The words are all disjointed, and his pauses are unnatural, but he’s not slurring his words. His pupils look normal. He doesn’t seem impaired, just so fucking deep in a depressive episode that he can barely bring himself to speak.
Of course, I’d rather not be fucking guessing when it comes to my brother’s safety, but if I couldn’t get him to the hospital for a life-threatening gunshot wound, I think my chances of getting him there for a mental health episode are pretty much null.
“Can you give me the gun, Tadhg?”
His eyes narrow, and his expression sharpens as soon as the words leave my mouth.
“No.” He can’t really get away from me in this position, but he shrinks back into the cabinets he’s leaning against, and I can see his fingers tighten around the grip, even in the low light. “You shouldn’t touch it. It’s too dangerous.”
As much as I appreciate the sudden jolt of liveliness that seems to have injected into him, I’d feel a lot better if he would give me the weapon he’s been sitting here caressing.
I mentally weigh the pros and cons of calling Tristan for backup. On the one hand, he’s bigger than me and more able to wrestle Tadhg into submission if it’s needed. He also might have a sedative in his magic bag of tricks. But on the other hand, bringing a stranger into this situation is very likely to escalate it, which is not what I need right now.
I decide to use it as a last resort, keeping my eyes trained on Tadhg.
“Tadhg, why are you holding it?”
I know the answer, but I want to see if he’ll say the words out loud. At first, he just looks at me, but then he lets out a cold, bitter laugh.
“I don’t even know, Bambi. I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing. But it seemed like a good idea at the time.”
He shakes his head, and at least a little life has seeped back into his body with this conversation, his muscles loosening as he talks to me. But when he raises his gun hand to his head and uses the muzzle to scratch at his temple absent-mindedly, it takes all my self-control not to try to snatch it from him.
He’s staring at the wall, his eyes glazed over, and the muzzle is still resting against the side of his head like an afterthought.
“Tadhg.” I sharpen my voice, a little command sinking into it. “Look at me.”
Wide, round eyes snap to mine in the dark. I don’t reach for the gun, because I don’t think he’ll let me take it, but I don’t think I can go another minute without touching more than his knee. I reach forward so slowly it makes me ache, and take a firm grip of his jaw, forcing him to keep his attention on me.
“What’s happening here?” Again, I use my stern, bossy voice on him. It’s normally something I reserve for my patients or my hookups, but he seems to respond best to clear commands when he’s fucked up like this. And given what I know about his life, it makes sense, in a twisted sort of way.
With the gun still resting against his head, Tadhg’s face shifts through the most harrowing series of expressions I’ve ever seen. And this is far from the first time I’ve borne witness to someone on the brink of suicide.
Because that’s what this is, I finally admit. Tadhg is in so much fucking pain from whatever his father and his violent life has been putting him through that he’d rather consider putting a bullet in his mouth than asking me for help.
Than letting me love him. Even if I wasn’t there for him before, I’m here now.
His eyes are bloodshot, but there are no tears. He looks dry, at a bone-deep level. Like all the life has been sucked out of him.
“I’m so fucking tired, Bambi,” he whispers into the small space between us, his voice weighed down by more heartbreak and exhaustion than I know how to comprehend.
Then his face twists, and I can see the skin on his hand get pale and bloodless as he squeezes the grip so tightly. He doesn’t squeeze the trigger, but his finger is next to it, resting there like it’s waiting for something.
And his hand isn’t shaking. His hands have been shaking for a fucking week, and this is the first time they’re steady. Tadhg slow-blinks again a couple of times, and I can see his chest rise and fall as his breaths come faster and faster.
I don’t know what to do. I feel like anything I do right now could set him off, and it could all be over.
I still have one hand on his face though, and the other on his knee, and he’s not pushing me away. He’s holding my gaze and I feel like he wants me to help, he’s just so broken he doesn’t know how to ask.
Well, I can ask.
“Please don’t,” I whisper to him. When he doesn’t flinch at the sound, it gives me a little confidence. I lean in more closely, squeezing his jaw in my fingers so he can’t look away. “Please, Tadhg. Don’t leave me. Stay with me.”
When the urge hits, I don’t question it. I use my grip on his knee to part his legs and then slowly, carefully squeeze between them. Normally, I would be careful of his injuries, but there are more dangerous things at play right now.
I have to let go of him for a second to get myself situated, but it’s only briefly and then I’m sitting in his lap, straddling him so that our faces are only inches apart. I still don’t reach for thegun, but I wrap both my hands around his neck and interlock my fingers at the back, so I’m enveloping him as well as I possibly can with my smaller body.
I don’t let him look away. He’s watching me do all this, unmoving, the gun still held to his temple but without his finger slipping to the trigger.
