𝐕𝐈𝐂𝐄𝐒. technoblade (complete)

𝐎𝐍𝐄. THE FALL OF ICARUS

MAJOR. FUCKING. TRIGGER. WARNING.
this oneshot is NOT CANON to Rory's story. I wrote it just to explore a world where he dies and people's reactions to it. I mentioned this oneshot existed some time ago and people without Discord wanted to read it, so I'm publishing it here. DO NOT READ THIS IF YOU ARE TRIGGERED BY SUICIDE (by pills), THROWING UP, OR REACTIONS TO DEATH. SERIOUSLY. This oneshot is the saddest thing I've ever written but I don't want to deny people content when they can't access it. PLEASE READ WITH CAUTION. Rory dies in this oneshot because of suicide. Please be safe.

THE FALL OF ICARUS

Will knew his brother was suicidal.

He wasn't an idiot. Rory had been in an abusive relationship when he was sixteen until he was nineteen. He didn't let anyone touch him, even Will — always flinching from the contact like it burned him. He wore long sleeves and spent too long staring the water when he and Will walked over a bridge. He only smiled when he was streaming, just to put up a front for his viewers, and it broke Will's heart everytime he watched that smile fall away the second the camera was off. Depression ran in their family — their mom had it, Will had it (it was bad when he was a teenager, but it was only seasonal now), and Rory had it (he had it all the time, Will assumed).

Will checks in on him everyday. If he can't be there in person, he calls. If he can't talk, he texts. He just needs some sort of reassurance that his brother is alive.

Techno drops into Rory's life, and for the first year Will keeps an eye out for bruises, tears, anything that hinted to something darker behind the scenes, even though he knows Techno would never lay a hand on Rory without consent. He holds Rory after a bad fight, awake for the entire night just in case, and is relieved when Techno shows up the next morning begging for forgiveness, which they both grant him. Will warns him not to fuck it up again.

Things are good for two years.

Rory smiles more. Techno visits every other month.

Techno goes home. Rory smiles through the pain.

Techno calls Will at three in the morning, crying about horrifying text messages sent to him by Rory, and Will is already out the door without a care in the world, telling his American friend he'd handle it. He wakes up Niki with a phone call and sobs, pleading for her to check on Rory, to which she agrees with no hesitation. Phil calls him and it's on Discord — Techno had called him as well. Phil tells the two boys that it'll be okay. Techno had a plane to Brighton leaving in an hour, and Phil and Kristin were already in their car.

Niki jumps into the call thirty minutes later, when Will is one block away.

He sees the lights flashing outside the apartment complex, hears the sirens that are shrill in the air, and he's sinking to his knees before he even hears her heartbroken sob.

Techno's side of the call goes dead. Will thinks he must've thrown his phone.

Phil has to pull over and cry into Kristin's shoulder as she holds him, eyes closed, wishing this hadn't happened.

It takes a week for anyone to contact the others. Everyone's been freaking out over the sudden disappearance of five of the server's members, and Tommy and Tubbo are the most worried, threatening to go by Will's place without warning him. Dream convinces them to calm down, even though he can feel his stomach turning as he wonders what must've happened to get Phil, Will, Rory, Techno, and Niki to drop off the face of the earth. He's pretty close to flying down there himself, too.

Will writes out a long Discord message — he needs to send eighteen separate messages.

Dream reads the message and promptly throws up before calling his mom, crying. She comes down to his house with his sister and they both hold him as he throws up more, until he has nothing left. He's crying, pleading with them to bring Rory back, but they can't do anything to help him. They hold him through his panic attack and tell him that everything will be fine one day, but he doesn't think so. He doesn't think he can even move off the bathroom floor. He sobs himself to sleep every night for the next month, his voice so hoarse that he can't even stream or make videos, not that anyone with compassion hates him for it.

George takes a moment to sit down, staring at his computer screen with a pale face and wide eyes. He can't believe it, that Rory's gone and killed himself. He doesn't think he can breath. His parents find him crying with the pets surrounding him, and they hesitantly leave him alone, hating that they can't help their only child. George hyperventilates and cries until he picks up the courage to call Dream and Sapnap, and the three of them sob over their phone to each other, needing comfort that no one can provide. Sapnap makes an offhand comment through his cries and George panics, because he can't lose another friend, not again.

Sapnap stares at his screen and doesn't process what he's reading until suddenly he's staring at the broken fragments of his bathroom mirror, his knuckles bloody. He screams, so loud and harsh that his throat immediately goes dry and his mom kicks in his door because she thinks he's dying. She almost yells at him until he collapses in her arms, whispering about his friend, and she strokes his hair instead, letting him vent. She leaves to get his favorite foods while he gets on a call with Dream and George. He tells them about his hand and comments that there's still glass on the floor. He doesn't realize what he implies until George screams at him.

Fundy is on the next plane to Brighton, his eyes rimmed red and his heart shattered. Too many regrets swirl in his mind, making it hard to think. He stumbles into Phil's arms when he arrives, seeking comfort, and is led into Will's living room. Will and Niki are huddled together on the couch, both of their eyes glassy. When they see Fundy, it's like there's a moment of clarity — Niki hugs him tight and he feels his bottom lip trembling. He meets Will's eyes and Will breaks, letting out a choked sob that has Fundy and Niki immediately by his side, holding him. Fundy cries into Will's shoulder and they both pretend it doesn't happen.

Schlatt isn't sure why he's even still in the server when he gets the message. He reads it over once, twice, ten times just to make sure, and then he throws his chair across the room so hard that it breaks. He didn't know Rory that well — he always knew Rory as Will's little brother. Sure, they had their bits, but the relationship was neutral. Schlatt had wanted to expand on it, make a new friend. He hadn't bothered to find the time. He considers flying out to Brighton to check on Will, who he knows isn't the most mentally stable, but decides against it. He sends Will a quick apology text and then deactivates his social media for a few days. He needs a moment of silence.

Eret's back home when he gets the message. He curls up on his bed and shuts his eyes tightly, wondering if there was anything he could have done. He thinks it over several times and even though he can't find anything, he still hates himself for it. He tries to stream — it's a day after the announcement, which Will also uploaded to Twitter, and his comments are flooded with condolences. Eret tries to ignore it, but then he gets a donation that says, "am I the only one glad that Rory is gone?" and he breaks, swearing at his stream and calling out the donater with fire in his eyes. He shuts down and turns off the stream, wondering if he was at fault.

Alex stares. He stops. He stares again. He tries to breath, but he finds that he can't. Everything hurts, everything is so wrong, this was Rory. Alex had literally spoken to him two nights ago, both of them joking about Rory flying down and staying with him for a week. They talked about stream ideas. They talked about Alex going up to Brighton instead. Had Rory sounded sad? Had Alex not been able to pick up on it? Was there anything he could have said differently? His house is silent for an entire day as he figures out what to do, and then he screams, his heart shattering as he realizes that there would be no more joking around.

Karl thinks he's dying. He can't breath and even though Chris is trying to get him to talk, he can't. He'd gotten the message while filming something with the crew, and he'd run off immediately, dropping his phone. Chris had read it, pocketed the device, and found Karl curled up in a storage closet having the worst panic attack of his life. Karl pulls at his hair and screams, but his mouth is glued shut. Rory? One of his best friends Rory? One of the sweetest people he knew Rory? Just . . . gone? No message, no signs, no . . . just nothing? Karl had talked to him an hour before it had happened. What had he said wrong? Had Rory been dying while on the phone with him?

Ranboo was a very new person in Rory's life, but as he reads the message to himself and feels tears gather in his eyes, he thinks about their interactions. Rory had happily welcomed him to the server, spending time with him off-stream to get to know him better. Ranboo had been a little intimidated at first, because he'd been watching Rory's content for years, but he quickly warmed up to Rory and the two created their own inside jokes. Just a week before the suicide, Rory had come to Ranboo on stream and given him a stack of Netherite, telling Ranboo it was a gift for being a good friend. Ranboo had stammered, but Rory was gone before he got the chance to say thank you. He still hadn't gotten to say it.

Kristin tries not to focus on the tears she can feel behind her eyes and the ache in her heart, instead helping Phil take care of the others. Niki clings to her and sobs, Will lets her hug him and doesn't even move, Fundy breaks down when he sees Will every morning because for a brief second, he sees Rory. Phil cries to her when everyone is asleep and Kristin keeps it together until she has a moment alone, where she cries to herself for five minutes before picking up the pieces. She doesn't remember the last time she spoke with Rory, and it eats her up inside to think about the fact that they never got to say goodbye.

Niki saw his body. She saw him laying there. She saw him in his room, in his bed, a bottle of empty anti-depressant pills mixed with two bottles of pain killers and she doesn't even realize she's calling an ambulance until someone is pulling her away from his body. She has nightmares about it every time she falls asleep — if she had just made it there sooner, if she had just ran faster, if she hadn't hesitated when opening his bedroom door when he hadn't answered her pleading calls, if she had just reached out, stayed the night, something, would her heart still hurt this way? Would she regret everything the way she did now?

Phil swallows back his cries when Will clings to him like a child. He turns his head when Fundy breaks a glass and stares at the pieces for too long before walking away, promising to keep an eye on the Dutch boy. He reaches out to the SMP members to see how they're taking it, and only a few respond. He checks up on the fans as well, liking Tweets that offer him comfort and ignoring the hateful writings that somehow flood his timeline. He checks up on non-SMP members as well — Scott, Shubble, Romeo. He barely takes a moment to himself, and when he does he struggles to put his thoughts together without falling apart.

Tommy runs away. He texts his parents when he's at Tubbo's house and then he and Tubbo curl up together in Tubbo's room, crying. Tommy holds his best friend tightly and pretends it doesn't hurt when he thinks about Rory or when he hears Tubbo's heartbroken sobs, but his lower lips wobbles and he buries his face in Tubbo's shoulder, shuddering, his breaths shaky and uneven. He wonders if he was at fault for this, even though he knows Rory would hate for him to think so. He just can't comprehend why. Why did Rory leave? Why did Rory feel so depressed? Why did Rory leave him, Rory was like a brother, oh, God, he's lost a brother—

Tubbo doesn't even realize he's screaming until his parents burst into his room. His dad catches him as his mom reads the message on the screen. Tommy shows up the next morning and they hold each other so tightly that Tubbo can barely breath. He knows Tommy is embarrassed about crying so he doesn't mention it, but he thinks about it everytime he sees Tommy's face. Tubbo wants to go visit Will, but when he mentions it Tommy freezes up, shaking his head, and Tubbo backs off. They sleep in the same bed, taking turns comforting each other after a nightmare, and Tubbo can't stop thinking about Rory, his friend, his brother, why, why, why—

Will sits and stares and tries to feel something other than numb. He tries to feel sad — his brother just died, after all. He tries to feel angry — Rory left him. He didn't even reach out for help. He tries to feel happy — all his friends are here! He tries to feel sick — he doesn't eat. He forces himself to throw up. But nothing works, and all he feels is numb. He's under constant watch by everyone else as they work through their own grief, and Will pretends that he doesn't need their attention, but at the same time he stares at the broken glass of the cup Fundy dropped and he spends a little too long in the bathroom wondering if Phil hid the Advil well enough.

And Techno . . .

Well, no one hears from him.

He sits in front of his monitor and sobs, he breaks his phone and monitor and kicks his computer until it's smoking. He screams until his voice goes hoarse and he punches the wall until there are enough holes to get his mom to yell at him, until his knuckles are bloody and bruised. He missed his fight to Brighton but he has another one in a few days. He stares at his walls and snaps at random moments, throwing things, screaming, begging for Rowan to come back. He thinks it's his fault — he should have known. Rowan was his boyfriend, his lover, his soulmate, and he should have known, he should have seen the signs, why didn't he see the signs—

He throws up for the third day in a row and his mom begs for him to go to the hospital, but Techno can't. He doesn't care. If he dies, well, maybe he'll try believing in Heaven for once. Techno doesn't believe in God, nor Heaven, but he can't think about a life where he doesn't get to hold Rowan one more time, so he prays. He pleads and sobs and hiccups through the prayer, begging to hold Rowan one more time. The night before he's set to fly to Brighton, he dreams about waking up to Rowan in his arms; they make breakfast and spend the day on the couch, and then Rowan kisses his cheek and whispers an apology.

Techno wakes up alone. He tears up, staring at his blankets, feeling cold, and then he falls apart, pulling at his hair and whispering for Rowan to come back to him.

There is no answer.

Techno is alone.

For the first time since meeting Rowan Gold, Techno is truly, utterly alone.