Jonn: Don't Leave Me

(warning: completely non-graphic references to suicide)

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When Hansel came home, it wasn't as much fun as Jonn had hoped it would be.

Jonn had been living in Skyport for a few months—since the monastery had finally kicked him out—and it had been fun, at first, that it meant he got to see Hansel way more often. He knew Hansel and his crew were having a bad time with their new ship, and that Hansel wasn't … happy. But he still liked seeing him more often, and he did his best to cheer him up when he was in port. Jonn had a job now—two, in fact—so he was able to buy things for Hansel, and maybe a lot of those things turned out to be booze, but if it made his dad happy, then Jonn would happily get him drunk and let him crash in the room he was renting upstairs from the bar.

Then the thing happened. The thing Hansel wouldn't talk to him about. Some story he wouldn't tell. And none of his pirates came ashore with him, and he didn't care about his ship anymore, and he said he would never go out to sea again. Never. Fucking never.

Jonn sold what was left of his ship for him as scrap and used the money to get a room at the Grumpy Sausage with two beds. Part of him was excited to be living with Hansel, but he was mostly worried.

Hansel was broken.

When he was awake, he was vacant-eyed and his hands shook. Sometimes it got worse, and his whole body shook, and Jonn found him sitting on the side of his bed, just rocking himself, sobbing. Jonn didn't know what to do. He would curl up next to him and not talk because Hansel *wouldn't* talk, and sometimes Hansel would grab him and squeeze him tight. Other times he wanted to be alone, and Jonn would sit on the roof on the opposite side of the street and watch him with his own spyglass because he didn't trust that Hansel wouldn't do something stupid. Once he was alone he might just lie in bed, or he might wander the room like he was restless, and Jonn had spotted him toying with a dagger. He'd gotten it out of the room, but if Hansel was determined to hurt himself, he would find a way.

He punched a hole in the wall, one time. Jonn paid for the damages and cried to make him sit still and let him bandage up the battered knuckles. He apologized lowly and it didn't happen again.

When he was asleep it was almost worse. He tossed and turned and mumbled names Jonn knew from his stories. Mostly Elitash. Often Chirp. Sometimes Mishka. It made it hard for Jonn to sleep, and he kind of gave up on actually trying and just dozed off when and wherever he could. Hansel always woke him up screaming sooner or later.

It was alarming at first. He jolted out of bed and tumbled over to his father, grabbing his thrashing shoulders, trying to wake him up. Hansel's eyes didn't quite focus in on him, and his voice was thin and cracked.

“Blood in the water. Red sky at dawn. Blood in the …”

Then he was gone again, slipping back out if he'd ever really been awake.

Jonn paid for spells to soundproof their room so they wouldn't get kicked out. He thought about sleeping in the hall, sometimes, but he didn't. Things weren't getting better. He had to keep an eye on his dad.

He coaxed him down to the bar on days that he was merely vacant and not hysterical, and that helped in a way. He could get too drunk to remember to be sad, and for a while the next morning the main problem was the hangover, not the whatever-it-was. Plus when he was passed out he didn't seem to have nightmares. Sometimes Jonn took the opportunity to get a night's sleep, but usually he used it to slip away and actually do a night's work.

The money was running thin. He'd had some savings but not that much, and the new room was more pricey, and Hansel's ship hadn't been much help. But he just didn't think he could leave him alone. He thought about how Hansel had apologized after he punched the wall and never done it again, and wondered if there was some way he could bait him into trying to kill himself—safely, of course—so that he could walk in on it and burst into tears and break him of it. But it seemed too risky. Hansel might succeed in actually hurting himself. He might find out Jonn had planned it. It might not even work—it might make things worse.

So he talked to the bar's owner, first like a businessman, then like a whore, and got Hansel a job as a bouncer. He was still a big grim-faced half-orc covered in scars, and the missing tusk he'd come home with only made him look rougher. He could sit in a chair and scowl. No one had to know he was going upstairs and crying himself to sleep.

Selling it to Hansel was trickier. He didn't want to do it. He insisted he couldn't. Jonn wheedled and whined and let his eyes well up a little, and finally resorted to telling him that he was running out of money. Hansel got quiet.

“I'll move out.”

“That's not what I meant,” Jonn objected. “I don't want you to move out.”

He'd already stood up and moved to grab what few things he owned. Jonn didn't know what to do. He couldn't restrain him physically, Eldath knew. Crying already hadn't worked. It briefly crossed his mind to kiss him, but only because that was one of his usual strategies to get what he wanted—of course it wouldn't work on *Hansel*. He didn't know what to do and he was going to lose him. His fingers couldn't be still.

When Hansel turned to the door and saw him, he stopped. Jonn steeled himself as Hansel stepped towards him, thinking maybe he could still hold him back, claw into the door frame and kick him back into the room, fight him if he had to, maybe --

“Hey.” Hansel touched his hands gently. “Don't … do that.”

Jonn realized he was chewing on his nails—on his fingertips really, biting them bloody in his anxiety.

“Don't leave me,” he whispered.

Hansel looked at him for a long time, holding his twisting fingers away from his teeth. He took a breath to say something twice, but stopped himself both times. Finally, he said, “I won't leave you.”

“Promise,” Jonn said quickly.

“I can't,” and then, “C'mon, don't—don't cry again—.”

Jonn was crying? Oh. He was crying. That was odd. It didn't even sound like his own voice when it came out. “Then *don't. Leave me. Promise*.”

“Jonn, I—.” He sighed. “You know I'm going to die before you are anyway, right?”

“No you're *not*.”

Hansel looked at him for another long time with an expression he didn't understand and then softly said, “All right.”

He sighed again and dropped his bag to pull Jonn into his chest. Jonn's arms went around him immediately, tight.

“All right. I promise.”