This is for the whumptober prompts: Coughing up blood + choking, locked away, immortal whumpee, drugged.
Technically set in the same AU as my other fic [may the flood of water not overflow me] but you don't necessarily need to read that to understand this fic. All you do need to know is that Techno is a harbinger of the apocalypse and SBI are the handlers tasked to look over him. Oh, and Techno's past handlers are dicks.
Technoblade often finds himself wondering what his parents must have looked like.
It peels at the corners of his mind more than him not knowing what his own reflection looks like does. He was never allowed a mirror, not that there'd be any point to him getting one since it would shatter at a single glance. But Techno has puzzled together some bits and pieces throughout the years. He has seen the long strands of his pink hair falling over his shoulder. He has heard the handlers comment on his creepy red eyes when they're not covered up.
Sometimes, when he's really bored and nobody is around, Techno will bring his hands up to his face and carefully poke at the expanse of his skin. It's hard because they keep him chained up most of the time, but he manages. He maps out the curve of his forehead and cheeks, pressing his thumb into the upturn of his own nose and then down to the dip of his chin. He's not an expert in the matter, but he thinks he has a decent idea of what others see when they look at him.
The problem is that Techno probably doesn't look anything like his parents.
So he imagines them instead. His father must have had light hair and eyes, a merchant by trade. Filling pouches of leather with gold at the kitchen table, measuring the amounts with acute precision. Then his mother, with long chestnut curls and hazel eyes sparkling in amusement, leaning onto the table and telling him she is with child. Techno's father must have jumped up and held her. They must have been happy.
Before he was born, Techno likes to think that they were happy.
It's self-indulgent, maybe. There's nothing else to him than indulgence. Techno prefers to pretend that they cried when the king took him away. He wants to believe that his father had drawn a sword before the city guard stopped him and that his mother fell to her knees and wailed with the despair of a woman grieving her child.
It's a lot more likely that they knew he was tainted the moment he was born and gave Techno away willingly. But again: indulgence.
"Hands down!"
The intercom crackles painfully, in a way that makes Techno wince. His sensitive hearing has a hard time switching between complete silence and the barked commands of his handlers. Techno drops his hands into his lap from where they were touching his own face.
"Against the wall," comes the next order. For a brief moment, Techno hesitates.
They've fed him less than a decade ago. Time is hard to keep track of in this place, but Techno knows the feeling of hunger better than most people know joy or sorrow. It hasn't been that long since he ate. And there's no other reason for his handlers to come into his cell, is there?
"Against the wall, now!"
A small jolt passes through his body when the chains flare alive. The heat is intense but short-lived, giving him just a small taste of the fire they can unleash on him if he doesn't obey. Techno quickly stands up and presses his spine into the wall. He doesn't want to give them any more reasons to punish him than he already has.
The restraints lock against the tile, effectively keeping him in place. His arms are outstretched. He feels vulnerable.
"There we go, that wasn't so hard, was it?" A man has stepped into the room after the door opened with a mechanical hiss. Techno doesn't recognize his voice. It's not one of his usual handlers. More footsteps follow them inside.
"This is it?" Another voice, another stranger. Their shoes make an unpleasant noise as they cross the room towards him. "It looks so... human."
"You think?" There's almost a laugh there, amusement at them mistaking Techno for something that could contain humanity.
No, what Techno contains is anything but.
"More or less." They put something down on the ground. Techno hears a small scuff as they kneel next to it and pull open a zipper. A noxious odor fills the room, sharply burning at his nostrils. They're a doctor of some kind.
Techno hates doctors.
Maybe Techno hates everybody – he's never held much love for his handlers either. Some of them are fine, they feed him and keep him from being too cold or too warm. Not because they care, but because they know being in too much distress makes Techno's powers even harder to contain. Techno isn't meant to be kept comfortable. He's meant to be kept harmless. And that does include meeting some of his more basic requirements.
Doctors, though? They're on another level. Their entire job is to fight against the inherent shadow of death that chases every living being. Techno's immortality fascinates them. If they could bottle it up and sell it to the highest bidder, they long would have. Techno doesn't think that's possible, though not due to a lack of trying on their part. He's not often visited by doctors, but every time he is, it's bad news.
Techno can't die. But he can suffer.
"Can it speak?" The doctor is rummaging around in their bag. Techno can hear small vials of glass click together. From behind the darkness of the blindfold, it all sounds so much louder than it should.
"Apparently so," the handler says. Techno has deduced at this point that he's one of the men usually tasked with guarding his door, not somebody who feeds him. That's why Techno doesn't recognize the guy's voice. "It's a stubborn thing though, it doesn't really talk to us. Unless you want me to force it?"
Techno doesn't need his sight to know how their hand hovers over the remote that controls his chains, threatening to hurt him into compliance. He bites his tongue to keep some sarcastic comment from slipping out.
He used to talk to them a lot more. He only stopped because he saw no reason to wear his voice out when nobody was listening. Techno tried to appeal to their decency, he tried to explain his situation to them, he tried to work with them somehow. His kindness was never rewarded. He tried to yell and curse them out until his throat felt raw and painful. He only got punished for it. None of it did anything.
So he just... quit trying. Why bother?
"Don't bother," the doctor says - the irony isn't lost on Techno. They stand up again, the long trail of their coat makes a soft noise falling along their back before they step toward him. "I want to run some tests first."
Techno presses himself more into the wall, a fight or flight instinct that never served him well kicking in at their approach. He is trapped, helpless. There is nowhere for him to go. That doesn't stop Techno from trying to struggle.
Their hand grasps his chin firmly, tilting his head back. The syringe isn't anywhere near his skin yet, but Techno can already feel the phantom prick spark across his nerve endings. He hates needles almost as much as he hates doctors.
"Keep still and this won't hurt too bad," the doctor says. They don't sound like they're really talking to Techno, only echoing the words out of habit. A million other patients they've dealt with before. Techno isn't like them at all.
He bites down.
Afterward, he won't be able to explain why he did that. It's not like his little outbursts will do him any good, he's restrained against the wall and just managed to piss off the people in charge of him even more than they already were. But their fingers pressed into his jaw and their breath ghosted across his cheeks as they searched for a vein to plunge the syringe into, and for one moment all Techno wanted was to not feel so powerless.
The doctor flinches away from him. Techno thinks they yell something, but it's all washed out in the next moment when the other handler surges forward and presses a knife to his throat.
There's a blink of time where Techno freezes and waits, thinking maybe they'll try the needle again. Then the blade buries itself into his flesh.
It hurts, more than a knife wound has any right to. Techno's no stranger to being stabbed. The pain is sudden and piercing and excruciatingly relentless. Being stabbed in the throat is new territory. It comes with a whole fresh set of agonies for him to discover.
Most notably, the sensation of blood flooding his airway.
Techno chokes on it, wet coughs around the metal. Then the knife is pulled out again and it unleashes a warm torrid of fluid he can't swallow away properly. It clogs his mouth in seconds, making him gag desperately. But anything Techno manages to get out is replaced instantly.
And he can't die.
His lungs seem to tighten around nothing, the lack of oxygen a burn that isn't quelled by more blood pouring down the inside of his throat. His sputtering sends drops of it flying. Techno licks his lips against the metal taste while more seeps from the corners, before it gets inhaled again. He can't expel it quickly enough. He can't suffocate.
That doesn't mean his body won't react to the lack of oxygen, spasming wildly. The chains dig into his wrists.
When a hand curls around his shoulder, Techno hears himself scream despite the blood.
"Techno?" It's shaking him in a rhythm not unlike the twitching of his muscles, banging his head into the pillow over and over again. Somebody rips the blanket off him to free his flailing limbs.
He's on his back, drenched in sweat. His eyes are covered, not with the rigid metal blindfold he used to wear but the more comfortable cloth one Phil got for him.
"Techno, it's just a nightmare. It's okay." Phil himself is there, blunt nails dragging on Techno's hair - trying to get him to stop. Phil curses when Techno's powers swell inside his chest, pressing at the inside of his ribcage as if they're trying to burst out.
"Shit, he's not going to-"
Wilbur's voice cuts clean through him. "Here."
Techno can't breathe.
"Technoblade, listen." Phil is talking directly into his ear. Even through the dim awareness of his blood coming to a boil and his brain trying to leak out of his earholes with barely contained divinity, Techno wishes he could beg Phil not to be this close to him. If he harms Phil, or Wilbur, or Tommy, Techno doesn't think even the lifespan of an immortal would be long enough for him to forgive himself.
So he forces a nod through the pain.
"We're going to give you something to calm down. It won't be for long, just a small dose." He can feel another pair of hands on his temples, trying to keep his head immobilized so Phil can work more efficiently. "Is that okay?"
Techno doesn't know why they're asking him. He is a storm raging, and if they don't do something he will tear the world asunder.
Except, Techno does know why they're asking him.
Techno hates needles.
He nods again.
The prick is expected this time and much less horrible than the pantomime his dream could summon. Phil stays true to his word, only a small amount of sedatives spreads warmth through Techno's arteries and makes him go slack in slow stutters. As if some part of him resists.
Some part of him that Techno likes to think he left down there, in the bunker.
His mind quickly grows fuzzy under the drug's influence, though it doesn't entirely wipe away the fake sensation of blood in his throat. Small coughs torment Techno despite how he doesn't have the energy or motor control to properly hack it up. It leaves him to wheeze around a solid weight inside him.
Wilbur's fingers in his hair pull him back from the brink of panic.
"Shhh… You're okay now. It's okay." The words don't resonate with Techno. He's numb to the feeling of Phil rubbing a thumb over his hand tenderly.
"It was just a nightmare," Phil says again.
"No," Techno croaks, voice raspy and strained. A confession from previously bloodstained lips. "It was a memory."
He wants them to know.
After everything that has happened, after how much care they've taken with him. Techno thinks they deserve to know.
They don't answer, but the grip on his hand tightens. If those handlers are still alive, surely Phil will have found them by morning.
But for now, Techno just lies there with the taste of iron in his throat.