Eliot considers the question, tips his head, takes in a ragged, grimy suck of air.
“’S find out,” he manages on the exhale.
He feels heavy. He’s not sure anymore. He’s heavy and tired and when he bends his knee to get his feet back under him, his leg just slides back to the floor.
“Oh.” There’s a wet sound that comes from somewhere in his chest before he sputters out a laugh. Oh, how embarrassing “I guess not.” He lets his head roll back against the floor. The grin edging up at the corner of his lips is wild and sudden and entirely inappropriate.
“Dunno why you’re apologizing.” His smile drops like a handful of change. I just got you killed, I fuck everyone over, especially the people I try to help, especially the people who think they can help me. “Always figured I’d… you know. Die alone. Didn’t bother me. Just.” He loses the thought, reaches back for it.
“This is okay.”
And in all the ways he’d considered himself dying, this hadn’t even charted. Overdose, intentional, accidental, cops, one of the million people he’d fucked over shows up on his doorstep with a gun or some nastier ideas, maybe someday his head would get the best of him, maybe he’d forget everything, maybe no one would help. This isn’t so bad. Senseless, almost easy. He’s tired. It’s easy. It’ll be easy. In a selfish, awful way, he’s glad he won't have to go alone.
Something surges up inside him, hisses you child, so much like him - weak, he knows whose voice it is but she’s garbled, lost under his heartbeat, the hollow, wringing heaves of his breathing.
CW: this is all abt death ok. suicide ment., badthink abt untreated mental illness, abuse ment.
“’S find out,” he manages on the exhale.
He feels heavy. He’s not sure anymore. He’s heavy and tired and when he bends his knee to get his feet back under him, his leg just slides back to the floor.
“Oh.” There’s a wet sound that comes from somewhere in his chest before he sputters out a laugh. Oh, how embarrassing “I guess not.” He lets his head roll back against the floor. The grin edging up at the corner of his lips is wild and sudden and entirely inappropriate.
“Dunno why you’re apologizing.” His smile drops like a handful of change. I just got you killed, I fuck everyone over, especially the people I try to help, especially the people who think they can help me. “Always figured I’d… you know. Die alone. Didn’t bother me. Just.” He loses the thought, reaches back for it.
“This is okay.”
And in all the ways he’d considered himself dying, this hadn’t even charted. Overdose, intentional, accidental, cops, one of the million people he’d fucked over shows up on his doorstep with a gun or some nastier ideas, maybe someday his head would get the best of him, maybe he’d forget everything, maybe no one would help. This isn’t so bad. Senseless, almost easy. He’s tired. It’s easy. It’ll be easy. In a selfish, awful way, he’s glad he won't have to go alone.
Something surges up inside him, hisses you child, so much like him - weak, he knows whose voice it is but she’s garbled, lost under his heartbeat, the hollow, wringing heaves of his breathing.