(A/Ns: wow, look at me, updating in like... only 19 days. for some reason, writing Leo swearing is so strange. oh, and after writing it so many times, you'd think i was used to writing withdrawal right now. but im not. it still makes me super sad.

please drop a review if you can! :D

content warnings: drugs, smoking, withdrawal, vomiting (more of it), mentions of diarrhoea i think, swearing, violence, mentions of overdose, implications of suicide. yes, im portraying opiate withdrawal as it, unfortunately, is.

disclaimer: i do not own Pandora Hearts or any of the characters)


Chapter 11

Finally – finally – that car journey from hell was coming to an end.

Fortunately, the journey had only taken them another 20 minutes or so. But in that time, Leo had managed to successfully cry more tears than Elliot knew was humanly possible, and had had to ask his mother to pull over once again. Which was, sure enough, spent with him hunched over at the side of the dual carriageway, throwing up, with Elliot holding his hair back and trying so desperately not to cringe.

So, really, it was a miracle they even made it back.

The moment they pulled up to the driveway, Leo shot up, scrambling out of the car and slamming the door on Elliot. As expected, he didn't utter a single word to his mother, who still appeared to be supressing tears behind a barely-present façade of "I'm fine".

"Y-You can leave him, if you want…" she whispered, the quiver in her words gut-wrenchingly obvious. "He… I-I have to go back to work, but um…"

"He needs me there," Elliot said, lacking the confidence he'd intended to add when he planned those words. Because the truth was, he wasn't confident. Not in the slightest. And the hand he placed on the door handle was shaking. "I'll… I'll go now."

Hastily, Emma nodded, chewing her lower lip at the sight of Leo tripping over himself all the way from the car to the front door. She felt to blame, entirely; purely for not noticing when and how things went wrong.

Meanwhile, outside, Elliot had successfully caught up with Leo. By the time he had, however, Leo was more or less by the door anyway, with one hand wrapped around his stomach. He hunched over, leaning against the wall and tapping his foot impatiently.

"Open it," he said, and then promptly thrust the keys at Elliot with shaking hands. "Turn left. And hurry up."

"I'm trying!" Elliot yelped, struggling to turn the key as he'd been rather brusquely instructed to do. Eventually, though, he was able to open it.

The very second the door was open even a tiny bit, Leo shoved Elliot out the way, darting up the stairs with what little energy he had left. Elliot grimaced; he was either sick, or something else slightly grimmer. But regardless, he got the hint, and decided to leave him alone for the moment.

Everything was still a huge shock to him. The withdrawal, the hospital situation, the truly toxic relationship Leo had with his mother. And what was he doing during all of this? Helping him?

Absurd.

But when it came down to it, everything Leo had been forced into was his fault. He was the one who found the drugs. He was the one who'd told Break. He was the one who'd confronted him. And lastly, he was the one who'd told him to detox.

All of that was what he had to repeat to himself every goddamn time he questioned internally why the hell he was doing this. And it was a question he'd had to ask himself a lot.

Instead of dwelling on it again, however, Elliot simply took a deep breath, and refocused his attention on the task at hand.

First and foremost was where Leo would want to stay for the next 72 hours. His bathroom was upstairs, but his room didn't really give much space for the two of them.

… maybe he should just leave that decision up to Leo.

Instead, he stayed with the simple stuff, drawing in another deep breath and proceeding to the kitchen. Their lack of... well, things truly transcended what Elliot had initially believed. They only had 3 bottles of water left, and a tiny bucket under the sink which would have to suffice. Really, Elliot was thankful that they weren't too short of cleaning supplies, because, for some reason, his gut instinct was telling him they'd need them.

Upstairs was looking no more promising. The bathroom door was bolted shut, and Elliot could probably hear a pin drop with how silent it was. Silent, and off-putting.

Tentatively, he knocked on the bathroom door. "Leo? Are you-?"

"Give me a second!" he called out, and Elliot wasn't sure if his tone was supposed to convey aggression, or pain. Probably both, actually. "And don't you dare come in here!"

Taking the hint once again, Elliot proceeded to his bedroom. His stuff was all over the place, but given the state Leo usually left his room in, he didn't have much incentive to try and tidy up a bit.

No less than a minute later, Leo returned. His footsteps were totally silent, and Elliot wouldn't have noticed he'd even returned if he hadn't have thrown the glass of water from the shelf at him.

"Hey!" he yelped, turning around to find Leo already sprawled across the bed and entangled in the sheets like he'd done nothing wrong. "What the hell was that for?!" Then, his view focused, and he finally saw the tears falling down his face, and the shaking which wracked his entire frail form. Thus, once again, Elliot was speechless. "Oh…"

"This is your fault," Leo muttered, his voice breaking midway through the accusation.

"I-I know, and I'm sorry," Elliot apologised, trying his best to sound sincere. He knew he was in pain, and suffering. But for his own sake, as well, he had to do this. He sighed, and softened his tone. "Is there anything I can get?"

"40 milligrams of Oxy…" Leo grunted, burying his face in the crevasse of his mountain of pillows.

"… perhaps not…" Elliot was unsure of how to even respond to that. "Do you, um, want to go downstairs?"

"No," Leo blatantly refused, shooting an uneasy glance at the door. "I'm staying within running distance of the bathroom for now."

"O-Ok…" Elliot stammered. He paused for a moment.

"To be as polite as possible," Leo said bluntly, making it inherently obvious that what he was about to say was not polite. "Piss off."

Elliot obliged wordlessly.

Having time to themselves couldn't hurt – for either of them, that was.

He hoped that much, at least.


It had been more or less six hours since Elliot had last seen Leo conscious.

After leaving him earlier, he'd decided to make things easier for himself, simply by distracting himself with the mountain of unfinished assignments he had. Usually, in a normal week, he'd complete all homework the day it was set.

This week, however, had not been a very normal week.

Every couple of hours or so, despite trying to work, Elliot had surrendered to his persistent, frankly irritating worrying, and gone to check on Leo, only to find that he was still passed out. Passed out, tangled around the sheets, and shaking and sweating more than Elliot knew was possible.

It was now 5pm, and after an entire day of work, he was left with nothing to do.

Conveniently (or perhaps the opposite), at that moment, the sound of hurried footsteps pattering against the floor above him loudened. He sighed, faceplanting the table before checking his watch.

If Leo hadn't taken the opioid blocker – which after in-depth research, he finally understood – he wouldn't even have finished the acute withdrawal yet, considering it hadn't been longer than 24 hours since his last dose. Or "fix", you could say.

However, unfortunately, he had taken the opioid blocker, meaning it was impossible to track how far into the process he was, and likewise, how much longer it would be.

With another heavy, exhausted sigh, Elliot stood up, stretching lethargically before dragging a hand through his hair and preparing himself for whatever onslaught of verbal abuse he'd receive when he attempted to offer the other help.

Once he was upstairs, Leo was exactly where he'd expected to find him: hunched over the toilet, with his head heavily over the bowl. His breaths were sharp, and wracked, his entire form trembling as his knuckles gripped the side of the bowl until they turned white. What was unusual about this time was that both doors were wide open.

It took about a minute for Leo to stop throwing up, and be able to form coherent sentence without passing out. Wavering, he panted, and spoke with painfully evident breathlessness in his words. "Don't come near me," he said, swallowing back another retch. "And leave… the bed as it is. I'll… clean it later."

Internally, Elliot bluntly scoffed a very dismissive "fuck that". If Leo thought he was getting through this without any help, then he'd be damned.

Even if it was grim, and disgusting, like he was sure it would be, Elliot merely reminded himself that this was his fault.

"Don't be stupid," he said, proceeding to bathroom and holding his breath as he poured a glass of water and handed it to Leo. Gratefully, Leo took the glass, immediately lowering the hand holding the drink onto the toilet seat; he didn't have enough strength to hold it, and only seeing this made Elliot feel somehow worse. If that were even possible at this point.

Before Leo could protest, Elliot headed straight for the bedroom.

"I said, don't go i-"

As expected Leo yelled after him anyway, but was brusquely cut off by a harsh gag.

Once he stepped past the threshold, it became obvious how the last couple of hours he'd spent unattended had actually gone. And internally, Elliot felt infuriated that he hadn't even tried to call for help.

Firstly, there was vomit. A lot of it. Clearly, his strength hadn't been enough for him to make it to the bathroom until now. And there were the sheets, soaked in a foul-smelling mixture of sweat and God-knows-what-else. Elliot grimaced; he didn't really want to think about what else, because he was fairly certain what it was and really didn't want to think about it.

Instead, he pinched his nose, tried not to pay too much attention to the stained sheets, and peeled the covers and sheets off. Scrunched up into a ball, the sheets were no longer a painful reminder of the reality of the situation, and Elliot was able to take them downstairs and shove them in the washing machine without feeling even more guilty than he already did.

Then, when he spun around to leave the kitchen and return to Leo, he froze in his tracks, his heart pounding at the sudden click of the front door. And, sure enough, stepping through the door was his mother, the worry-stricken expression still cast across his face.

"Oh, h-hi," Elliot jumped out of his skin a little, shifting where he stood on the spot. "Sorry, I wasn't… really expecting you, t-to be honest."

"Yes, well… um… my boss… refused to let me go home," she confessed, sheepishly, as she closed the door behind her and faced Elliot. "How… um, how has he been?"

Elliot drew in a deep breath, and spent at least 5 seconds forming his response, only for him to choke out one word rather pathetically. "Decent…"

Concern returned to her gaze. "I've been worried sick about him, especially since I'm not sure, you know… what he's even taking…"

"Yeah…" Stupid response.

"Thank you for doing this. Really, I-I mean that." With anguish and guilt still clear in her eyes, she somehow cracked a smile, regardless. "I want to be there for him, but I think it's just a little… a little too late for-"

"Get out."

Both their heads whipped around to the source of the noise the moment it sounded, and Emma began to tremble visibly. As they'd mutually known, it was Leo, who'd changed clothes since the incident only recently and at some point rolled a cigarette, which was now clutched between two fingers in his right hand.

"L-Leo," she said, trying to smile but ultimately failing. "I-I'm sorry I had to work. But please, l-let me help y-"

"I said, get the fuck out!" Leo yelled again, descending two steps nearer to the bottom. "You have no idea what this is like for me! So if you really want the self-satisfaction of thinking you've helped me in some way, get out!"

Her mouth dropped open, but before she could utter a single word, the glass of water in Leo's left hand was promptly launched at her. It narrowly missed her head, instead smashing against the door and crumbling onto the floor into a hundred shards of glass.

With little left to say or do, Emma turned around and left again, and the tears evident in her eyes prodded at Elliot's guiltiness even more.

"You shouldn't have done that," Elliot scolded, folding his arms over.

Leo, however, had totally frozen, his eyes widening behind the glasses which barely clung to his face anymore. Then, in a split second, he cursed "shit" under his breath, dropped the cigarette, and darted back upstairs.

Exhaling, Elliot took the hint, and once again left him be for a bit. After retrieving a bucket, towel, and a bottle of water, only then did he follow him back upstairs, picking up and pocketing the cigarette under the premise that'd he'd need it at some point or another.

Surprisingly, Leo wasn't crouched in front of (or on) the toilet this time, but was rather in his bed already, curled around a towel and shaking like there was no tomorrow.

His breathing was unsteady, but at least he was asleep.

Without making a sound, Elliot crept over to the bed, laid down another towel, and placed the bucket on the floor beside the bed. Then, he cleaned out the bathroom, and made dinner for himself without once disturbing the other.

Surely that was the least he could do.


The whole ethos of doing all he could for Leo because this was supposedly his fault was beginning to crumble when Elliot was woken up at 4am.

To… screaming?

Groggily, he sat up, a dizzy spell hypnotising him for a few seconds. Outside was pitch black, the bitter nightly breeze cutting through the open windows. He shivered, tried to lie back down, and then heard Leo screaming again.

Great…

Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, Elliot soon mustered up the courage to stand up, and go and check on Leo.

His muscles ached, and a dull headache had accumulated in his forehead, making him wince at the light at the top of the stairs; not to mention the throbbing pain he experienced in his head whenever Leo screamed again. This should've only been just over 24 hours.

But no – Leo had taken this stupid opioid-blocker. So, in actuality, this was more like 48 hours. And Elliot hung onto that thought when he stepped into Leo's bedroom and prepared himself for the state he'd be in.

Sure enough, what he discovered transcended what any online diary would tell you about opiate withdrawal.

Like earlier, Leo was curled up on the bed, tears visibly streaming down his face. His head was effectively buried in his chest, his entire body hunched. Hands trembling, he clutched his stomach in agony. The epitome of suffering really, only amplified by the sweat coating his pale, clammy skin.

Elliot merely sighed; ultimately – no matter how shitty it sounded – he'd been desensitised to this. Despite all that, however, concern was still evident in his words. "What's wrong now?"

It took a few seconds for Leo to snap out of his hysterical state, turn over, and shoot a vicious, piercing, some may say threatening glare at Elliot. But the moment he twisted, he winced, hissing through gritted teeth as more tears escaped from his eyes when he blinked. "Cramps…" His voice cracked. It was inherently obvious how frustrated he was growing from this. "And my back. Shit."

A sickening feeling in Elliot's gut told him he should've questioned that, but instead, all he could muster up the courage to do was silently traipse over to Leo. Perching on the side of the bed, he tentatively lifted a hand, dragging his fingers through Leo's hair.

Leo winced. He was far too weak, mind you, at this point to resist. His breaths turned shallow, and Elliot thought for a moment he might throw up again; the bucket was almost full. He grimaced, however – fortunately – Leo didn't move a single muscle. Too painful, he assumed.

"Do you… want to come downstairs?" Elliot wrinkled his nose at the state of the bedroom. A scenery change would most likely benefit both of them.

Just barely, Leo nodded, sniffing before drawing in a deep breath to calm himself. It was a futile attempt, but at least he was able to stop sobbing. Shivering still, he allowed Elliot to cover his shaking form with yet another blanket. Then, with idle, glazed eyes, he watched Elliot leave, bringing the bucket with him and visibly holding his breath.

Meanwhile, it took Elliot at least 5 minutes to clean out and bleach that goddamn bucket, gagging under breath at the smell everywhere. His nerves really wore thin, but complaining about his trivial, first world problems to Leo would just be mean.

So, he (reluctantly) bit them back, and traipsed downstairs, all the while mentally preparing himself for the ambush of aggressive insults and whining he expected to receive once again.

What he found at the bottom of the stairs was more or less the opposite.

Leo hadn't made it to the lounge. Instead, he'd collapsed, and had curled up against the bottom step, barely conscious but still shaking horribly. His breathing was wracked, strained, painful.

Wordlessly, Elliot extended an arm to him, crouching down to meet his eye level. Remaining totally still, Leo only just opened one eye to glance at the other. His eyebrows furrowed; even half conscious, he was evidently bitter at the other.

Nevertheless, he grabbed Elliot's hand, allowing himself to be hauled up and dragged over to the sofa. And he collapsed yet again, landing on Elliot's lap with an audible thump.

Elliot rolled his eyes internally at the first sign of tears.

No. He had to stay patient. He was the whole reason for this.

It was strange to see Leo's guard so down. He'd become so accustomed to him being snappy, snarky, but guarded. Whatever he felt inside would be covered with a humorous, sarcastic façade. So, to see him cry like this was… uncharacteristic. And concerning, really; Elliot did want to fathom how bad this had actually gotten, to the point where all he could do was sob incoherently.

And cry he did.

It must've been an hour and a half before Leo stopped sobbing, Elliot having almost fallen asleep multiple times. But instead, neither had said a single word, Elliot simply running his fingers through his matted, dishevelled hair, and Leo crying to himself into Elliot's lap.

It didn't seem right.

But once again, all Elliot could do was remind himself that he was the one who got Leo into this mess. So, rightfully, he had to deal with it.

Then, for the first time in an hour and a half, Leo silenced.

Elliot glanced right, the rising sun glinting through the windows, declaring officially that it was the next day. It was the next day. Which meant, somehow, with a miracle and a half, they're made it through the first day. He smiled, a slightly warm feeling spreading across his chest. They'd gotten through the first day.

That was progress, right?

Flitting his eyes back down to Leo, Elliot sighed internally.

Was this really progress?

"Are… you ready to tell me what that was all about?"

Leo, blinking the tears out of his eyes, exhaled a shaking breath, fiddling with a loose thread on the hem of his shirt. Sheepishly, he murmured, "I don't want to do this anymore."

Elliot's blood ran cold. "W-Why? We've gotten… so far."

"It hurts. Everything just hurts." His words were slowly turning to aggression. Impatience for Elliot's ignorance, he thought. "And this bullshit isn't even the hardest part. After this, you'll expect me to stay… clean."

"Would you really want to go through this again?"

Once again, Leo responded with that bitter, sarcastic laugh, which served as a warning to Elliot that he was pushing it. "You'd be surprised. I'd go to hell and back to use again."

"Right…" Elliot stammered.

At least his question had an answer now: they hadn't really made progress.

"Do you want to eat?"

"No."

"Too bad, you need to," Elliot countered, waiting for Leo to lean out of the way and slump back against the sofa. "What do you want?"

Leo didn't say anything for a moment, and then he froze, his eyes doubling in size behind the mop of hair covering his face. "The bucket."

"… right," Elliot said, hastily bringing the bucket and blankets downstairs from where they'd been thrown on his floor.

Then, blocking out the sounds from the living room, he proceeded to the kitchen, remembering he needed to take care of himself at some point in this process, as well.


It was now 10am, the morning having gone stupidly slowly.

Leo had, strangely, eaten. Of course, he'd thrown it up half an hour later, which was why Elliot was currently thoroughly cleaning the kitchen. Everything reeked of bleach.

Leo's mother hadn't returned since yesterday, either. Which meant Elliot was irascible, his patience very thin now. And the relentless headache which hadn't left since yesterday was only exacerbated by the fact Leo had spent the last 3 hours on the lounge, crying out in pain again. Every time Elliot intervened, or tried to ask what the problem was, all he got in response was a book being thrown across the room at him.

He guessed it was something to do with his back, given that he'd been hunched up in all sorts of weird positions. But he couldn't be sure, and whenever he asked – surprise, surprise – something was launched at him.

Currently, Leo was outside, wrapped up in several blankets after complaining he really needed a smoke. How he could pay attention to something so trivial in a time like this, Elliot had no clue.

Just as that thought crossed his mind, however, and he dropped the kitchen cloth, the front door slammed shut, followed by the sound of Leo's clumsy footsteps hastily ascending the stairs. Then, the bathroom door shut, echoing down the stairs, and Elliot sure enough got the hint.

He gave him five minutes, before finishing the cleaning and heading up the stairs. Just as he reached the top, the bathroom door clicked open.

Leo, leaning dependently on the door frame, staggered out, drenched in sweat and panting. Elliot physically wrinkled his nose; more cleaning would be in order, it seemed. And no matter how spoilt it sounded, he really wasn't used to doing these sorts of things, for others or himself.

"Do you want a bath?"

"No," Leo grunted, grabbing a random blanket from his bedroom floor and curling up on the bed, resuming his violent shivering. "Fuck. It's freezing."

"It's 25 degrees in here."

In response to that comment, Leo picked up the glass of water from the bedside table, and threw it at Elliot. Elliot visibly bit back a yelp, wordlessly wiping himself off.

The sound of heart wrenching sobs pulled his attention back to Leo, the other having become wracked with tears once again.

"Hey, look… I'm sorry," Elliot sighed. Overcome with guilt, he took two steps toward the other.

"It's not your fault," Leo spat, his voice breaking. He sniffed, but resumed crying a moment later. "I never asked for this to happen. This shouldn't have… happened to me."

Elliot was speechless. The other seemed to exponentially be getting worse, somehow, and no matter how he got into drugs, he did not deserve to be going through this.

Going through being so… broken. And desperate for just one thing, having become so distant from himself. And what for? He was never even high, right?

"There's no fucking point," Leo hissed, and Elliot cocked an eyebrow ever so slightly. He'd never heard Leo swear this much. He might have been unsettled, but he never conveyed that explicitly. The noirette sobbed again, and continued speaking. "I'd rather die that go through this shit, and that's not even an exaggeration. I'm sick of this shit already."

At that, Elliot froze.

"Now leave," he snarled, glaring daggers at Elliot. "You're not helping."

Wordlessly, and slightly hurt by Leo's comment, Elliot turned on his heel, and left; reminding himself that Leo was thinking, and speaking irrationally. Right?

Well, if detoxing had left him with nothing by aggression and thoughts of suicide, then he definitely hadn't been ready for this.


Now, Elliot was starting to get worried.

Over the past 24 hours, as things had progressively gotten worse and worse, the house had been more or less filled with Leo either screaming and crying out in agony, or running to and from the bathroom. That was normal. He could cope with that, and so he had – slightly irritably, at that.

The past 4 hours, however, right around from 3pm to now, had been filled with total silence. At 3pm or so, Leo had been asleep. And he was genuinely exhausted, so Elliot left him.

But now, he was worried. Why had Leo been so silent all of a sudden?

Usually, he would've spent his Sunday evening finishing work for the next day. Which, in all fairness, he had been trying to do. But the concern stirring in the pit of his stomach was far too distracting.

Because every shuffle, every creak, every sound from upstairs – he heard it.

Enough was enough. There was no chance Leo was still just asleep; this was supposed to be the worse stage.

As he began to climb the stairs, a wave of nausea washed over Elliot.

Opiate withdrawal wasn't deadly… right?

Surely he can't have died. He'd… he'd have asked for help if things got that bad, right?

… right?

Elliot swallowed, unable to convince himself so. Guilt overwhelmed him once again, so much so that he began to grow lightheaded.

His gaze fell on the bathroom door. It was locked.

"Leo…?" he called, fully aware of the tremble in his words.

The silence exacerbated his anxiety, but finally, after a terribly long pause, there was a quiet, almost inaudible shuffle and sniff from the bathroom. Miniscule, however enough to convince him that Leo was at least alive.

"Leo, what the hell are you doing in there?!" Elliot yelled after him, half out of frustration and half out of concern.

All there was in response was another shuffle, and then the distinct sound of…

Crying?

Elliot's heart began to beat needlessly faster. A sickening feeling of anxiety overcame him, and he approached the door, and positioned his hand over the handle and knocked lightly on the door; just to signal to the other that he was right outside.

But Leo did not respond.

"Leo?"

Silence, a shuffle, and another sob. Then, finally, he spoke.

"I gave up."

Elliot froze.

He hoped and prayed to whatever mythical deity was out there that Leo was joking in some way, but the raw, utter, shameful truth in his words said otherwise.

Anger and annoyance boiled up inside him, his fist clenching around the handle. "Open this door right now! After all the crap I've done for you, I rightfully deserve to know what's going on!"

The floor on the other side of the door creaked. Three seconds later, the door clicked, and was then slowly – hesitantly – pulled open by Leo.

Immediately, Elliot's eyes hastily scanned the other up and down. Something was definitely not right. His hands no longer shook. His skin was no longer glazed by a permanent sheen of sweat. His complexion was… well, not sickeningly pale.

And then his eyes flitted down, and he locked his gaze on the syringe in the corner of the bathroom.

The empty syringe.

Suddenly, it all made sense. It hit him like a sack of bricks, but it made sense.

Leo had relapsed.

And he felt his blood boil.

"Look, I know what you're thinking," Leo tried, holding his hands – his still hands – up in defence, staggering back a step. "Can I please explain myself?"

Elliot frowned, and furrowed his eyebrows at the other. Because he was utterly, undeniably, irrefutably pissed. "You have 30 seconds to explain yourself before I leave!"

"How the hell can you just leave when you're the one who dragged me into this shit?!" Leo snapped, retracing his step back and glaring accusingly up at Elliot with constricted pupils and a glare which bluntly screamed "fuck you". "Do you have any clue how hard any of that shit was for me?! I was shaking more than I even thought was possible! Did you even see the crap that was coming out of me?! I'm talking about both ends here, Elliot! You might've been helping me, but I'm the one who had to go through all that!"

"I have cleaned up your vomit, your sweat, your literal shit! Does that mean nothing to you?!"

"Of course it means something!" Leo screamed back, his voice cracking from the tears now pouring down his face. "But there's no way in hell you're getting my sympathy when I'm the one who was suffering!"

"We were in this together!" Elliot felt himself begin to tremble with the rage coursing through his veins. He felt useless, guilty, ashamed, upset – and this concoction of emotions combined with 3 hours of sleep was not good. "Fuck you, alright! You didn't even try!"

"The relapse rates of opiate addicts are over 90%! You were ignorant and naïve to assume I'd be able to do it first try. You were presumptuous, as always!"

"Where the hell did you even get the drugs?!" Elliot interrogated. "I was there when you flushed them, for Christ's sake!"

"I hid some, okay?! I-I had some of the… the pills from when I started, hence I didn't overdose… a-and they were hidden," Leo confessed, each and every one of his emotional walls breaking down within him. "I'm sorry-"

"No, I'm sorry. I clearly wasn't enough for you to get through this."

"Elliot, the drugs have absolutely nothing to do with you!" Leo tried, chasing him into his bedroom. "It took more than you to get me addicted to them, so it'll take more than you to get me off them! So stop trying to make this all about you!"

"I'm leaving," he declared, hurriedly snatching his belongings from the floor. "And you can't change my mind, so don't try! I'm exhausted, a-and emotionally drained! I don't care if this was hard on you as well! I have to take care of myself at some point! And… and I can't do that here when you've just gone back to slowly killing yourself!"

"I'm sorry, okay?! I'll try again! But please…" The sudden softness in Leo's words was heart-wrenching. "… don't leave! You're the only person I've ever felt something towards! You're the first person who's ever meant anything to me!"

The words he spoke were being poured directly from his heart, and Elliot could tell. But he was tired, remorseful beyond belief at everything he'd put Leo through, and fed up, and it just wasn't enough to convince him to stay.

And Leo was a mess, too.

Maybe they both needed some time away from each other.

"Goodbye, Leo," Elliot said, turning towards the stairs and proceeding straight in that direction. "W-When you're ready, we can… try this again…"

Then, without another word, he descended the stairs, the front door slamming shut a moment later.

With tear stains streaked down his face, Leo simply broke, exhaling a heavy sigh. His hands began to shake, but purely out of the self-hate and embarrassment he felt towards himself.

Supressing the urge to throw something or punch someone, he sauntered over the door, kicking it shut before grabbing his cigarettes from the shelf and pulling one out he'd already rolled. And, with it stuck between his lips, he lit it, breathing in deeper than he could ever remember.

The nicotine rush to his head was hardly enough to alleviate the burden of the friendship he'd just destroyed from the forefront of his mind.

He felt trapped. His life had been totally ruined at this point. There was no chance he'd ever break the horrid, bitter, vile cycle of addiction he was so deeply stuck in.

But Elliot had left now, anyway. None of that mattered.

And there was no point in being sober, either.

With hands which were no longer shaking, Leo picked up his phone from the bedside table, loading up the only conversation on his messages that mattered right now.

[To D, 19:17]
when can i get the next order