
Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/13583238.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage, Major_Character_Death
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      EXO_(Band)
  Relationship:
      Kim_Jongin_|_Kai/Oh_Sehun, Byun_Baekhyun/Park_Chanyeol_(briefly
      mentioned)
  Character:
      Oh_Sehun, Kim_Jongin_|_Kai, Park_Chanyeol, Byun_Baekhyun, Do_Kyungsoo_|
      D.O
  Additional Tags:
      Heavy_Angst, Heavy_-_Freeform, Angst, Underage_Drug_Use, Drug_Use, Drugs,
      Drug_Addiction, Drug_Dealing, Implied_Sexual_Content, Suicide, Suicidal
      Thoughts, Anorexia, Eating_Disorders, Self-Harm, Anxiety, Anxiety
      Disorder, Anxiety_Attacks, Mental_Health_Issues, Depression, gangs_like,
      Sad, Sad_Ending, sekai_-_Freeform, ChanBaek_-_Freeform
  Series:
      Part 17 of Drowning_Alive
  Stats:
      Published: 2018-02-17 Words: 4157
****** The pills are all gone (but that's fine baby, so am I) ******
by baekkieony
Summary
     Sehun wishes he could just close the bottle and throw it out of the
     window, but a life without pills is a lost life.
Notes
     yeah, trigger warning, this is like very heavy. please don't do
     drugs, stay in school and suicide is never a sollution, even if it
     kind of sounds like it in this one shot. please get help if you're
     dealing with depressions and other things, you're not alone, we love
     you and you're perfect
      
     gifted to hyperionova, because his/her work inspired me a lot ( and i
     dunno why, because it has nothing in common beside that Jongin dies
     lol) and i wanted to thank him/her :3
     not beta read
  This work was inspired by
      In_Another_Life... by Hyperionova
One tear drops onto the laptop, silently falling like Sehun has been falling
for Jongin all the time and he feels himself panicking, hands trembling and
head spinning where time has stopped. Out of habit his hand is slowly creeping
to the side, to his last resort to get him under control – to stop being
himself and shut up – and when he reaches to the bottle next to him, clips it
open and pops one pill into his palm, he feels his head calming and his heart
hurting.
He wishes he would be able to throw the container out if the window, to close
the bottle and never think about them again, but he can’t handle it without
them, not yet and for one moment, he feels accepted and sociable, just for a
second, because he isn’t panicking anymore and maybe – just for people outside
– he seems normal.
His hands are still trembling tho, but he tells himself that he doesn’t need
another pill, he doesn’t need to pop another, because he has to get away from
them for his own sake and because Jongin told him that it’s going to be harder
to get them now, since they restricted the prescription of Xanax even more.
He could go to a doctor and tell him how often he panics, how much it would
help if he’d get the prescription – himself and his parents, because they don’t
know Sehun gets it illegally – and that he could may live his life as a normal
person with normal friends and with normal hobbies, but he can’t.
His parents think he’s weird and insane, because he always has to pop one pill
before he can talk to them normally and he has to pop two before going to
school and three to meet his friends, but he can’t help it, can’t help himself
and they think the only reason he has this panic attacks is his homosexuality,
that his panic attacks are a punishment by god, because he has sinned the
moment he decided to kiss Jongin to feel at least something.
He doesn’t has the guts to tell them that it’s kind of their fault, that he was
always insecure, that his depressions are eating him alive, that all his
friends are drug addicts, that he isn’t special in a single way and loving
Jongin isn’t a mistake even if their relationship might be kind of fucked up.
He can’t do anything about being himself and he waits for the day his parents
accept that some people aren’t able to hide themselves without constantly being
drugged, because it makes them forget the world for a second. It hurts him – to
live with the pills, not physically, but psychically – and he would like to
give it up, to stop breathing for a day or a week or a lifetime, but he cannot
give up for Jongin, not yet, because he needs him so much and he needs Jongin.
He’s never told Jongin about his problems, how the depressions came, because he
can’t name a reason himself, he doesn’t know how it happened, he just knows it
happened one day and they came and decided to never go back again and then
there was this beautiful new boy in class who told him that he just needed to
pop one or two pills and the world would be normal again. He also brought him
to parties, introduced him to his friends and to a new exciting life of drugs,
sex and addiction. There was no party without MDMA, no sex without E’s, no
night without at least one single thing being destroyed – may it be the tv or a
person.
Sehun has seen more people puking in someone’s garden in the past one year than
he has in his whole life before and he also never tried drugs before. He beared
his life constantly without help, has stood through the deepest phase of
depression, has lifted the weight of world alone, every day; but one day Jongin
came and with him the pills that calmed his head and made the world feel less
heavy.
He also never had been interested in smoking or boys before – he hasn’t had a
girlfriend ever before, but his parents didn’t mind, because he also never had
brought a boy home too – and when he introduced them Jongin, who wasn’t stoned
for the first time in his life apparently, or so (but on MDMA instead), they
were shocked, because Sehun couldn’t be into boys and their son also couldn’t
do drugs.
When Jongin was gone and they had dinner, his father has hit him the first time
and he wasn’t allowed to eat anything that evening. He ran away this night, to
Jongin and when he opened him the door, he didn’t say anything about Sehun’s
bruised eye or his bloody nose, but instead asked him to stay the night and
helped him forget with a lot of sweet kisses and a lot of alcohol.
Now – with 17 – Sehun has given up on life and also has given up on the hope
that his parents would accept him – one day, maybe. His hands still tremble
when he closes the container and opens it again in his hand, again and again,
repeating it like a mantra. Jongin has told him they always had a free place to
stay, a bed for him to share and pill for him to pop.
When he hears his mother screaming at his father downstairs and a plate shatter
when it hits a wall, he wipes away the tear from the corner of his eyes and
suppresses the ill feeling in his stomach, before closing his laptop and
packing it into a bag, together with his container of pills, a notebook and
some clothes. He pockets his phone and throws over a jacket, shoes on and bag
shouldered. His parents are still screaming in the living room and he sneaks
into the kitchen to grab an apple.
He tries not to listen too much to their screaming, but when he hears his
father yell that his mother is “as much of a failure as your son”, he has to
swallow loudly. He really thought they’d like Jongin, because he was sweet and
nice if he wasn’t drugged and Sehun has fallen for him as hard as the bottle of
pills in his bag is.
Sehun runs away this night, not for the first time, but this time he’s never
coming back again and by sunrise he’s gone forever.
                     _____________________________________
“Sehun, my man! Finally quit your parents?”, Chanyeol welcomes him with opened
arms when he kicks the thick door of the old industry hall open, where they had
built up their home and where Sehun has found a family he’d never want to lose.
Sehun grins at him before he throws himself in Chanyeol’s arms, lanky limbs
closing around Sehun’s skinny waist and he can feel Chanyeol’s sharp bones
digging into his skin.
“Yeah dude; I’m done with their shit. So happy to finally get out from there”,
he takes one look at Chanyeol and sees his thin legs in wide sweat pants who
would fit Sehun perfectly, gaze scraping over sharp bones and outstanding
collar bones here and there. Chanyeol’s hoodie would also fit Sehun perfectly,
but Sehun doesn’t say anything about the way Chanyeol seems to sink in in these
clothes and how loose they are, because he knows that Chanyeol is anorexic and
the way his cheekbones are hollow and his smile seems sad tell Sehun that it
got worse.
But it’s normal for Sehun, it’s normal to be the only one eating when he’s with
Chanyeol, it’s okay that Chanyeol is always out of this world and the way his
ribs are digging out of his flesh is also okay, because he can’t change it
anyway. A part of the young wasted youth all these singers want to sing about,
Sehun thinks bitterly and with a grim around his lips and bad aftertaste in his
mouth, like he has drunken bleach.
A sequel from the side rips him out of his thoughts – who ran too deep again –
and when feels Baekhyun earlier than he sees him – maybe because a mob of pink
hair is currently blocking his sight. “SEEEEEHUUUUN! You don’t know how much I
missed you!”, he presses the last bit of air out of him when he hugs Sehun
until death and after he releases him, Sehun feels like he has broken ribs now.
When he sees Baekhyun’s excited face and takes a breath from this always happy
boy with so much energy that he could probably run a whole city, he feels a
little better, but just a small bit. (He feels a lot better, but he would never
admit how much the aura and vibe of this short brat is helping him).
“Baek, you literally saw me yesterday, dumbass. You can’t miss me that much”,
Baekhyun just grins mischievous and the sparkle in his eyes lit up. He slings
an arm around Chanyeol’s thin waist – they’re boyfriends apparently – and stems
his other skinny hand in his side to give Sehun a once over. It’s not until he
notices the bag in Sehun’s hand, laptop peeking out slightly, that he realizes
why Sehun is here.
“You ran away, right?”, the question from Baekhyun is surprisingly soft where
it doesn’t need to be soft, because he’s happy – finally and forever – and he
doesn’t need their pity, because he wanted it and he made his decision to never
come back to a place he could never call home anyway. But Sehun doesn’t answer;
he just nods and sets the bag down on one bed in the big hall, the bed always
reserved for him.
He watches Baekhyun and Chanyeol interact from his bed, each one as skinny as
the other. They both had their issues – anorexic and unstable – but together
they were perfect, a unit nobody could control nor destroy. They were the kind
of couple Sehun always dreamed of being one day, but then he heard about how
Baekhyun ran away from his parents too, because they were alcoholics and how
Chanyeol was an orphan and Sehun felt quite harmless and selfish to worry about
his life and his fears, because they were so small and irrelevant.
It took him a few months to understand that it didn’t matter how small or big
his problems are; the only thing that mattered was the way he could forget them
when he was with them – may it be because of drugs or not. Nobody saw him as
less important just because he hadn’t lost his mother or that his dad wasn’t in
jail – even if they told him often he should finally go to the police.
When he looks at them now – together at once and two years later – he realizes
that they and this life is everything he ever needed and for what feels like
the first time in life, he doesn’t feel as lonely anymore.
He follows the trail of Baekhyun’s hand over Chanyeol’s chest, skinny fingers
wrapping around a skinny wrist and when they intertwine their hands to one, he
feels completed, too.
                     _____________________________________
Jongin doesn’t show up until the next evening, but Sehun hasn’t been waiting
anyway, because he already know that Jongin is living from day to day – often
out for hours, days, months – and Sehun accepts that without ever questioning
what he does there. As long as he comes home, it’s fine.
(But sometimes – only sometimes – Sehun feels like a wife waiting for her man
to come back from war and Sehun kind of knows that end, he’ll be lonely, but he
represses that thought in the darkest corner of his brain).
They don’t talk much, – they never do, because actions tell a thousand things
more than words ever could – they just cuddle and kiss a lot, eating dinner
together with all the other people who life in this old warehouse. They all
have different stories, different problems, different reasons why they came
here and maybe one day, they’ll be ready to tell them, to spill their secrets,
but until then they can live in peace.
Sehun does know the most stories tho, but not all – he thinks even Jongin
doesn’t know all and he’s kind of the leader or something important, because he
gets the drugs – and there’s Kyungsoo who has been there from the beginning,
but never talks, never, not even when he wants something and the others think
he might be mute, but Sehun thinks he can talk, he just don’t want to, because
he’s scared he could tell anyone the reason why he’s here.
It’s okay tho, Sehun accepts that and he likes quiet people, because Sehun
cannot talk without getting close to a panic attack with people he doesn’t know
well, so it’s better if they just sit together and are silent.
At night they walk out to watch the stars, just Jongin and Sehun and they tell
each other I love you and when Sehun sees a falling star, he takes it and
swallows it, together with his life and the new scars on Jongin’s wrist.
(It’s not like Jongin doesn’t try to hide them, but sleeves can’t hide
everything and Sehun is tired of telling him that wrist are for bracelets and
not for cutting).
                     _____________________________________
It has gotten worse and Sehun notices that. He doesn’t know when Jongin has
started, he doesn’t know why Jongin has started, but the scars were always
there, since day one, since they met and it wasn’t really Jongin without purple
scars on his arms, legs and stomach. They looked weird on his rock-hard abs –
Sehun has told him that when Jongin took his virginity – but Jongin had just
laughed and said that they were nothing compared to the monster screaming
inside his head.
Sehun understands Jongin, yes, but he doesn’t like it and he mustn’t, he has no
reason to. He told him so many times to stop it, but he just keeps on littering
them over his skin, marking it like it has no value to him, like he plays with
his life because he couldn’t care less about it and Sehun knows that this is
what Jongin is thinking – that life is worthless and that’s exactly his
attitude.
They’re sitting on Sehun’s bed, only three months have passed since he ran away
and when Sehun silently rolls up Jongin’s sleeve and notices the new marks and
purple lines, he sighs and Jongin just smiles sheepishly.
“What have I told you?”
“Sehun I di-”
“Jongin, what have I told you?”
Jongin sighs.
“That wrist are for bracelets, not for cutting”, he mumbles quietly into the
hem of his shirt. Sehun can’t but shake his head. “Yes, I have and I was
serious every single time. I know it’s hard to stop, but please try it at
least, try it for me”, he feels Jongin tense, as always when they’re talking
about this and about hisproblems.
“And I also told you that it’s not your shit to deal with, Sehun”, bitter rings
his voice in Sehun’s ears, “you don’t even really care about me”.
The grip around Jongin’s wrist is getting loose and Jongin wriggles it out of
Sehun’s fingers, who just sits there in shock, before his eyes turn fury and he
grits his teeth. It takes Jongin exactly five seconds to realize what he just
said there and he regrets with every bit.
“Yo-you have the nerve, the fucking nerve-”
“Sehun, I-I didn’t meant it like-”
“You tell me that I don’t care about you when I’m waiting weeks for you to come
back, always worried that you may never turn home again? You call that don’t
caring about something? Great, because then I just quit it. I won’t care about
you anymore, I won’t wait anymore, if that’s what you want”
“Sehun, just listen to me, I really didn’t mean to hurt you, but-”
“Jongin, can’t you understand that I’m always worried about you, because
there’s the chance that you just won’t wake up tomorrow?”, Sehun looks up,
directly in Jongin eyes, tears shimmering in the corner, but Sehun can’t cry
now, can’t get a panic attack, not now. He has to suppress the anxiety.
Jongin say nothing after this, just closes his mouth like he wanted to say
something, but didn’t consider it necessary anymore and then just looks down,
playing with the hem of his shirt.
It’s quiet for a while, nothing but the birds chirping outside and Sehun isn’t
able to hold back the tears any longer, because Jongin looks like he’s made out
of plastic in the sun and he’s so perfect and their relationship is so fucked
up, but he’s not ready to lose, him not yet.
Jongin’s voice trembles just like his fingers when he tells Sehun that he’s
sorry and Sehun just says it’s okay even if they both know it’s not and when
they hug, their salty tears are dripping onto each others shoulder.
                     _____________________________________
Jongin doesn’t change a thing after that and Sehun knows that, knows that he
keeps cutting, but Sehun has given up on Jongin, just has given up and accepted
the fact that he isn’t able to help him anymore. The only thing that would help
Jongin know is professional treatment, but Jongin is far away from accepting
that (or being able to pay it).
The others notice, too; that there has something changed and that the tension
between this two has become incredibly thick, but they don’t say anything and
Sehun is grateful for that, because he doesn’t know if he would just break down
and scream or rather kill himself. Both opinions sound appealing at the moment.
The first one to say something about it is Kyungsoo. The boy who never spoke,
never said a word. He was the first and the only one.
One evening – when the others are out – he comes to Sehun and sits down on his
bed, like he has done sometimes in the past and Sehun doesn’t question it and
just expects another evening of silence.
The soft “Jongin’s difficult” coming from his side is startling him and for a
second, he thinks that he it was himself who has spoken, but when he turns to
Kyungsoo and he sits there, knowing smile on his lips and eyes soft, he knows
it wasn’t himself.
“You-I-what the”, Sehun stutters out of his mouth, before he gets a grip on
himself, focuses and tells himself that he can do that. With a firm (or at
least what he thought was firm) voice, he answer after thinking a bit. “I won’t
say difficult, more like...special”.
Kyungsoo chuckles at this, because it’s basically the same, just nicer said and
Sehun knows that himself. It’s a bit silent for a while, but Sehun doesn’t
mind, gives Kyungsoo the time he needs. After a while, he speaks up again.
“I have known him since birth basically. We moved cities together, went to the
same schools, until high school came and my parents decided to send me to a
different one to get me away from “the bad influence” he apparently has on me”,
Sehun nods, this sound exactly like Jongin. “He was always a bit different,
brave and a troublemaker, the teachers never liked him and so did my parents.
He himself has no one but you, you know, his parents died 2001 in the twin
towers. He had luck that he stayed with his aunt this day, or he would be dead,
too”.
Another short silence.
“In high school, the shit really started. He dealt with drugs, all that stuff,
ya know, the shit he does now. Over the time, he brought people with him.
Jongin loves to collect people, but he never brought someone he looks the same
at as you. You’re special, you know. He doesn’t tell you everything, because he
wants to protect you from the people out there, people who wouldn’t wait a
second to kill you, just because Jongin loves you. They’re dangerous, Jongin is
dangerous, but I think you know that already”
For a second, Sehun is overwhelmed with everything. It is just too much, but he
would handle it and he has to accept that there are parts of Jongin he doesn’t
share with him. Sehun really isn’t one to talk there, because he hasn’t told
Jongin everything either.
Sehun thinks about a question he wanted to ask for so long, but it was too
forward, too early to ask, and yet, he still does it. “And what about you. Why
are youhere?”, Kyungsoo chuckles again, before he looks at him, doe eyes soft.
“Basically my parents kicked me out after they found out that I killed the
neighbour kid”.
“O-oh, okay”
Sehun must has been the shock written all over his face, because Kyungsoo seems
to notice his mistake and quickly explains.
“No no, it was an accident, I babysitted him, but when I went inside to get him
and my a coke, he fell into the pool and he was too young to swim and I was to
late, so he drowned. But I still feel kind of guilty about that, because I
stole a family their son at such a young age”
Sehun just slides closer and hugs Kyungsoo awkwardly form the side, because it
wasn’t really his fault and he can’t change it anymore. But he just keeps
quiet, because he really isn’t in the place to tell him that, especially now.
Kyungsoo seems surprised at first, but the hugs back without a question.
When the others come back that morning, they don’t ask questions and Sehun
doesn’t tell them that he has spoken with Kyungsoo and when he’s cooking dinner
for them, he throws Sehun a smile and he seems grateful for it.
                     _____________________________________
It’s a beautiful Sunday morning, just five weeks after the conversation with
Kyungsoo and Sehun has seen it coming from a mile away, has known it would
happen soon, but he didn’t know the date, when exactly it would happen and he
thought he is ready, but when it happens it still leaves him breathless.
He’s restless this morning, helpless and he just sits there in his shared bed
with Jongin, in a pool of blood and he doesn’t know what to do, because Jongin
won’t wake up no matter how hard Sehun shakes him and the cuts on his wrist are
deeper than expected and there’s just so much blood.
He’s still in shock when the others tried to get him away from the dead body,
can’t disengage his grip around Jongin’s chest, face pressed into the crook of
his neck, breathing in the last scent of Jongin while salty tears are dropping
into the pool of blood.
He has lost everything he had, and he wasn’t ready even if he claimed he was
and it shocks him to the core and there’s one thing in his mind that keeps
following him, the thought that he can’t keep Jongin waiting for him, like
Jongin always did.
                     _____________________________________
Nobody hears Sehun walking into their bathroom and opening the door of the
cabinet, grabbing a small bottle of pills and nobody hears him closing the
cabinet and leaving the bathroom to return to his bed like he nothing.
It’s okay, Sehun tells himself, it’s okay to give up and he just wants to see
Jongin again so desperately and his anxiety attacks aren’t bearable anymore, he
can’t bear them alone and he needs Jongin just so badly it hurts.
He feels a single bit of guilt, of regret, when he opens the bottle, because
he’s leaving the others behind without a note or a single sentence to explain,
but he knows they’ll understand, they’ll know why he does that, why he needs to
do that.
He sends a loving gaze to the bottle filled until the rim with pills and he’s
going to feel so light and finally alive again and everybody has always told
him that death sounds very lonely, but at the moment, death sounds a lot less
lonely than being alive.
Sehun sees a falling star outside the window and he takes it and swallows it,
together with the pills in the bottle, one or two, or maybe the whole
container.
He closes his eyes, lets himself fall on the mattress, legs spread and he
breathes in deep and when he smiles and everything goes dark, the only thing he
feels is relief.
(In the morning, Kyungsoo is the first to wake up and when he sees Sehun on the
mattress, pill container completely empty, he walks over and sighs, before
smiles sadly. He leans down to stroke over his cheek softly, white flesh
looking like plastic and he lets him go).
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