Work Text
I'm sorry for breaking down in front of you.
I’m fucked up, I don't know what else I can do.
I'm trying to pull myself together.
I'm trying, trying to get better.
“I was going to kill myself last night.”The statement came out of nowhere.If someone were to ask David why he told them when he did, he wouldn’t have an answer. It’s as if the connection between his brain and his mouth stopped working for a second because one minute he’s staring into space, the aimless chatter around him acting as background noise to his thoughts and the next he’s being silently stared at, friends gaping at him like he’s a fish out of water. “You- what? What the fuck Dave?”Heath is the first to recover. After a few beats of silence he finally speaks up, but the rest of the group is still looking towards David completely bewildered. None of them know how to react and the latter can’t blame them at all - he doesn’t even know why he suddenly decided to put his dirty laundry on display. He doesn’t know where the unexpected urge to confess everything to his friends came from, but after seeing the look on all of their faces, he really wishes he could take it back.“Nothing, uh, forget I said anything,” David replies, avoiding eye contact and immediately moving to leave the room because he knows he can’t deal with this right now.He needs to go before they realise that he wasn’t joking.“Forget you said anything? I- what?” David ignores Heath this time, instead trying to make a hasty retreat from the lounge room. He goes to walk away, but as soon he stands up from his place on the floor, Zane rises from his place next to Heath on the couch.“David, just wait a second,” this time Zane’s the one who talks, and as much as David wants to push past him, he knows he can’t. “What are you talking about?" David sighs.“Look, it was just a joke. I don’t- just don’t worry about it guys, seriously,” David forces a laugh and attempts to smile at the rest of his friends, but immediately drops it when he sees their frowns deepen even further.The next person to break the silence is Natalie.“Dave... I was home last night. Is that why-“ she starts to speak but cuts herself off, closing her eyes and covering her face with her hands. “Oh my god.”“What?” Zane asks, looking back and forth between David and Natalie. They’re staring at each other now - David is slowly shaking his head and Natalie looks like she’s about to cry, and it’s clear that the rest of the group is obviously missing something.“Are we missing something...?” Carly voices the thought but trails off, glancing around the room to see everyone else sporting the same confused expression that she is.“No,” David says, but the volume of his words are significantly quieter than they were a minute ago. “I don’t know what Nat’s talking about.”“David, you know exactly what I’m talking about- are you fucking serious? That’s what you were doing?” Natalie’s voice sounds strained and David gives her a pleading look, but she pointedly ignores it.“What’s going on-“ Jason begins, but Natalie ignores the comment and continues talking to David. “I was right there, David. I was literally in the next room and you were gonna do that shit? Do you realise how much we fucking care about you?”“Natalie, please-“ David tries to stop her from digging the hole even further, and when the tears that were building in his eyes finally spill onto his cheeks, Zane interrupts him.“Can someone please tell the rest of us what the fuck you two are talking about?”David and Natalie look at each other for what seems like forever, and when it becomes clear that neither one of them is going to talk, Heath speaks up again.“Natalie? Can you tell us what happened?”“Don’t,” David quickly intervenes, but Natalie shakes her head at him. “David, you… I have to,” she says, and David wipes the tears from his face. He looks up at the ceiling for a moment before giving in, letting out a sigh and looking back at his friend.She already figured it out; there’s no going back now. David purses his lips. He sits back down, and Zane does the same whilst everyone else in the room turns to face Natalie. She’s almost certain her assumptions are correct, and she takes a breath before beginning to talk.It hurts to think about her best friend in that much pain. “When I got home last night, David- he looked upset. He was on his laptop, and he told me he was editing but I knew he wasn’t - he’d already posted by the time I got back and I knew he didn’t have enough footage to start the next vlog yet, but... I just took the answer. I saw an open Word document on his screen when I walked past him but I didn’t say anything, you know, because that’s his business, and even though he lied straight to my face I didn’t say anything, because I didn’t think it was a big deal-“Natalie briefly stops explaining and turns to David. She makes eye contact with him and he flinches when she keeps going, because she isn’t addressing the group anymore. She’s addressing him.“You were writing letters, weren’t you? I saw your screen, I saw some of the words- it was a letter to one of us, right? A suicide note? I pick up on your mood changes, David. I know you. I know whether you’re happy or sad or anxious - we all do - so I have no idea if in that moment you thought that we didn’t know, or didn’t care, but we’ve all noticed how down you’ve been lately. I’ve noticed, so don’t you dare try and deny this shit because what else would you have been writing?I heard you, too. I even saw you get up in the middle of the night, and I saw you grab something from the medicine cabinet in the kitchen - they were sleeping pills, right? Like, I don’t wanna accuse you of anything but you- you haven’t needed those in months and I heard you crying after you went back to your room. You tried to act normal when I opened the door to check up on you, but... I saw the guilty look on your face. I brushed it off as being tired or overworked but that- that was the moment, wasn’t it? That’s when you were gonna do it-““Nat, stop,” Zane says, and Natalie didn’t realise that the volume of her voice had been slowly elevating until now. She stops talking and blinks, glancing around the room to ground herself, and when her eyes land on David once again her heart sinks to her stomach. She wishes Zane had told her to shut the fuck up sooner.David clearly isn’t ready to talk about it. He’s trying not to cry again, that much is obvious. He has a hand covering his mouth and he looks downright scared, his eyes darting back and forth between everyone around him as if they’re a group of strangers rather than a group of his closest friends. His body is in fight-or-flight mode and he starts to freak out, hysteria rising in his throat before he can even attempt to get it under control.David knows he has to make a choice. He knows he has to choose between agreeing with Natalie or denying everything, and in the end it’ll only be his word against hers, anyway. His friends are either going to believe him or believe Natalie, and she wasn’t the one who just openly announced her suicidal tendencies for no reason, was she?He doesn’t know what answer to give when Jason finally asks him for one.“Dave? Is what Natalie said true?”“I-“ David’s words get caught in his throat, and after a few moments of silent panic, his body decides to make the choice for him.He starts moving before he can even register what he’s doing.
He doesn’t have to give anyone an answer if he leaves. He doesn’t have to say anything if he avoids the conversation altogether.
David is up and at it in a millisecond, grabbing his phone and keys from the coffee table in front of him. He moves quick, and he almost gets to the door, but apparently Heath moves just as fast because suddenly someone is taking ahold of David’s shirt from behind. Heath pulls him to a halt and stands in front of him, and even though David knows that he’s only trying to help, there’s now something blocking the only real way out.David looks back and forth between Heath’s face and the exit, and his brain completely short circuits.He’s trapped.“Heath, move. Move, I have to go, I can’t- I need to get out-“David’s words come out choked and he makes a noise of discomfort when Heath reaches out to touch him. He hears Scott shout “don’t touch him, you’ll make it worse,” from the couch and makes a mental note to thank the guy later because breathing is slowly becoming harder and harder to do and David really doesn’t need that extra stress right now.He goes to ask for Natalie or Jason, goes to reach out and say that he needs them but as soon as their names form on the tip of his tongue he remembers that now, he can’t. He can’t ask for their help anymore because they both know how fucked up he is - even if he denies being suicidal, everyone still knows. Natalie said so herself - they’ve all noticed how sad he’s been lately and they all know how much he’s struggling and David doesn’t know what to do, all he knows is that he has to fix this.He has to do something.He turns around to face the crowd of people before he starts to speak, completely disregarding the fact that his back is now to Heath and he still can’t breathe properly.“She was lying,” David sputters, his voice coming out broken and desperate at the same time. “I mean, Nat, seriously? Why would you even say shit like that? I’m all good, I swear, I don’t know what even gave you the idea that I‘m suicidal-““Show us your laptop, then.”The “you gave us the idea when you admitted that you were gonna kill yourself, David,” remains unsaid and all heads turn towards the new speaker. Erin continues to stare at David, somehow softening her voice when she continues to talk and she sounds empathetic. She barely sounds shocked by the situation and David is taken aback for a second. “What?” His voice is rougher than anticipated.“Let us see the video you were working on last night.”David’s eyes dart around the room for his computer, only to realise that it’s still in Natalie’s hands. She was booking them flights earlier, and David knows that she could easily make her way around the device if she wanted to. She knows his password, knows exactly where his editing software is, knows exactly where his files are.She knows exactly where to look.David and Natalie make eye contact for a split second. He quickly looks back to Erin and both of his friends are wearing the same expression - something akin to sadness and worry and sympathy - and he’s stuck between a rock and a hard place. Heath is stationed behind him, blocking his only way out of the house. The rest of his friends are in front of him, looking at him expectantly and waiting for him to make a decision. His laptop is in Natalie’s hands and the pills that she mentioned earlier are still shoved haphazardly in his bed-side drawer.He either has to come clean or let something else do it for him, and David doesn’t think he can stand watching anyone read the goodbye-letters he wrote or raid his bedroom for a bottle of tablets. He manages to take one breath. He gets one moment of silence before every mental wall that he’s built up over the years comes crashing down at the same time.“I’m so fucking sorry, guys-“ David cries, and it’s such a stark difference from his stance a few moments ago that everyone else in the room freezes. Heath finally puts an outstretched hand on his shoulder and David crumbles beneath the touch, turning around to bury his face into the other man’s shirt because he can’t look at anyone right now.Heath’s arms hesitantly wrap around him, and even though his eyes are shut and his words are mumbled, only a few minutes pass before David continues to talk.“I’m sorry. Natalie was right, I- everything she said was true, and I don’t know what I was thinking. I don’t know why I randomly mentioned it earlier and I don’t know why I considered it but I did-“ “Hey, it’s okay Dave. You can calm down,” Heath tries to reassure him, but David pulls back and frantically looks at his friend. His expression is hollow and pained and Heath’s eyes travel past David to glance at everyone else, his gaze only moving back to David when the latter starts to speak again. “No,” he whispers, “you don’t get it, I’m so-“ David cuts himself off, stepping out of Heath’s reach and crossing his arms. He leans back against the counter and looks down, subtly picking a specific part of the floor to stare at.This time when David speaks, it’s loud enough for everyone to hear him, and he tries his best to ignore the fact that he’s the centre of attention.“I’m so fucked up, guys,” he sniffles, but keeps going. “Like, here I am with this big ass house and this expensive ass car and over 10 million people supporting my videos, and yet I can’t go more than a few days without wanting to fucking die. It’s- I don’t even have a real reason, so I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with me. I feel so fucking sad and anxious and stressed all the time, like every second of my useless fucking life, but if I’m not completely overwhelmed then I’m completely numb instead. I just- I needed it all to stop, okay? Either that or, on the off chance that I did survive, a reason to give myself a break because I can’t- I can’t do this shit anymore.”His words bounce around the room, heavy and urgent and since no one really knows what to say, David cries a little harder as he continues speaking.“You- you don’t have to pity me. I know you guys are sick of my shit at this point and honestly? I would be too. I deserve everything that’s coming to me so don’t- don’t-“ David chokes again, and he knows that he’s out of words because the next thing that comes out of his mouth is a poorly-concealed sob.“That isn’t true, David,” Jason responds, and it sounds like he’s crying too but David isn’t sure because his eyes are still glued to the ground.“Yeah,” Carly joins in, “I’m not a doctor but- that sounds like depression, Dave. That’s not your fault, you’re not fucked up and you definitely don’t deserve to feel this way.”Erin hums in agreement and David whimpers, trying (and failing) to control his emotions because no, you’re wrong, I deserve to feel this way and I deserve to die-“You don’t need a reason to feel like shit. The bottom line is that you’re hurting and we all hate seeing you upset - you’ve clearly been struggling for a while, and I don’t know why you think you’re alone in this, but you’re not. I mean fuck, dude, I fucking get you, and just because I’m going through this shit, that doesn’t mean that you can’t too. We care about you so much, we love you so much... you don’t have to hide everything from us all the time.”David finally looks up once Scott’s finished talking, and he fully takes in his surroundings. He looks over to his friends and his heart aches, almost constant tears rolling down his face because he can tell - he can tell they’re telling the truth. Jason and Natalie are crying and Scott is looking at him with a sad smile and for the first time in a long time, David doesn’t feel like a total waste of space. His friends are here, they’re still here despite the fact that David just entirely poured his heart out to them and he embraces the feeling of Heath’s hand on his back as he’s guided back towards the beanbag he was originally sitting on. He listens to whatever the rest of the group has to say in regards to his mental health, as more tears are shed and more hugs are shared, David doesn’t think he’s ever felt so loved.“Thank you,” he eventually says, and his head aches from crying but at least the constant weight on his chest has been altered slightly. “I really mean it, I- you guys didn’t have to tell me any of that, you actually didn’t have to give a fuck at all, and if I’m being completely honest - I still feel like shit. At least now, though, I can- I know that I can talk to you guys about it. Instead of, you know, killing myself or something.”Scott snickers at the poorly timed joke, and David smiles when the rest of the group berates him for it.“I think we’d all be pretty shitty friends if we didn’t give a fuck about you dying,” Scott says once he’s done laughing, and even though the topic of conversation becomes slightly lighter after that, David still feels better. They don’t talk about absolutely everything - nobody brings up David’s suicide letters or the panic attack he had or the fact that therapy might be a smart option for him - but they let him know that they care about him and they help him establish a new uploading schedule and when he wakes up the next day, the amount of sharp objects and sleeping pills in his house has dramatically declined.As much as he appreciates the gestures, though, David is still nowhere near being okay yet. He tells his friends this much before he falls asleep - I mean, he was still going to kill himself last night - but at least now he’s actually fucking trying to get better, and that’s a pretty good place to start.