Farf was gone off to God knows where with that woman from Rosenkreuz, and Nagi had been working for Mamoru for months. Brad had been all I had, and once he was gone I couldn't hold myself together. I had nothing to distract me from the loss. No friends, no job. Schwarz had been my life since I was a teenager. Schwarz had been my friends, family, and livelihood all in one.
Brad had always been there telling me what to do. It sounds pitiful, but once he was gone I was lost. I had no purpose, not even to support myself, thanks to Nagi's computer hacking. He'd set up anonymous accounts for us long ago in case we were even in need of money. With the slow filter he'd set up years ago, I was literally set for life. Not that it seemed that my life would last much longer anyway, the way I had been there for a few months.
During that first week after Brad died, I went back to our apartment and did nothing. When I say nothing, I mean nothing. It was like my brain, including all self-preservation instincts, shut down. I walked in, laid out across the bed, and didn't move for five days.
On the fifth day Nagi showed up. He had seemed angry about something. . . I think he had been calling and I had not answered. I'm not sure. I hadn't heard the phone ring. Then again, I had not heard him banging on the door, either. He had eventually had to bust the lock with his power.
By the time he had gotten there, between my injuries from the fight and me not eating or drinking for five days, I was barely able to move. I had already passed out twice before he got there, and was disappointed both times when I woke up. Every time I felt my mind inching towards that black nothingness I prayed it was the last time.
Nagi took me to a Kritiker facility, where they treated my wounds and malnutrition. I had tried to tell him no, but trying to physically avoid a telekinetic when you haven't eaten for five days isn't exactly easy. By the time they were discussing putting me in the psyche ward, I was well enough to argue my way out of it. I'm a telepath, for God's sake, what good could the psyche ward do me?
I had gone home with the promise that I would eat on a regular basis. I used the money in the account to buy food, but I was soon spending more of it on drugs and alcohol than anything edible. The food couldn't make me forget about Brad. . . of course, neither could the drugs, but they could get me to the point where I just did not care anymore.
Ah, that blissful apathy. Not caring if anyone I had ever loved was alive or dead, not caring if I lived or died. . . I still miss that feeling sometimes. Life is always so much easier when you just don't care. It may not make you happy, but at least it keeps you from feeling that aching sadness that fills every fiber of your being. There's still a distant ache, but once you reach a certain point, you can't remember why it's there.
Nagi stuck me in Rehab centers a couple of times, but I always got inside the doctors' brains and convinced them that I had never had a problem to begin with. As soon as they let me out, I was back on the drugs again. I think I tried everything there is to try, always hoping one would make me forget everything.
The first time I overdosed, it was Nagi once again who stepped in. He came in every few days to check on me, and he just happened to stop by the day I would have died if he had not found me. He had rushed me to the hospital, where they managed to keep me in my miserable existence a little while longer. I was less than grateful to Nagi when he came to visit. He was simply angry that I had allowed myself to get that far gone.
Once again I was admitted into a rehab center, and once again I twisted the doctors' minds so that I was released within hours. Of course, I went straight back to my old ways, immediately searching out something stronger, something more potent and more deadly. After that first overdose, Nagi started coming by to check on me every day. I was resentful of him at the time. Why should he care whether I lived or died? Wasn't that my choice?
I don't even remember the events leading up to the second overdose. I must have found something really strong that time, for me not to even remember buying the stuff. Whatever it was, it landed me in the hospital again, and once again Nagi was at my side, but this time was different. Instead of the pissy mother hen I had grown accustomed to, he was in tears.
Nagi. In tears. Crying. Because of me. Even as I struggled to wake up from whatever it was those doctors had pumped me full of, it was the first thing I was aware of; a dampness on my hand that was being clutched tightly in his under his bowed head.
"Please, Schu," he begged, obviously thinking me still asleep. "Stop this. . . I can't take it anymore. First Farf leaves and then Brad. . . they're not coming back. Brad can't. I love Omi with all my heart but I need you here too! You're all that's left of Schwarz. . . All that's left of my family. I know you miss Brad. . . I do too, but he wouldn't want this! He wouldn't want you to tear yourself apart. He wouldn't want me to have to lay awake every night wondering if the next day I'd find you dead. . ." At that point he couldn't continue and dissolved into sobs.
No matter how badly he was scared or injured, Nagi never cried. In all the years I had known the kid, and practically raised him, I could count on one hand the number of times he had shed even a single tear, and have fingers left over. And now he was sobbing. . . because of me.
I squeezed his hand a bit to get his attention and resorted to mental speech when I found my throat dry from the oxygen tube.
I'll try, chibi. I can't promise anything else. . . but I'll try.