✄ ───

"...Doctors said you'll probably be here for a week," Chan utters, tone soft but informative.

   Minho gives a long, dramatic sigh, and takes an equally long swig of vodka. Letting him have alcohol was a horrible idea. It seems to amplify his bipolar nature an unbearable amount. Ten minutes after willingly showing Chan deeply personal and vulnerable poetry, he's back to the icy side of his hot-and-cold routine.

"You know what would probably help?"

   Disinterested eyes shift toward Chan, in no rush at all— it's almost as if they only happened to do so by chance.

"...Putting that down."

"What would help is if you stopped nagging me," Minho mutters. "And chasing after me like a lovesick puppy," he tacks on. "I'm fine. I can take care of myself." (Says the failed suicide attempt, stuck in a hospital bed.)

He's such a liar.

Chan remembers the way he had looked up at him, when they were falling through city air together. The way he smiled— really smiled, sparkles in his eyes, and shit— for once, when Chan was holding him; when he wasn't falling alone. It was a precious, vulnerable thing.

Such a fuckin' liar.

"Alright, Minho," Chan grumbles, voice gruff even as his cheeks flush a subtle baby pink. "Now it's my turn to make you a deal."

   "Oh?" Minho chuckles, utterly refusing to take it seriously.

   But Chan's no quitter; he won't be deterred. Not when it's this important, anyway. He begins, "For the week that you're here... you're gonna treat yourself as if you deserve to heal. Like your body is something precious, not something to torture as a means for you to relieve whatever pent-up frustration you have with yourself. That means no smoking, no getting high, no cutting yourself, and no drinking your liver into oblivion."

Minho stops mid-swig and curls his upper lip impertinently.

Chan rolls his eyes. "Oh, and— no starving yourself."

"Starving myself?" Minho scoffs, as if that's a ridiculous, unbelievable idea Chan pulled out of the clear blue sky.

(...But it's February. February and cloudy 24/7. Chan's not sure he remembers what it's like to look up and see anything other than grey.)

"Minho, you weigh about as much as a first grader, and I can see your ribs from here." Chan doesn't even have to mention the added evidence of the fact that all he did was pick at the tray the nurse brought in earlier. Took three, maybe four tiny bites. Passed the pudding cup off to Chan; pretended not to watch as he ate it. Claimed he hated the stuff. Claimed he wasn't hungry.

"I'll bet your daily calorie intake comes almost exclusively through alcohol."

That silences him.

"Anyway, none of that," Chan reiterates. Then, on the tail end of a sigh: "...But it also means not looking for pain and suffering, or writing off any that you're already dealing with. Not beating yourself up. And especially not entertaining thoughts of suicide."

Minho's slow exhale morphs gradually into a breathy chuckle. "Yeah? And what about you, loverboy?"

"Me?" Chan echoes, bewildered.

"Yes, you." Minho's soulless eyes roll. "Shitty deal if you don't have to do anything in return."

Chan hums, but there's hesitation as he reaches— grapples— for an answer. "Uh... well..."

"I got it!" A weak, tired rendition of an obviously well-practiced shit-eating grin spreads across Minho's face. "You stay here for the whole week. Including the weekend. Spend every night here; no 'fuck-and-run' s." A devilish chuckle spills from his mouth as he watches Chan pull back a centimeter or so; takes in his instant, reflexive grimace. (He knows he's struck gold with that. Knows there's a chance Chan really might refuse.) "All you get to do is listen to me bitch and moan like the crazy ass bitch I am."

Dammit. He really won't let that one go.

"Look, Minho," Chan groans. "I'm... sorry. For saying that. I didn't... know."

'Know what?'  is what he assumes is coming next— and no matter how Chan answers, Minho will likely find a way to turn it to kindling— to make a fire out of it like the pyromaniac he is. He seems to be addicted to making Chan angry at him.

But contrary to expectations, this time, Minho answers simply, in a completely indifferent monotone: "Whatever. I don't care."

"Yes, you do." The next words tumble out of Chan's mouth almost without him realizing. "Listen, I'm here for a week. I'd be ever so obliged if you could just quit lying to me."

Minho raises his brows in response to Chan's indirect agreement to his stipulation; deep-dark-circle-laden big doll eyes go wide. Questioning him. Asking, why?

"I'd like to leave here with my sanity still in tact," Chan concludes, to give him an answer.

"You're no fun," Minho mutters. A juvenile, last-ditch effort to wound. To ward off.

"Wow, Minho, that really, really hurt," Chan deadpans.

It goes quiet for a moment. Then, unexpectedly, Minho's voice comes back to him as a tiny, delicate thing. "...Sorry," he mumbles, under his breath, barely audible, so Chan knows he actually means it. Actually regrets what he said, to some degree.

Chan holds his tongue to let the quiet have a chance to settle after Minho's quick apology. Just for a bit.

Eventually, he lets it go with: "Hey... I uh, don't mean for this to sound like a dig, but..." he drums his fingers on his thigh, stalling for time before he continues, "Do you have any friends, Minho?"

Minho stays silent; keeps his head turned away. It's unspoken, his answer— of course he doesn't. This— all his surliness; his instant, sarcastic and biting responses to concern that are obviously forged out of long-standing habit— is why.

Chan sighs disappointedly. "You might as well talk to me... otherwise this is going to be a very boring, awkward—"

"No. I don't," he blurts.

"Do you talk to your family?"

"Never."

"Why's that?"

"Don't like 'em." Minho's responses are all rapid-fire and as short as can be. And he shuts his lips tight afterward, as if he has no intention of ever opening his mouth again.

   Still, Chan pushes, "They do something to you?"

   "Nothing. I just happen to be a bitch from birth." And he fucking smiles. "That's all."

   Chan's lips flatten into a stern line. "Oh yeah?"

Cold, dead, doll eyes stare back into Chan's for a long time, before a defiant voice answers, "Yeah."

Holy fuck, it's gonna be a long week, Chan tells himself.

─── 

Shit.

   Minho realizes— when he wakes from a restless sleep to lights still off, and the phone he grabs from the bedside table reads 2:39 AM— it's gonna be a long ass night.

   He knows what's coming.

   He's exhausted, yet wide awake as can be. No use in trying to go back to sleep; shutting his eyes again would only frustrate him.

   For now, it's eerily quiet. Besides the humming and beeping of the machines in his hospital room, all he hears is someone else's steady breathing.

   He squints as he looks over at Chan, asleep in an uncomfortable chair, arm in a sling. His insides twist.

   "...I'm sorry," he whispers. "I swear, I mean it."

it's all your fucking fault, a voice whispers, creeping, serpent-like, in from the back of his mind. There it is. why did you do all that bullshit?

why did you chase his attention; eat it up like a dog, begging gracelessly for it. you would've gone on all fours, just to get him to look at you. on your knees, at his feet, just to keep his eyes from straying.

why did you let him in, let him put his hands all over you, take you by the mouth, take you home.

why did you wait for him to run to you before you jumped?

why did you let him see you?

Minho asks himself these questions, and the answer— because there's only one— is the same, every time.

   It's because of what he is. A greedy little attention whore.

   And not just that. He's a million other horrible things to boot.

ungrateful

bitchy

insane

never satisfied

delusional

worthless

slut

The answer always comes with this assurance at the end: everyone wishes you were dead, you piece of shit.

Often, even after he reminds himself of all this and makes it to the end of a through bout of self-reprimanding... his mind forgets to stop. The venom it collects to use against him simply continues to spill out until his brain is all flooded in a noxious puddle.

ugly

fat

disgusting

pathetic

stupid

so fucking annoying.

Pounding on his head with the heel of his hand doesn't work. It never really does, but that doesn't stop Minho from trying every damn time.

I want to bleed so bad.

Blood is the only thing that validates pain; makes it real. Thick, red blood is the only thing worth anything. Even broken skin doesn't qualify for a band-aid unless it bleeds.

Minho wants to paint himself a beautiful shade of crimson. Minho wants to make himself worthy of everything, and to punish himself for being unworthy at the same time. But then he remembers something.

If I cut... the deal's off.

...Chan will leave if he sees that I made myself bleed.

For once, Minho's beautiful blood will only make things worse. It's the worst kind of temptation, because there's no escaping it. It will always be there, just under his skin. Rushing through his veins. Pumping within a heart that doesn't work so well anymore. Sitting underneath the delicate layer of skin on the lip that sits between his teeth, waiting to gush.

It's so unfair that the prettiest, purest thing about him isn't supposed to ever be visible.

He bites down as the tears well up and threaten to spill (it's the best defense he can think of on short notice). Usually, they don't. The tears don't come close to making it out of his eyes— they don't even form. He's so incredibly used to this self-deprecative track playing on a non-stop loop in his mind. He's desensitized. Most of the time.

But on occasions like this, where there's no other noise to drown it out, and it suddenly moves to the front and center of his brain, to the point where it seems as if it begins to leak out and he's no longer sure if it's just in his head anymore, or if there are really people around him, speaking to him? When the vicious insults are echoing around his head, bouncing off the walls of his heart, amplified, growing in volume until he just can't— he really can't—

"Chan?" his unsteady voice crawls out of his throat and reaches out into the quiet, the dark, the stillness. He tries to get his breathing under control. In through the nose, out through the mouth.

All he gets in response is a soft snore.

Gritting his teeth to turn onto his side, hissing through the pain, he reaches for the charcoal pencil left on the bedside table, does his best to aim in the dark, and throws it at the sleeping man's leg. When all he does is groan quietly in response, Minho grunts, "Wake the fuck up, damn you."

Minho squints his eyes at Chan for a moment. He could get loud. Loud enough that Chan couldn't ignore him. Loud enough to send some nurse running in to see what his major malfunction is.

But something rings like a bell in this back of his mind; something tells him otherwise. It keeps him quiet, like a gag over his mouth.

A shrill, metallic ringing.

"Oh come on— it's not that big of a deal."

Harsh clanging that sends twinges of pain through Minho's head.

"Quit bothering me."

It resounds, endless.

"I don't have the time or energy to sit here and listen to you whine."

It echoes, deep in the pits of a paper-cut heart. Inescapable.

Tearing useless hands, incapable of lessening the unbearable noise, off of his ears, Minho rolls flat onto his back again; stops looking at Chan. Instead, his eyes bore holes into a shadowed ceiling while he habitually envisions gluing his mouth shut. In lieu of that, with no superglue in sight, he clamps his hand over his face as tight as he possibly can— only to remind himself he can't risk to leave himself any bruises.

   Fuck it. He can handle this himself. Just stop thinking. Stop thinking.

Any other time, he'd be drunk out of his mind, doped up, and smoking by now. That's the method he'd learned to keep those damn thoughts at bay. If not any of that, he's slitting his wrists, slashing up his stomach, or scratching his thighs, just to feel the soothing pain and to watch the blood run like a river; blood spilled to pay for his sin of existing. But now he's alone with them, alone with nothing to numb them. He can't even fucking cut.

weak

overdramatic

ungrateful little bitch

can't do a damn thing alone

fucking waste of time

everyone hates your fucking guts.

STOP. THINKING. Minho commands himself.

Of course, it's the dramatic gasp for air that comes when he finally pulls his hand off his mouth that finally wakes the big oaf sleeping a few feet from his bedside up. Or perhaps... it's his descent into badly-contained fits of sobbing.

    Each huge, stuttery, desperate inhale plagues Minho with pain stabbing into his middle, white-hot agony, sharp and sickening. But he can't stop. And what's so fucked up about it is that even if he could, he wouldn't.

"H-help," Minho begs breathily, the moment Chan becomes lucid at last. The walls he thought were so high, so sturdy and insurmountable, crumble and fall in an instant, with him crying out words he'd never ever dared to even picture himself saying to anyone. "Help me, I— I-I can't..."

"Can't what?" A groggy, grounding voice questions, halfway through a yawn.

Chan's hand, large, strong, and warm, engulfs Minho's. It takes him by surprise. It lessens his trembling somewhat. "Hey, shh, it's okay. You're fine."

'You're fine.'

It's not that bad.

You're. Fine. Minho.

His head fucking aches with that unbearable clanging, ringing, screeching. Now his throat and chest are starting to hurt, too, with all his hyperventilation, to say nothing of the sensations coming from his shattered ribs at the moment— altogether, Minho's seeing stars.

But then... Chan asks a question. "Does something hurt?"

The first attempt to answer is futile. "Mmh—" It fades away into still more failed attempts at slowing his breathing.

   The second is a repeat of what he said earlier— entirely disregarding Chan's question— but with the final word of the sentence added: "I-I can't stop," he sobs. And at least that much is coherent. But Chan still doesn't understand what he means. And maybe it's for the best.

you did that for attention. fuckin' whore.

you're so disgusting.

look at you. scars all up and down your arms. it's so obvious— all you want is for people to look at you. be concerned about you. all you want is to be the center of attention. so you concoct these methods of faking pain in order to prey on their sympathies and eat it up like a glutton. it's vile.

   "I-I'm sorry— Please! I didn't mean to—" He gasps. "P-please— don't leave." Shallow breaths come and go from his mouth, feeling as if they never really reach his lungs. He's suffocating.

  "Minho, hey, baby... it's okay." Chan reaches to run a hand over Minho's hair. "I'm uh... I'm not going anywhere."

   "I'm sorry," he cries, with a croaky, broken, guttural voice, as if it springs not from his vocal cords but from the deepest, darkest part of him. From the pit of his belly, it jumps out, and it doesn't stop: "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'msorryI'msorryI'msorry—" 

    When Minho's running out of air and yet still apologizing, Chan finally grabs him by the shoulders and firmly demands: "Minho, that's enough. Stop. Just breathe."

     It takes a minute, but soon the apologizing ceases. The shallow gasping fades. Minho goes limp, chin to chest.

   "Baby?" Chan utters, voice wavering. "Fucking shit—"

   The chair screeches as Chan runs for the door; hinges scream as he flings it open. Chan's mouth pours out desperate pleas for someone to help.

─── ♡

this bitch is so dramatic lmaooo