𝐫𝐨𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐞
(𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐠!𝐥𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐬𝐚 𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐦𝐬 𝐱 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫)
summary: Larissa found you in bed with nothing on but your blanket. smutt and fluff ensued.
a/n: i can't write smutt without a fluff follow up and i think i'm cursed to write that way (though the smutt in this is only light)
warning/s: none
It was uncharacteristically hot that night, like hell was seeping into your bones, and burning you from the inside out. Sweat was constantly beading along your hairline, dripping on the sides of your face, everywhere was damp. Wearing clothes was torturously uncomfortable.
After having a cold shower, that gave you temporary relief, you ultimately decided to ditch the notion of wearing anything for the night, as you had nowhere else to be but in your bed, and with you being alone in the room since Larissa Weems, your roommate, had been invited to one of Morticia Frump’s famous sleepovers, you found no issue as to why you couldn’t sleep naked at all.
Midnight was approaching when Larissa left Ophelia hall. She had kindly written Morticia a note, explaining her sudden leave and left it on her night stand before tiptoeing her way out of the room.
In your shared quarters, Larissa found you curled up on your twin bed, a lightweight blanket was pulled all the way up to your shoulders, your back facing her. She approached you, careful as she could muster, and slowly, she lowered herself on your bed, lying on her side next to you, head propped up in her hand. The young shapeshifter sleepily sighed, completely content with just feeling your presence alone.
She then buried her nose in your hair, inhaling the scent of your shampoo. Her arm slipped around your waist and pulled you, bringing you closer, more flushed against her. But as you moved closer, the thin material shifted, exposing more skin enough to tell her you weren’t wearing any clothes underneath the blanket. Her face had gone warm. She was about to fix it but you turned to face her. She was caught by the pink on your cheeks, a thin layer of sweat covering your forehead.
“Issa?” You called out, your voice was deep from sleep. Larissa raised her brows, the back of her hand smoothing over your cheek.
“It’s me, darling”
“You’re here.” Your breath was hot on her neck.
“I couldn’t sleep.” That was part of the truth why she left.
You scooted closer, nudging the soft skin with the tip of your nose like a cat, “Why?”
“Because I didn’t tuck you in. I didn’t kiss you good night.” A smile spread on your lips
She brought you closer, trying to ignore the fact that the only thing that was keeping you separated was your blanket that thinly covered your body.
She rubbed her hand up and down your back, “You’re not wearing any clothes.”
You grumbled, “Was too hot” then you kissed her neck as it was what your lips touched first. And slowly, you opened your eyes. Your vision was blurry but the grin on her lips was the first thing you noticed.
“You should try that sometimes.” briefly, your eyes wander down her shirt covered torso before theygreet her eyes.
The smile grew, and she poked your nose and kissed your forehead. You both had been too close to one another, more than what was considered as normal between friends, and you were aware of this closeness—aware of the lingering looks drenched with infatuation that she gave, aware of how her hands would always protectively attach itself on the small of your back and kiss your cheeks so affectionately.
In fact, that night wouldn’t be the first time Larissa had found you in bed without nothing on but your lightweight blanket swallowing your form, and she had seen flashes of your bare chest, a little bit of your backside while you were throwing on a comfortable fit after classes, and each time, she would try to ignore them, and the ache she felt.
“Are you okay?” you asked, watching how her eyes went from admiring you to staring blankly at the wall behind you.
“Yes. Yes, I’m good. Sorry.”
“I apologise for the lack of pyjamas. I would wear one now if you’re uncomfortable.”
Larissa firmly held you by the waist, shaking her head slightly, “I very much prefer this.”
Now you were both staring at each other, both sporting a blush and a smile.
“Would you like to kiss me—like really kiss me and sleep in my bed?” staring at you, she tried to discern any indication from your expression that this was one of your foolish jokes, but she discovered it to be true.
She nodded, a little too eager than you anticipated.
“But before that—“ a yawn interrupted you, “ I only have one rule.”
She raised a brow, “and that is?”
“No clothes in bed.”
Half of you was thinking of taking it back, slapping just kidding like a big, fat tape to a gigantic tear just in case you read this all wrong from the start.
Larissa, without hesitation, removed all of her clothes, leaving her in her little brassiere, and matching white underwear. She unclasped the bra, and soon, it was on the floor together with her clothes. Her nipples were instantly hard as soon as the cold night air kissed it. Your mouth fell open.
You watched her hook her finger under the waistband of her underwear, she bent down as she pulled it off her leg and then the other leaving her completely bare.
And she was so stunning.
The patch of thin hair she kept trimmed was keeping your eyes fixated.
Larissa passed on the opportunity to tease you as you openly and shamelessly gawked at her. “Why were you hiding all that goodness?”
You shuffled a bit, inching closer to the wall to give her some space, “Come here, gorgeous.” you said, patting the spot.
Feeling her skin, bare and soft, against your own sent a delicious wave in your whole body, like you were struck by an electricity or something. She gathered you in her arms, and you were almost, almost lying on top of her, your face fitting perfectly on the crook of her neck, her leg slipping with ease in between yours.
She hummed, aware of the wetness now. Her eyes twinkle, as her hands start wandering up and down, familiarising with your curves, and leaving goosebumps in their wake. Your hips voluntarily bucked into her, smearing yourself on her perfectly milky thigh. With a simple look, you knew what was going to happen that night.
Kissing her was just as delicious as touching her skin, hearing her moans and having her as equally as eager as you to make each other come again and again until either of you couldn’t tell how many times you both had come together.
Both wrapped in bliss and cum and sweat, you finally felt exhausted but happy and fulfilled. Larissa felt cherished, she felt so beautiful in a way it didn’t make her cringe, and felt what it was like to be made love with.
“Good night, roomie.” you muttered, placing one final kiss on the dip in between her collar bones.
“G’night, roomie.” and that was punctuated with another kiss on your forehead. A kiss that felt like a promise for more nights like this.
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19 - Not Even For A Second // Forever Winter // a.b x oc
warnings: SAD SAD SAD, grief/loss, hallucinations/delusions, drug abuse/addiction, mental illness, severe medical situations/trauma, vomit, alcohol, 4k words, 18+ always mdni
⚠️ if you are/have struggled with substance abuse or hallucinations this chp may be triggering⚠️
19/? - Austin's latest break dawns the memory of why Elsie keeps a distance between her heart & his. She made a promise a long time ago that she has to keep.
see masterlist/summary for background info + chapter log
I APOLOGIZE FOR WHAT I’M ABOUT TO DO TO YOU I AM SO SO SORRY PLS DO NOT HATE ME
𝙸'𝚕𝚕 𝚑𝚘𝚕𝚍 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚞𝚙 𝚋𝚎𝚌𝚊𝚞𝚜𝚎 𝚢𝚘𝚞'𝚛𝚎 𝚗𝚘𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚋𝚞𝚝 𝚜𝚔𝚒𝚗
𝙸 𝚠𝚊𝚗𝚝 𝚝𝚘 𝚏𝚒𝚡 𝚠𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚢𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝚏𝚊𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚍𝚒𝚍
𝙿𝚞𝚝 𝚍𝚘𝚠𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚔𝚗𝚒𝚏𝚎 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚠𝚊𝚜𝚑 𝚢𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝚑𝚊𝚗𝚍𝚜
(not my gif, will tag creator when found)
-ELSIE-
– 4 years ago –
It had been about 2 months since the death of Austin’s father and to say he was taking it badly was an understatement. He was on the verge of flunking out of school, the only reason he was even coasting was because I took over all his course work.
He spent most of the time in his room – it was filthy. Cluttered with trash, clothes, rotting food. It was easy to know that the food would decay because he wouldn’t eat. He wouldn’t eat at all. In the short time, he had dropped at least 20 pounds. He was never that bulky, fairly lanky to begin with, but now his ribs were popping out and his arms shrunk by the day.
He’d sleep all day, then be up most of the night. Or sometimes he’d sleep the entire 24 hours. The sockets around his eyes remained purple, his cheeks sullen. I barely recognized him.
Most of the time he wouldn’t shower for weeks on end and then there were some weeks where he wouldn’t even speak a word. At one point I even thought I was forgetting the sound of his voice and so started rewatching old videos of us just to hear it. Or his laugh or see his smile. God, I missed them, I missed them so fucking much. It was selfish how much I missed them.
It had been so long since I’d seen even a glimpse of the Austin I knew. He had become a ghost. Haunting our apartment with small traces of who he used to be all over, but he was no where to be found.
-
I was in his tiny room just trying to clean up a bit, do some laundry for him. I thought maybe a clean space might lift his spirits, or enough just to eat something, anything.
He was cocooned in a thick navy duvet, just tufts of overgrown blonde hair peaking from a small opening. I figured he was asleep since he didn't react when I came in. But when I went to grab an stale chip bag from between him and the wall, his hand weakly grabbed my wrist. I just about jumped off the ground from shock.
“Oh, I’m sorry Aus, I didn’t mean to wake you I was just trying to clean-“ He shushed me, then silently pointed behind himself. “Yeah I know, I just threw that stuff away-“ I whispered. He gestured again. “Aust I don’t know what you’re trying to say.”
In a slight struggle to unravel himself from the bedding without adjusting, his frail arm held open the cover. I stayed silent eyeing the scene in front of me and what it meant, if I was understanding correctly. With the raspiest, weakest, voice he croaked out, “Please.”
Without another word I slipped into the bed behind him. We had never done anything like this before and it felt so odd. Such an intimate act, so taboo, as if it was something we shouldn’t be doing. But some part of me didn’t feel that way and my arm curled around him like it was instinct, like I knew exactly where my arm would fit. He nuzzled back into me.
His relationship with his dad was complicated. Austin hated him. He was abusive to him as a child and then was manipulative with him as an adult. He even forced him into being a business law major. Even though it wasn’t the career he wanted, he strived to make his dad proud by keeping a consistent 4.0. I think he let himself be a pawn in a feeble attempt to win over his approval, his love. One time Aust even told me that not once did his dad say he was proud of him and couldn’t even remember him ever saying I love you.
How fucked up is that? How can a parent do that to their own child?
And yet he was holed up in his room, despondent. Losing a parent is difficult enough already, but it was the possibility of ever winning him over that was the loss. It was stolen, the chance to make him proud like he strived so hard to, the sliver of hope of one day hearing those words. I think that’s what he was really mourning. He never got to hear an ‘I’m proud of you’ or even fucking ‘I love you’.
His father died without Austin ever hearing the man say I love you.
My dad left when I was younger and my relationship with my mom was distant and complex. But at least she was happy when I called and fucking said I love you.
He curled further into himself before I heard hidden sobs. There was a familiar violent twist in my chest, it might as well have set up home in my heart from how often I felt it lately. I’d never seen anyone cry as much as he did in these past 2 months. He should’ve been constantly dehydrated from the sheer amount of tears leaving his body.
I drew him closer, tightening my grip on him. This was the first time he let me hold him while he sobbed, normally isolating from me. His weak arms gripped around mine, his fingers ice cold when they dug into my skin. The wails shook his entire body. “I know.” I comforted quietly, pressing my forehead flush against his shoulder.
He brought my hand up and intertwined his fingers through the spaces between mine, triggering an automatic tense in my knuckles. This was something else we’d never done before. And yet I obliged, wrapping my digits around his fist.
Then, he snaked our coiled arms up to his face, pressing it against the back of my hand. Within seconds it was covered in salty tears. It was such a helpless feeling, all I could do was tighten my grip on his hand and pull him closer. We stayed like that for a while and it seemed as though he was starting to fall asleep.
He must’ve felt me turn to glance at the wall clock, I was going to be late for class if I didn’t leave soon. He gripped my hand and barely through returning sobs, “Please don’t go.” There was a settling conflict in me, I couldn’t skip lecture again. It was fucked up that I was even thinking about class right now, but I was already on the verge of failing between juggling both our class loads. I would flunk us both. “I know- I’m sorry,” His weeps descended further, more erratic, “But please don’t leave.”
I couldn’t go, how could I leave him like this.
“I won’t Aus, I’m here okay?” I reassured, squeezing his hand back, “I’m here.”
A sniffle, “Even if I fall asleep, don’t go. Okay?”
“I won’t, I won’t leave you. Not even for a second.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
It made me furious that his wicked, vile father turned my best friend into a husk of what he was. I hated him enough for the both of us.
I didn’t mind taking care of him, but I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t getting exhausting. I would never tell him that though, never let him see it. I would never quit on him.
-
Then one day, something flipped. He would come out, fresh haircut, clean shaven, and put together. His room was organized and spotless. Full of energy and life, he was an even better version of his old self. Grades were spiking back up and his social life bolstering. Or sometimes it was hobbies and interests, he would learn an instrument overnight. He taught himself guitar that way and by the end of the month he was actually pretty decent.
At times it was even excessive – girls and parties.
-
The rumbling of giggles and cheers ripped me from a rather comfortable sleep. Rubbing my eyes, I checked my phone to see it was 2 am.
What the fuck?
I wrapped my thick, tufted duvet around myself and cracked my door open, immediately repulsed at the sight in our kitchen. My old roommate Josey sitting on the counter with her brunette friend Brooke hanging off Austin’s shoulder. The laughter slowed as soon when they spotted me.
“Hey Els,” Austin’s voice deep and dripped in alcohol, “Did we wake you?”
“Hi Elsie!” Josey waved at me. I ignored her, keeping my eyes on a sloppy Austin.
“Um yeah, its 2 am and you guys are being loud as fuck.” My voice still raspy from sleep kept it from sounding too angry.
Brooke scowled at me, hooking her arm with Austin’s.
“Sorry Els! We’ll try to be quiet!” Josey bubbled. Her blonde ditzy self was just as insufferable as I remembered.
It was funny that she was sitting on my kitchen counter giggling at whatever Austin said, seeing as she barely acknowledged him when he and I first became friends - before he turned into this, whatever this was.
“Well, don’t you think it’s time you guys went home?” My gaze now narrowing in on Brooke’s scowl.
“Oh, we’re sleeping over.” She challenged in snide tone.
My glare turned up to Austin, who somehow looked both cocky and afraid of me, “Both of them?” I snapped staring directly at him, my eyes felt like lasers were shooting out of them.
“Mmmmhm!” Josey answered taking a swig of her White Claw. “Brooke suggested we have a thr–“
“They’re too drunk to get home alone.” Austin answered for her. “And I’m too drunk to get them there.”
Pure disgust swirled a pit in my gut. A pit I didn’t know I should be feeling. “I see.”
The thought of the three of them–
God, what a fucking vile thought.
Just weeks ago, he was crying in my arms and begging me to stay. Me, not them.
“Sorry, we’ll move to his room.” Brooke’s lips curled into a smirk, “Don’t worry Els, we’ll take good care of him.”
-
And then, the switch would flip back down. Everything he was juggling came pummeling down after about 2 weeks, sometimes a month. The excessive sleep, sloppiness, drained life all returned. Josey and Brooke conveniently disappeared. And I’d be left picking up the pieces again.
It was a constant cycle. Up then down, up then down. Like a yo-yo.
Then there was the turning point, the incident.
-
He was in an upswing, having just learned some niche form of woodworking. Literal planks of wood rested against our living room wall, power tools scattered all over his room. Traces of Josey draped around the house from all their make-up sleepovers.
The energy in the house had been tense, uncomfortable. Chaotic. It always ended up that way in those peaks. The yo-yo began to put a strain on us.
I was sitting at the kitchen bar reading some romance book that was trendy at the time when he walked through the front door of our apartment. A bag of leftovers in tow and his whistling filled the room, joy and excitement clear in his demeanor. “Hi Els!" He chirped, setting the leftovers on the counter.
Without a second thought or even looking up from my book I asked, “What’re you so chipper about?”
Nothing could’ve ever prepared me for what was about to come out of his mouth.
“I had lunch with my dad! I think it went really well.” His words so casual.
I froze, furrowing my brows at my book.
What?
Closing the paperback slowly, “That’s not very funny Austin.”
He scoffed, “Listen I know he sucks but it went okay.”
“Are you trying to play some sort of fucked up joke on me?”
His mood shifted, now offended.
“I know he’s been shitty before but is it really that hard to believe that he could actually want to see me?”
Squinting at him trying to pick up on any inkling of a pun, but why the fuck would he joke about this.
I glanced down to the plastic bag encasing the styrofoam container, it was from one of our favorite restaurants, Lenny’s Diner. “You really went to Lenny’s?”
“Yes Elsie, what, is that a crime?” Aggravation clearly building in him.
“You sat down at a booth and talked to your dad?” I probed, trying to get any indication of... well anything to possibly explain this.
“Fuck El, yes what the fuck is your problem?” His newly muscular arms crossing his chest.
“How long were you there?” My questions coming out faster than I could think.
“Fuck I don’t know? I think I got there around ten?” His voice edged with defense.
I glanced out the front windows, it was dark already. Then looking at a clock on the wall that verified my fear – it was 7 pm.
Nine hours.
“And you were there this whole time? Talking to him?”
“Yes?”
I slid off the tall bar stool and paced cautiously towards him.
“Please tell me you’re joking Aus.”
“Elsie what the fuck is your problem? You’re acting like having lunch is a crime.” His tone angry and rising. I didn’t think I’d ever heard him mad before, nonetheless at me.
Stepping forward, I hesitantly grasped his hands, “Austin–“
“Fucking spit it out Elsie.”
I didn’t want to say it. I didn’t want to rip him down from whatever cloud he was in.
“Aus – Austin your dad is dead.”
He blinked at me blankly before his gaze turned dark, ripping his hands from me. “Now you’re the one fucking with me. That’s not fucking funny.”
“Why would I joke about that? Are you feeling okay?” Going to press the back of my hand to his forehead only to have him smack my arm away from him. Never had he ever touched me like that, the aggression sent a chill through my body. Not once did I ever think he would frighten me like this. I took a nervous step back.
“I feel fucking fine, you’re the one saying fucking insane shit.”
I had no fucking clue what was happening. If he was serious, I didn’t know how he’d react to the reality. How was this happening? How do you just forget your dad is dead? How do you see your dead dad? Talk to him? For nine fucking hours?
“I-“ Then I got an idea, whether or not it was a good one, it was the only option I could think of. I quickly made my way to his room, frantically filtering through his desk drawers before finding what I was looking for.
“What the fuck are you doing in my room?” He demanded from the kitchen.
Returning with a pamphlet, the one from the funeral.
He stilled, the life from his face dissipated as he took the pamphlet. His skin turning as pale as the white paper. Realization flooded in his eyes, grief filling them all over again. Soon replaced by confusion and panic.
Staggering backwards, chest heaving, his breath escaping him. I just barely caught him before he fell, gently guiding him to the floor. Tears welled in his eyes. "I saw him Elsie, I swear to god I did.” A sob coming from his lips, “I talked to him.”
There was a churn in my stomach, like it had been put through a meat grinder. I wasn’t the one that hallucinated my dad, but I was just as petrified. I knew he had been doing bad, but this was something else. This was more than just mourning.
I curled my arms around him, drawing him close, “We’re gonna get through this Aus, okay? I promise.” I rested my forehead atop his fluffed curls as he wailed into my chest. I gripped the back of his shirt in my fist as if it would stave off my own cries.
“I saw him, I saw him.” He repeated again and again.
“I know.” I struggled behind weakly restrained tears, “I won’t leave you Aust, I promise. Not for a second. I’ll be right there with you the whole time.”
-
A 72 hour hold later, we got some answers.
I visited him every day.
Each day he was in there was sadder than the last.
The first day he was so terrified, trembling, barely speaking to me. He squeezed my hand the entire 30 minutes of visitation time.
Second day, he sat across from me sketching my face with a purple crayon. He didn’t look at me once, seemingly going off of only his memory.
“They don’t let us use pens.” Was the only thing he said that day.
The third day he was numb, laying his head atop crossed arms on the tabletop. Not a single word came from his lips, the bags under his eyes the deepest purple I'd ever seen one someone's face. My guess was that he probably didn't sleep a single night the entire hold.
It was excruciating to see him in there, to see him like that. Every time I looked him it gutted me, made me worried and furious and helpless all over again. My cheerful, gentle, soft Austin was now just a shell. When I looked into his once bright sapphire eyes, I couldn’t find him anymore.
We found out many things from this little getaway. Mainly that some severe disorders ran his family and the major event of his dad must’ve triggered them. The doctors said it probably would’ve happened eventually. They knew the conditions that trended in his family, but they didn’t know just yet which ones he had inherited. There were so many that were thrown around, but the main two – Bipolar and Schizophrenia.
The yo-yo was just symptoms of vicious bipolar cycling - mania then depression, mania then depression, again and again. Then things I didn't think anything of - his forgetfulness, misplacing things and the things he didn't tell me, seeing or hearing things that weren't there, all symptoms of the latter. The tentative diagnosis explained it, all of it.
I brought him home and we worked on getting him steady again.
He started his meds.
He was better for a while.
But before I could fully catch my breath from the event, something else entirely reared an ugly head.
-
Josey – who he was unfortunately still seeing, called me in absolute hysterics. “It’s Austin – you have to get here now. I don’t know what’s going on.” I could barely understand what she was saying through her panicked sobs, “I don’t know what the fuck to do Elsie, I’m freaking out. I’m so fucking scared.”
When I found him, he was curled up on her bathroom floor, covered in his own vomit, barely breathing.
"Fuck Austin." Immediately kneeled down next to him, picking up his lulled face into my hands. He looked dead, his skin such a pale yellow, his eyes glossed and rolled into his skull, lips chapped and purple. "What the fuck happened!" Anger and panic seared through every nerve in my body.
"I-I don't know." Shuttered a visibly scared Josey, "He just- He just kept taking shots and- kept taking bars."
"Bars?" Furrowing my brows at her, "What the fuck is that?"
"You know," Her shoulders pulled up into a shrug from the arms wrapped around her body, "Like Xanax bars?"
"Xanax! How many did you let him fucking take Josey?" I'd never heard my voice so furious before. Josey backed into a corner shaking her head as to tell me she didn't have an answer.
I returned my focus to him, “Fuck Austin, please.” I whispered like it was just us two in the room, clutching his hand so hard I probably could’ve snapped his bones. I pressed my ear to his chest and my fingers to his neck to check his pulse. It was slowing down and it was slowing down fast. I started rotating between erratically shaking his limp body, patting his cheeks, peeling open his rolled back eyes and checking his weakening heart rate. It felt like years passing waiting to hear the ambulance sirens.
Squeezing his hand pulling it into my stomach as I doubled over, “Please don’t fucking go." Laying my forehead on his chest, sobbing against him, "You can’t leave me like this.”
Begging over and over,
"Austin please" "Don't leave me." "Please just hold on." "Just a little longer." "Please don't fucking leave." "I need you here." "Aus please." "You can't leave like this."
Everyone at the party just stood there watching, like it was some sort of fucked up performance. Doing nothing, nobody was doing anything. Not even Josey was nowhere near him, still petrified in the corner. No one had even called 911 until I got there because they were too worried that they'd get in trouble. People with even less of a fuck filtered out leaving without a single care. Including Brooke.
Just seconds before paramedics arrived, his body began violently convulsing. Followed by most disgusting, struggled gurgles from purple lips as he choked on his own foamed vomit.
It was easily the most horrifying, heart wrenching thing I had ever witnessed. Something I would never be able to unsee, a core scene that was now permanently etched into my mind like a tattoo. Every single memory of us played in my head, terrified that those would be the last ones I'd have, that we’d never be able to make any more.
I was forcefully hauled away from him as the paramedics started doing any and everything to halt his overdose. As soon as I was allowed back to him, my hand never left his. Everything unfolded in slow motion, I couldn’t hear a single word the EMTs spoke. All I could hear were wheels dragging across long carpeted hallways, the dings of the elevator. The metal clicks of the stretcher being shoved into the emergency vehicle. Every slow beep of the heart monitor rang like a screech through the night, jarring like nails on a chalkboard.
I never left him - through every room, down the elevator, the entire ambulance ride until he was finally taken into the crisis unit at the hospital.
Alone. I paced the halls of the freezing hospital alone. No one else there for him. Not Josey, not Brooke. Not even his own mother who never answered my thousand calls and texts.
Just me, only me.
This landed him in another 72 hour hold, this time in a rehab facility.
I felt so senseless, so guilty – I hadn’t even noticed a change in his behavior. How could I have not noticed? But how could I have suspected he was abusing his medications, the plethora of drugs his doctor had prescribed him.
A pill for the depression, a pill for focus, a pill for anxiety, several mood stabilizers, sleep aids, anti-psychotics for the hallucinations. There were too many to count.
Austin had never even exhibited any signs of having an addictive personality. Not even with alcohol. How was I supposed to know? How could I have fucking known.
I should've paid more attention. But I was so tied up with the pit Josey and Brooke planted in my stomach that it obstructed me from looking too close. I was distracted by my own selfish feelings that I missed it. I somehow didn't catch my other half spinning out into addiction.
Between the mourning, the psychotic break, and the pills – it all changed him. He was never the same after it. Lapses in meds and relapses cycled. Over time they slowed down and pieces of him started to come back, but he wasn’t whole. Like a chunk of him had been stolen and he couldn’t find it.
When things were bad, he terrified me. Unmedicated he only got worse. Cycling through mania and depression. Impulsive, then despondent. Misplacing objects, forgetting things – repeating something over and over. The most chilling ones were when he’d see or hear things that weren’t there. Even scarier than that was when he'd start to get used to them, talking to them.
Overly medicated wasn’t a picnic either. It was extremes or nothing, depending on what he was taking. Though it was only ever pills, uppers or downers, sometimes both.
Whether it was a non-medicated Austin or an overly medicated Austin, they were both versions of him I didn’t recognize. Never did I ever think that there would be times that I would be scared of my Aus. The one that wouldn't hurt a fly, the one that would hand homeless people his last dollar bill, the one that would volunteer at shelters during the holidays, the one that got teary-eyed at baby animal videos.
What frightened me the most was the thought of losing him, one way or another. That one day it would be too much, and I wouldn’t be able to save him.
It was soon after his overdose that I realized couldn’t be any closer to him than this, that we could never be more than this. As a friend I could be constant, no complications. I could be there through the relationships, the fuck buddies, the parties, the heartbreaks, the cycling, the relapses. If I went to the parties and got drunk with him and made friends with his annoying girlfriends, I could always be there.
It didn’t matter what I wanted or what I thought I felt. I needed to be just far enough away from him to not be clouded by anything else. Not again, I could never let it happen again. I couldn’t risk fucking us up, ruining us. I couldn't risk having to leave. I couldn't risk losing him.
I couldn't be the liability.
I made him a promise, I’d never leave him. Not even for a second.
Next Chapter: 20 - I Know You're Lying
thank you for all the love, comments, likes, reblogs, etc on forever winter, it means the world to me ♡
i hope you liked this chapter 🫣
-M🥀 xx
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