Trouvaille | Technoblade x Reader

Chapter 7 - Dinner with a God

Finding ingredients for Technoblade's potions was a lot harder than you thought it would be. It wasn't as if he made outrageous demands, but for some reason he required a lot of each material.

Seventy spider eyes (ew). Thirty-five sugar cane stalks (where could you even find those). Twelve buckets of gunpowder (you didn't even want to imagine how many creepers that was).

At your best guess, it would take you weeks - if not months - to collect everything that he had requested. Still, you would do your best to help out.

You did your best to scavenge for items in the woods, but you quickly discovered that you could still only go so far away from the temple before you walked right into it again. Your best guess was that there was some sort of magic involved, but you didn't know what kind. Technoblade had mentioned magical wards when you asked a few days ago, but he had explained that the wards were merely for protection from mobs.

Despite your newfound trust in him, you kept your inability to leave a closely guarded secret. Instead, you found a nearby cave and began the search for spider eyes. You also spent your days tending to the garden just outside the temple in exchange for food and sleeping.

Other than the garden, there really weren't a lot of resources in the area, but it wasn't like you could leave to get more. For nearly a week, you made do with what you traded with the Blood God and what little supplies you could scavenge from the forest. The worst part was that you knew you - or Technoblade, really - would run out of basic supplies by midwinter at the latest (not that you had ever been in the temple's inner sanctum to check on what supplies he had, but you could only assume). You wondered how Technoblade had managed to survive this long, other than the whole god thing, without a steady flow of trade or supplies outside of the temple area.

Finally, you pulled yourself together and resolved to ask where he was at with basic supplies. Technoblade had often invited you to dinner over the past week, but you hadn't yet taken him up on the offer despite how much you wanted to. So, when you exchanged a potato for a bowl of soup, you finally agreed to eat with him.

"Really?" he asked, surprise bleeding into his voice. "Thought you didn't want to."

"Well," you struggled to find the words to explain yourself, but, well, even you didn't know why you had been avoiding eating with him. "It's not that I didn't want to, it's just... busy, you know?"

There was a heavy pause, and you found yourself staring at his bone mask intently. More than anything, you just wanted to be able to see him. You could pick up a lot from his body language (how he kept his hand on his sword most times, or how he always fiddled with his cape the longer he spoke), but with facial expressions... Part of you knew that his face was expressive, even though you had never seen it. If you really wanted to understand him, you needed to see him.

He wasn't comfortable with it, though. You hadn't asked him to take off the mask, but he would have done it if he wanted you to see, right?

"I get it," he snorted. "Busy. We're both busy."

Your heart dropped at his words. His unspoken but I'm here every night lingered between both of you.

It wasn't like he would have wanted to eat with you, right? A god eating with a mortal?

You didn't really know where the line was drawn with him, but you had to be toeing it by eating together. Any day now, you'd accidentally cross that line and end up smited.

"I didn't mean any offense," you replied with a slight bow of your head.

"Don't... don't do that," Technoblade said grimly. "There's no need to bow or anythin'. Just... sit down and eat. Or leave. Your choice."