Archive of Our Own ^beta

He couldn’t do it anymore.

Grian sat curled up on the edge of his bed, his knees drawn tightly to his chest, fingers picking nervously at a loose thread on the hem of his hoodie. The walls of his room felt like they were closing in. The corners, once cluttered with posters and leftover science fair projects, now just looked tired—like even the room had given up trying to be something more than a box to exist in.

Outside, it was raining. Typical.

The gray sky filtered in through the single-pane window, casting a dull light across the desk littered with unopened notebooks, failed quizzes, and takeout containers. His half-dead laptop blinked on sleep mode, stuck on an unfinished assignment he couldn’t bring himself to care about anymore.

He was seventeen. Just seventeen. And yet he felt older and heavier than he had any right to feel.

High school was kicking his ass. That was the simplest way to put it. No matter how many times he tried to crawl his way back up, to get just one decent grade, to finish just one assignment on time—it all slipped through his fingers. The words blurred on the page. His brain felt like it was trying to swim through mud. His friends—what few he had—stopped texting back. Teachers looked at him like he was lazy. Like he didn’t try.

He did. He really, really did.

But some days he just couldn’t get out of bed. Some days the act of brushing his teeth felt monumental. Some days it was easier to lie and say he was fine than to explain why he hadn’t turned in homework again. And today—

Today was one of those days where the weight in his chest was too much.

His cat, Momo, lay curled up at the foot of the bed. She didn’t move much anymore. The vet said kidney failure, but they couldn’t afford the treatments. Hell, they could barely afford the visit. Grian had spent hours scouring the internet for alternatives, anything to help, but none of it mattered. Momo was fading. Slowly. Quietly. And he couldn’t stop it.

Just like he couldn’t stop everything else.

His mom—god, she tried. She worked two jobs, sometimes three. She’d come home and smile and pretend like everything was fine even when her hands shook from exhaustion. But Grian could see it in her face—how worn down she was. How stressed. How she scanned every receipt twice at the grocery store and still flinched when the total came up. How she looked at him sometimes like she wanted to help, but didn’t know how.

He hated that look.

He hated that he was just another weight dragging her down.

He’d tried getting a job himself. Fast food, tutoring, even grocery store bagging. But no one called back. Or they did and turned him down after the interview. Maybe it was the way he looked. Maybe it was the anxious way he answered questions. Maybe it was because he stammered when he got nervous or couldn’t look people in the eye for more than three seconds.

Maybe he just wasn’t enough.

He glanced down at himself. He hated his body. Always had. It was soft in the wrong places. His stomach poked out when he sat, and no matter how many meals he skipped or how many nights he spent crying over a mirror, nothing changed. And when he did eat, it felt like punishment. His chest got tight. His thoughts turned cruel. The guilt hit so hard it made him physically nauseous.

He hadn’t had water in days, just cans of soda he found half-off at the corner store. His tongue felt dry. His lips cracked. But the thought of drinking water—of caring enough to—just didn’t register. He knew soda made it worse. But at this point? It didn’t matter.

None of it mattered.

Grian stared at the rain-streaked window, watching the cars drive past on the street below. Taillights smeared red across the glass like watercolor. People with umbrellas hurried by, faces tucked low, focused on where they were going. Probably home. Probably warm. Probably dry.

His breath hitched in his throat.

It wouldn’t matter after this.

That thought came so quietly, so naturally, it didn’t even feel scary anymore. It felt… inevitable. Like gravity. Like breathing. Like an answer he had been circling around for months and had finally stopped running from.

He looked at his phone. No texts. No missed calls. No one would notice if he just—

He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to push the thought away, but it clung to him. Heavy. Persistent.

He didn’t want to die, not really. But he didn’t know how to live like this either. Trapped between feeling everything too much and feeling absolutely nothing at all. Stuck in a world that kept moving forward without him, dragging him under every time he tried to catch up.

He reached out, gently stroking Momo’s fur. She stirred weakly, letting out a soft, dry meow. His throat tightened.

He was so, so tired.

And he didn’t know what to do anymore.

He was scared of death.

Terrified of it.

He always had been, even as a little kid—though back then, the fear was more abstract, something that lurked in the shadows of his thoughts only when the world got too quiet. But now, at seventeen, the fear had taken root somewhere deep in his chest. It was more than just a worry; it was a constant presence, a weight that pressed down on him at all hours.

He remembered the first time he really felt it—truly understood what death meant. He’d been maybe eleven or twelve, and his mom had made a casual comment over breakfast. Something about feeling her age, a passing joke about her knees being sore or how she couldn’t keep up with him the way she used to. But it hit him like a truck. He’d burst into tears right there at the table, scrambled into her lap, and begged her to stop saying things like that. Begged her not to die. He remembered the way she held him, quiet and a little stunned, gently stroking his hair as he sobbed into her shoulder. She hadn’t meant anything by it. But to him, it felt like the end of the world.

That fear never really left him. It lived just beneath the surface, resurfacing every time he saw something he loved beginning to fade.

Like now.

He sat on his bed in the dark, knees to his chest again, arms wrapped tight around them like if he just held himself hard enough, he might not come apart. Momo was lying on the worn blanket nearby, her breathing shallow and her eyes half-lidded with exhaustion. She used to be so energetic—jumping on the windowsill to swat at birds or curling up in his lap with a little chirp of demand for affection. Now she barely moved. It was like watching a candle burn lower and lower, and all he could do was sit there and wait for it to go out.

He didn’t want her to die.

He didn’t want anyone to die.

He didn’t want to know what it was like to wake up and not hear her paws padding down the hallway or not feel her soft weight curling up by his legs at night. He didn’t want the silence. He didn’t want the ache. He didn’t want to keep going in a world where the things he loved disappeared one by one.

He reached for his phone, his fingers numb with the cold that seemed to have settled into his bones. He unlocked it and opened the group chat—“fattydig64”—the one he shared with his friends. There were a few old messages there, nothing new in the last few hours. The last one was from Gem, a blurry photo of a street cat sitting on top of someone’s car with the caption “hello gangsters.”

He stared at it for a moment before forcing a weak chuckle and replying with a gif—just a cat biting a stack of money. It was stupid. Mindless. But something about the normalcy of it helped him breathe for a second.

He stared at the screen after sending it, waiting to see if anyone would respond.

They didn’t.

He considered telling them. Telling someone. Anyone. Just sending one message—“Hey, I’m not doing well.” Or maybe just “Can someone talk?”

But he didn’t.

Because deep down, he knew it wouldn’t change anything. Not really.

Etho might understand, at least a little. Etho always seemed to see things that others didn’t, and he had that quiet way about him that made you feel safe, even when he said very little. But Etho had his own weight to carry. A younger brother who depended on him. A family that still needed him whole. Grian couldn’t burden him with this.

Gem was probably the closest to him in temperament. She was sarcastic and sharp but kind in that way that made you feel like maybe she got it. But she had a family. A house full of people who supported her. She had safe places to fall. He didn’t want to disrupt that with his own crumbling.

And Scar—he loved Scar. God, did he love that idiot. He was like a walking sunbeam. All energy and laughter and impulsive kindness. But Scar wouldn’t help him, not because he didn’t care, but because he wouldn’t see it. He’d send memes, or bad jokes, or offer to sneak him candy in the middle of the night. He’d try to distract him instead of listening. Scar hated sad things. Scar ran from them. And right now, Grian didn’t need light-heartedness. He needed someone to look at the darkness with him.

But there was no one. Not really.

He was alone.

That thought settled around him like a second skin. Cold. It pressed into his lungs and made it hard to breathe. He glanced again at Momo. Her tail flicked once in her sleep, but otherwise she didn’t stir.

He didn’t want to be here anymore. Not like this. Not in this broken-down house with bills stacking up on the kitchen counter, with the ache in his chest getting heavier every day, with the knowledge that nothing was going to change.

No one was coming to save him.

He closed the group chat. Locked his phone. Let it fall to the blanket beside him with a dull thud. Then he curled in tighter, pulling the hoodie over his head like it might shield him from the world.

He didn’t cry.

There were no tears left.

Only the heavy, aching silence of a seventeen-year-old boy trying to survive something he didn’t have the words for.

It had been a couple hours since he moved. Maybe more. Time had blurred into a haze, the kind that settled like fog over everything—making even the simplest task feel impossibly far away. The rain outside had quieted to a soft patter, no longer slamming against the window like it had earlier, but tapping in a rhythmic, almost apologetic way. The kind of sound that made it easy to disappear inside your own head. That made the silence in his room feel deeper. More complete.

He had stared at the ceiling for what felt like forever, watching the shadows shift as headlights passed by outside. Every so often, Momo stirred at the foot of the bed, a soft exhale, a twitch of her paw, the smallest signs of life. Grian clung to those little movements like lifelines, even as the hollowness in his chest grew wider.

Eventually, the pressure became too much.

He moved like a puppet on frayed strings, body sluggish and stiff from lying curled up too long. His hoodie clung to him, damp at the edges with sweat or tears—he wasn’t sure which. He rubbed at his face and sat up slowly, blinking against the harsh glare of his phone screen as it lit up beside him. 3:17 A.M. The numbers glared back at him like a dare.

Oh.

Well.

Might as well do it now.

There was a pause—just a flicker of hesitation—as he let his hand hover over the edge of the bed. He already knew what he was reaching for. It wasn’t even a decision anymore. Not really. Just a ritual. One that left behind faint scars in hidden places, the kind no one noticed unless they were looking. And no one ever looked.

He leaned forward, reaching down behind the rickety nightstand, fingers brushing against the edge of the cracked ceramic pot that had once held a succulent. The plant had died months ago, but he’d left it there. Maybe out of guilt. Maybe because throwing it away felt too final. Or maybe because it made for a good hiding spot—no one ever questioned a kid with a dead plant in his room. It just fit the narrative.

His fingers curled around the cool, familiar shape of the razor. Small. Cheap. The kind you could buy in a ten-pack for a few bucks if you didn’t care about the quality. He didn’t.

He exhaled shakily and sat back, moving with the kind of care that came from repetition. His hands found the small bundle tucked under his pillow—crumpled paper towels and a half-empty box of adhesive bandages. He kept them close. Just in case. Always just in case.

He shuffled on the bed until he could tug down the waistband of his pajama pants, revealing the top of his thigh. Pale skin, soft and vulnerable, already marred with faint lines. Some new. Some faded. A map of pain he carried in silence. He hated it. Hated how weak it made him feel. Hated that this was the only thing that ever made the pressure in his chest lessen, even if just for a moment. Even if it always came back heavier afterward.

He placed the razor against his skin.

And then he pressed.

The pain was sharp. Brief. Shallow.

It didn’t go deep—not enough to be dangerous, not enough to scar permanently. But it was there. Real. Tangible. Something he could control. For the span of a heartbeat, the fog lifted. The ache behind his eyes dulled. The numbness gave way to something else. Something that wasn’t sadness or fear or helplessness.

He bit his lip as the skin split, a thin line of red blooming in the quiet. It wasn’t enough. God, it wasn’t enough.

He wanted it to go deeper.

He wanted it to hurt.

Not because he liked the pain. Not because he was trying to punish himself. But because he needed to feel something that made sense. Because the pain inside—this constant, dragging weight—was unbearable and invisible and never-ending. But this? This, he could see. This, he could name.

He pressed the paper towel to the cut, watching as the blood soaked in slowly. His hands trembled a little—not from fear, but from the cold. Or maybe from the exhaustion that had set in so long ago it now just felt like part of him. He reached for a bandage and pressed it over the wound, hands moving automatically. Quiet. Practiced. Detached.

When it was done, he didn’t move. Just sat there on the edge of his bed, hoodie pulled halfway up, legs curled close to himself. Momo let out a weak breath behind him. The room smelled like old takeout and rain and something metallic that clung to the back of his throat.

He stared at the floor, unfocused, his eyes tracing the cracks in the wooden boards.

He didn’t feel better.

He didn’t feel anything.

Not really.

But at least, for now, he wasn’t drowning.

He didn’t stop after just one.

One never felt like enough—not when the weight in his chest stayed lodged there like a stone, not when the pressure behind his eyes refused to ease, not when the world still felt impossibly heavy even after the first cut. So he did another. And then another. Each one measured, deliberate, spaced just far enough apart to avoid reopening the older marks but close enough that the sting overlapped into something sharper. Something louder than the silence.

By the third, his hand had steadied. The fear had dulled. He wasn't crying. He hadn’t cried in a while—not really. But his jaw clenched, and his breath shuddered through his teeth like his body still hadn’t caught up to the numbness yet. He hated how clinical it had become. How easy it was. How routine. There was no drama to it. No breakdown. Just the quiet, mechanical act of damage, and the soft, red answer.

He pressed a paper towel to the newest line, watching the blot of color spread slowly through the cheap tissue. Then he folded it, pressed again. Folded again. Over and over until the blood stopped surfacing. The towel, once white, was now mostly rust-red and wrinkled, and he stared at it for a long moment before dropping it into the trash can by his bed. The bin was already overflowing—wrappers, tissues, empty soda cans, a few ramen cups with the dried residue of flavor packets clinging to their rims. The towel sat on top like a quiet confession.

He reached for a fresh set of bandages. Peeled the wrappers open with slow, methodical fingers and smoothed them over the cuts, one by one. It wasn’t for healing. He wasn’t pretending this was a solution. It was just habit. Just something to cover them up so he didn’t have to look. So no one else would, either.

His gaze lingered on the razor.

And then, without really thinking about it, he picked it up again.

It clicked softly as it shifted in his fingers. He stared at the blade for a second longer—then pressed it against skin again, lower this time. He didn’t flinch. Didn’t hesitate. A quick slice. A breath out. The pain buzzed like static under his skin.

There.

That was enough.

For now.

He set the razor down on his nightstand—just for a moment, just until he could put it away properly. But already, the act had receded behind a wall of dull detachment, like watching something on a screen. Like it hadn’t really happened to him.

Momo let out a small sound behind him—a hoarse, croaky little meow. A whisper of what her voice used to be. Grian blinked and turned, something in him tugging loose as he caught sight of her thin body curled in the blanket.

Right.

Her food.

He stood slowly, legs a little unsteady beneath him, hoodie falling over his bandaged thigh. His body ached—not from the cuts, but from exhaustion, from the weight of just existing. Each step toward the door felt like trudging through deep water. But he went anyway, making his way into the narrow hallway and down to the kitchen with the same sense of ghostly detachment.

The kitchen was a mess. Dishes piled in the sink. A frying pan on the stove that hadn’t been washed in days. Sticky notes littering the fridge with half-crossed-out grocery lists and reminders from his mom—“Dentist. 4PM Tues.” “Pick up G’s refill.” “Water bill—DO NOT FORGET.”

None of it registered.

He went to the cupboard, found the small plastic container of dry cat food, and unscrewed the lid. The smell hit him immediately—faintly rancid, stale—but he didn’t flinch. He’d gotten used to it. He grabbed a scoop and filled Momo’s ceramic bowl, the one with little faded fish designs around the rim. The food clattered in with a hollow sound, echoing slightly in the too-quiet kitchen.

He stared at the bowl.

He had done what he came here to do.

He should go back.

But he didn’t move.

Instead, he found himself just… standing there.
Still.

Like his body had suddenly forgotten what to do next.

His eyes drifted to the counter. There, on the lazy Susan that sat smack in the middle, was a cluttered mess of bottles and blister packs. Vitamins. Painkillers. A bottle of sleeping pills with a child-proof cap no one had bothered to close all the way. Most of them weren’t his. His mom had chronic back issues, migraines, and whatever else came with working multiple jobs on your feet for hours at a time. But some of the bottles were his. Prescriptions he’d stopped taking because they either didn’t help or made him feel worse. Labels with his name. Dosages. Warnings in bold red text.

He didn’t remember when his feet moved. Just that one moment he was staring, and the next he was reaching out, fingers brushing over the familiar names—fluoxetine, propranolol, buspirone—until they landed on something bigger. He froze.

Adderall.

A big, amber bottle. The label was scratched, the cap a bit loose. It was full.

He didn’t take Adderall. Not anymore. The doctor said it might help him stay focused, might help with the fog. But all it had done was make him dizzy and quiet and panicked inside his own head. He stopped taking it weeks ago. But the bottle was still here, sitting in the kitchen like it had been waiting.

He didn’t think. He just picked it up.

It was heavy in his hand.

He walked back to his room with it gripped tight, like it might disappear if he loosened his fingers. At some point, he stopped by the food dish and carried it too, letting the kibble shift and rattle as he made his way down the hall. The hardwood floor creaked under his weight, familiar and tired, like the bones of an old house that had seen too much.

Back in his room, Momo hadn’t moved. Her breathing was shallow. Her ears twitched faintly at the sound of him entering. Grian crossed the room and gently set the bowl down on the bed beside her. He didn’t bother setting it on the floor. She didn’t leave the bed anymore. She was too weak.

He didn’t care if it spilled. Didn’t care if crumbs got into the blanket or if the sheets got greasy.
He just wanted her to eat.

That was all.

He just wanted her to eat.

He stood there a moment, still holding the pill bottle in his other hand.

He wasn’t sure when the haze settled over him.

He wasn’t sure when he stopped seeing the room around him and started thinking about how many pills were in the bottle. Or what would happen if he took them. Or if it would hurt.

He didn’t know.

He didn’t know anything.

Only that the thought didn’t scare him as much as it should’ve.

His eyes flicked toward the bed, drawn to the small, fragile shape curled up beneath the folds of his blanket. Momo. Her fur, once sleek and full, was patchy now—dull where it used to shine, her breathing shallow, barely there. Her tiny sides rose and fell like she was running out of energy with every inhale. Every now and then, her ear twitched or her tail gave a weak flick, like a fading signal that she was still here. Still trying.

He watched her for a long moment. The silence in the room stretched thin, taut like a wire between them.

“I’ll go first,” he murmured, voice barely audible, almost like he was promising it to her.

It wasn’t a dramatic statement. It wasn’t a cry for attention or a desperate plea. It was quiet. Honest. Something he felt all the way down in the marrow of his bones.

He knew himself.

He knew his limits.

If she went before him—if he had to wake up to the absence of her tiny body nestled in his blanket, if he had to face the cold finality of that silence—he wouldn’t make it.

He couldn’t make it.

She was the last thread he was holding onto. The last thing in the world that felt like it still needed him, even in the smallest way. And when she went…

He wouldn’t survive it. That much he knew.

So he’d go first.

And maybe that would be kinder for both of them.

His mouth felt dry. His hands were trembling.

He reached for the nearest drink on his desk—one of the half-flat sodas he’d left sitting out hours ago, maybe even days. The can hissed weakly as he cracked it open again, fizz barely audible. It tasted like metal and syrup and guilt when he brought it to his lips, but he didn’t care. It was something. Something to wash it all down with.

The pill bottle was still in his other hand. His fingers moved on autopilot now—numb, mechanical—as he unscrewed the cap. The plastic clicked and spun in his palm. The sound felt too loud in the quiet room. Momo let out a faint, half-dreamed mewl in her sleep, but didn’t stir.

He tilted the bottle.

The pills spilled into his palm in a messy cascade—white and chalky, all shaped the same, all stamped with numbers he didn’t care to read. They looked like candy in the half-light. Small. Harmless. It was ridiculous how harmless they looked.

He stared at them.

A whole handful.

Too many.

Probably not enough.

He didn’t know.

He didn’t care.

His gaze drifted to his phone again, lying on the bed where he’d left it hours ago, just past Momo’s food bowl. The screen was dim, but he tapped it to life.

Just in case.

No messages.

No missed calls.

Nothing.

He waited for the screen to light up again, just to be sure. A buzz. A name. A tiny miracle.

But nothing came.

He chuckled, but there was no humor in it. Just a breath that didn’t know where else to go.

With a slow exhale, he looked back at the pills in his hand.

And then he tipped his head back.

He tossed them into his mouth.

They didn’t go down easy. Bitter. Dry. They clung to his tongue like dust, like chalk scraped from a schoolboard, like every moment of regret he didn’t have the energy to name. He chased them with the soda, swallowing it down in gulps that stung his throat. It burned in a way he wasn’t expecting. His body rebelled—his stomach twisting instantly—but he forced it down.

Every pill.

Every swallow.

Every terrible, quiet choice.

Then he sat very still.

He could feel the silence creeping in again. That heavy, unbearable stillness.

He looked at Momo one more time.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, voice hoarse. “I just… I didn’t know what else to do.”

He curled up beside her, letting the can slip from his fingers to roll off the edge of the bed with a soft thud. His hand reached for her, resting gently against the thin fur of her back. She stirred faintly, leaned into his warmth. She didn’t know. She couldn’t know.

He didn’t know what would happen next.
If anything would happen at all.

But for the first time in days, the thoughts had quieted.

Not gone.

But quieter.

And he let himself drift.