Days are weird in the Technoblade household. Some days you see Tommy, other days you see no one, and some days you see Techno and Tommy, and all of you sit down around the fire and eat.

It's still so strange, but you've slowly been getting accustomed to it. After the nice long conversation with Tommy late at night, you've been smoldering with resentment. Which you shouldn't. You know resenting something is terrible, and only really makes you more miserable then you started off as, but...

You feel so angry. At Dream. And at what could be assumed based on what Tommy said.

It took a few days to reel yourself in. To calm yourself, to quell the storms of your mind.

But during those few days you kept an eye on Tommy, noticing when he overextends himself and winces, noticing when you see him pause and think about something, noticing all the little things that spell out how he's feeling.

His black eye was healing, starting to turn a green and yellow color instead of the deep blues and purples it used to be.

Which was good.

Seeing him starting to recover made your insides feel soft. Family had to be protected. Family had to feel safe.

And visibly seeing that fact just made your brain happy.

Techno had been about the same, no less focused on his goals then any other day. Though you have noticed he's been a little bit more... engaged?

He seems to be actively searching out moments to interact with not just you, but Tommy as well.

Kinda like he just wants to hang out more with the both of you.

Which you thought was sweet.

Speaking of Techno, today both boys had been at home instead of out adventuring.

Techno having muttered something early in the morning about letting Tommy get some rest.

He's been muttering that specific phrase more after overhearing yours and Tommy's conversation.

Which led to now.

Tommy chilling in his basement room, and you and Techno sitting around in the fireplace room.

Techno specifically was busying himself with making food, several slabs of raw beef placed on a cutting board and in a very methodical manner he was cutting the meat into reasonably sized slices.

Slice after slice, clearly planning on making a lot food.

You settled yourself directly next to the fire, laying on your back and watching Techno work, vision turned upside down.

It felt nice to just relax.

But something tickled the inside of your head.

A nagging and tedious little thought. In truth, you had been thinking about it a lot. Ever since Tommy joined the household.

What in the world were Techno and Tommy's goal?

Yeah, sure they're getting Techno's weapons... but surely there was something after.

You know Techno.

You know he doesn't take kindly to people doing anything... harmful to him, and the butcher army executing him seems like its bound to have intense backlash.

The 'strike back harder then ever struck' kind of intense.

"Hey Tech-" you mumble, still squinting at him upside down.

The brute hums, still calmly slicing at meat, but acknowledging that he heard you.

"What have you and Tommy been up to?"

"Getting my weapons back." Is his simple reply, sliding his chopped meat into a bowl, before dragging the next slab onto the cutting board.

"Yeah.... but why?"

The knife he's holding slams into the meat. A clean slice.

Right into the wood board.

Not in anger, or any kind of crazy emotion... just- more strength then needed.

When he doesn't speak, you spin onto your stomach staring at him from at the fire to catch his body language.

Shoulders tense, eyes refusing to look.

Hesitant, unsure.

Which meant whatever words he had to say he knew you wouldn't like.

"You can tell me. I'm not gonna storm off into the cold." You hope your nonchalance is calming.

Techno squints, staring out the window before rolling his ruby eyes over towards you, "I'm gonna teach them a lesson."

Immediately your face sours, which he catches onto immediately and sighs, grabbing a rag and wiping any blood on his hands off.

You're silent as you watch him clean himself up.

You're also silent when you watch him stride over to you, crouching in front of you and nudging your face with his newly freshened hand.

A fuzzy feeling bubbles in your head, staring straight at him and wondering when your friendship gained so much casual touch.

You know he's using this to sooth you, because you know that he knows that what's he's going to say will displease you, but you can't help but lean into the warmth of it, feeling his palm press against the side of your cheek, calloused finger spreading out over your head and ear and chin.

"Sounds like revenge." You mumble, flittering your eyes closed and pressing your cheek fully into his hand.

"Hmmm- I don't know. It's not revenge. It's more justification. They dealt their own hands, and now they're gonna get what they deserve... it's the natural process."

"That's a fancy way of saying revenge."

He huffed a laugh, "Mm- a little bit of revenge too.." You open you're eyes to look up at him, his eyes turning darker, "But...they tried to kill me- they hurt you- they hurt Phil... people don't just... get to walk away from that."

The hand that was on your cheeks squeezed harder for a moment, before he shook his head and shot you a nonchalant blank face, hand reaching off your cheek to instead ruffle gently at your hair.

"Revenge won't do any good." You utter, melting into the floor at this point, "And I don't really want to help, but if you.... really, really need me... I am there."

Techno huffed, retracting his hand off your head with a good natured chuff of amusement, "I don't think you need to be involved. It'll just be stress."

He pats your head and stands up, strutting back to the meat he was cutting.

"Hm." You grunt, eyes snapping back open now that you're not melting into the floor.

"Haha- you shouldn't sound so discontent with that- I thought you didn't like violence?"

"Uugghh-" you groan, "I do hate violence- it perpetuates a repeating cycle until someone mature enough decides to stop."

"See- that doesn't happen if you just kill the other person in the cycle." He says this like it's no big deal, a roll of the eyes, a scoff of the mouth.

You squint at him, "So you plan to kill them."

He doesn't answer, slicing the meat he already cut into smaller portions.

You press farther, "What, Tubbo doesn't mean anything anymore? Fundy? You know, Wilbur's kid? All useless carbon to you?" You try your best to ignore the reeling in your head. The same tugging, sinking feeling you felt with your brother.

"Im not going to try to kill them, but if they die I won't be sad. I'll be disappointed that they didn't do better." Techno finally says.

A breath puffs out of your nose, "What if I died? Would you be disapointed?"

"Only in myself." He says, before pointing his knife at you and wiggling it, "It's different. And last time I checked, you weren't stabbin me in the back by trying to have me executed."

You purse your lips, and watch him blink at you before putting his knife down. He shuffles over to a barrel and russels around until he finds a pan.

"Hand me some coal?" He asks, not looking to see if you would, but trusting you'd help.

You grunt at him to acknowledge you heard him before peeling yourself off the floor and rumaging around a chest to get the coal.

Behind you, you can hear him pulling out more cooking ingredients.

It doesn't take long to locate the coal, and when you do, you swiftly turn around and trudge over to Techno, standing next to him and patiently holding the coal while he sets a number of spices and seasonings down on the crafting table. (Again, it'd be helpful to have counter space.)

You grunt at him again, bopping your head into his shoulder, and a soft chuckle builds in his throat when he glances down at you.

Finally setting the last set of spices down, he turns to you plucking the coal out of your hand before leaning down and headbutting the top of your head.

Gently, like he was afraid he'd do it too hard, but still hard enough for the clunk of his forehead meeting your hair to click your teeth together.

He brushes past you to reach the furnace, tucking the coal away in the fuel area before returning to all his seasoning.

"I don't stab people in the back. And I don't kill people." You state.

"That's why I trust you." Is his immediate quip back.

A heat builds in your head at that, but you brush past it to say, "Doing stuff like that leaves a bad taste in my mouth."

He hums, "Speaking from experience?"

"Kinda."

"Oh really?"

"Yeah." You hum, "Just... doing stuff like that builds on you. It really, really does. And it doesn't build something good."

Techno doesn't have a response for that. Quietly seasoning his beef, and listening to the crackling of the fire.

A moment after he finishes seasoning he lays the first slices of beef in the pan, the sizzle of cooking meat nearly makes your mouth water.

Leaning on the crafting table you watch him work, half waiting for a response, half already content with what was said.

Another slab of meat added, fresh sizzling and popping added to the air.

You wonder where Techno learned to cook.

"Okay." Techno says out of the blue.

To which you reply with, "Alright...?"

"Okay." He says again.

Your brain clicks in that he doesn't have anything left to say about revenge, and backstabbing, and all the bloody things between it. To which you let out a soft, accepting, "Alright."

He reaches his hand over and bonks you on the head, "Here-" the metal utensil he was using to adjust the beef picked one of the cuts up, lowering it in your direction, "Try this."

You put your hands up awkwardly to let him drop the practically still sizzling beef into your hands.

Good thing heat didn't matter to you.

Without a second thought you take a bite, humming in approval, "S'ood-" you mumble.

His ears flick and a little grin curls onto his face, grumbly voice mumbling back to you, "I know it is."

You don't answer, too busy eating the rest of the beef he gave you.

When you finally look back up at him after finishing, he's looking back at the slices he was cooking, piling any of the finished ones on a plate and setting the next cuts in.

"Mmmm- yum yum-" you say, and wipe the leftover food juice on your clothes, before reeling your arm back and punching Techno directly in the ribs.

"Heehh???!"

You punch him again, this time in the arm, and he backsteps away, a wheeze of laughter tittering out of his throat, "What the heck??! I give you beef and you beat me up??"

You grin, "I'm just thanking you- come here lemme thank you- hehe-"

"No- I need to watch my beef-" you swing at him, and he jumps away from his pan letting out an excited laugh at almost getting hit, "So help me Achilles- if my steak burns-"

You keep laughing, grinning up at him and slowly walking towards him, fists up and ready to punch.

You walk up to him, all but backing him into the wall, "Oh yeah? What are you gonna do if your steak burns?"

"Uhhhh- I'd prolly be pretty disapointed." He blankly says.

You laugh at the response, "Well you won't get the chance to be disappointed, cause you'll be dead- at the hands of-" you wip your fists out in front of you and give them a quick smooch, "These bad bois."

He chuffs, but doesn't comment, which makes you continue.

"They can kill so many people."

He laughs again, eyebrow raised so far up his head you think they might fall off, "Those guys?" He says pointing at your fists.

You nod, and he proceeds to scoop your hands into his own.

"These little guys right here??" He questions, his hands encompassing yours, pressing on the tendons in your wrists to make your fist's unlock.

"Yup." You say, acting as unaffected as you could- the heat from his hands sinking into your skin and making your head fuzzy.

"I don't know man. I've seen killer hands before, and these guys don't look like they have a single bad bone in them."

"Psh- clearly you haven't seen the bones of my hands before." You grumble, flipping your hands around in his hold, doing your best to instead be the one scooping his hands.

Your press your thumbs into his palm, feeling the joints of his finger tense as you brushed over a long scar.

Jagged, rough.

Calloused skin that has not seen rest in a long, long time.

You pause, glancing up at Techno, fingers still mindlessly thumbing over the warmth of his hands.

His eyes are dialted, face stoic as he tilted his head down to look at you.

No words.

Dead silence.

Sizzling, crackling, fire burning, pan cooking- heart beating-

BAM-

"OHOHOHO- I SMELL SOMETHING A COOKING!!"

The both of you flinch at the intrusion, scrambling in place for a moment, before turning to look at who entered the room.

Tommy.

Alright.

Little chicken man came crawling out of the basement for the food he smells cooking.

Tommy takes a moment to analyze the room, glancing from you, to Techno, and then to the pan that was still cooking steak.

"You know what, I don't even want to know whatever the fuck weird funky stuff was happening up here--" He claps his hands, "Chop chop- give me the meat MeatMan-"

"Tommy-" Techno clenched his jaw, "Never, ever say that again."

"What? Meat? Meatman giving me the juicy meat?? Something got your tongue Meatman?"

"Alright- Alright!" Techno steams towards Tommy, who immediately starts scurrying around the room, haphazard fists being thrown left and right.

Tommy scurrys right over to the window, opening it, and free falling into the outside world.

You laugh- Techno chuffs in mild annoyance and amusement- the both of you walk to the window to see him laying face first in the snow. A mumbled "Ouch." Comes out of him.

To which Techno chuffs, "Deserved."

Back to the food Techno goes, and back to sitting on the floor you go.

Que a few minutes later, and now, all three of you are on the floor in a circle, pelts everywhere to make up for the lack of seats, each one of you with a plate of steak.

Tommy was contentedly chewing away, previous woes of 'being chased away into the terrifying snowstorm' forgotten.

Now it was us, and our food, and the warmth of the fire.

And you were okay with that.

But...

One things still missing from the happy little equation in your head.

"So how are we gonna get Phil back?"

You ask, half way through your second peice of steak.

Techno let's out a low hum, ready to speak before Tommy let's out a rebuke, "Phil could get out any time he wants. S'not like Tubbo wants to hurt 'm or anything."

"Talking about the guy that ordered my execution." Techno bites out.

"Talking about the guy that died to your fireworks-" Tommy bites back with a violently serious edge.

"Guy- off topic- we're talking about Phil." You were quick to cut in.

Tommy scrunched his face up, shoving more steak into his mouth and drowning out the angry comments that were ready to spew out of his mouth.

Techno huffs, still riled from Tommy's comment, but moves past it to instead say, "Well, Phil has actually been messaging me about that."

"He need any help?"

"He just needs me to pick him up when the time is right, but otherwise it's gonna be awhile." Techno says, "Phil says he's 'going undercover'."

"Like a spy." You comment.

"Preciscely. I don't think it's gonna be too much use, and I'd rather just have him back, but he's convinced it'll be useful."

"I.... agree with that." You hum.

"Glad we can agree."

You think, things are shaping up.

Albeit, there's defintly something lingering in the back of your headspace.

Something looming.

A threat on the horizon that has yet to be breached.

But for now, you think this little slice of a family is perfect.