Requested by TheShinySnivy: Technoblade spends some time in Pandora's Box. It goes about as well as you'd expect.

He skimmed his hand along the obsidian, the surface smooth beneath his touch. Some parts of it were seemingly warmer than others, but Technoblade didn't know if that was because of the lava running somewhere deep within the walls or just his tired mind playing tricks on him. He tapped the volcanic glass once, an action that fills the cell with a light ringing sound. But the layers ran too deep for Techno to tell where hollowness hides beneath.

Which was a shame, because knowing the structure's weaknesses would already go a long way in him figuring out his escape plan.

With no tools and the mining fatigue weighing heavy on his bones, getting through obsidian might be a fool's errand. But it was a better way to spent his time than waiting for a rescue party that would most likely never come. Or better yet, stay put and sit pretty like Dream seemed to want him to.

Technoblade couldn't see any other reason for him still being here.

The sky tore open, lightning forming a spiderweb of fractures evaporating as quickly as they had taken shape. Rain beat down on them relentlessly and made it impossible to see more than a few feet in front of them. Another crack – a flash of blinding light – and it carried the glint of a sword at Phil's throat, the steady hand of Dream holding onto the base of Phil's neck and keeping him in place.

Technoblade stilled in an instant.

The thunder rumbled ominously as Dream's impassive mask grinned ever wider.

The trade-off had gone quick and easy, an unspoken agreement that Techno would sign again in a heartbeat. He nodded curtly at Dream, who pressed the blade firmer against skin to make his point. Techno dropped his own weapon, holding up his arms to show goodwill. Phil's eyes widened as he realized what was happening, helpless to stop it.

"Wait-" But Dream curled his fingers tighter around Phil's neck, the sword inches away from slicing a jugular and Techno shook his head, internally begging for the other man to stay quiet.

He didn't know if he could do this if Phil asked him not to with that pained look in his eyes.

It was impossible to tell how much time had passed since he was locked in Pandora's box, but Techno had a rough estimation. Sam brought him food and by counting the minutes between deliveries he had narrowed it down to two meals a day. Almost twenty meals had come and gone since his arrival.

During this time Dream had not come to see him once, was the thing.

It made a tight coil of worry pull in Techno's gut. One he stubbornly pushed down and shoved into a corner of his mind where he put all emotions he deemed worthy to be re-examined at a more opportune time, preferably over a cup of tea and some of Phil's freshly baked bread. There were only so many reasons he could think of for Dream to wait this long to state his demands – because that's what they had to be. Demands. Dream didn't do anything in half measures, always had some ace up his sleeve or a grand scheme to connect by pulling little threads of manipulation.

Dream had to gain something from putting him in prison.

Techno sat down on the small bunk that served as the room's only furniture, both bed and table in its function. The thin blanket that hardly did anything for him was balled up and shoved to the side. He started running down the list out loud so Chat could follow along. For all their strange tricks that eluded him, they still couldn't read his thoughts. Thankfully.

"Reason one: Dream thinks leaving me in here long enough will make it easier for him to get what he wants from me later."

Psychological warfare was the oldest trick in the book, but no method quite as effective as solitary confinement to break a person. Or, well, that would be the case for most others. Between the voices and a natural tendency towards extreme introversion Technoblade probably was the worst target for this approach. If the accommodations weren't so shit, he might have even enjoyed his stay.

Dream would most likely know this. Cross it off the list.

"Reason two: he needs to keep me secured for a future ploy."

A possibility, but the uncertainty tugged at Technoblade all the same. If Dream was planning to use him as a bargaining chip – or worse, a flunkey – down the line, then Techno would have had the honor of his presence by now, even if only for Dream to gloat. That man was utterly lost in his own superiority complex on the best of days, there was no chance he would pass on an opportunity to rub Techno's face in his future plans. Leave him stewing in misery with knowledge of what was to come.

A moment's hesitation, but he crossed it off the list.

"Reason three: he's forgotten I'm in here."

His joke made Chat agitated and he winced at the stab of a headache that brought forth as their yelling got louder, more jumbled. "Yeah, that would be pretty cringe of him," he agreed with their repeated outcries.

"Well, that only leaves the last option I can consider..." He trailed off, staring at the slightly shimmering surface of the obsidian. Techno could see his own reflection in the translucent facets. The crown on his head stood out starkly in the cell's dim light.

In chess, the best plays were always those that went for the strongest pieces first. It might be tempting to take a rook or two to start with, but you can't feel safe until that queen is removed from the board. Then it breaks open for you to do whatever you want with, essentially.

"He's leaving me here to rot."

Phil had stared at him, the shadows cutting across his expression. Techno couldn't look him in the face, keeping his focus on Dream instead. Not breaking eye contact even as his hands were tied behind his back. The useless gesture was only meant to humiliate him, Dream knew he wouldn't budge an inch with Phil's last life still in danger.

They had marched him straight to the prison, not taking any risks and all the while Technoblade had already been glancing around, committing any important leverages to memory. With every security measure they passed, his heart sank deeper in his chest.

Forty meals had come and gone.

Technoblade was chipping away at the wall, not for any real reason except it kept him busy. He wasn't stupid enough to believe it would actually amount to anything. Not when the walls were made of obsidian, not when the mining fatigue strained his movements and made his muscles contract under the pressure of forcing them into cooperation. There was less strength to his punches, flexing his fingers against invisible weights suspended from them by strings.

And even if he managed by some miracle to mine away a block, Sam would know and come replace it instantly.

"Chat," he addressed the voices. "You're familiar with the story of Sisyphus, right?" A mess of responses, mostly the repeating of their favorite letter which Techno chose to take as agreement. "Yeah, sure, I've read it to you before."

His claws broke through another inch of the solid stone. Obsidian wasn't a mineral, the composition wasn't right for it. But it splintered in brittle ways and cut open Techno's palm, making the blood run slick through his fingers. Chat went into a frenzy.

"This is what he must have felt like with his boulder," Techno concluded.

They stripped him of his tools, his weapons, his communicator. Technoblade was vaguely grateful they let him keep his clothes at least, though he suspected it was merely because Sam hadn't been prepared for the prison to already be put to use.

The creeper-hybrid looked at him in vague apprehension and Techno shrugged back.

Placing him in the highest security cell could have been a compliment if Techno didn't think it to be completely overkill and awfully dramatic on Dream's part. The rows of doors they passed on the way to the bowels of the box were concerning, enough to contain at least half the residents of the server.

Dream had officially lost his marbles.

High security turned out to be a euphemism for 'violation of human rights'. The cell was barely three by three blocks, with nothing but the bed tucked against one wall and a heavy-set door that didn't even have a handle on the inside. At floor height, there was a thin slot just wide enough for the occasional bowl of stew or a baked potato to slide through. The warden didn't have to interact with his prisoners.

"Cozy," Techno remarked dully before the door was shut behind him. It hadn't been opened since.

He had lost count, but he had to be nearing his eightieth meal now.

More and more often Technoblade found himself slumbering through the opening of the latch, only to wake up to a stale steak that had been left on his floor hours ago. It wasn't real sleep, merely a state of exhaustion both mental and physical that left him wandering the borders of consciousness, drifting somewhere between awareness and disconnect. Which he knew was probably not the best sign.

The lack of physical activity was wearing his muscles down, making even the simple act of pacing circles in the room send aches through his legs. For the first time in longer than he cared to recall Techno returned to the exercise routine they had done every morning in the Antarctic Empire – or at least the parts of it he could match in the limited space of his cell. It wasn't enough though and he felt himself grow weaker every day. There was no sunlight, no fresh air, and the food left something to be desired.

His mind too wandered more and more, having trouble staying on task. The voices gradually grew more agitated, bored by the same scenery each day, the lack of excitement. A permanent headache had taken residence and didn't show any sign of intending to leave soon, making its presence known through a constant throbbing and the occasional stab of pain when he thought too hard. Closing his eyes, Technoblade started to count out loud. Give them and himself something to concentrate on. Chat came apart into a tangle of numbers, noises, buzzing. He winced.

"Okay, new plan, new plan-" He curled up on the bunk, drawing his knees up to his chest. The blanket was on the floor. "Storytime, what would you like to hear?"

More chaos, but one answer stood out among the others. Its irony was not lost on Techno.

"Thus, the first mortal woman was born and she descended down to earth." He hushed them and was grateful when chat fell away into quieter murmurs. "Her name was Pandora."

The door opened.

The sound made Technoblade flinch, the creak feeling so horribly foreign in the stillness of his cell that he had come to know like the back of his hand. He stared and didn't know what to think when he saw Phil outlined in the opening.

"Wha-"

His friend was at his side in seconds, one hand holding his wrist and it was nearly painful. An absence of touch suddenly set ablaze. Techno did his best not to shy away from the contact.

"We need to get out of here," Phil said urgently, eyes wide and panicked and the words died on Techno's throat. "There isn't much time."

Techno could only nod, throat raw and hurting as Phil pulled him to his feet. He nearly fell over.

The hallways seemed different, longer and winding in strange angles. Door upon door upon door and Phil didn't say anything, just tugged Techno along. His head was filled with cotton. Why wasn't there any lava? Where was the redstone?

When they came outside, the sun was blinding him.

"Wait, Phil." Techno stopped moving, dug his heels into the ground and Phil stopped too. He turned around, skin pale and expression worried and it killed him. It killed Techno. "What's happening?"

"I came for you," Phil answered simply. "Of course I did, mate."

Techno felt like he was breaking.

He woke up in his cell.

"At the bottom of the box, only Hope remained there in an unbreakable home."

Technoblade missed his home.

He missed his farm and his pets and the feeling of the breeze running through his hair. He missed the winding of the river across the land, small sounds of trickling and running along the shallows with Wilbur and Tommy in tow. He missed Phil putting logs of wood in the fireplace.

He was tired.

The voices wouldn't stop screaming. Pressing his hands into his closed eyes, relieved when the pressure took some of the edge off, Technoblade grunted. "What has you guys excited now, hm?"

He didn't really care. The room was small and endless and he couldn't breathe within these walls, couldn't think. He just wanted them to shut up so he could go to sleep again.

But Chat didn't mind his protests, a litany of noise and somewhere in there, Technoblade could have sworn he heard Phil's name. He blinked back into awareness, struggling to get his stagnant mind into motion again. Too exhausted to move.

The door opened.

Technoblade couldn't even bear to tear his eyes away from the ceiling.

Somebody shook his shoulder and said his name and it hurt, it all hurt too much to be real. When warm arms wrapped around his body Techno wanted to sob but couldn't do that either.

"Hey, hey-" Phil was brushing his tangled hair from his face, fingers skirting along Techno's cheeks. He leaned into that touch subconsciously, needing it like a lifeline. There was time to be self-conscious about such vulnerability later. "It's okay, I'm here."

The noise that wanted to come out of him was a low whine, but Techno cleared his throat instead. "Took you long enough."

Phil let out a short laugh, not quite sincere yet but still music to his ears. "Yeah, you can complain about it to me later, once we get home."

Home?

Techno nodded, the minimal motion already enough to make him dizzy. But that didn't matter with Phil steadying him, holding onto him, helping him.

Coming back for him.

"Please," he said. "Home would be great."

Tumblr: Anarchy-and-Piglins

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