. "I think they're betting on the fighters. And-" Techno taps his chin, looking away. "A lot of people seem to be happy when I win."
There is a long pause before anyone speaks. It's easy to imagine that Wilbur just has to process the information. Or come to terms with it. Maybe the presence of another human after the horrible loneliness is also overwhelming.
Wilbur hangs his head, tracing the space in between tiles. "So… do you kill them?"
Techno pauses. He's suddenly much more interested in the way his black socks unravel on his sole. It's not really a hole, but the fabric is thinned out, and he can see his skin through it. It has become quite uncomfortable to run with them through the sandy arena, but if he can help it he doesn't even run around that much.
"Will you answer?" Wilbur interrupts his musings, now looking at him dead on. Techno has no shot at reading his expression.
"Do you wanna know?"
"..." Wilbur bites his lip, eyes moving about. "I wanna know what I'm getting into."
It makes sense. Of course. Somehow Techno convinced himself that he was suddenly standing at the pearly gates and getting his sins shoved into his face. He's not even religious.
"Yes." He says finally. "Usually I need to kill them."
"And if you don't kill them…?"
"Look, Wilbur," he cringes. Using someone's name is always weird. "Look. Either you or them die. If you don't kill them they'll kill you. If you just injure them enough that they don't die, the ringmasters will let them lay there until they do. You have a choice of mercy."
He sees Wilbur swallow. Techno doesn't know what he looks like to him - he's the one that was here first, that's been here for roughly a month, that's been through the fight and dance. Wilbur can skip all the introductory stuff, Techno can make it easy for him. But that's responsibility. Wilbur will start looking at him like some kind of capable person.
The hallway light turns on. Techno grabs Wilbur's wrist and pulls him into the corner.
"That means one of the ringmasters is coming. When they approach your door, go into a corner. I didn't get it until like the 4th day."
Wilbur's breath is tiny and quiet, but in contrast to the silent cells it's very much not. Next to Techno's ear, he whispers. "What do they do if you don't…?"
"Let's not find out. Okay?" He grips Wilbur's wrist tighter, sporting a hopefully kind expression. Based on the look Wilbur gives him it's not quite what he wanted to show.
They hold their breath until they see the ringmaster, and Wilbur sinks deeper into Techno's side.
It lets out a series of noises. It walks on.
Technoblade pries Wilbur's hand off, apologetically giving it a small pat. He stands up to lean by the wall next to the door.
"What? What does it mean?"
"It means a fight is scheduled in a few minutes. I'll be back in thirty minutes max."
Wilbur scoots forward, facing Techno from the floor. "You're leaving? Fighting?"
Techno crosses his arms. "Don't worry. Look underneath the hay - all the tally marks are all the fights I've won. I'll be fine."
Wilbur worries his bottom lip between his teeth. "How do I not go insane in this room?"
"What'd you do in the other cell?"
"Sleep as much as possible?"
Techno snorts. "Okay, let's do this - you think up everything that comes to mind about yourself. And when I come back you tell me what you want to tell me. Do you think that'll keep you entertained for half an hour?"
"...what even is half an hour anymore. You know what. Sure."
Like always, they put his hands in metal shackles before dragging him to the arena.
Techno thought that maybe being technologically advanced would make handcuffs cooler, but if it works it works, and the shackles do their job really well. They have an automated opening and closing system, but that would probably be possible with earth technology too. Maybe if he knew more about computer science or something like that…
Not that Techno would try to escape anyway. He has no idea where the exit is here - the only places he knows is the hallway that leads to the arena and his own cell.
Besides. He has a responsibility now.
The large blue door to the arena towers over him. When talking to Wilbur he tried being confident - after all, he did win all those battles - but everyday can still be the last. There is no real promise that he'll return to his cell today.
Usually he'd make peace with that. There isn't much to fight for except the small possibility that someone will come to save him and a healthy amount of fear of death and pain.
But now someone is waiting for him to come back. Techno can't tell if the stirring in his stomach is dread or hope.
The blue door opens. The crowd cheers.
Techno breathes in the air. It smells of burnt hair and metal poles during winter. It's familiar at this point.
The other end of the chain that holds his shackles is bound to a post near the entrance - probably to keep him from charging to the other side of the arena and fighting the opponent before it's actually time to do so. He straightens his back and waits for the signal to start.
His opponent is - Techno tries not to compare them to earth creatures too much to avoid assuming strengths and weaknesses but. That looks like a crocodile on two legs. Maybe it has something to do with the long snout, or the obnoxious bright green color that just reminds Techno of a stock art drawn alligator. It looks unstable as it walks about, head dropping left and right.
Everything here is unnerving. Techno forces himself to keep looking at it.
There are definitely teeth there. No visible claws, but they could be retractable. Not a very large build, but still taller than Techno.
Today seems to be a no-weapon fight. That'll be tough. These are always tough.
A signal blears and the crowd goes wild again. The shackles around the crocodile creature's hands fall off.
His own don't. Techno pulls at them.
They're still bound around his wrists. He's still bound to the post. He pulls harder. Nothing happens.
He looks up, where the ringmasters sit. They stare right back at him. The crowd cheers.
The crowd cheers.
This isn't a malfunction. This is on purpose. This is-
He dodges a sudden attack from his opponent. With wide blown eyes he tries rearranging the facts of the situation.
His chain is about one meter and a half long. The post he's bound to is too sturdy to break. Everytime he circles around the post he's reducing the length of the chain.
He ducks down as a scaly hand tries grabbing him and kicks at their torso with all his might. Like he wanted, they stumble back and trip over their legs. Techno quickly regains his footings and tugs at the chains once more.
Nope. Still bound.
The crocodile creature charges at him again, and Techno pushes against them with all his might - as easy as that is when he has to worry about a mouth with a full set of sharp teeth hovering over him.
Predictably, the creature opens their mouth and Techno quickly sinks to the floor, holding open their jaws with his hand and one leg, preventing it from chomping down. He can feel the teeth digging into his leg where he's pushing down, but it's still better than having his leg bitten off.
In a position he seems to be able to hold for a while, he brainstorms his options. He could try shoving his entire leg down the creature's mouth to see if it'll choke and run out of oxygen. But that seems too risky to try out. He really wants to keep his leg. And he doesn't know if the guy actually needs oxygen.
But then, what else?
His hands tremble, trying to keep the opponent from running away by pulling them towards him, and pushing their teeth up to not be bitten into. Their skin is actually not scaly at all - that's just the texture on it. The skin is actually weirdly… soft.
He stares at the chains leading up to his wrists. Gritting his teeth he sketches out a rough idea before pulling out his leg and delivering a kick to the crocodile's jaw.
Standing up before his opponent can, he drags them towards himself and binds his chain around their presumed throat.
They thrash and grab at his legs, so he steps on their hands to prevent them from attacking.
Techno winces - he can feel their palms deform beneath his heel. They let out sounds of pain. Techno pulls harder at the chain.
The metal links dig deeper into their skin. They scream. Techno pulls harder.
The chain disappears beneath the folds of their skin. They thrash harder and harder - Techno knows what that usually means.
They're close to dying.
Closing his eyes to spare himself the view, he gives it one last pull.
There is no resistance as he pulls hard. The thrashing stops.
The crowd cheers.
Unceremoniously, he drags his chains out of the marks now left on the alien's skin - it dug deep and Techno tries not to wince at the sight.
The blue door behind him opens again. One of his ringmasters hesitantly unbinds him from his pole.
Right. They kind of saw what he could do with that chain. Probably not stoked about being the one to get him back to his cell.
Techno doesn't really know why he feels betrayed about the whole ordeal. They don't really care about Techno, and the novelty of a new species that can't be defeated wears off after some time. So they have to become creative.
The cheering of the crowd dies off after the blue door closes.
He has no idea why he feels betrayed. He never expected them to be kind about a fighting ring. Maybe somewhere he believed they'd be fair, at least.
That's stupid. He watches the back of the ringmaster's head. Smiling slightly, he clinks the metal of his shackles together and sees the ringmaster slow down. They're nervous. Techno revels in the feeling, just a little.
They both get back to his cell and Wilbur is still there - thank god - now in the same sterile grey jumpsuit that Techno is in. He wants to laugh because Wilbur's pants are way too short for his freakishly long legs, ankles and half of his shins exposed. But he doesn't know how the ringmaster will react to him laughing, so he keeps it in.
Wilbur perks up the moment he sees him, sitting up. But Techno tilts his head, and Wilbur understands thankfully, pushing himself into the corner.
After closing the door behind Techno, unbinding him from his shackles, the ringmaster disappears. A few moments later, the hallway light turns off. Wilbur jumps up to walk to Techno.
"You did come back!"
"What'd I say?" Techno tries to look smug. "Usually they don't have more than one fight a day. There's rare exceptions, but we'll probably have the day to ourselves."
Wilbur nods. He wraps his hands around Techno's arms, slowly, watching each of his fingers curl around the grey textile, how it creases. Techno let's him.
"Um." Wilbur clears his throat and looks away after a moment. "They brought water in here. Or, I think it's water."
Techno nods, eyes staying on Wilbur. After another moment, his hands leave Techno's arms. Techno steps away, towards the basin.
"That's for cleaning," he clarifies. Today wasn't very messy, thankfully. Maybe they can use the water to wash Wilbur's hair.
Remembering the weird crocodile creature, he rolls his pant leg up. It didn't break skin, he doesn't think so - but there are angry marks left, where he pressed the teeth against his leg. Nothing that can get infected he thinks. Just future blue spots. He quickly covers his leg again.
"Wilbur, let's wash your hair."
He scrunches up his nose. "You saying I stink?"
"Horribly. Get over here."
Wilbur grumbles something too quiet to hear, but he does as Techno says, kneeling over the basin like he's about to get waterboarded. He doesn't move for some time, and Techno realizes that he's waiting on him.
He sits up on his knees, and leans over Wilbur, rolling up his sleeves. With shaking hands he reaches towards the water, softly cuping his palms and letting the liquid sink in. He releases it over Wilbur's head.
Wilbur sighs quietly. His hands hold onto the edge of the basin.
"I've never washed anyone's hair," Techno admits. A bit more confidently, he scoops up more water and soaks Wilbur's long, curly hair.
"I did," he tells him quietly. "I will tell you. I need to tell you or I'll implode."
Techno massages the water into Wilbur's scalp - it won't do an awful lot without shampoo, but maybe he can get out some of the itchiness. He knows it helps him a little.
"What evolutionary process caused greasy hair? I mean, every other hairy animal doesn't need shampoo, do they? They just groom themselves."
"I'm not spitting on your hair, if you're asking."
Wilbur scoffs. "Obviously not. I'm complaining about bodily functions."
"Maybe," Techno mulls it over. "It has something to do with alerting you to keep up your hygiene? Like how you get stomach aches when you're hungry."
"Hm."
Techno's fingers get stuck in the hair's knots occasionally, and he says a quiet apology every time he tugs at the roots. A good amount of hair falls out, sticking to Techno's wet hands, and he grits his teeth at the sensation.
"Thank you," Wilbur says. Techno pats his shoulder and hands over Wilbur's old sweater to dry his hair with.