Chapter Text
When the cabins came into view, the warm lights pouring from the windows and the smoke trailing up from the chimneys, Techno had thought he would feel a sense of relief but all he felt was tired. He swayed on his feet as he took a deep breath and climbed up the stairs, trying to decide if he should go to Phil’s door first or not. He wanted to sit down in his chair and tend to his wounds but he wanted to see his friend, to put his arms around him and hold him for a moment.
The choice was made for him as the door to Phil’s cabin was thrown open. Techno barely had the time to turn to face Phil before he was thrown off balance as Phil wrapped him into a hug. There were no words, just Techno returning the hug, careful not to crush Phil’s bandaged wings in the process, burying his snout into Phil’s shoulder. He could have stood there like that all day but it was getting late and it was cold, dark clouds blowing in on the horizon.
“Hey, Phil, how’s it goin’?” he asked, trying to sound casual but his voice cracked and he rubbed a hand over his face, blinking rapidly. “I mean, ha.”
Phil shook his head.
“Come on, mate, let’s get you inside,” said Phil, rubbing his hand against Techno’s back. “It’s alright now.”
With a sigh, Techno pulled the door open and headed immediately to his rocking chair. The fire had died down and he didn’t feel like getting back up to relight it. The residual heat in the cabin was enough now that the door had been closed.
“Want me to start up the fire, mate?” asked Phil, grabbing a blanket that been draped over the back of the other chair. He spread it out over Techno’s lap, carefully shooing his hands away when Techno tried to do it himself. “It’s a bit chilly.”
“You’re a mind reader, Phil, I was just thinkin’ about that,” he said. “That dang prison is like a furnace.”
Looking up from where he was crouched in front of the fireplace, putting new logs on in a vague pyramid shape, Phil frowned. There was worried painted all over his face and he finally asked the question he had been trying to avoid, for Techno’s sake.
“Jesus christ, mate, are you alright? You look like someone beat the shit out of you.”
The flint and steel sent out sparks, catching onto the kindling and bursting into small flames. Phil fanned it, waiting until more had caught to stand back up.
“Eh, you know Quackity,” said Techno. “He’s not exactly the best conversationalist, despite all the talkin’ he does.”
“I’m going to kill that bastard.” Phil sat down across from him, on the edge of his chair. The worry still hadn’t faded; if anything it had deepened. “Sam, too.”
“Not gonna lie, Phil, I think that might be exactly what I’m gonna do,” he said.
There was something missing in the room and when Techno’s gaze fell onto the empty basket, he knew what it was. He missed that stupid rabbit and he couldn’t get the image of Dream’s face out of his mind and how much terror had been in his eyes. He rubbed a hand over his face with a shudder.
“How the hell did you get out?”
Techno frowned. The truth was complicated, it would mean having to explain everything that happened since the day he had brought home the rabbit and he wasn’t sure that he could. His shoulders rose in a slight shrug as he weighed his options.
“Someone left this at my door, pushed it half under the other day,” said Phil, getting back up and handing Techno the note. He patted his jacket until he found the right pocket then handed Techno his glasses as well. “One of the lenses is cracked but ought to be an easy fix.”
“Thanks, Phil,” Techno said, unfolding the note. He didn’t even need to read the words to know who it was from but the words confirmed his thoughts. “Huh.”
“There’s coordinates on the bottom, haven’t gotten a chance to figure out where they lead to.”
Techno had a feeling he knew where they would lead but he would have to check to be certain.
“Huh,” he repeated.
Sitting back down, Phil rested his elbow on his knee, watching Techno closely.
“Weirdest part was there were no tracks I could find except for the rabbit’s. The porch was clean so there wouldn’t have been anything there but I saw rabbit tracks in the snow right in front of the porch,” he said.
Techno leaned back into his chair, rocking it as far back as it would go and looked up at the ceiling. Beneath his blood stained and raw fingers, the note felt cold and worn.
“Listen, Phil, it’s a bit complicated,” Techno said finally.
“It’s him, isn’t it.” The pieces had been there the entire time but the conclusion had been so outlandish that Phil couldn’t bring himself to put them together. Now there was no denying what the big picture added up to. “The rabbit is Dream.”
“I know how it looks, Phil, alright, but I couldn’t just hand him back over to them, I couldn’t,” he said. In the end it hadn’t mattered, though, because Dream was right back in that prison and Techno didn’t like thinking about what might be happening to him. “It was—”
Phil lifted a hand.
“All those injuries, did Sam and Quackity do that to him?”
“As far as I can tell, yeah. He wasn’t really all that talkative, said about five dang words the whole time, but from what he did say… They were torturin’ him in there, Phil.”
“Jesus fucking—Torture? So they cut his damn ear off, then? And everything else,” Phil said, not a question, but him taking stock of all the injuries he had seen. The busted jaw and teeth, the missing toes, and all the other injuries took on a completely new meaning. “So he left the note which means…”
Phil trailed off, waiting for Techno to give him the last piece of the puzzle that he hadn’t figured out.
“Yeah. The dang idiot went and traded himself so they’d let me out,” he said. His shoulders sagged under the weight of that knowledge. Techno hated it. “I really don’t want to think about the implications of that, Phil, I’ll be honest.”
“No shit.” Pinching the bridge of his nose, Phil realized that he had made up his mind about what he was going to do as soon as he had figured out who wrote that note and why. “I guess we need to break the little shit out of there, huh. You have any idea what the coordinates are about?”
Techno blinked, surprise on his features as he looked at Phil, considering.
“I mean, I’m pretty sure that I know where it leads, but I don’t have a clue as to why he wants me to go there,” said Techno.
“Well, we can find out after you’ve gotten some rest. You should take a healing potion or something, mate, you look like shit.”
“Aw, thanks Phil. You’re so sweet.” When Techno spoke next the sarcasm had left his voice. “Y’know, you don’t have to do this, Phil. You don’t have to help if you don’t want to.”
“I know, mate, and I might’ve thought about not helping but—” He trailed off. The rabbit had been Dream, the whole time. It had been Dream that had bitten him for trying to feed him mashed potatoes and it had been Dream that had tolerated Michael petting him with sticky hands and carrying him around. Phil thought that had to count for something. “I got to admit, I think the mangy beast was starting to grow on me.”
“See? What did I tell you and you thought I was just bein’ a sucker. He’s got that cute little bunny nose and everythin’. He hates it, too, if you call him cute,” said Techno.
“Is that why you kept calling him cute?” Phil asked, laughing. He already knew the answer.
“Oh, definitely. He’d get so mad and then sit there, poutin’ about it.”
Phil shook his head.
“Some villain of the server.”
A huff of laughter escaped Techno.
“I mean, basically everyone hates him so he must be doin’ something right,” he said.
“Yeah—” Phil leaned back, stretching his legs out in front of him. “I can’t say I don’t hate him a little for all the things I’ve heard but people can change and no one deserves to be tortured, that much I know for damn sure.”
“You’re not wrong, Phil.” Techno looked at the basket again. Before, if someone had asked him if Dream could change, he wouldn’t have had an answer to that. Now he thought that Dream could change, that he had changed, just not in the way it should’ve happened. He deserved to have a chance to change, the right way. “You’re not wrong but I need to get some sleep, man. I’m exhausted.”
Phil gave him a soft smile, shaking his head slightly.
“You look exhausted, mate. You want one of those healing potions? I had nothing better to do so I brewed a bunch,” he said, getting up. His knees creaked. “Maybe a cup of tea before bed?”
“Y’know what, Phil? That sounds perfect.”