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Technoblade has had a cough for a long, long, time.
It started in the garden, all those months ago, when he had knelt down to plant potatoes into the rich soil below. Tommy had been duelling Tubbo for the past hour, and had been practically begging Techno to train him.
"Oh, c'mon Blade!" Tommy had groaned, kicking a rock absentmindedly with his shoe. His shirt was significantly more dirtied than Technoblade had seen it last, the white fabric having been coated in the dust and grime of the cavern floors. "It'll be fun! N' you never turn down a fight when it's offered to you."
"That's cause' I always win 'em." Techno had huffed, continuing with his planting as if Tommy weren't there at all.
"Please Techno?" Tubbo asked, stumbling after his friend in a similarly dirtied suit that looked far too big on him. "It'll only be for a little while."
Techno's hoofed hand curled around the potato in his fist, and he paused. A month ago, he would have shooed them away and continued with his fields. A month ago, he would have stayed in his steady groove of planting and picking and planting and picking until the sun crossed the skyline and the moon waved hello. A month ago, he would have shut down the idea of interacting with people over completing his work without a second thought.
A month ago, Technoblade hadn't seen the way Tommy's eyes lit up when he landed a hit correctly. A month ago, Technoblade hadn't seen Wilbur laugh as Tommy yelled about one thing or another. A month ago, Technoblade hadn't talked softly with Philza in the garden well into the night and into the early dawn when he had caught Techno farming at odd hours again.
Techno sighed, and the two boys cheered in victory. He'd still have time to finish the field if he took an hour off to train some troublemaking kids.
Of course, as he sat up in the fields and began to make his way back into the cavern they often trained in, Techno had felt a tingling in the back of his throat. A small cough, and a growing in his lungs that he didn't care to notice until it was far far too late.
Technoblade's cough began as a little thing. Near unnoticeable in its regularity, since he would often find himself coughing anyways either due to his asthma or due to the dust coated walls of the cavern they lived in.
Unfortunately for Techno, a thought had taken root in his mind, whether unnoticed or otherwise, and with it, came the blossoms of something far out of his control.
Technoblade isn't good with emotions. He never has been and he never will be. It was as factual as the sky being blue and the grass bring green. Techno didn't mind it, in reality, he'd found this fact to benefit him during his more violent endeavors.
Not being able to recognize his own emotions led Technoblade into believing that he wouldn't have to worry about the hanahaki disease. Why should he, when he didn't believe he'd ever feel love to such an extent as the stories he'd heard. It simply wasn't- Techno. It wasn't on brand, and it wasn't expected when a month after his cough began his first petal appeared.
Technoblade's lungs ached like nothing he had ever felt before. They ached like thorns and thistles and roots taking hold of his chest- of his ribcage- of his heart.
Techno leaned against the wall of his farm, stumbling as he dropped his stone hoe to the floor.
Raising his hand to his mouth, Techno coughed and coughed and coughed, wheezing as his chest filled with air that he couldn't seem to breathe through whatever was clogging his throat.
Techno squeezed his eyes shut and he felt something scrape the back of his throat like a painful truth he was unwilling to accept.
When the bright red petal finally fell into his hand, Techno swallowed past a lump of dread that curled through his mouth and throat like a metallic poison.
It was less of a petal, and more of a small singular flower. A hyacinth, as Technoblade would later find out, usually symbolizing children of a family- recreation and play. With a color so strikingly bold as the flower in his hand, Techno didn't need to second guess who it could be for. Fitting, that of all the people in his little family, the child pushed his way into his poor frustratingly soft heart.
A pity, that the hanahaki disease is one that is harbored due to unrequited love. Familial, or romantic, love of any kind, if it was one-sided then flowers would sprout and the fool who contracted the disease would be dead by next spring. Sometimes they'd be lucky. Most were not.
Techno discarded the flower in the corner of his potato field and figured it wasn't the worst way to go, all things considered.
Philza's petal came next. After countless nights spent under the stars in fields and fields of potatoes, Technoblade was honestly surprised it hadn't come sooner, for how often he'd find himself surprised to see the sun peaking over the horizon's edge by the time he and Philza were done talking.
Techno had never been good with emotions. He'd never been able to fully participate in conversations with the same ease that many others appeared to have, somehow always managing to stand stiffly without speaking for far longer than the other would be comfortable with.
And that was fine by Techno, at this point he had long since let meager conversations start to bother him. But there was a difference in the conversations he had with Phil. There was a silent understanding that echoed throughout the man's actions and quiet laugher that followed him through their tunnel-like home.
This understanding is what led to their nightly talks, under the blanket of the stars and coolness of the night sky. It is what led to softer discussions about moralities and the world and anything in-between. And it was this understanding that led to the bright green flower petals sticking to Technoblade's hand.
"Are you alright Techno?" Philza had asked, gently resting his hand on Technoblade's shoulder. Techno waved him off, nodding gently as he hid the flower petals in his coat pocket.
"M' fine." He croaked with a wince, stopping to clear his throat before he continued. "Just got a bit of a cough, that's all."
Philza raised an eyebrow. "Ya call hacking up a lung 'fine' Techno? How long has this been going on?"
'And why didn't you tell me?' went unspoken between them.
"A while." Technoblade replied slowly, keeping his breathing even and steady despite the itch in his throat. "I'll be fine, Phil, there's no need to mother-hen me."
He turned around, fully facing the man behind him whose coat was as emerald green as the flower petals slowly getting crushed inside Techno's pocket. "Winter's comin' soon, anyways. It'll pass as the seasons' change."
Philza nodded hesitantly, his worry slowly easing out from his wing's posture. He could never fully keep his emotions out of their movements. "Alright. Just tell me if it gets worse okay? Can't have you gettin' sick on my watch."
Techno nodded and watched as Philza sighed, gIancing at Technoblade from behind blonde bangs before continuing softly. "I know how you are Techno. You'd keep somethin' serious from us if ya thought we didn't need to know about it. Just- stay safe, okay man?"
With his throat caught on the petals of his lies, there was little else Techno could do but gently squeeze Phil's shoulder in a silent reassurance as the bloodied petals burned holes in his pockets.
A hydrangea flower represents frigidity and heartlessness, with a secondary meaning that translates to 'thank you for understanding'. Philza was known for facing the most heartless of challenges dead on, surviving despite all odds against him and creating something beautiful while he does so. While the first meaning of the hydrangea's petals was not lost on Techno, he found that Philza's understanding was what made the green petals so laughably accurate.
The taste of iron in Technoblade's mouth wasn't an unfamiliar feeling, but as winter rolled on and their little group was forced to spend more days indoors it felt like iron and flower petals was all he could taste. His throat became permanently sore, littered with pains and aches from petals that turned to flowers he couldn't quite cough up in one piece.
From what he had read of it, Techno understood that the hanahaki disease began slowly. It was a plant, after all, and needed time to fester and grow in the lungs of a lovestruck fool before it killed them from the inside out. In Technoblade's case, he figured it sprouted in his lungs the first time he smiled at one of Tommy's ridiculous antics, the first time Philza stopped and asked him if he was okay after a day when he was exceptionally quiet, the first time Techno had to muffle laughter when Wilbur played a prank in broad daylight and somehow managed to get away scott-free.
Technoblade didn't have a family, not a biological one, at least. And that was simply how things were. It was a simple fact that rang true like a church bell every Sunday morning. Techno was okay with this, it was how he had lived every day of his life, it was what he was used to. It was normal.
And yet, when Wilbur's purple petals joined Tommy's red and Philza's green, Technoblade couldn't control the fear that wrecked his heart that maybe he had a family after all.
Wilbur gently shifted a mug of steaming tea next to Techno's arm, motioning for him to take it. Technoblade raised an eyebrow, nodding his thanks before carefully grasping the mug between his hands.
"It's mint tea, two spoons of honey." Wilbur said, as if sensing Techno's unspoken question. "For your throat."
Technoblade frowned, resisting the urge to touch his neck at the mention of the sore muscle. "You didn't have to-"
Wilbur raised his hand, silencing him with a look. "I know I didn't have to Techno, I did it anyway. You should know your own limits better than me, but for Christ's sake man, even Tommy's noticed your voice has all but gone."
Techno purposefully avoided Wilbur's gaze, choosing instead to stare at the golden brown liquid in front of him. It was warm. "I know." He replied quietly, hoarse and raspy in ways that spoke of more than just a simple cold. "I'm- tryin. To find where my limits are, I mean."
Wilbur signed, sitting down on the stool next to Techno and gently leaning his shoulder against his own. "Trying is all we ask."
Technoblade took a cautious sip of tea, relishing in the flavor of mint and honey as his mind repeated the phrase 'unrequited' over and over again. A loop of stubbornly solid truth rolling around Techno's brain in lazy circles.
"What do you say we try our hands at a snowball fight?"
Technoblade blinked, pausing his inner mantra to face Wilbur's analytical gaze. His brother in all but blood gave him a playful nudge, inclining his head towards the window that exposed the snow-ridden grass outside. "We were great at it when we were younger, were we not? I don't see why we can't have some fun now that we're older."
"Seems kinda spontaneous."
Wilbur smiled wider. "That's part of the fun man. What, are you scared you'll lose?"
Techno narrowed his eyes and Wilbur knew he had won him over.
After the game had ended and they were both winded with smiles stretching across their faces, Techno felt the stirring of petals he tried to suppress at the back of his throat. When purple petals of iris flowers, meaning valor and strength and hope-, stared up at him from the palm of his snow-dampened hand, Technoblade knew who they were for.
Techno continued his routine. He woke up with the sun and he worked in the mines and plowed his fields and stayed quiet during conversations he wouldn't have known what to say in anyways, and time inched ever so slowly forward. With each step he took Technoblade felt his lungs constrict just a little tighter to get the oxygen he needed. He found himself getting winded just a little bit faster, coughing at the dust-filled air just a little bit sooner than he normally would.
Technoblade's flower petals were getting hard to hide. The cloth he'd often use to muffle his coughing was beginning to dye red from blood and Techno was running out of time.
One day, Nikki tapped Techno on the shoulder and ushered him to a dock by the shoreline. Her eyes told a story that Technoblade was far too unqualified to read.
"Why don't you tell them?" She asked quietly, handing Techno a small loaf of sweetbread as if she hadn't just dropped a bombshell on him. "I'm sure they'd understand."
Technoblade took in a quick sharp breath, and didn't bother asking who 'they' were. Nikki was smarter than one who would fall for misdirection. "...can't."
Nikki frowned, looking into Techno's eyes for an answer he didn't know how to give. She sighed, gently grabbing his hand in her own and squeezing it. "They care about you, you know Techno." She let go of his hand and turned her gaze towards the ocean. "They're worried about you."
He knows they are.
Swallowing past the lump of nerves and petals in his throat, Technoblade followed Nikki's gaze towards the ocean's waves and found it slightly easier to speak the words that tied themselves in knots around his tongue.
"I've never had a family before." That single statement alone made him feel vulnerable in ways he didn't know how to compensate for. It made him feel exposed, like running into a battle without any armour or turning his back towards his enemy. But right now, Technoblade wasn't at war, and he had no enemies to speak of.
He looked at his hands and ran them gently across the scars of his hybrid skin and Techno found that right now, on a beach with no one else but himself and Nikki, the words were slightly easier to say. "I don't want to risk losing them."
Nikki took Technoblade's hand again. "You won't." And she sounded so sure, so confident in contrast to his own croaking voice that for a moment Techno was almost inclined to believe her.
Techno opened his mouth to refute her, only to find petals creeping their way through his throat once more as coughs sprouted in his lungs like flowers in the spring. When he removed his handkerchief, a bouquet of flower petals awaited him, dashed with an undertone of blood red splashes.
"He's an iris flower for you too." Nikki whispered, eyes transfixed on the purple petals in the cloth in Techno's hand. And suddenly, the pieces clicked into place and Technoblade understood why Nikki was so sure.
"Come on." She said after Techno didn't speak up. "Let's get you cleaned up. I've heard mint tea is great for your throat with a few spoons of honey."
With winter finally giving way to a new season, the clumps of snow outside began to melt and the first buds of spring filled the soil of Technoblade's lungs and the dirt beneath his feet.
He didn't want to tell them. He couldn't- for fear of losing the one thing that had given him a semblance of a home. And so, with Nikki's worried gaze etched across his skin, Techno kept his silence and watched himself deteriorate like a flower away from it's sun.
Piles of petals and broken flowers littered his trash and potato fields, a grotesque bouquet of all the family he refused to have buried in the fields of his labor. They became even harder to hide, and with their appearance, Technoblade's condition only worsened.
Spring was coming, after all. And the first seeds had already been planted.
"You've been awfully quiet lately Big Man." Tommy said, his voice a quiet echo that screamed volumes in the silence of his usual bold chatter.
Techno made a non-committal noise, ignoring the way his throat protested at the mere sound of it. "Not much to say."
Tommy gave him a pointed look, staring holes into the back of his head. "Blade, man, c'mon. You know what I mean. You've been- coughing. A lot. What's going on?"
Techno started at his hands, going through the motions of planting and picking and planting and picking and hoping that Tommy would drop the issue. "Got a cold is' all. I'm fine."
Tommy scoffed like he didn't believe him, and Technoblade didn't blame him for it. He certainly didn't sound fine, even to his own ears.
Tommy crouched down in the dirt beside him, making Techno pause in his motions of grabing another potato from his sack to plant in the soil. Tommy stared at Technoblade, his eyes looking for something in him that Techno simply didn't know how to give.
He sighed, running a hand through his blonde hair in frustration before meeting Techno's eyes once more. "Just- shit man, get yourself checked out soon, okay?" And all of sudden Tommy looked exhausted, far too tired for a kid so young. "You've been sick for months Techno."
Technoblade swallowed around petals of bright red flowers and nodded softly, wishing he could admit that this wasn't something he would recover from. When he didn't think he'd cough up blood and flower gunk, he gave Tommy a weak smile and said. "Didn't know ya had a soft side mister 'Big Man'."
Tommy snorted, and instead of laughing or denying it like Techno had thought he would, Tommy put a hand on his shoulder with a grin. "Only for you, Blade." Quieter, he added. "Families stick together. I'd be a shit brother if I didn't care."
The wind had picked up, curling around them and bringing the dawn of a new season. Maybe Technoblade had misheard him.
But maybe he hadn't.
Digging his hands into the familiar soil beneath him, Techno wasn't quite sure what to make of that idea.
When someone goes their whole life without a tether, without a group of people to call their own and ground themself with, it becomes far easier for them to take risks. It's easy to throw yourself into danger head on, take on twenty-one men with a meager two teammates of your own, bare your teeth and say 'bring it on' and still ask who's next in line.
The idea of gaining something to lose after a lifetime of risks is terrifying. It becomes a target on your back, a blatant display of 'hurt them and you will hurt me' that one would show the world no matter where they went.
Or at least, that's how Technoblade had seen it, when he had begun to realize he had found his tether.
It was… a weakness. A vulnerability that couldn't be covered up with amour the way soft skin could be protected during battle. And it wasn't something Technoblade was used to.
It terrified him, knowing that the people he considered his family could be ripped away from him at a moment's notice without so much as a word of goodbye. And the thought of admitting that he had such a weakness as a softened heart made him bite his tongue until he silenced himself from speaking the truth.
Technoblade didn't have a weakness. He was the Blood God, invincible and never dying, and maybe he was a coward too.
Seasons changed, and spring crept ever closer.
Wilbur stared at Techno, and Technoblade stared back. Finally, Wilbur sighed, breaking eye contact and slumping into his seat as he gently rubbed the bridge of his nose.
"You're not getting any better, are you." It wasn't a question, and Techno found himself stiffening at the sad undertone Wilbur couldn't quite keep from his voice. "...no. I'm not."
"Is there anything I can do?" Wilbur asked quietly, resigned and almost desperate in his plea. Technoblade looked away and softly shook his head.
Two empty mugs of mint tea sat beside them, residue of honey coating the bottom of the ceramic cups. Techno drained the rest of his tea and tried to pretend that the metallic sting of iron wasn't all he could taste.
"You know," Wilbur began, hands folded beneath his chin as he stared blankly into space. "Everyone here cares about you Techno. Tommy, Phil, Tubbo, hell, even Nikki- we're all here for you man. You don't need to suffer in silence all the time."
"I'd hardly call this sufferin." Technoblade replied, fidgeting in his seat at the look in Wilbur's glassy eyes. "M' used to it, is all."
Wilbur frowned. "You shouldn't be."
Techno shrugged, unbothered by the thought. "Can't exactly change the past."
"No." Wilbur mused softly, staring at Technoblade with an indescribable emotion echoing through the expanse of his eyes. "I suppose we can't."
The mines were coated in dust, filling Techno's lungs with grime that could barely get through his chest past the stems of flowers inside him. After gagging through flower petals and wheezing for air that would never come, Technoblade decided he should stay out of his mineshaft for a while.
And so he trained for a war that would never come. Practicing battle tactics and new fighting techniques on battle dummies until his hands were raw from the strain and his chest ached from over-exertion.
He practiced breathing exercises in the garden, keeping his lungs as open as they could be as the sprouts of spring flowers began to reach the soil's surface. And Techno felt concerned eyes follow him home after a day of training, though no word was spoken about his sudden avoidance of the mines.
One day Nikki caught him in the garden during his new routine, and without another word she sat next to him in the dirty soil and they breathed through the fresh spring air together.
Technoblade's time was running out, and he had been coughing for a long long time.
"Hey Techno." Philza called out quietly, his wings beating softly behind him as he sat on the cold cement beside the pig-like man. Techno nodded his own greeting, staring up at the night sky and watching the stars shine through the darkened skyline like gold in the rough.
"How's your cough?" Philza had a carefully neutral tone in his voice that set Technoblade on edge. With a cautious glance at the green clad man, Techno hummed. "S' alright. Not as bad as it could be." He was a liar.
Philza let out a humorless laugh, laying beside him with his hands tucking behind his head as if he were relaxing on a field on a normal day. It was not a normal day. "It sounds pretty bad to me mate, and judging by the red flowers I found in the trash it's not gonna go away anytime soon."
Techno stiffened, and Philza sighed, turning his head to look him in the eyes. Strange, how he seemed to be suppressing sadness from his features. "Don't try to deny this Techno, you know I'm not going to fall for little lies."
Technoblade nodded, feeling his heart beat faster in his chest as he stubbornly avoided looking Philza in the eyes.
"When did it start?" Phil asked softly, non-judgemental and understanding and everything that encompassed the emerald green flowers stuck in Techno's throat.
He swallowed past the petals and closed his eyes. "Last fall. Almost a year ago."
Philza cursed, letting his wings unfurl and subconsciously curl around them like he wanted to shield Technoblade from the gorey mess that was the hanahaki disease. "Does anyone else know?"
Techno nodded. "Nikki."
"Of course she does." Phil sighed, running a hand through his hair nervously. "I thought you were dying Tech, like ya got some infected cough or something. Didn't even know piglins could get hanahaki."
"What a coincidence," Technoblade replied with a laugh that fell flat between them. "Neither did I."
After that night, nothing changed, and yet everything did. Techno would continue with the motions of planting and harvesting, training until his arms felt sore and stiff from it all and then he would walk into his garden and find Philza waiting for him, a steaming cup of tea beside him, and they would breathe.
Technoblade's lungs were filled with petals and flowers and stems and yet they felt clear for the first time in months when Philza directed him through breathing exercises in the small clearing of their garden. They were not fully clear of the gorey vegetation, but it was easier to breathe with Philza by his side.
With spring air ruffling through Techno's long hair, he took a deep breath that rattled the stems growing inside him and he smiled. It was… nice. Even if the pain caught up to him an hour later through waves of coughing and bloodied stems.
Of course, all peace will get disrupted eventually, and the brief moments of clear breathing Technoblade got in the garden was not an exception to this rule.
He was having a bad day. No matter how many times Techno stopped to breathe he couldn't get air past the rattling flower stems in his lungs. Each step forward was a battle of stamina and Technoblade was losing. He spent the day training until he couldn't breathe, and when he finally gasped through the petals choking him down Techno dragged himself into his garden and he collapsed onto the soil.
He was tired. He was tired of fighting and he was tired of caring. He would have it so much easier had he been born without stupid nonsensical emotions clouding his vision. Without the irrational need to take those he deems his family and protect them to his dying breath.
Alas, the world isn't a forgiving place, and Technoblade could do nothing but choke back tears as he gasped for a breath that wouldn't come.
How ironic, that the very plants that release oxygen into the air were what was depriving Technoblade of the very air he needed to breathe.
Techno hacked and coughed and retched as bloodied clumps of vegetation fell into the soil. He wiped at his lips with a spare piece of cloth, and the blood that coated his fingers stared back at him in a morbid display of his own failures.
A gasp of shock came from the garden's entrance, and whatever flowers were left in his throat sunk into Technoblade's stomach like a rock plunging into a lake. He turned to look at the newcomer, and felt himself pale at the sight of Tommy's horrified face.
"What the fuck." He whispered, eyes flicking between Techno and the petals surrounding him in muted horror and realization. "What the fuck."
"Tommy," Techno croaked through his abused throat. "This isn't as bad as it looks."
"Not as bad as it looks?" Tommy laughed humorlessly, shock and hurt wrecking across his features and Techno's heart. "Techno, you're dying."
And there it was. He was dying, and Technoblade knew this, he knew it in the way the air left his lungs at a hike that wouldn't have winded him a month prior. He knew it in the bloodied cloth still in his hand, and he knew it in the disgusting mess of petals on the floor beneath him.
But it didn't quite feel real, until he heard it aloud.
"Yeah." He whispered, staring at the bloodied cloth in his hands and wondering where everything had gone so wrong. "I am."
There was a tense silence between them, and then Tommy looked up at Technoblade with determination only someone as brash and reckless as Tommy could manage, and he said. "No."
Techno blinked. "No?"
"You're not dying." Tommy continued, only confusing Technoblade more. "Or you won't die- same shit. I'm going to stop it from happening."
Techno laughed, startled that Tommy could make him smile in such a dire situation. "I doubt you can fight your way out of this one Tommy."
"Oh yeah?" Tommy challenged, eyeing Technoblade with a grin despite the worry still evident in his posture. "We're gonna beat the shit out of these flowers Big Man, and I'm gonna help you whether you like it or not. Technoblade never dies, remember?"
"Yeah." Techno replied, something close to hope stirring inside of his flower filled chest. "Technoblade never dies."
And he didn't die, surprisingly enough. Tommy took him to Wilbur and Techno avoided his gaze as Tommy told him of the real reason for Technoblade's coughing.
Wilbur stayed silent throughout it all, his eyebrows twitching at the mention of the bloodied flowers coating the ground. His eyes stayed fixated on the table, occasionally flitting over to Techno's face as if looking for something.
"I'm assuming Phil knows?" He asked, tapping an odd rhythm against the edge of the wooden countertop. Techno nodded.
"Good. Tommy, could you go call him over then? He'll want to be here for this." Tommy nodded, and then it was just Wilbur and Techno alone with only each other and a cup of tea for company.
Technoblade stirred his tea, and tried to calm the beating of his heart at the thought that he would have to come clean soon. He couldn't run from this problem and expect to get away without incident.
"Who are they for?" Wilbur asked, and Techno's heart skipped a beat. He swallowed his tea that suddenly tasted far more bitter than sweet. "The flowers, I mean. You hardly seem like the type to fall in love."
"This isn't that kind of love." Technoblade replied, hiding his shaking hands around his mug. "This is- familial. Not romantic."
Wilbur nodded and Techno tried not to feel like he was vulnerable and weak. He only partially succeeded.
"You know," Wilbur continued softly. "I have a friend who had hanahaki for the same reason as you. She thought of someone as her family, and was terrified that they didn't feel the same."
Wilbur looked into Technoblade's eyes and suddenly Techno remembered why Wilbur had always managed to get away with his mischief practically scott-free as a child. Wilbur was analytical, and he was intelligent and he was everything that an iris flower was and is.
"I'm sure your family would accept you Techno." He said, his voice soft as the excited cries of Tommy echoed through the tunnels, shortly followed by the familiar flap of Philza's wings. "If you gave them a chance."
Technoblade nodded, and his lungs felt clear as Nikki's words echoed in his mind in synchrony with Wilbur's.
"He's an iris flower for you too."
Tommy returned with Philza shortly after, bursting inside the room with his chest puffing proudly. "Less than five minutes!" He cried out with a wheeze. "That's gotta be a record or some shit."
Techno huffed in amusement, setting his now cooled mug of tea on the counter. "The gang's all here." He muttered softly, earning a curious tilt of the head from Wilbur.
"It's gotten worse, hasn't it Techno." Phil said softly, gently reaching for his shoulder. Technoblade nodded wordlessly, fighting back the flowers that threatened to spill from his lips at the admission.
God, he hated having emotions. It was so inconvenient.
"Well, get on with it then!" Tommy cried, looking confused and tense with uncertainty. "Who's making you spit out flower gunk? Surely we can take them."
Techno laughed only to cough and hide a grimance behind a bloodied fist that he subtly shoved inside his pocket. "It's not that simple Tommy."
"Sure it is." Tommy replied, stubborn like the red petals crawling up his throat. "It's just some feelings right? No emotion is going to get the best of The Blade."
"It's a familial bond." Wilbur spoke up, running a hand through his messy curls. "It's not as complicated as a romantic one. But that's not all, is it?"
"No." Techno replied. "It isn't."
He sighed, and tried to purge his traitorous mind of emotions that threatened to make this any worse than it already was. When he opened his eyes again, his friends- his family waited for him, patiently awaiting his response.
Technoblade had never had a family before, and he didn't let that bother him. No, what bothered him was the idea of rejection. The idea, that these people who he held so dearly, could turn a cold cheek and look away. That he could ruin this, and that this was something Technoblade couldn't afford to ruin with his touch.
This wasn't something he could afford to lose.
"It's for more than one person." He whispered, and Philza stiffened while Wilbur let out a quiet curse. "If even one of them doesn't feel the same-" He trailed off.
There was a tense silence, and Techno thought that they had finally understood why he didn't say anything. Why he had chosen to stew in petals and stems in his garden and let the seasons waste him away. And then Tommy spoke and brushed aside his inner monologue with a carelessness and conviction only Tommy could manage to hold.
"Then we'll make them your family whether they like it or not." He said, sheer determination etched into his very figure. "They'd be dumbasses to not feel the same. What kind of idiot doesn't like The Blade."
Techno was startled into a laugh, and with it came a cough that wrecked his frame in its intensity. His lungs ached to be free of their pain, and for once, Technoblade thought about telling them.
Philza gently rubbed his back in soothing circles, and when three small flowers fell into the bloodied cloth in Techno's hand, he didn't try to hide them.
"It's you." He whispered, almost too quiet to hear. "It always has been."
Silence, a sharp intake of breath, and then Philza was hugging him. "Techno," he said softly, running a hand through Technoblade's hastily tied hair. "We've been your family for awhile now. You shouldn't have needed to worry we weren't one."
"Oh." Techno replied dumbly, his shoulders stiffening at the contact. "Oh."
"You didn't think we'd hate you for it, did you?" Tommy asked, shifting in place like he was thrown out of his element and didn't quite know what to do.
Techno didn't say anything, and his silence spoke for him.
Wilbur sighed, exhausted and somehow relieved. "We'd never do that to you Techno." He said softly, eyes transfixed on the purple iris flower like he had seen it before. "You're our brother."
"You're all my kids is what you are." Philza huffed, finally breaking away from the hug to gently ruffle Technoblade's hair. "Practically raised you all myself." He paused, grasping Techno's hand gently and giving it a light squeeze. "I'm sorry."
Techno blinked, confused. "What for?"
"For not noticing sooner." Philza said, like it was the worst mistake he ever could have ever made. "And for letting you think feeling things was wrong."
"And what did I tell you Big Man?" Tommy chimed in, his usual grin slowly reappearing across his boyish features. "Technoblade never dies."
"Yeah." Techno chucked, fighting back tears as the vines of flower stems slowly began to decay inside of him. "You were right. I never die."
"Of course I was right." Tommy scoffed, sitting on a stool beside him and kicking his feet against the counter with mock indignation. "I'm always right."
"Of course you are." Wilbur huffed, ruffling Tommy's hair to keep the kid's ego in check. "Just like that time with the horse you were convinced could jump three feet when it could very clearly only jump two, so you landed face first in the-"
"ANYWAYS." Tommy yelled, shoving Wilbur aside. "It's good to have you back Big Man. And you don't have to worry- we're not going anywhere."
Wilbur laughed and there was a hint of a smile on Philza's face and for the first time in almost a year, Technoblade could breathe.
"It's good to be back." He whispered, through his flower damaged throat. "It's good to be back."
The next day was absolute torture. A mess of barf buckets and towels to clean up the decaying plants that needed to be purged from Technoblade's system. It was messy and gorey and Techno had never felt so relieved in his life.
The roots of the plant were gone, bloodied and gore covered and in the bottom of a bucket Techno had used when he was gagging on petals and stems and vegetation alike.
They were gone, which meant that Technoblade had a family, and that was not a sentence he thought he would ever be able to fully believe.
It felt unreal, watching Tommy spar with Tubbo in the grass as Wilbur strummed his guitar not too far away. It felt unreal, that they considered him their family, because Technoblade had never had a family before.
But now, as the shadow of Philza's wings soared across the ground, and as Nikki shared a meaningful look and a smile that felt more like a cheer and a shout, Techno thought that maybe, he could start learning how to be a part of one.
A spring breeze carried into the clearing, and when Technoblade took a deep breath, there were no flowers to stop it.