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1. The Heartbreak Cave Incident by PayloadOfGeckos

   Fandoms: Fallen Hero Series - Malin Rydén  

   • Not Rated
   • Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
   • M/M
   • Complete Work

   08 Jan 2026

   Tags

   • Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
   • Graphic Depictions Of Violence
   • Major Character Death
   • Sidestep/Steel (Fallen Hero)
   • Steel (Fallen Hero)
   • Sidestep (Fallen Hero)
   • Ortega (Fallen Hero)
   • Anathema (Fallen Hero)
   • Heartbreak Incident (Fallen Hero)
   • AU
   • Search and Rescue AU
   • Survival Horror
   • Horror
   • Suicide
   • Suicide Attempt
   • Implied/Referenced Suicide
   • Hallucinations
   • Claustrophobia
   • Caves
   • Cave-In
   • Search and Rescue
   • Dissociation
   • Blood and Gore
   • Gore
   • yall this is a horror story set in a cave and if i give you a claustrophobia panic attack
   • well first off I'm proud of myself for succeeding
   • but also you're not allowed to be mad at me because it does what it says on the tin
   • Ortega is Named Ricardo (Fallen Hero)
   • Injury
   • Recovery
   • not even gunna tag this chargestep cause that bastard is barely in here
   • damsel in distress Ortega and his two rescue boyfriends
   • the damsel is more of a Concept than an extant creature
   • Ricardo gets to haunt the narrative while Wei and Raz are sharing gentle touches
   • look... i am a simple man
   • caving
   • Spelunking
   • i mean technically even tho that has associations of idiots
   • irl caving is quite safe but this is the opposite of suspension of disbelief
   • the author really loves caves and spent half the time writing this wishing they were in one
   • Male Sidestep (Fallen Hero)
   • Trans Sidestep (Fallen Hero)
   • once again clarifying that I write Themmy as transfemme and don't follow canon matching genders
   • sidestep Raz Becker

   Summary

   West Coast Mysteries and Murders: The Heartbreak Cave Incident

   On February 14th, 2013 a mysterious caving disaster resulted in the tragic deaths of four photographers and one member of the rescue team. Seven years on, very little is known about the incident, and local rumors of the cave's nature warn off any would-be explorers. Together with survivor Ricardo Ortega, host of LDBC's Adventure Extremes, our team will be taking our search for answers to new depths.

   (search and rescue horror au of the Heartbreak Incident and events afterwards— very Steelstep focused, Ricardo is just haunting the narrative)

   Language:

   English

   Words:

   5,141

   Chapters:

   1/1

   Comments:

   4

   Kudos:

   9

   Bookmarks:

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