Archive of Our Own ^beta

You sit with your feet swinging over the edge of your apartment building. The wind sifts through your hair and you hold your phone gingerly in your palm. Your earbuds are blasting some slowed down, mellowed as fuck techno in your ears and it doesn’t really matter what the song name is.

You’ve come up here to kill yourself.

The sun is setting and dinner’s over and there’s nothing left for you to do today except muddy up the place with your existence, so you figured now was the best time. No one to miss you, no obligations to fill. Just a busy street to greet you in your last act.

You hope no one gets hurt.

Jumping off a building is actually a huge inconvenience to everyone involved, you realize.

Harder clean up, someone else could get hurt, it might not actually work and you’d just be sitting there braindead with a cracked open skull in the hospital forever.

As much as you hate being you, you don’t want to be a vegetable.

“Hey.”

You tense at the word. Dirk’s come up to drag you back down with some coercive video game offer or robot testing or some shit.

“Bro and I were gonna watch a movie and wanted to know if you wanted to come down for it?”

You sigh and stand up.

You have an obligation. You can’t kill yourself right now.

Maybe later.

-

Jake’s over and him and Dirk are in your shared room, door closed. Jake left his bag on the couch and you’re rifling through it, looking for the one thing you’re sure he has.

It’s cold and dark and foreign in your hand. The handle feels heavy, unnatural. You check it. It’s loaded.

Since you’ve been denied access to your room, you slide the gun under the couch and into the hole underneath the cushion you discovered years ago.

Jake won’t check for it when he leaves. You replace it with an empty bottle of the same weight. Unless he plans on target practice in the house, which has been rightfully denied by your Bro, he shouldn’t notice it’s missing until he gets home.

It’s not like you need it now, you just don’t know when you’ll have the chance to get another one.

You’re not so big of a dick that you’ll blow your brains out while Dirk and Jake are probably feeling each other up to some crappy action movie.

“Whatcha doin’ lil man?”

His voice comes from the doorway and you realize you still have your hand stuffed in Jake’s bag.

“Looking for some headphones, seeing as I’ve been so rudely restricted from going and getting mine. Figured Jake wouldn’t mind that I don’t particularly want to hear the sound of my brother and him fucking.”

It’s a bad lie. He knows it’s a bad lie, but you don’t really care and neither does he. Bro shrugs and makes his way to his room, slamming a knock on your bedroom door with a following “Keep it quiet.”

You hear Jake make an embarrassed shriek and you laugh to yourself. Your Bro tips his hat at you and you just, kinda

consider the gun you just stole.

It’s there and it’s waiting and you could-

The two of them come out of your bedroom and flop down onto the couch next to you.

Maybe later.

-

You sit on your bed with the gun poised at your head. It’s three am and you feel numb and tingly and you just want everything to s t o p.

Your whole headspace feels wrong and it has for a while and maybe if you hollow it out with the gun you’ll feel better.

Dirk’s at Jane’s house and you’re alone in your bedroom and you’re not sure if Bro’s even here but it doesn’t matter to you anymore it never mattered you don’t know why you waited this long in the first place.

You’re shaking and you have a note all written and taped to your chest. It’s so cliché and maybe it makes you a little happy that you’re going out in the ironically normal way but you don’t have the charisma to laugh right now.

You think about what you want your last words to be.

It doesn’t really matter. No one will hear them but you and then you’ll stop existing so why even bother?

You think you hear a door close but that could just be all the blood rushing in your ears. Your hand is shaking and you think you’re trying to make yourself pull the gun away but you can’t do that you’re committed there’s nothing left to do no one left to hurt and it’s time for you to fucking die.

Maybe later maybe later maybe later maybe later maybe la-

You pull the trigger.

Nothing happens.

You try it again.

The word jammed comes to mind.

You let out a noise of frustration and throw it on the ground. You weren’t expecting it to go off and the bang in your ears is loud and deafening. You shriek and cover your ears.

You vaguely wonder what you just blew a hole in as the door to your room bursts open.

Your Bro stands there with a sword in his hands and he looks between you and the gun on the floor. You shades are off and you’re looking at him with what must be complete fear and he stares at you.

“Oh fuck.”

His shoulders slump and he rests the sword on your wall. You kind of curl up on yourself to get away from him as he comes and sits on the foot of your bed.

“Dave…”

You duck your head and press your lips to your knees, letting out a muffled apology.

“Fuck, don’t apologize.”

You stay silent.

Bro reaches down and picks up the gun and turns the safety back on. Then he takes the note and reads it with an expressionless face. When he's done, he crumples it in his fist and lets it drop to the floor.

“Was it something I did?”

“Fuck, no, I just-”

You cut yourself off and grip at your hair. Your head’s doing that thing where you’re giving too much away and you need to stop it. You’re getting all fuzzy around the edges and you can’t tell your breathing from your heartbeat and you just need to be alone so you can jar feeling back into yourself by doing some stupid reckless thing-

You can feel something around you. It’s solid and warm and kind of smells like the half priced aftershave in your bathroom. You let yourself be held, let yourself get comfort and it’s still fuzzy but less static-y.

“It’s okay, you don’t gotta talk about it, lil man. You don’t have to talk just, fuck, just stay.”

You think he might be shaking but you must just be mistaking your shaking for his because your brother doesn’t shake your brother doesn’t break but here he is holding you tightly and shaking around you and maybe you start crying because he’s trying and everything hurts but he’s holding you and you hate yourself.

The light from the hallway falters and you look up to see Dirk. He’s staring at the two of you like you’re some sort of freak show.

“Bro told me… he said I should come home. What’s happening?”

“Shut up and join the cuddle pile,” wavers its way out of your mouth. Your Bro laughs and you smile a little. Dirk drops his bag and awkwardly scoots his way onto your bed. Bro drags him in closer.

All this touching is a little much, but you can’t just kick them off. Bro would have a fit and Dirk would just get more confused. So you settle for stopping your crying and snuggling in between them.

It takes a few minutes for Dirk to notice the gun.

“Why is Jake’s gun here?”

You tense.

“Because Dave’s having some issues that we need to help him with.”

Dirk gives you a look that screams betrayal and you just, you drop your head in shame and he hugs you tighter and you think he whispers a few curses at himself and you shush him with a hand.

You fall asleep in a doubly warm embrace.