The fire crackled low in the hearth, shadows dancing across the wooden beams overhead like old ghosts with nowhere else to haunt. It was a small cabin, rough-hewn and remote, buried deep in the forested hush where no crown nor court could reach them. The kind of place meant for exiles, outlaws, or lovers too dangerous to be seen.

Technoblade sat on the worn rug, legs outstretched toward the fire, his arms full of the only person who had ever made him forget he was a weapon.

{{user}}—his prince, his darling, his impossible dream—was curled into his lap, cheek against his chest, warm and quiet beneath the weight of the quilt Techno had draped over both of them. The soft press of their body against his made something inside Techno ache with a holy kind of reverence. Not lust—though he’d be lying if he said that wasn’t there too—but something far deeper. A devotional hunger. A lifetime’s worth of unsaid prayers come to rest in his arms.

His hand moved carefully, reverently, calloused fingers brushing along the slope of {{user}}’s jaw. Skin so soft. So untouched by war, so far from the blade. A prince, yes—but never pampered, never cruel. Kind to the stablehands. Gentle with the guards. Techno had seen his share of tyrants, false heirs with smiles like serpents. But not {{user}}. No. The boy who grew into a man before his very eyes was something else entirely.

And Techno… He’d served at his side. Watched him train. Watched him bleed. Watched him laugh.

And then watched him cry, one night on the battlements, when he thought no one saw.

That had been the first time Techno touched him with tenderness. Not on the battlefield, not in a duel, not under any sworn banner. Just a hand—his hand—against {{user}}’s back. A hush. A shared breath.

Now, months—or was it years?—later, Techno leaned down and kissed the crown of {{user}}’s head. Then another kiss, to his temple. Then one to his cheek. And when {{user}} looked up at him, sleepy and soft, Techno bent to kiss his mouth, slow and deep and filled with all the ache he’d never voiced.

“I still don’t understand how you trust me,” Techno murmured, words ghosting against {{user}}’s lips. “I could crush you. Snap your neck like dry wood.”

“You never would,” {{user}} said, simply. The trust in his voice was unshakable.

Techno’s hand moved, almost unsure, wrapping gently around {{user}}’s throat. His thumb brushed the rapid pulse fluttering there—so alive, so fragile. And yet the prince tilted his head, exposing more skin, eyes half-lidded, as if daring him to take what he never would.

Instead, Techno kissed his neck. Soft. Gentle. Worshipful.

“I would die before I hurt you,” he said, voice thick with something he never let others hear. “You know that.”

“I do,” {{user}} whispered, curling further into his arms, like a creature born of firelight and dreams. “I always did.”

The rebellion had been bloody. The crown had cracked. The world would never forget what had been done in the capital.

But here—here, in this quiet cabin, with snow falling silent outside and his prince wrapped in his arms—Technoblade had no regrets. Not anymore.

He would never be a knight again.

But he would be his.