And here's the au I've been working on for weeks now. There's more information about it on my tumblr blog if you're ever curious (same name as here: Anarchy-and-piglins)
Long story short: It's an sbi-focussed paranormal ghost hunting au. Phil and Tommy are normal humans, Technoblade is an empath (human with some special abilities) and Wilbur is part-demon due to being death's kid. Phil and Wilbur are the only ones who are related.
"Since it's your first time coming along with us," Phil said as they turned into a long gravel driveway, "we need to go over the rules."
Tommy stopped fidgeting with his seatbelt and caught Phil's eye in the rearview mirror. "There's rules?"
"We're about to walk into a potentially demon-infested farmhouse. If you don't want to die there are rules."
And if nothing else it made Tommy stop bouncing around all over the place. Wilbur kicked the back of Phil's seat. "Dad, don't scare him."
"I'm not scaring him, I'm just saying he'll have to listen if he doesn't want something bad to happen. Not everybody has been doing this since kindergarten, Wil, humans are-"
"I know, I know. Nothing bad's going to happen if you stick with me." The last words were directed at Tommy rather than Phil. Wilbur threw his arm around the kid, keeping him in a headlock so he could tussle his hair, to the sound of Tommy's annoyed squeaking.
"Right, that's rule one. Don't wander off alone, stay close to one of us three." Phil inclined his head to Technoblade in the passenger seat beside him but he was staring out the window with his headphones on and completely checked out of the conversation. "Second rule, don't mess with any entities on purpose. Don't antagonize them, don't bait them, don't take any deals from them. They're not offering anything you want, trust me." Wilbur snorted but didn't comment. Phil ignored him. "Also just don't be a little shit in general, that's rule three."
"Sounds good," Tommy chirped.
The van came to a stop at the end of the driveway, in the shadow of a large ranch-style house. Rot covered the wooden exterior and a few of the windows were broken, but aside from that it almost looked livable. It seemed like the kind of place teenagers and vagrants would hang around in, which is how it got reported to them as being haunted in the first place. Phil turned off the engine and stepped out, waiting for the others to do the same.
"Who the fuck builds their house in the middle of nowhere like this anyway?" Wilbur asked. The way he was looking at the house made Phil laugh, as if it had somehow personally offended him by being all the way out there.
"People who want to be left alone," Techno said. He'd thrown his headphones onto the dashboard and was tying his long dyed hair out of his face in preparation for going inside.
Wilbur smirked. "Maybe you should come to live here then, Techno. It looks leagues better than your shitty apartment."
Techno looked around as if he was actually considering it. "Left alone by living people," he said after a moment. "These woods are too busy for me."
"Everywhere's too busy for you."
"It's not my fault there's not a lot of places left where nobody has ever died or been buried. Have you tried looking for one, Wilbur? It's like finding a needle in a haystack."
"Actually I-"
"Are you two done with the comedy routine?" Phil went ahead without waiting for an answer. Tommy scurried to catch up. "I'd like to hurry the hell up and get home before dinner."
The inside of the house looked about as worse for wear as the outside did. A thick layer of dust permeated every surface – Phil dragged a finger over the nearby cabinet just to watch his glove get covered in filth – and the air smelled heavy with mildew. He scrunched up his nose.
"This place is huge. We're going to have to split up to cleanse it properly."
Tommy had already latched onto Wilbur's arm before Phil finished the sentence. "I'm with the big guy."
"Works for me," Phil said. Techno nodded at him, showing he was more than glad for it to be the two of them together. "We'll take the upstairs floor, you guys can do down here. Do the walk-around, try not to break anything I'm gonna need to pay for later, and let's reconvene in about fifteen minutes." He checked his watch for the time.
Wilbur looked at the screen of his phone too before putting it away. "Roger that." He gave Phil a mock salute before disappearing around the corner and into the kitchen, Tommy in tow. Phil watched them go, then turned to Techno with a smile.
"Guess it's just you and me then, mate."
"Thankfully." Techno pulled at the sleeves of his hoodie, put his foot on the first step of the stairs leading up. "You coming?"
Phil followed him. There were four whole bedrooms and a bathroom, and that wasn't even talking about the hatch in the ceiling that Phil could only presume hid the entranceway to an attic. Filth around the wooden frame made him guess it hadn't been opened in ages though, the entity wouldn't be likely to hang around up there. And if it did, they'd need to call Wil to be able to open it.
They went through the rooms one by one, accustomed to the routine. Phil especially, he'd been doing this for his entire life. Long before Wilbur had come around, Phil was already cleansing haunted locations, the only thing that had changed in becoming a father was that he'd started doing it with a curly-haired toddler in a baby carrier tagging along.
And then, when Wilbur was older and more independent, Phil had taught him the family business and he'd started to come along on Phil's hunts out of his own volition.
It had been about a year since Techno started joining them too. What had begun as acclimation training purely for Techno's sake had slowly morphed into them genuinely making a good team. Techno had managed to fit into their dynamic so naturally, it had left even Phil surprised. Though as they walked the upper floor today and checked for anything out of the ordinary Phil noticed he was being unusually quiet.
"Anything the matter?" He put the question out there as casually as he could, knowing how guarded Techno became if he felt like people were trying to pry answers out of him. Phil had learned long ago that with Techno, it paid off to be patient. Once he'd had struggled through his thoughts and how to put them into words, he'd come forward with them in his own time.
"Nah, just..." Techno picked up a doll by its legs, letting the poor thing dangle dangerously. Its porcelain face stared at Phil in silent judgment. "Bad mojo from this place."
"Yeah, we never go anywhere nice do we?" Phil joked. He arranged the salt on the wood planks in a semi-circle. Cover as much ground as possible.
"We really don't." Techno dropped the doll in disgust. "But I meant like. Bad bad? Big bad? I don't know, Phil. I can't speak today."
"Written too many essays lately?"
Techno visibly cringed at the reminder of his uni homework. "Still need to finish one when we get back."
"Maybe it's-" Phil started, then stopped himself. Then decided to go through with it anyway. "Maybe it's Tommy? You said you didn't mind but... are you really okay with him being here? Like, coming along with us?"
He got a genuinely confused look in response. "Why wouldn't I be?"
"Oh, come on Tech. I know you had your reservations." Phil got up once he finished the circle, making a quick note of the lack of reaction in his notepad. "You don't need to pretend to like him for my sake."
"I like Tommy!" The defensiveness in Techno's voice almost made Phil double over in laughter. "I mean- Well... I don't really know him. Wil's just bringing him around one day like 'here's a child. Deal with it'. But I like him just fine's, he's- he's... young? He's so young Phil."
"I know." Phil knew he couldn't hide how amused the conversation was leaving him, so he didn't even try.
"Seems a bit too young to be out here doing what we're doing, s'all." Techno rubbed his fingers clean on his sweatpants before adjusting his glasses.
"Yeah, but isn't that better? Better than when you were his age trying to deal with all the weird stuff happening to you all alone?"
Techno hummed but didn't actually answer. Phil knew he didn't like the past to be brought up – it was painful. How often Phil had wished that he'd met Techno sooner, how much heartbreak might have been avoided then. But he didn't dwell on it as often anymore.
Once you got to be his age, regret about things you couldn't change became useless. There was always the future to worry about.
Phil was about to continue, would have continued if it wasn't for Techno turning around and outstretching his arm. His eyes had bled red, irises melting into pupils and sclera both. Within the room only illuminated by the dimming outside sunset, they glowed vividly. Phil had just enough time to realize how badly he had miscalculated the situation when the force hit him – an invisible wall that slammed into him and threw him backward. The glass panes on the window broke from the impact of his body when he was thrown through it.
Then the sky was above him, a distant washed-out blue and the faintest traces of clouds the last thing Phil saw as he plummeted towards the ground.
"You're supposed to teach me how to do it too, Wilbur!"
Tommy was demanding, pushy, his voice bordering on a whine. Wilbur was inches away from throttling him. "I said you could come along with us and only because you wouldn't shut up about it." He grabbed Tommy by the back of his shirt to keep him from running into a different room before they finished purifying the kitchen. "I didn't say jack shit about teaching you."
"It was implied though."
"No, it wasn't." Tommy slipped from his fingers, stuck out his tongue. Wilbur rolled his eyes because he was an adult with adult conversational skills he could put to use. Or he could sink to Tommy's level. And he knew which one was better at conveying the intended message. "You said you wanted to join to see me at work."
"Yeah, I did!" Tommy insisted. "I've been watching, I'm watching right now. Been looking at you light your boring candles and throw salt around for minutes. But I want to see you vanquish a demon!"
"Tommy, that's- That's not how it works." Wilbur wanted to help him, but this was all going a bit faster than he'd expected.
"Tubbo says-"
Whatever Tommy was about to share would have to remain a secret since Wilbur was a lot more concerned with the sound of a window shattering upstairs. The hairs on his arms stood on end immediately, it felt as if the temperature had instantly dropped by several degrees. He swallowed.
Then there was a heavy, sickening thud outside.
"Fuck!" He was scrambling for the hallway within a blink, hearing Tommy come after him. Technoblade was at the top of the stairs, eyes pure red, hair come undone and moving as if stirred by a breeze that wasn't there. Wilbur cursed again – he should have been paying better attention. Why did this have to happen the first time he brought Tommy along.
And when Techno spoke it wasn't his voice that came out at all, the one Wilbur had become familiar with as one that would make light jokes and grumble about minor inconveniences without ever sounding too sharp and stand by him when he was all alone against the world. Rather, this chilled Wilbur to his very core.
"Get out!"
Whatever had possessed Technoblade's body took one step down and the wooden floor splintered beneath its foot, sending shards everywhere. It extended their arm and Wilbur reacted on pure instinct when he dragged Tommy behind himself, protecting his own face with the sleeve of his jacket. One of the old vases set on a nearby end table flew in their direction.
"We're trying dude, you're kind of between us and the door!" Wilbur yelled.
The entity did not react to his attempt at humor. Well, he supposed that was what often happened if you'd been dead too long.
Tommy clung to his back, not cowering but smart enough to stay out of this one. Wilbur grabbed his wrist. "Run."
They made it through the kitchen and into the adjacent room that was almost completely empty but might have been a living room once. All that was left was a couch-shaped object with a dirty sheet draped over it. Wilbur crouched behind it. "Are you hurt?" He pulled at Tommy's arm, trying to see if any of the flying debris had hit him in the face.
"Dude, I'm fine-" Tommy tried pushing him off but Wilbur wouldn't have it. If something happened to the kid that would be his fault. And Tommy's parents would kill him. "Seriously, what the fuck was that?!"
"Empath stuff," Wilbur said off-handedly. "We need to get Phil."
Tommy leveled him with a serious look, all traces of childishness gone. "No, I want to know. You said you would teach me everything, about what's up with me. What's-"
"Ugh, fine." Wilbur brushed through his curls in agitation. He was glad he'd opted for his lenses today because with his luck he'd have lost his glasses ages ago. "You know how Techno isn't uh, normal? I guess?"
"Yeah, he's an empath, right? Means he can see ghosts and shit."
"Right, he can do a bit more than that but that's the gist of it. He can also get possessed by them, where we can't. We need to get rid of this demon."
"Oh..." Tommy nodded in understanding. "We need to destroy the doll."
Wilbur opened his mouth, closed it again. "The what?!"
The door flew off its hinges when Techno burst through it – or whatever was currently inhabiting his body did. Wilbur yelped, covered them both with his arms.
"Get out!"
A blur of movement rushed past them. Phil was holding the book of supplication, so Wilbur knew he'd gone back to the van. And from the blood running down his arms and the glass stuck in his blond hair – plus him having lost his hat – it was easy to tell he'd been the one who'd gone flying through the window in the first place. It looked like it must have hurt.
Phil read the first line from the book. The entity hissed, shrunk back and into the other room again.
"You boys okay?" He asked, looking over his shoulder a little but keeping his ground in case the entity tried to attack again right away.
"We're fine," Wilbur answered for both of them.
"There's a doll upstairs," Tommy butt in. "We need to destroy the shit out of it."
Phil didn't ask him how he knew, just smirked and nodded. "Be my guest, I'll keep it still."
This time it was Tommy who rushed on ahead and Wilbur who couldn't do anything but follow. As soon as he found it, Tommy picked the doll up and slam-dunked it on the ground so hard Wilbur was almost surprised it didn't break through the floor and straight into the room below. He wheezed. "Jesus, Tommy-"
"It didn't work." Tommy was almost pouting, disappointed in himself.
"Here, let me..." Wilbur picked it up and closed his eyes. It had been forever since he'd done this, he had to concentrate to do it right. A few seconds but then the porcelain started to crack, crumble as it aged at an accelerated speed. Another screech rattled the house as the entity saw its sole life source drain away.
Tommy sighed in relief while Wilbur rubbed the remaining ceramic dust from his hands.
By the time they came back downstairs, Phil was helping Techno to his feet. He was squinting his eyes, holding his forehead and pale as a sheet – but all these symptoms of earlier demon possession aside he looked fine.
"Well, that went well," Wilbur said smugly.
Phil had never looked more concerned. "I'm going to have a talk with the bureau. Their intel is all wrong if they sent us into there thinking it was a Budding."
"You good Tech?" Wilbur asked.
Techno offered him a thumb's up, though not without wincing. "Aside from the evicted roommate, never been better. How did you know what its Anchor was anyway?"
"Yeah, Tommy?" Wilbur turned to the boy in question. "How did you know?"
"Tubbo told me." Tommy watched them, weighted their reactions. As if he'd used that exact sentence a hundred times before and was always left unsure of other people's reactions. Wilbur could only imagine. All he got in response this time were understanding nods.
Phil started to lead them all back out of the house. "Right, then ask Tubbo for an earlier heads-up next time, we could have really used the warning."
The smile that broke out on Tommy's face almost made all the problems they'd had tonight worth it. He turned to the side – waiting for the answer – before doing a little skip. "Tubbo says that's a deal, so long as we can stick around. I think they like you too! Does that mean I get to tag along more often then?"
"I guess it does," Phil mused. "I'd say you've learned the rules by now."
Wilbur threw his arm around Tommy's shoulder, the house nothing but a fading shadow as they returned to the van. "Welcome to the team, kid."
