Day 15 - Hidden scars with hurt!Techno

Other characters: Ranboo

Other tags: Dream smp setting, scars, implied removal of body parts/amputation

Summary: Techno is not one to be ashamed of his scars, except...


Technoblade had never been the type to be self-conscious about his body.

He didn't often take off his armor around others - another step removed from taking off his clothes. But that didn't have anything to do with the sense of embarrassment he might feel and everything with the risks involved in letting his guard down. An uncovered back is that much more convenient for those seeking to sink a knife into it.

But beyond that… in piglin culture, human standards did not apply. Piglets ran around the Nether forests with nothing but a loincloth to cover their privates, brutes often lumbered around the Bastion with their sweaty chests exposed to the world. Other things humans were taught to shame for not living up to an imaginary ideal of beauty never crossed Techno's mind. Round shapes and pudgy stomachs were to be revered, for it meant the sounder was thriving. Scars and bruises were to be respected, for it meant a life full of hardships survived.

And from merely looking at Techno, it'd be easy to tell he had survived a lot. Technoblade never dies might have been a scathing untruth, his scars would breathe credence into the statement. His hands were littered with them, rough-hewn skin and small marks he couldn't begin to name the origin of. Along his face ran a simple line that seemed to be insipid at first, but was the result of a close meeting with a warlord's halberd.

They barely registered for Technoblade anymore. When he looked at his body, when he stared at his reflection, it was not with the conscious awareness of the scars being there.

But he forgot that for others, it was not the same.

They'd gone out to a mansion, raided it and burnt it down. On the way back a snowstorm had started up and the last few miles towards their houses were tracked through painful blasts of wind and snow that were eager to get beneath every layer. Techno was soaked by the time he opened the door and escaped into the warmth of his cabin, he knew that if Ranboo wasn't wearing his enchanted armor he'd be in an even worse state.

He wasted no time unlacing his boots and kicking them into a corner, not even bothering to put them out right even though Techno knew it would make the leather all wrinkly and unpleasant. He dropped his cape too, the weight of it worse when saturated. His hair clung into his face, his braid probably needed to be wrung out over a bucket. Even his shirt was soaked and Techno dropped the vambraces he was wearing into a chest so he could pull his shirt over his head.

Ranboo - who up until that point had been rambling about one thing or another - fell silent.

And for a bright, startling moment, Technoblade had forgotten nobody but Phil had ever seen his back.

And for the first time in - ever, his mind bit at him, this is the first time ever - Techno felt a need to cover himself up.

He couldn't though, not unless he wanted to pull sodden fabric over his head a second time and have it probably cling to his skin in all the awkward places he didn't want it to and draw even more attention towards something he was trying to forget ever happened.

So he sighed and forced his shoulders to relax.

Ranboo, for his part and to his credit, didn't say anything. Techno already knew he liked the kid, but this only elevated his opinion of Ranboo further. Subtlety was not a virtue, but it was something Technoblade knew how to appreciate.

Especially since he knew what Ranboo had seen there.

The scars were settled lower on his shoulder blades, mirror images of each other, one either side of his spine. Their placement would be too obvious not to read as them belonging together, one wound forming one scar. Two large round patches of something cut out of his body, carved out of his flesh.

A single life, so easily lost. Wings to flee that danger with. All things in this world are made equal, Technoblade.

After this, you will no longer be equal.

Sometimes, Techno thought he could still feel the wings that were supposed to exist there. When he stretched his arms above his head and bent back to loosen his spine, he felt the brush of phantom feathers never given a chance to grow.

But Ranboo didn't ask, and Techno wouldn't say anything. He quickly went to get a dry shirt, and tried not to feel that sense of loss.