Not a prompt, just me vent writing

Trigger warnings: this story contains graphic discussion of self-harm and suicide. Please skip it if that's something you're sensitive towards!

The first time Technoblade tried to kill himself he was maybe ten years old.

Like most bad choices it was spurred by nothing but curiosity. The overwhelming need to test the limits of the improbable, without a second glance as to whether knowing would make a difference or not.

It had whispered in his mind for years. You can not die, it had told him over and over. Until it was pressed solidly within his veins. Technoblade hadn't thought to question them at all. Despite the voices having a tendency to lie to him, gloat in his misery or trick him with falsehoods, there was an underlying certainty that this statement at least was true. Technoblade would never die, he knew.

Until he had sat on the floor in the living room one night, watching Phil rock Tommy on his lap. His tiny body shook with sobs as their father rubbed Tommy's back, fingers cradling tenderly through blonde hair. "It was just a nightmare," Phil had said. "We're all fine, promise. We're alive." But the words had done nothing to reassure the child.

Because Tommy was five years old and had dreamt his family died.

And Phil had told him that while everybody died eventually, it wouldn't be for a very long time yet.

Technoblade sat on the floor with Wilbur leaning against him, half-asleep as they had all been woken up by Tommy's nightmare, and had wondered which one was the truth.

So the next day he had waited until their father left to run an errand, until both his brothers had been distracted. And then Technoblade went into Phil's room and found a knife.

He brought it to the river that ran near their house and glanced at the rippling water. There was no fear inside him – no worry. It felt like Techno's very soul knew it wouldn't work. The voices confirmed this by telling him it was futile, taunting him to go through with it or begging him not to. Techno narrowed his eyes, walking into the water until it came up to his knees and holding out his arm.

In one quick motion he slid into the skin, following the curve of his elbow down towards his wrist.

Blood was swept away into the river while Techno stood there, tears brimming in his eyes from a mixture of pain and confusion. Minutes passed and he bled and bled and bled and then he got dizzy and he sat down on the soggy riverbank, still crying and bleeding.

Techno passed out and woke up what felt like hours later, the sun sat low in the sky.

He was covered in blood, the wound scabbed over with the dried remains of it. He hadn't died, though he felt in all ways as if he should have.

Standing up, he stumbled back to the house. Wilbur was in the living room, his face when Technoblade staggered inside became three shades paler. Techno dropped to his knees, feeling empty. He told Wil it was an accident. Told him that he had taken the knife to train with and had slipped up and hurt himself. He begged Wilbur not to tell their father.

Eventually, Wilbur agreed but made him promise to be more careful.

Technoblade nodded. Though it hadn't been the last time he tried, he became more careful about letting them see.

The river ran red five more times.

He drowned once, in Antarctica.

The ice had broken beneath Technoblade's feet and he had dropped beneath the surface in a blink's time. Cold water rushed into his mouth when he gasped and then it was in his eyes too, making it hard to see. Heavy furs became soaked in seconds, dragging him down deeper and Techno tried to swim but only found more ice, solid walls every way he tried to go. His lungs were bursting in his ribcage, tearing apart with the need for oxygen. It hurt worse than any war wound had.

Technoblade couldn't die.

He was left there, at the brink of some grand abyss that was denied for him and left him with the agony instead. After what felt like forever he managed to push through something inside him – a small chasm of power that resided within – and Technoblade punched through the sheet above him to claw at the sky again. Heaving himself onto the ground, he was left retching the excess water out of his body. Hypothermia had set in, sending pinpricks through every nerve but his flesh did not starve or wither.

Technoblade never dies, the voices cheered. A mantra that was starting to sound like a curse. The gift of a god turned into a damnation.

Technoblade stood on shaking legs and continued his way home.

He set the charges one by one, sloppy and without care.

There was poetic justice in this, he decided. This was a narrative conclusion that made sense. His brother blew up both L'Manberg and himself. Then Technoblade blew the city up as well.

So this simply was the logical next step.

If Technoblade could get his way, there would be nothing left come morning but a giant crater in the ground.

Instead, the explosives went off and ended the world that mattered without taking Techno down with it. He stared at the sky with pain in every limb that should have been torn off but stayed attached, with burns all over that should have killed him but wouldn't, and wondered how the simple act of dying could be this difficult. The voices were still audible – the only thing he could hear since his fractured eardrums were bleeding out his ears – and they admonished him for being naive enough to try still.

It would never allow him to die on anything but their terms.

("Take better care of yourself," somebody said.

"Don't go throwing yourself into danger for others," somebody said.

"Why did you protect me? You could have died!"

Technoblade wanted to tell them all that his life didn't matter like theirs did, but couldn't find the words.)

The anvil had broken his head open, splashed his brain matter into a million pieces before stitching it back together. When Quackity asked him how he had done it, Technoblade had laughed with a hollow heart.

He came home and found his nearest chest full of potions, digging through it for any sleeping pot he could find. Tommy was asking questions Techno easily brushed off, finding he couldn't care less why the kid was here. Heck, maybe he could keep the cabin. At least then all Techno's grinding wouldn't go to waste. Uncorking the first bottle, Technoblade downed it in three big swallows.

Then the next, and the next. A few more after. The world became dazed and muffled and Technoblade was tired. He just wanted to sleep. He wanted to go to bed and be left alone forever. Even in retirement, they would see fit to hunt him down, drag him to their mockery of a trail like an animal and sentence him without a jury.

And subjected him to an execution that some part of Technoblade might have been hoping would actually work. A death that would finally stick.

Not yet, it whispered in his mind, toxic and murky. Dragging him to the edge of unconsciousness as he slumped down on the floor feeling his pulse slow down to a faint whimper. It would not cease beating completely only because they would not allow it to, divine power kept the blood flowing. You can't die yet. You can never die.

Technoblade closed his eyes just to pretend he wouldn't wake up again.

When he did Phil was there. Some distant part of Techno felt the heat of sibling-typical annoyance towards Tommy. Clearly the kid had snitched on him. Gone and told dad, like he always said he would when he found Wilbur wrist-deep in the cookie jar.

Techno wanted to sob.

"Why did you do it?" Phil asked, with no anger or disappointment. Only sincere worry was reflected in his every gesture. It made regret swell in Techno's gut. He couldn't even die without hurting everybody around him.

He'd always keep hurting them.

"I don't know," he lied. Or maybe it was the truth. He wasn't sure anymore.

"Oh, Tech." Phil hugged him, the warmth not at all enough to waylay the numbness in Techno's soul but at least it was better than nothing. A little drop in the desert that was his confused emotions.

Techno clung to him and rubbed Phil's back, remembering the way Tommy had held onto their father over a decade ago. "I'm fine, promise. I'm alive."

Even if he'd rather not be.

Inside his ribcage, his heart continued beating.