Work Text:
Technoblade Watson was turning twenty-three this year. Phil and Kristin were older than most when they first adopted Wilbur and Techno, making them in their sixties this year. All three boys were born around the same time, so when Techno and Wilbur were having their birthday, Tommy could barely sit still because his was four days after. Despite being so wildly different, they were all very close.
When Techno heard Kristin beginning to complain more about her arthritis, a shiver ran down his spine and his chest grew tight. Sure, they were ten years older than most people who had kids their age, but they weren’t that old, right? He ran back to his and Wilbur’s room, normally steady hands shaking in his hoodie pocket. When he pushed open the door, his brother was on his feet, looking worried. “Tech? You okay?” He asked, brows furrowed.
“Mom n’ Dad aren’t that old, right?” Techno asked breathlessly, coming to a stop. “They- they’ll be around a while yet, right?”
His twin’s eyebrows twitched upwards in surprise. “I mean, I’d hope so,” he replied, “But.. they are a lot older than most.”
“Fuckin’-” Techno lurched backwards, and Wilbur shot forward to pull him back before he fell. “I’m… Wilbur, I’m scared…” he breathed, clenching his hands into fists. “I’m scared to be alone.”
Wilbur pressed his lips together into a thin line and pulled his brother into a hug. “Hey, you’re not going to be alone,” he began, “You got me and Tommy here with you. You’re going to be okay. We’ll be okay.”
Technoblade would never admit how he let Wilbur wrap him into his arms. And Wilbur? Well… Wilbur would never tell a soul if Techno asked him not to.
================
The three boys had experienced a lot of hard stuff. Phil and Kristin were first emergency fosters. When Tommy, freshly thirteen and a teenager with a vendetta against just about everyone, first came to their home, the two parental figures were a little at a loss. Wilbur and Techno were too, as they’d never known what it was like to be as utterly alone as Tommy seemed- his biological older brother, Clay, and two others, had been arrested for a whole host of charges. Most of them had to do with drugs and alcohol, since the group of three twenty year olds had sold to minors and most of their shit was illegal. They’d also gotten pegged with child abuse and neglect, and Phil decided to adopt him when his biological mother got charged with child neglect as well and gave up custody without a fight. Tommy started therapy soon after that, but he still had his Days.
Tommy had explained one night, half asleep, to Techno, that the pink-haired fencer bore an eerie likeness to Clay. “You guys are different,” he’d said begrudgingly, “but, fuckin’- you remind me of him and that scares me sometimes.”
Technoblade recognized that… he’d had his own struggles in his life, growing up in a place where food was scarce and everything was a fight. He still struggled with his relationship with food, so he gave Tommy plenty of space on his bad days. Tommy would never admit it, but that really did help him.
Today was one of those Days.
Everyone in the house knew the youngest Watson was having his Day when he didn’t come down for breakfast. Wilbur knocked on the door to his younger brother’s room, albeit a bit apprehensively. The teenager was unpredictable when he was like this- he could be fearful of everything, gripped by flashbacks; he could be angry and there would be a huge risk of getting hit in the face with whatever the nearest object to the teen was; he could be completely catatonic… it was a gamble. There was a thud as something hit the locked door. “Get the fuck away from me, Mud!”
Ooooooookay. Seems like we’re going with angry today. Wilbur thought, wincing. “Mud,” though, he’d said. The name was a play on his biological brother’s name meant as an insult. Clay had one for him too, it being “Toms,” which the new family learned when Technoblade had shortened his name to Tom. That name meant Tommy was in a flashback. The older boy sighed and turned back down the hall to Kristin’s office. “Hey, Mum?” He knocked, then poked his head in. The woman glanced up, her face brightening into a smile.
“Wil! Come in, come in, I’m just working on some paperwork. What’s up, kiddo?” She greeted, gesturing for him to come inside.
“Tommy’s having one of his Days,” Wilbur responded, pushing his glasses up. “He’s angry, but in a flashback. Dad always said to get one of y’all if we don’t know what to do. Dad’s at work, so…”
“Ah…” Kristin hummed, leaning back in her chair. “He likes your guitar,” she comments, “and no one played music in his biological brother’s house. That would help with the flashback. You could sit outside his room and play some of those songs you wrote.” Wilbur nodded. Kristin knew Wilbur had been looking for an opportunity to play his songs for someone, and if it would help his brother, the musician would be glad to do so. “Once the flashback calms down, he’s going to be tired- that’s a lot of turmoil for such a young person. The flashback being gone will help with the anger, too- they’re related, it sounds like.” Another nod, and Wilbur turned to leave. “And Wilbur? I know I probably don’t need to say it, but-”
“Be gentle,” Wilbur interrupted, chuckling. “I know, Mum. This isn’t my first go-around.”
“That’s my fledgling,” she smiled, going back to her work when Wilbur closed the office door behind him.
The brown-haired twenty-year-old was always silent when he walked down the hallway- Techno and Phil often joked that he needed to have a bell so he didn’t scare them so badly. True to his word, he picked up the acoustic guitar he’d gotten for his fifteenth birthday and sat outside his brother’s room. He first picked a song that he hadn’t written, that being an Owl City song called “Butterfly Wings”. It was a good warm up, the string picking readying his fingers for his own song and something light and airy. As he sang, he heard shuffling inside the room and then a light bump of skin hitting the carpet. The chords faded out, and the song Wilbur chose next was called “Jubilee Line”.
The chords of this song were interesting, complicated ones that had taken him hours to get right. There was a very quiet click and then a few minutes later, just after he started “Since I Saw Vienna”, the door cracked open and Tommy’s eyes met Wilbur’s from where he sat across the hallway. The blond teenager pulled open the door a little more, letting light into the room and showing his bloodshot eyes.
Wilbur slowly and gently set his guitar down and made to move forward, towards his adopted brother. Tommy flinched back at first, but then wrapped his weighted blanket a little more tightly around his lanky frame and nodded. Wilbur knew that even when the teenager was having a bad day, the brown-haired musician would always be Tommy’s brother.
================
There were a lot of things that Tommy didn’t remember. Places in time, whole days, a few hours… they varied, all unique in their own way. The only period that he could make sense of why it was missing was That Night.
Kristin always said, Poets are among the world’s most delicate souls. They are constantly trying to outpace the world on wings made of ink and paper. Poets are especially prone to the rain storms of life .
Tommy had always wondered what she meant.
He knew now.
That Night, three years ago, thirteen-year-old Tommy had knocked on the door to the bathroom, frustrated. “Ey, Wilby Scoot!” He shouted, “I need to take a shit!”
There was no reply. Tommy tried the door but it was locked. His pulse began to beat in his ears. “Wilbur, let me in. You’ve been in there for a while.” Images of Clay, Pandas, George, each passed out from being off the walls high, began to float into his head and he winced. This place wasn’t like that. It couldn’t be.
Technoblade’s footfalls echoed behind him. “Tommy, ‘s everythin’ okay?” He rumbled quietly.
“I- the fuckin’- the door’s locked. Tech, you know how to get the lock, right? I’m- He’s not replying. I’m fuckin’-” He pulled hard on the door handle again, worry making him near-hysteric.
Techno nodded, pulling a paper clip from his pocket. “Scoot over, Theseus.” He mumbled, kneeling down in front of the lock. Theseus was Tommy’s nickname. After the “Tom” Incident, Techno had given Tommy a nickname from his hyperfixation on mythology, coming from the story of the king and hero of Athens. Each family member was given one: Phil got Zephyrus, one of the four wind gods; Wilbur got Icarus, from the story of Daedalus’s son; and Kristin got Hecate, the goddess of witchcraft and magic.
The lock opened with a sound click . Before Tommy step inside, though, Technoblade’s massive weight (the man was 6’2” and built like a fucking truck) slammed into Tommy’s side, knocking him out of the way and stopping him from checking on his brother.
Techno never raised his voice. Never. This time, though, he full on shouted . “Mom! Dad!” He shouted, deep voice echoing through the hallway. “Call- Call 911!”
Blood rushed to Tommy’s ears and he felt sick. “Wh- Tech, what the fuck?”
“Tommy, don’t move from that spot or I swear to god I’ll murder you.” Techno spat, flicking his long pink braid down his back. The man disappeared from Tommy’s view.
Techno didn’t really remember what happened after he shoved Tommy away. He didn’t want to look. Techno had seen a fair amount of blood in his life. He’d seen bruises and cuts and all kinds of nasty shit, growing up in the inner city like he and Wilbur had. There was something different, though, about seeing it on his brother, slumped against the no-longer-pristine no-longer-white tiles of the bathroom floor. He knew where those cuts on his arms came from and it made him feel sick.
“Mom! Dad!” He shouted again, falling to his knees and grabbing one of the bathroom towels. Stop the blood, stop the blood … he repeated over and over in his head.
He saw something else scattered over the floor and his heart dropped to his stomach.
Pills. Technoblade’s ADHD pills. His heart dropped even further when he noticed Tommy’s antidepressants scattered with them.
“Shit, shit, shit- Tommy do not- ” Techno whipped his head around when he heard his brother’s footsteps. He turned back to Wilbur. “Hey- hey- Wil, you need to wake up, shit- fuck- ”
Finally, two pairs of footsteps echoed down the hallway and suddenly Phil and Kristin were behind him. “Oh my god- Wilbur-“ Phil slapped a hand over his mouth, attempting to bite back a gag.
“Honey, go get the phone.” Kristin ordered, stepping around Technoblade. Crunch. Crunch. Kristin knelt down next to Wilbur, pressing a hand to her son’s forehead. “Oh.. my fledgling, my songbird… Techno, what happened?” The black-haired woman asked, switching from her hand on his forehead to his neck and breathing a sigh of relief. “He has a pulse,” she continued softly, reaching over to squeeze her pink-haired son’s hand. “We don’t keep Narcan, obviously… So all we can do is wait for the EMS, okay? It’s okay, kiddo.”
“He- he-” Technoblade began, his composure slipping. “My- my ADHD meds… he took them. And Tommy’s depression and anxiety meds.” Tears pricked his eyes and he scrubbed at them, staring down at his shallowly-breathing brother.
Kristin winced. “He meant to do this.” She breathed, then glanced up when Phil returned. He didn’t make eye contact with Techno as he handed his wife the phone. “They want to talk to me?” She mouthed up to him, and he nodded before retreating towards Tommy. “Hello? Hi, this is Kristin Watson, you just spoke with my husband… My adopted son, Technoblade, found his twin brother Wilbur passed out on the floor of their bathroom with pills scattered on the floor around him- hm? Oh, they were his brother’s… Techno, be a dear and find the- thank you…” Kristin took the three pill bottles from the pink-haired twenty-year-old. “Um.. Adderall, that’s Technoblade’s, and his younger brother Tommy’s Cymbalta. No we don’t know how many he took.. what was that?” Kristin covered the mic with one hand while Technoblade whispered to her. “Technoblade says that the door was locked; he had picked it since Wilbur wasn’t answering… Yes. He has cuts on his forearms, Technoblade stopped the bleeding. Understood. Got it. Okay, thank you.” There was another pause and then she hung up. “Tech, can you turn him on his side please?” Kristin shuffled a little farther away and then got to her feet to go open the door and watch for the ambulance.
Technoblade stood guard outside the door. Tommy slipped up next him like a shadow, one of Wilbur’s yellow sweaters clenched in a white-knuckled grip. “He’ll be okay, right?” Tommy asked, leaning into his brother’s shoulder. “H-he’s not gonna die, right?”
Technoblade didn’t respond.
================
Wilbur ended up being okay. He started therapy, and for a long while, he retreated from his brothers’ lives. He was almost spectral in a way, with pale skin, dark circles under his eyes, and no skin on his bones. It took a year and a half for him to get some color back, and then little by little, he started to let his family back in. One late night, Wilbur rolled onto his side.
“Hey, Tech?”
“Yes, Wilbur?”
“You’re the reason I survived.”
In his head, Wilbur knew his twin would always be there with him, but his heart wasn’t quite ready for that. The next song he wrote after his attempt, he dedicated to Techno and Tommy.
You were there when I fell off the deep end
You were there when I jumped off the cliff
You’re my brothers, and god, I swear
By your side, you know I’m there
I promise this time, I’ll be here for you