Work Text:
You’re not sure what set you off this time, but you’ve been spiraling for the better part of a week. None of your normal methods of pulling yourself out of a depressive episode seemed to work this time. Doom scrolling lead to you reading hate comments about yourself, pushing you further down into your spiral. None of the comfort shows you normally watch when you start feeling low could distract you from the thoughts inside your head. Your boyfriend Chan was busy with work all week and you didn’t want to bother him.
Chan knows you have depression. He just doesn’t know how bad it can get. Not that you want him to. It’s better for everyone involved if he only thinks I get a little bit sad every once in a while and bounce back immediately. He has his own problems to worry about without adding you to the list.
Desperate to relieve yourself from the feeling of drowning, you relapsed. You just wanted to feel something, anything, other than the overwhelming feelings that were taking over your entire body. And it worked. The pain from adding a new tally mark to your arms and thighs was enough to draw your attention elsewhere for a bit until the pain subsided, causing you to fall into an all too familiar pattern. Trying to not cause too many new marks, you would put pressure on the fresh cuts to make them sting again, only adding new ones when even that didn't work anymore. New marks littered your thighs and arms in places you knew would be easy to hide so Chan wouldn't notice.
Feeling overwhelmed again, you found yourself in your bathroom, adding a new cut. Not too deep, never too deep to actually do any real damage.
“Y/N! I’m home! Are you here?” Chan’s voice ripped through your apartment, making you jump and forcing you to cut deeper than you intended.
“Fuck…” You whisper to yourself, dropping the blade. An alarming amount of blood floods out of the fresh wound.
What is he doing here? He should be at the company, working. Or at the very least, at his dorm. Why does he have to be here right now?
Hot tears start flowing down your face faster as you begin crying again, cleaning up the mess that you made and running your arm under running water. You could hear Chan shuffling around your apartment looking for you on the other side of the door. You just need him to leave. The second he leaves, you’ll call 119. You just don’t want him to see you like this. Why won’t he leave?
“Oh, you’re in the bathroom. I’ll wait for you on your bed.” Chan’s voice calls from the other side of the door. Damnit.
Arm still under the water, you grab your phone from the counter. You open your text messages with Chan to try to tell him to go home. Feeling dizzy, you drop your phone instead and clutch the bathroom counter to try to keep yourself upright.
“Y/N? Are you okay?” Chan's worried voice could be heard loud and clear from the other side of the door.
“G…go…go home…” You try to shout.
“What? I'm coming in.” You silently curse yourself for not locking the door earlier when you're met with Chan's panicked eyes.
Moving almost robotically, Chan shuts off the sinking and grabs a towel from the rack behind you, wrapping it around your arm and applying pressure.
“Go home, Channie. I’ll take care of this.” You choke out, sobbing harder because the one thing you never wanted to happen is, unfortunately, happening.
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Chan doesn’t even look at you as he pulls out his phone and types something into his phone before pressing it to his ear.
Your legs finally start to give under you. You brace yourself to hit the floor hard but instead fall on something soft. You turn your head to meet your boyfriend’s tearful eyes. Both of you were now sitting on the floor, Chan still holding the towel to your arm and talking on the phone.
“I…I’m so sorry, Channie…I…tried…I tried to be stronger…but I couldn’t…I didn’t mean to…” You take your free hand and stroke Chan's cheek.
“You didn’t do anything wrong. This isn’t you, okay?” He says something into the phone before placing it on the counter.
“I fucked up…” Your eyes trail to your arm. Chan still has a firm grip on it, but the towel is now soaked with your blood.
“Hey, don’t look at it. Look at me,” His hand quickly moves from your side and tilts your head towards him. The tears he tried to hold back, finally fell down his face in rapid succession.
“I’m sorry…I just wanted to stop hurting…But now I’m so cold…” Your eyes flutter and Chan panics.
“Hey, let me see those pretty eyes, yeah? I know you’re tired but stay awake. Help is almost here and then I promise you can take a nap.” His voice gets farther and farther away like he's walking away from you.
“I love you.”
“I love you too, but I need you to stay awake. Let’s…let’s sing that one song you like. The mirror’s image, it tells me it’s home time. C'mon Y/N, sing with me.”
“I…can’t…”
“Sing the next line. Please, Y/N…”
“But…I’m not finished…’cause you’re not…by my…side…”
“Good, good. And as I arrived I thought I saw you leavin’, carryin’ your shoes… Hey, Y/N, just a little longer… Y/N?”
***
You wake up to the sounds of a heart monitor beeping. Slowly, you open your eyes to see that you're in a dimly lit hospital room. You take in your surroundings, remembering what happened to get you here. Looking down at your left hand, you see Chan fast asleep in the chair next you you, clutching your hand. You take a deep breath, trying not to cry while thinking about all you put Chan through earlier.
Chan stirs awake at your sudden movement. Rubbing his eyes with his free hand before looking at you and giving you a small smile.
“You’re awake.” He says softly.
“I'm so sorry…” You choke out, no longer being able to hold it in.
“Hey, hey, hey, don't start that now.” He pulls himself closer to the bed and takes his other hand to stroke your thigh.
“But you…” You bite your lip, unable to continue what you wanted to say.
“It’s fine, relatively speaking. I’m just glad I came when I did. I don’t even want to think about what could have happened.” Chan slightly squeezes your hand reliving what happened earlier in his head.
“I didn’t mean to go that deep, I swear. I just…wanted to stop hurting. It was helping and I would have stopped eventually. I always do…”
“How long did you think you could hide that?” Chan asks softly, gesturing to your bandaged arms. You could tell by the lack of light in his eyes that he was beating himself up for not noticing sooner.
“Probably forever if possible. Besides, it hasn’t been this bad in a long time so I thought I was in the clear.”
“Why didn’t you call me if you were suffering so much?”
“I didn’t—I don't want you looking at me differently or treating me like a burden. You already have so much to handle, I don't want to be one of them.”
“You’re not a burden. You could never be a burden.”
“Tell that to my defective brain.”
“Your brain isn’t defective.”
“Chan, stop.”
“What?”
“Trying to make me feel better when everything is shit. I nearly died in your arms earlier. Most of me hates that I did that to you but a small part of me wishes I did.”
“You don’t mean that.” He sits up straighter.
“If you could see the look on your face right now, you would know that I do.”
You sit in silence for a few minutes, neither of you knowing what to say next. Scared of what the other might say.
“I took a few weeks off so I can stay with you while you get better,” Chan says, finally breaking the silence.
“I can’t let you do that.” You sit up.
“Everything’s already been set. Minho’s in charge and an announcement has been made. Hopefully, the boys don’t self-destruct while I’m gone. If they do, oh well.”
“Christopher…"
“Let me take care of you, damnit!” He whispers, not wanting to yell at you.
“This isn’t your fault.”
“I know it’s not.”
“I know that you know it’s not. But I need you to understand that I didn’t lose my shit because you were too busy to notice. It was bound to happen eventually.”
“...I understand…”
Silence falls in the room again.
“You know,” Chan adjust himself in his seat, careful to not let go of your hand, “I leave my ringer on for you.”
“What?”
“My phone ringer, I leave it on for you. I put everyone else on do not disturb but I leave your notifications on. I always want to make sure I’m there for you when you need me. I’ve done it since before we started dating.”
“What about when you have live streams or interviews?”
“I either put it on silent and leave the vibration on or I give it to a staff member who knows to tell me if you’re having an emergency.”
“But what about when you’re asleep—”
“My point is that I’m always there for you. I don’t view you as a burden, in fact, I wish you would lean on me more. I need you to understand that you can come to me whenever no matter what is going on. You need me, I’m there. If I’m on the other side of the world, I’ll move heaven and Earth to get back to you. You don’t have to suffer in silence or alone, I’m right here.”
“God, I love you.”
“I love you too. Promise you’ll come to me the next time you feel like this.” He presses a kiss into you hand.
“I promise I’ll try.”