Not a prompt this time, just me writing the most self-indulgent thing in existence
"I'm sorry," is what Techno says, throat full of certainty. A lie that burns at the back of his tongue. "I'm really sorry, Phil. I have to."
And Phil is screaming at him, voice raw with it. Techno knows he will forgive him afterward if there is anything left of him to be forgiven.
He draws the blade along his palms, presses them together to the slick heat of blood running between his fingers. Their chorus drowns out all else when he calls on them, then on the god itself. Invoking its name in tongues of death and war. Incantations in languages built from rot. Divine power coils its way into his gut, tight and maddening, the dangerous threat of a covenant left unfulfilled. Technoblade's eyes glow red as he inhales a final time before surrendering into their consecration, allowing the tide of rapture to was over him.
With no hesitation, he permits the Blood God's ancient contract to take full hold.
For a blissful moment, all else falls aside, the pain and exhaustion wiping away under their exalted presence. Technoblade feels his muscles move as if undone from their metaphorical shackles, refinding the power needed to stand under the strain of a dozen wounds. He lifts his head and stares at the ones who threatened his friends and family with eyes made of blood, streaming down his face in liquid currents. The taste of it reaches his lips and unfetters him.
Then the burning starts. An itch at the very tips of his fingers that gradually become pinpricks of lighting and fire and burn their way through his veins. Technoblade's blood is boiling, made acid and ripping his body apart from the inside out. He is a vessel full of that which cannot be safely contained, tearing to spill from his mind and heart and flesh. It was made to destroy him and he was built to be destroyed by it.
But a few minutes of their unrefined power is all he needs.
The battle is brutal and short-lived. He destroys them with all he has: sword and claws, tusks and fists. As his body breaks down from otherworldly powers it couldn't hope to channel as a mortal, Technoblade feels nothing but relief as it grants him the strength needed to keep fighting. Even as the pain becomes overwhelming. Even as his vision turns into a blur of red and their voices is all he can hear, echoing hollows. Even if the last remains of humanity slip away and he finally becomes the fearful weapon they all said he was, a monster with no grace or mercy.
At least they will see him crumble for their sake. Maybe in their memories, he could be revived fondly, if he was revived at all.
Such are his last conscious thoughts before blood-driven sanctitude makes him come completely undone.
Phil watches in horror as Technoblade tears himself apart at the seams.
They talked about it only once, dipping their toes in theoretics of divinity. Phil, who was not mortal but had experienced just enough to approximate. And Techno, who was so unbearably mortal but contained multitudes unspoken.
They made an odd pair, two sides of the same coin gone horribly dull.
He had made Technoblade promise him never to stray there, never to allow this to happen. They both knew the consequences. And while Techno had agreed, Phil had already known it was a pledge of conditions. He had known Techno would break it in a heartbeat if it meant keeping them safe.
So Phil watches in silence as blood pours from Techno's eyes, his nose, his mouth. He watches it seep from the worsening injuries where his skin tears open, rising from cuts with vapid steam when it falls onto the ground and soaks it. The pain must be indescribable but Techno doesn't make a sound as he reduces their enemies to nothing – gore and sinew the only remaining trace they ever existed.
When the dust clears there is only Technoblade, a man become god become monster. Heaving and shuddering as burden finally outdoes him, collapsing into the ground spent.
Phil blinks and forces himself to stand on broken legs, trailing limp wings behind. There is a numbness in his chest at the sight before him. The corpse he is walking towards-
Ranboo materializes at Technoblade's side from thin air and pulls him into his lap with shaking arms. Phil wearily spares a thought for him not knowing the kid could teleport – Heck, he wasn't sure even Ranboo himself was aware he could do that. But he guesses stress does that to a person. Makes them tap into some part of themselves better left untouched.
He's nauseous with regret for letting this happen.
"He's alive," Ranboo says then, every syllable painted in his own surprise over it. "Phil, he's alive. Quick, we need to-"
The rest is cut off when Phil falls to his knees, wraps them both in his wings as if that could somehow shield them from the world, and weeps.
Praying seems fatuous for a being like him. But for once Phil won't mind thanking the Gods.