Author's note: TW: Lots of mentions of suicide and attempts at it this time. Shoot me a PM or leave a review if you would like a summary of this chapter. A real one.

Chapter Summary: Your name is Kankri Vantas and you feel like the world hates you.

Your week has been, in a word, horrible. You were told coming into college that things would be difficult. That being separated from your family would hurt a little. But no one ever told you about how much even your friends would change. About how all of you would move on from each other so to speak. But some of your friends still talk to each other. Just not to you.

Even Latula, who you've always loved in the most platonic of ways, has started to distance herself from you and your "preachy lectures" as apparently all of your so-called friends has started to call them.

Which, of course, you find incredibly offensive. They're not lectures, they are discussions. It just so happens that no one ever wants to chime on on your topics. That's all it is.

Or so you had told yourself in those first two months on campus.

Now it seems more like all of your friends are disinterested. No... That would be putting it lightly. They've been ignoring you. Some of them have called you terrible things, which you used to lecture them about. Actually lecture them about. But now you just sit there when they use those awful words and take it. You act like none of them have any effect on you, but they do.

They've affected you in such a way that you've been having trouble getting out of bed every day. That going out into the world seems like a chore. That even talking is difficult. No one seems to notice the difficulties that you're having or how little you're eating. None of them seem to understand the black pit growing inside of you.

You tell yourself that you aren't depressed. That you're too well off to be depressed. You have a loving, caring family and you have never wanted for anything save social reform. But it gets harder to tell yourself that when nothing makes you smile anymore. When nothing seems to mean anything. When you're so completely and utterly alone.

But, strangely, there has been one person there for you. Late at night, when you should be sleeping soundly, you listen to the school's radio station. And the host whose voice seems to just draw you in is the only one who has a dub-step hour. You've never really cared for the genre, but the cadence of his voice just draws you in.

For the first two months of school, you just listened. You only caught his show once in a great while during a late night study session. But this past week you steeled your resolve and called in the night you'd settled to follow through with your Plan.

You went to the bridge outside of campus on one of the coldest nights of the year and sat there, staring at the icy water while you spoke to him.

And he told you that he would miss you if you did it. He told you that you were wonderful. No one had said that to you in so long and it all felt something like fate. So you just sat on the bridge after the call had ended and he had called you love and you just cried. You still aren't sure how long you cried, but eventually someone pulled over. He was like someone out of a dream, all ethereal with such a stark contrast between his skin and his hair and a face like some kind of god.

But it wasn't his appearance that changed your mind. He stopped and made sure that you were okay. He asked what was wrong and why you were there and it seemed like he genuinely cared. So when he gave you his jacket and drove you back to the dorms, you couldn't help but to be just a little happy. Someone had cared enough to help you.

It gave you just a little hope.

But today hasn't gone any better than yesterday. You went through your classes and were ignored by your friends, taunted by the ones that you did talk to, and you still feel the same way.

The end of the day brings you to the conclusion that you should just go for a walk. A nice, long walk. But you don't want to do it until you finish your coursework. You'd put it all off with your Plan, but now you needed to do it.

And at the same time tonight as last, you call him.

And the two of you talk and he calls you love again and he makes you feel like you're the only person in the world that he wants to talk to. And as you talk to him, you decide to go for that walk. There's a party on your floor and it's preventing you from getting anything done anyway, so you pull on the stranger's jacket and just walk. You walk until your feet are freezing and you just talk to him.

Until he has to go, that is.

But when he hangs up you just keep walking and eventually you come to a park. It's farther than you'd gone last night and there's a bench under a gazebo that looks like a perfect place to sit for a while with your legs pulled to your chest.

You stay that way for what feels an eternity, just sitting in the cold with the jacket pulled tightly around you. And then... Then the man that gave it to you is there. He's just watching you and those steely blue eyes on you just make your already red face flush. This time, though, he says nothing. It's almost like he's waiting and you're just too afraid to say anything first. So you sit in silence, hoping, praying, wishing that he will just say something.

He says nothing, though. He just watches you for what feel like hours until he pulls a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket, bringing one to his lips. He offers you one but you just make a face. "I don't smoke."

A grin spread across his face as he lights his. "I was wonderin' when you'd say somethin', chief." He takes a drag and lets the smoke tendrils twist and whirl around his face in the wind.

"What?"

He shrugs a shoulder. "I'm just glad to see you're okay is all." He looks away from you, and you swear that you can see a pink flush dusting his face, though it occurs to you that it may just be from the cold.

"I... Yes. I'm all right." You pull your knees closer to you chest, unsure as to what to say. "Why do you care?"

His head snaps back to you and he looks like you've offended him somehow. You make a mental note to ask for his triggers so that it doesn't happen in the future. "Why the fuck wouldn't I care?" He puts his cigarette in his mouth and rubs his hands together to warm them as he speaks. "I didn't know if you'd... You know." He shrugs, pulling the cigarette out of his mouth again and blowing out a stream of smoke.

The action reminds you of old movie stars somehow, but his words sting a little. You do know what he means. "I still want to a little. But somehow it all feels so final. And I feel like a failure for not being able to go through with it."

He furrows his brow and turns his gaze to the snow covered floor of the gazebo. "Yeah, I, uh... I get that. It's like bein' stuck between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand you're still here, but then on the other you fucked up and you feel like you're worthless." His words cut you to your core. He speaks so effortlessly and simply, but his words...

"Why are you telling me this." You convince yourself that you don't want to know what he means, even though you already do know the meaning of his words.

With a lift of his head, his eyes are locked with yours. "Because I need you to know that you're not alone."

"Everyone says that." He look away from him, not wanting him to have the advantage with eye contact. "No one means it, though."

You can hear him sigh. "I mean it. I've been where you are before. And there wasn't anyone there for me."

When you look up after a moment's silence, you see that his face is as somber as his tone as he stares at his sleek, black boots. "What?"

"I was thirteen the first time."

"What?"

"Pills." His explanation is short, but you know what he means. You'd thought of pills. But you didn't think you'd want something that you might survive. "And I was sixteen the second." He looks up at you. "I wrote a note. I had one of my dad's guns." He gestures with his hand, miming the action. "I had it in my mouth and was going to pull the trigger, but then I heard my brother come home." His voice is shaking like he's about to cry. "So I threw it across the room and it went off as it hit, shooting the wall." His hands are in his hair and his cigarette sits half forgotten between two fingers as it burns down to ash. "And Eridan ran into my room and saw the note and..." He shakes his head. "And that's what happened the second time." He sits up, wiping his eyes with the heel of his hands.

"I'm... I'm sorry." You don't know what else to say.

"Don't be." He leans back. "The last time... The last time I had just turned twenty." He looks up at the roof of the gazebo and you just watch his profile until he holds up his wrist. "Two cuts. That was all that I thought it would take. But my roommate came back and he bandaged me up and took me to the hospital. They saved my hands but the feeling in the right is still shitty." He takes a drag of his cigarette as you process what he's told you.

"Someone stopped you each time."

"All but the first. And I stopped myself that time." His voice is hollow and matter of fact. Like what he's told you isn't some horrible thing.

"And that's... Why you stopped me?"

He shrugs, taking another drag. "You looked like you needed a friend."

You smile a little. "I do."

"And now you look like you need a ride back to your dorm. Want another lift?"

You shake your head. "I don't want to go back there. There's a floor party happening right now before finals." With a deep sigh, you rest your head against your knees. "Could I go with you?" Your voice is quiet and you're just so unsure. Why would he want to take you with him? He must be in his late twenties. Probably a young professor on campus and you... Nineteen and pathetic.

"Why do you wanna come with me?"

"Because I need someone."

He's quiet for a while and you can hear him as he lights his lighter again. "Well, I'm someone I guess." Another brief pause. "I'm Cronus."

You look up at his introduction, almost surprised. "My name is Kankri."

He smiles warmly at you. "Nice to meet you. So you wanna come back to mine?"

"To... Yours?"

"Yeah. To my apartment." He scratches the back of his neck.

You sigh, playing with the long sleeves of his jacket over your shoulders. "I'd love to."

He stands up, a grin spreading over his face as he holds out a hand to you. "Then let's go it's fuckin' freezin' out here."

You take his hand and he leads you to his car.

Inside, it's still warm and the radio is playing your favorite show, though you realize that it's the one that had just been played when you hear your own voice. With a glance at him to see if he notices, you're amazed to see how somber his face is again. And that's when you know that he knows.

"So, Signless, huh?"

You swallow. "Yes."

"Nice to meet you." He drives in silence for a bit and you can see him trying to think about something. You aren't sure what. Maybe he'd called in before. Maybe he wanted to help him because of this show.

Maybe it was just a coincidence.

But before you can think anymore, he's stopped at an apartment building and he's leading you up to his.

When the door closes behind you, you suddenly feel like coming may have been a bad idea. Like something horrible could happen if you stay here. But he doesn't turn around. He just takes off his heavy coat and hangs it up, before he pulls off his boots. The silence around you is beginning to make you terrified.

Until he speaks again, voice different. Lower. More... Scottish. "Glad to hear you're okay, Signless." He looks up at you, a soft smile on his face. "I was worried that something had happened after I'd left."

You stare at him, mouth agape, before you move to him and just hold him in your arms. He's so much taller than you, but it's reassuring. You need this. You need him. You need someone to worry about you.

You don't even care that he doesn't really know you. That you don't really know him. But you hope that that will change.