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James knows he’s fucked. So utterly fucked.
It’s his own fault, he knows that. But he just wanted to feel better. He needed to feel better.
There’s this pit inside of him that’s been growing since his sixteenth birthday. It’s dark and it’s heavy. It makes him feel like his insides are on fire. Burning, and burning through him.
He quit soccer when he stopped being able to get out of bed. Everyone thought he was fucking crazy. A whisper of wasted potential loud in the silence of his dark, cold room.
Regulus and sirius sat with him on those days, just keeping him company even when he couldnt force himself to move. He loved them both for it, but part of him wanted them to fuck off so he could wallow in his misery alone. He’d screwed everything that had been building between him and regulus. He was pathetic. He didn’t deserve them.
One day, after weeks of the thoughts screaming in his mind he forced himself out of the bed, and went a few houses down when he knew everyone in his own house was busy.
A kid james met through school (before he stopped going) lived there. He’d seen James moping around and offered him a ‘pick me up’ James had told him he was all good. He had never wanted to touch drugs, he’d never done that before.
But as james waited outside the drug dealers house. He decided there was a first time for everything. He was getting desperate. Really fucking desperate.
That night was the first time in months that his brain wasn’t in agony.
And thus began the beginning of the end.
—
It had been months since then, and james had gotten away with it. That’s until James came home fucked off his face one afternoon. It was obvious. They all knew it. His dad, his mum, sirius and regulus. They couldn’t deny the obvious anymore.
James had been sitting outside after dinner. Coming down from his high while he stared into the sky. His head felt fuzzy but it was better than the agony he was in while he was sober.
After a while he had gotten cold, heading back inside and treading up to his room. The house was eerily quiet and james figured everyone had gone to bed.
He pushed open his bedroom door with a yawn. His eyes immediately snapped to his mum who was sitting on his bed. He was a little confused at first as to what she was doing in there. But then he saw it.
She had a little plastic bag in her hand, with a small amount of white powder inside.
James froze. He was so. Utterly. Fucked.
The look on his mums face made him want to die.
“It’s not what it looks like” James denies frantically, “I swear!”
Effie just stares at him silently. Her silence more terrifying than anything she could have said.
James knows he’s being caught completely red handed, but he tries to lie anyways.
“It’s..it’s my friends. I’m just holding onto it for him, i swear.” he begs.
Effie stares at him for another long moment, face completely unchanged, revealing nothing.
Pursuing her lips for a moment, she finally speaks. “And you’ve been doing this for what, months?”
Jane’s just shrugs, avoiding her eyes. His high is gone to make matters worse, and his brain is beginning to attack itself.
“A couple months yeah” he mutters eventually. He knows he’s fucked, and that he’s not getting away with this.
“And the hurting yourself?”
James snaps his head up again, he didn’t know how she found out about that. That’s until he notices the bloody razor blade she must have found in his draw, sitting on the bed next to her.
It was a nasty habit he’d picked up a few weeks ago, when he was craving but couldn’t get a fix.
“Just a couple weeks” he admits.
Effie’s frown deepened.
“Why?” Was all she asked.
And James felt like the worst person on the planet.
“I don’t know, um” he hesitated. Before deciding it couldn’t possibly get any worse. “when I tried it I felt….. I felt better than I ever had so.. I just kept on doing it.”
His mum rubs a hand over her face, and james wishes more than anything he could just snatch the small ziplock bag out of her hands and run out the door.
Effie breathed out a heavy sigh, “I was worried that you were spending too much time in bed, meanwhile, you’re out doing every drug on the planet, and hurting yourself?” She says incredulously
“While Hiding it and lying?….why?” She asks, and james can’t think of anything else but the fact that getting exposed like this meant his parents would stop him. He couldn’t stop, he didn’t want to. He didn’t want to go back to how he was living before, he wouldn’t survive.
“I don’t know.. um-“ he stutters, but his mum cuts him off
“Why?! James? Tell me why”
James wants to die.
“I don’t know!” He yells back to her, running a hand agitatedly through his messy hair
“I thought we were close. I thought we were closer than most mothers and sons!” His mum shouts, and james has to hold back a scoff. She didn’t know any of the hell that his mind had been the last few months.
He presses down on his eyes until it hurts and all he can see are black spots when he opens them.
He sighs, “I feel like you’re always disappointed in me? You’re disappointed I quit soccer-“
Effie stands up, throwing her hands in the air.
“Can you blame me!?” She cries out,
“Just not too long ago you were running and playing soccer and you were doing well in school!?”
James pushes his nails into his palms, he wishes he wasn’t fucking sober right now.
“And look at us now?!” His mum just about screams, and james has to try not to flinch, because his mum never screamed at him. Never. No matter what he had done. He’d really fucked himself over with this one though.
“Mum I’m-“ he tries
“This isn’t us! This isn’t who we are?!” She cuts him off, and there’s a noise behind him, making james whip around
Sirius and regulus were standing, eyes wide as they watched everything unfold, James’ dad behind them with a pale face.
“Please both of you stop” fleamont begs, voice cracking.
James runs a hand through his hair, his eyes meeting Sirius’ for a moment before flicking to meet regulus’. They both look devastated, and James wants to claw out his eyes if only to erase the image of the brothers that was staining them.
He forces himself to look back at his mother, only just noticing that she has tears running down her face.
“Mum I’m really sorry about everything” he croaks, “mum I’m sorry” James repeats
He turns back to the others.
“I’m really sorry everyone.”
No one says anything for a terrifying moment, and james wants to scream and fight and kick and punch. He wants to take a rope and string himself up, or grab the blade that sat on the bed and carve into his wrists until everything went dark and his brain would slow, slow enough for the thoughts to stop and then slow even more so james can be at complete and utter peace.
“James what you have…” his dad speaks up, “you’re gonna find it again”
James blinks at him
“What if I don’t want to?”
And he regrets it, regrets it the moment his words make everyone’s faces turn to anguish. But he can help but mean it. He doesn’t want to go back to before the drugs. He remembers those weeks, remembers the way he felt like a baby trapped in a burning building.
His mum sighs, wiping at her tears for a moment before she speaks again, her voice emotionless.
“Then I don’t know how to help you.”
And James just nods.
He nods because there is no helping him. He knows that. There’s nothing that can be done for him, and there never was.