Linkin Park, Brad/Chester, #034 Not Enough
Title: Virus
Fandom: Linkin Park
Characters: Brad, Chester
Prompt: #034 Not Enough
Word Count: 179
Rating: PG
Summary: Depression is contagious
Chester would never tell Brad but he knows they’re on the verge of breaking up. He’d never ask, but he wonders when his words and arms and love stopped being enough.
Brad is never happy. The doctors, they diagnosed him with chronic depression, gave him medication. The both of them were given counselling. They told Chester how hard it would be to deal with for him and Chester smiled grimly, “I’ve been dealing with it for years,” he said.
They went through the motions. Every morning Chester helped Brad get out of bed and held out his pills, sugar coated and melting in his hand. Helped him face the day. Gentle kisses and making love in the warmth of the light seeping through the blinds.
Months passed and his counselling sessions doubled and he was all the time asking “Is depression contagious?”
But no. It wasn’t. It’s not something you can catch. But being around somebody who locks themselves in rooms, turns up music to drown out their angry, coughed out sobs, that starts to wear on you after a while.
Eventually, Chester stops getting out of bed. Any time before noon is too early for him. He lies awake and listens to Brad move around downstairs. He sighs a lot now, wearily, like he has the weight of the world on his shoulders.
Anti-depressants. Not his, but share and share alike.
Brad, he’s getting better. But not because of Chester.
He lies awake, the sun warming the room, and listens to his lover on the phone downstairs. Listens to him on the phone in the bathroom, the door locked and his voice quiet.
There’s someone else.
There has to be someone else. There’s someone else helping Brad and loving him and holding him. There’s someone there for him when Chester can’t get out of bed for crying.
But where’s the person helping him? When he was there for Brad, how can he do this to him?
Probably he should confront him. But his entire body aches when they speak and all he gets is subtly averted eyes.
Probably he should say something.
But instead he takes a handful of anti-depressants, and goes back to sleep.
Fandom: Linkin Park
Characters: Brad, Chester
Prompt: #034 Not Enough
Word Count: 179
Rating: PG
Summary: Depression is contagious
Chester would never tell Brad but he knows they’re on the verge of breaking up. He’d never ask, but he wonders when his words and arms and love stopped being enough.
Brad is never happy. The doctors, they diagnosed him with chronic depression, gave him medication. The both of them were given counselling. They told Chester how hard it would be to deal with for him and Chester smiled grimly, “I’ve been dealing with it for years,” he said.
They went through the motions. Every morning Chester helped Brad get out of bed and held out his pills, sugar coated and melting in his hand. Helped him face the day. Gentle kisses and making love in the warmth of the light seeping through the blinds.
Months passed and his counselling sessions doubled and he was all the time asking “Is depression contagious?”
But no. It wasn’t. It’s not something you can catch. But being around somebody who locks themselves in rooms, turns up music to drown out their angry, coughed out sobs, that starts to wear on you after a while.
Eventually, Chester stops getting out of bed. Any time before noon is too early for him. He lies awake and listens to Brad move around downstairs. He sighs a lot now, wearily, like he has the weight of the world on his shoulders.
Anti-depressants. Not his, but share and share alike.
Brad, he’s getting better. But not because of Chester.
He lies awake, the sun warming the room, and listens to his lover on the phone downstairs. Listens to him on the phone in the bathroom, the door locked and his voice quiet.
There’s someone else.
There has to be someone else. There’s someone else helping Brad and loving him and holding him. There’s someone there for him when Chester can’t get out of bed for crying.
But where’s the person helping him? When he was there for Brad, how can he do this to him?
Probably he should confront him. But his entire body aches when they speak and all he gets is subtly averted eyes.
Probably he should say something.
But instead he takes a handful of anti-depressants, and goes back to sleep.