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Okay, so. Technoblade might have done a bit of an oopsie. Just a tiny one. And it might be a little murder-shaped.
In his defense, he hadn't meant to straight-up kill the guy. He'd gotten spooked, is all, when he'd seen a shadow looming over him in the kitchen at 3 am. Especially since he lived alone, he never invited people over and there was only one copy of the key to his apartment -his.
He'd been sleep-deprived, the lights had been off, and his fight or flight instinct had always veered a little (read: a lot) towards the "fight" option. So he couldn't be blamed when his hand had automatically grabbed the nearest object on the counter -which had been the big knife he'd used to cut up his potatoes for dinner- and swung, plunging the blade smack dab in the middle of the intruder's chest.
And now the body of some random dude laid bleeding out on his kitchen floor, the occasional twitch smearing even more blood on the once pristine floor tiles. Just the kind of problem Techno wanted to deal with at 3 am on a Wednesday, truly.
(Okay, maybe the floor tiles of his kitchen had never been pristine to begin with, especially since he was a sleep-deprived and very broke college student, but still. His point stood.)
A normal person would've panicked, maybe, scrambled to clean the blood, roll the body in one of those rugs you always find at your grandma's house, and called someone to help them hide it. Technoblade, however, was running on four hours of sleep in the last three days, an ungodly amount of coffee, and also would rather stab himself in the gut than interact with another human being with so little notice.
So, of course, his next logical course of action had been to grab the ouija board Squid had given him as a prank gift from under his bed, sit down in the middle of his living room, and try to summon a ghost.
Said ghost was now staring at him with a mix of disbelief, faint amusement, and annoyance Techno had not been previously aware could be possible. The spirit floated a few inches above the wooden floor, his see-through brown, curly hair and gold-rimmed glasses doing nothing to lessen the force of the judgment radiating off of him.
"Listen," Techno spoke up, "it made perfect sense in my head."
The ghost blinked at him.
(Did ghosts even need to blink? They didn't have bodies anymore, no corporal, physical needs weighing down on their existence. Was it just a reflex then, a memory of when they were alive?)
"How?" he finally said, his voice resembling a whisper carried by the wind. A shiver ran down Techno's spine. "Please, enlighten me. Because from what I understand, instead of calling an ambulance, the police, literally anyone alive on this planet right now, your first instinct was to bloody summon a random ghost to ask for advice? "
"Heh," Technoblade shrugged. "You're dead, aren't you? Surely you know what to do in this situation."
"Why on Earth would I know how to hide a body?!" the ghost exclaimed, throwing his arms in the air.
"I don't know man, you're the ghost, not me," Techno pointed out.
"Yeah, the ghost of some dude who was killed by a bloody infection!" the ghost replied. "You've got a dead body bleeding out in your kitchen, how are you not freaking out?!"
"I'm honestly too sleep-deprived to care," Techno admitted truthfully, "I'm pretty sure all the coffee I drank nullified my anxiety, so there's that. Ask me again when I've had a full night of sleep, so like, next month? I think?"
The ghost stared at him, his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. Then, he sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, counting down from 10 before speaking again.
"You know what?" he laughed, a smidge hysterically. "I am not dealing with this bullshit alone. I'll be right back."
And he disappeared in a wisp of faint smoke, a faint breeze mussing up Techno's hair. Which reminded him, it had been a while since he’d last brushed it. Maybe he should get to it before it became too knotted and he ended up breaking another brush. Or two.
His record was five. The hairdresser had had a field day picking random plastic pieces out of his hair.
"Well," an unfamiliar voice said, "maybe you weren't exaggerating, after all."
Technoblade looked up. The ghost was back, and this time he'd brought a friend -an older man with shaggy blonde hair and a peculiar green and white striped bucket hat.
Well. That sure was a fashion choice. But who was he to judge a dead man for his sense of style?
"Holy shit, this bitch is dead dead!" someone yelled from the kitchen. The head of a blonde teenager popped out of the wall, not bothering to take the additional few seconds to float out of the normal kitchen entrance as he grinned from ear to ear.
"Phil, there's a dead man in here, this is the funniest house call we've ever had!"
"Tommy, mate, inside voices," the "older" spirit -Phil- sighed, "it's late here in the mortal world. We don't want to wake up anyone."
"If you get a fucking exorcist called on us again, I will murder you myself. I don't care that it's not possible, I will find a way."
Tommy snickered, floating upwards until he was standing upside down on the ceiling.
"Aw, is little Wilbur scared of the big bad exorcist?" Tommy mocked him. "Don't worry, big man Tommy here will keep you safe."
Wilbur smacked a hand on his face, making Techno wonder how exactly he managed to not make it phase through his own body. Just how untangible were these ghosts? He had so many questions. Maybe he could write his paper on ghost physics, if he passed it off as creative writing maybe his English Literature professor would take pity on him.
"Remind me who it was last time that got chased down half a block with holy water?" the ghost asked, exasperated. "Me! And I can assure you, it's not a fun experience! That shit burns!"
"That sounds like pussy behavior to me, big man."
Technoblade, who was still sitting cross-legged on the floor, looked at the squabbling duo in faint amusement.
"Are they always like this?" he asked, turning his attention towards the third ghost. The spirit had been hovering a little to the side since the bickering had started, not even bothering to try and mitigate the situation as he looked on with an expression of defeated fondness.
"Oh, don't even get me started, mate," Phil snorted. "I love them to death, but when they get like this, there's no stopping them. It's better to just wait it out and hope for the best."
Techno arched an eyebrow, intrigued.
"They yours?"
"Might as well be," Phil shrugged, his smile widening slightly. "It's not like I could shake them off, those little shits. They're clingier than they'd want to admit, the both of them."
Techno chuckled, eyes flitting back towards the other two.
"They certainly do act like brothers," he commented.
"They do, don't they?" Phil grinned. "I'm Philza, by the way, and the two little shits are Wilbur and Tommy. You've probably got our names by now, but proper introductions are always good."
Techno hummed.
"Technoblade. Don't ask about the name, I've been bugging my mother for years and she still refuses to answer my questions."
Phil cackled, throwing his head back in laughter.
"Alright, alright, I won't," he snickered. "Come on, let's take care of that dead body of yours. If we wait until those two are done, the blood will have dried, and trust me, that'd be a bitch and half to clean up."
Technoblade shrugged, pushing himself to his feet.
"Sounds good to me," he said, stretching his arms up with a groan. "Let's get this done before the caffeine wears out and I crash on the nearest horizontal surface for the next week or so."
Phil blinked, hovering halfway between the living room and the kitchen door.
"Mate, that is a little concerning, I hope you know that."
"Heh, a little coma never hurt anyone. It's like a nap, but fancy."
Phil let out a sigh, leveling Techno with a look that made him want to squirm in guilt a little bit. He didn't know how a literal dead man could exude this much disappointed dad energy, but Phil was definitely giving it his all.
"Once we're done with this, you are going to go sleep, and you better not get up before you've gotten a full eight hours of rest. Understood?"
Part of Technoblade wanted to protest, since he was 21 and also lived by himself and therefore was not obligated to listen to some random ghost trying to father him into a healthier lifestyle. But a bigger part of him was way too tired to put up a proper fight, and he'd never been good with peer pressure to begin with.
"After we get that body out before it can stink up the place, sure," he relented. "If I have to deal with my landlord one more time, I'm going to throw him out of the window, and I don't mean that metaphorically."
"As long as you sleep, I honestly don't give a shit how many people you defenestrate," Phil waved him off, heading into the kitchen.
Someone snickered from behind Techno.
"What?" the human asked, turning around to glare at his unwanted audience.
"You just got Dadza-ed!" Tommy exclaimed, apparently having stopped poking at Wilbur to annoy the local living being. "Oh, that's so funny, he's never going to let it go now."
"You are a menace," Techno decided, pointing at the blonde.
"Come on, you've got to admit it is a little funny," Wilbur snorted, arms crossed as amusement pulled at the corner of his lips. "Not even an hour in and he's already adopted you, I think this might be a new record."
"Bruh, no one is adopting anyone," Techno said.
Wilbur's grin only widened at those words, exchanging a knowing look with Tommy.
"They all say that," he commented, "first stage: denial."
"Oi!" Phil called, startling all three of them as his head popped out of the wall. "Stop teasing the poor man and come help me with the body, you little shits."
"Coming, coming," Tommy rolled his eyes, phasing through the walls as his voice grew a little muffled. "Watch it, Phil, if you get too worked up you'll have a heart attack and die again."
"Mate, we're ghosts, we can't have heart attacks. We don't have hearts!"
"Sounds like what an old man would say!"
"He's not wrong, Phil!" Wilbur called, relishing in the groan of mock despair Philza let out.
"Come on, let's go," he then said, turning to smirk at Technoblade. "Better not leave Phil alone dealing with Tommy for too long. If you want to still have a kitchen, that is."
Right as Wilbur finished speaking, something clattered to the ground, followed by Tommy's muffled voice yelling "all good! Nothing's broken, I think!" and then, fainter, "Phil, is this supposed to be dangling this way?".
Technoblade winced, quickly following the ghost to the kitchen area.
This was going to be a long night.