Chapter Text
It was like a nightly routine. Something he did before bed to help him sleep. Morbid as it was, it was also soothing to see others going through the same things he was. It wasn’t like school where he was surrounded by a sea of faces and flesh, where he had to work himself up to just lift his hand and write. It was beginning to get to the point where he couldn’t even do that right anymore, finding himself pestered with inane, repetitive questions about his health or his feelings. Nothing felt real anymore, nothing felt genuine.
His hair stuck out in twenty different directions, framing his red-ringed eyes that had begun to sink into dark heavy bags. Both of which were side effects from the lack of sleep. His gaze might have been described as bored to some people, but another look revealed that even that was lacking. There was nothing there, not even a hint of emotion, much less a spark. All this, with a thin face gone gaunt from lack of meals. His appearance was lackluster overall, if not a bit underwhelming.
Numb and emotionless, he continued to scroll mindlessly through the forums. It was the usual topics: prevention, hotlines, venting. No, those wouldn’t do. We went all the way to the bottom, to the last set of sub categories; methods, techniques, timing, etiquette.
Was there such a thing as etiquette when killing one’s self?
He didn’t care to find out, as he skipped it and moved to the methods section. A couple of threads looked interesting enough he guessed, but it wasn’t anything he hadn’t read before. His cursor lingered on a link that seemed to be new, but was just called “List of Ways”.
Thinking it was exactly what it was, Mondo clicked on the link and was brought to the thread, the starting post just a list of ways to kill yourself. It was set up in columns, ranked by lethality, duration in minutes and the agony level from one to a hundred. Glancing from the list to the bottle of pills beside him back to the screen, he looked over the list with interest. Overdosing on drugs had anywhere between a twelve to fifty percent chance of death, and it took about two hours to actually take effect, but with the alcohol safely stored under his bed, he was sure it wouldn’t take that long at all. The pain ratio was in the single digits. That was the tipping point.
Technically-speaking, the actual tipping point was the fulcrum formed against his lips as Mondo tossed back the bottle of Phenobarbital pills. He grimaced at the taste – nearly gagged on the amount - before reaching underneath his bed and wrapping his fingers around the neck of the vodka bottle.
The drink tasted as shitty as the pills did, but nothing really tasted good anymore.
Everything he ate was like chalk.
Everything he drank with like acid burning sickness throughout his body, keeping him sustained long enough to live out one more miserable day.
But not this time. No, there wasn’t anything keep him grounded anymore. His strings were cut and he was ready to fly away from everything.
His fingers extended and groped around for a few minutes before they landed on the remote, absently clicking the ON button. The room lit up as the television across the room came to life, casting a garish pale blue haze over everything it touched. People on the TV droned on and on about something or other, he wasn’t sure if it was the news or some television show. It didn’t really matter to him either way, and he began to wonder if he should have left a note in case someone found him.
He had already convinced himself no one would, and why should they?
Time passed slowly and he began to feel the overdose take over: Slower thinking, heaviness in the body, and shallow breathing. That’s what he began to experience as his eyes shut. Sounds began to ebb as his consciousness started to leave him, and he almost smiled. It was going to be over soon, it was finally done.
In this state, he barely heard his front door open, and he sure as hell didn’t pay attention to the voice calling his name-- wasn’t awake enough to notice when Ishimaru burst into his room.
Mondo couldn’t see how he began to panic.
Ishimaru, though, processed everything: The bottle of alcohol, the pill bottle on the bed, the open computer that still had the list up. Instinct kicked in and he shakily dialed the police, trying to keep his voice calm as he held back sobs. As he spoke over the phone, he got into the bed and crawled beside his friend.
The smaller boy screwed his eyes shut, the voice in his ear quickly drowned out by a rushing noise and flashes of memories with his friend. The same friend who he’d given detention to for running in the halls and smoking on campus. The same friend who had shown him secret spots of the city that were just theirs. The same friend who had a gang and friends and a life and secrets and why hadn’t Mondo confided in him if he was this far gone?
When he was reassured that paramedics were on their way, he hung up and cradled Mondo’s limp body to him, brushing trembling fingers over the black strands of his hair and sobbing into his shoulder.
This wasn’t happening.. This couldn’t be happening…