happily ever after

He used to believe in happy endings, but that had been when he was young and stupid.

Now, now he believed in pain. Pain was the only reality, and he would laugh at anybody who said otherwise. Love, hate, beauty, truth, good versus evil. All these things were passing trends, brief moments of human insanity. Pain and death, the only universals. Everything hurt. Everything died. Pain was the only way he knew he was alive.

His hands began to shake again, and he had to let go of the coffee cup. It fell and shattered, white ceramic shards mixing with the dark, bitter brew. Keith looked at it from between his legs, hands clenching the edge of the table so hard that drops of bright blood splattered and mixed with the mess beneath him.

Fuck. He was so not worth this.

"Keith? Are you all right?" Somebody asked. Their voices were blurring together in his head, and he didn't have the strength to look up. He didn't really have the strength to do much of anything right now.

"He's just, um, getting over a cold."

And that had to be Lance, because Lance was the only one he had told. Or, rather, Lance had walked in on him while he was shooting up, and freaked out in big way and made him promise to quit.

It really was for Lance that he was trying to quit, because Lance loved him, really, he did, and not just in that I-love-you-let's-fuck way that most people loved Keith. So he was quitting for Lance and the fact that it was probably a good idea to be clean all of the time instead of just that month before the annual Garrison screening. So, really, this was all for his own good, and it was because Lance loved him and he loved Lance, and he just had to keep telling himself that, but that still didn't stop the fact that he felt like he was dying.

A muted conversation went on above his head, and Keith closed his eyes because if he didn't he was going to hurl. So he concentrated on the sharp bite of the table beneath his hands.

A hand touched his arm, urged him to stand, led him to the door and Keith was quite proud of the fact that he managed to get into the hallway and out of sight of the others before he collapsed.

"Oh Keith."

Strong, wiry arms scooped him up, and Keith wrapped his arms around Lance's neck and pushed his face against Lance's warm chest. Oh, God, he hurt so much.

"It'll get better, Keith. I promise it will."

And that made Keith want to laugh, because how the fuck could Lance know if it would 'get better'? But instead he listened to Lance's steady heart, and concentrated on the warm, dryness of his skin, so unlike his own rapid, fluttering heart and clammy, sweating skin.

The halogen lights of the hallway hurt his eyes and seemed to pierce his mind. He wanted to whimper, but his throat was so tight, so dry.

He hurt.

Then there was darkness, and that was just as bad as the light. It was so dark, so dark, dark like some of his really, really bad trips were back when he hadn't been too serious and was taking acid.

Lance put him on the bed, wrapped the cuts on his hands, stripped him out of clothes that were already damp with sweat, and if Keith hadn't been so sick he would have pulled Lance down onto the bed with him. Damn, but sex was fucking fantastic when he was high. He kind of wondered if just plain old sex would be any good in comparison. He wondered if fucking Lance would get his mind off the need.

"Listen to me, Keith. This is a good thing you're doing. This is only going to help you, okay?" Lance's long fingered hands made strange patterns on Keith's fevered skin, and his low, slow voice made the muscles in Keith's back unclench, slightly. "I love you so much, Keith. I love you." His lips were in Keith's sweaty hair, and Keith supposed that this was all supposed to make him feel better.

It wasn't.

"Do you need anything?"

At that, Keith really did laugh, short and barking. There were so many answers to that question. So many answers, and he didn't think Lance would find a single one amusing. "Go away."

"Keith."

"Go away, Lance."

"No, Keith."

Lance's voice was firm, and Keith knew that he was thinking that if he went away now, Keith would just hit one of his secret caches and shoot up. Well, guess what. He was right. But Lance had probably found them all by now, or Keith had probably used them all, so it was really a moot point anyway.

"If you don't leave right now, I’m going to fucking hit you." Ooh, big threat from the trembling, sick, weak, waste of flesh that can't even manage to fucking roll over.

"I'm not leaving."

Fuck. Now he was really going to have to hit Lance, because Keith didn't make idle threats.

So he found the strength, somewhere, to roll over and swing and his knuckles clipped Lance's jaw, and it was really a combination of luck and the fact that Lance was completely unprepared that he even connected. But, it looked like it hurt, and it got Lance's attention, and damn it felt good. He wanted to hit Lance again, marveled at this sudden surge of energy, manhandled the other man outside of the room and locked the door.

Damn. Hot damn. That. That was good.

Lance was pounding at the door, but he didn't have the key, so he'd have to get Pidge to short the system before he could get it, which gave Keith a good half hour. He wasn't going to waste a single second of that time.

Even though he knew it was futile, he began to look. After all, Lance couldn't have found all of the hiding places. Sure, he found the one behind the picture of his parents, and the one in the bookcase, and the one in the trophy, and even the five he hid under his bed, and Keith had to admit that he was quite impressed by the fact that Lance found the one he kept in the hollow post of his bed. But that still left the one in the bathroom, hidden in water tank.

No, the fucker got that one too. Or had Keith already used it? He couldn't remember anymore.

But, fuck, that meant that he wasn't going to be able to feed the need that ate a hole in his stomach and heart. He couldn't fill the absent spaces that made him tremble like a leaf in a gale. And that made him so fucking angry at Lance that he had to hit something, and since Lance wasn't there, he hit the mirror that mocked him with his sick, sweating reflection. He put his fist through the glass and into the wall, and there was pain.

Glorious pain. Pain that made the ache of need disappear for a moment subsumed by the agony of fire the surround his fist.

Yes. Yes, this was it. This was the solution.

Pain.

Keith looked around, looked for other ways to hurt himself. There, the glass door of the shower.

Both fists went through the streaked pane, and when he pulled them back the streams of blood surprised him. He didn't think he had that much blood left, not when so many veins had already collapsed on him.

He stumbled out of the bathroom, leaving bloody handprints on the walls and door. He didn't care, didn't care about anything right now except finding some way to make his soul stop hurting and crying for the sweet salve it knew too well.

His room was trashed, and he wondered for a moment, because he couldn't remember throwing that chair, ripping that pillow, smashing that lamp.

He felt so weak.

His legs couldn't hold him up anymore, so he sat, then slumped, then lay on the cold floor.

Keith turned his hands over, looked at the bright red lines that oozed down his white skin. He probably nicked a vein there, must be that one that oozed too quickly which meant his heart was still pumping, but he didn't really care anymore.

A half an hour before Lance returned. Maybe more, because Pidge would want to know why Lance needed to get into Keith's room, and Lance wouldn't want to give out the truth, not right away.

How much of that time had already slipped away?

So sleepy.

Keith closed his eyes and wondered why nobody told him that sometimes this was how people died. Needlessly, stupidly, killed by their body's own greed.

How was it that the old stories ended?

Ah yes. And they all lived.

Happily.

Ever.

After.

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