𝐵𝑇𝑆 𝑆𝑖𝑐𝑘𝑓𝑖𝑐/ℎ𝑢𝑟𝑡𝑓𝑖𝑐 (𝑅𝑒𝑞𝑢𝑒𝑠𝑡 𝑜𝑝𝑒𝑛)

yoongi - sleep?

There’s a problem.

Yoongi just can’t fucking sleep

It never used to be this bad. He always needed a little help to sleep – some melatonin or some over the counter drug designed to knock you out quickly, but it’s never been this bad.

Most nights, he’s able to get at least a few hours before he wakes up, head pounding and body logged with exhaustion. But some nights, like tonight, it’s just different.He didn’t say anything at first. He couldn’t. He wasn’t sure how to tell the others that his brain just wouldn’t shut up, wouldn’t turn off, how his thoughts overlapped until he couldn’t pull them apart anymore.

He wasn’t sure how to say, “I just feel like I’m walking through static, like I’ll dissolve at any second.” He wasn’t sure he could tell them about the terrible, horrible thoughts that fill his head, violent thoughts that make him sick to his stomach. He shakes and shakes, tries to will them away, but they’re ever present on nights like this.He manages to keep it to himself until one night he tosses and turns in his bed so much that it wakes Seokjin.

“Yoongi?” he hears it from his side of the room and makes a choked noise because shit. He hadn’t meant to wake him, he really tried not to.

“Yeah, hyung?” he whispers back, wills his body to stay still, fucking stay the fuck still.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, hyung.”

“Yoongi,” Seokjin says, and it’s placating, and Yoongi knows what’s coming before he says it, dread spreading through him like ice water over his head,

“I heard you whimpering.”And it’s too much, it’s too much.

Tears overwhelm Yoongi’s vision faster than he expected, and he shakes. He’s just so tired. He ends up yanking the covers off of himself and stumbling over to Seokjin’s side of the bed.

He sobs into his hyung’s shoulder that night and divulges everything.He still doesn’t sleep.

The first visit to the psychiatrist’s office is exactly how Yoongi remembers it from his teenage years, although his heart doesn’t pound as violently as it did last time.

“So, you’re having trouble sleeping?”

An understatement if Yoongi’s ever heard one.

He tries his best not to hold anything back – the sleeplessness, but also his racing thoughts and the strange body static that keeps him moving and moving and moving.

“I want you to think carefully,”

the doctor says, and Yoongi shifts uncomfortably in the too-soft, too-big chair.

“Tell me, do you find yourself doing certain things before bed?"

Yoongi’s not sure what he means.

“I’m not sure what you mean,” he says.

Shift.

“Any sort of bedtime ritual,” the doctor reiterates.

Shift.

“Well, I mean,” Yoongi starts.

“Doesn’t everyone have those?”

“What’s yours?”

Shift.

“I brush my teeth.”

Shift.

“Wash my face.”

Shift.

“Check to make sure my music is saved.”

Shift.

He can’t get comfortable.“How many times do you check on your music?”

“I dunno,” and Yoongi thinks, he really does, and comes up with an embarrassing answer.

He fixes his gaze on the wall. “Several times. Maybe ten or so. I just want to make sure I’ve really got it saved.”

“If you don’t check on your music, how do you feel?”

As soon as the doctor suggests it, a spike of panic zings up Yoongi’s spine, and he must sense it, must see it on Yoongi’s face, because he nods in understanding.

“Is there anything else that makes you feel this way?”Yoongi hesitates. Would he be crossing a line, telling him about the terrible thoughts that creep into his head? The ones he can’t seem to shake? Would they consider him dangerous? Would they lock him away?

“I have…these thoughts. I would never act on them, you have to understand that! But, sometimes during the day and especially at night when I can’t sleep, they just…come at me, and I can’t stop them,” he says, and the doctor hums.

“Are they sexual?” he asks. Yoongi shakes his head. “Violent?"

“Y-yeah,” he whispers. “Sometimes.”He can’t help it, finds himself curling in on himself, knees up and arms around them. He tucks his head into his arms and tries not to cry.

“I’m so sick,” he thinks, and the thought repeats itself until it’s bouncing off the walls of his brain.

The doctor hums again. “It’s alright, Yoongi. I don't believe you are a violent person. There’s a name for those kinds of thoughts. They’re called intrusive thoughts, and they don’t necessarily mean someone will act upon them.”

Yoongi sniffles a little and looks up. Intrusive thoughts? That’s the first he’s heard of that term.“Really?” he says. The doctor nods, scribbles something on his notepad.

The hour is almost up.“We’ll have to do a couple more tests, but Yoongi, I’m quite sure what you’re experiencing is Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder,” the doctor informs him, and Yoongi’s eyes snap back to him.

“OCD?” he repeats.

“But isn’t that like, where someone washes their hands 20 times a day or can’t stop counting?” That’s what he’s always heard about the disorder, anyway.

“Those can be symptoms, yes, but not necessarily,” the doctor says. He stops for a moment and rummages around in his desk. He pulls out a pamphlet and hands it to Yoongi. It says

“OCD: What It Is and What It Isn’t” on the front.

“OCD is comprised of obsessions and compulsions. Your compulsion is checking your music, and you may have others you’re just not thinking of right now. Your obsessions manifest in the form of intrusive thoughts. Like I said, we’ll do some tests, but I think this diagnosis will fit you. After we confirm, we can start treating you, and I can guarantee you’ll start feeling a lot better.”

Yoongi walks out of the psychiatrist’s office with another appointment, a prescription for sleep medication, and in a daze. He tells the group all about it when he gets home and gets the same response he had to OCD.

They end up all looking it up and reading about it together. Yoongi stops for a moment when he realizes they’re all huddled over their respective electronic devices, reading about this disorder purely for him, and can’t help the swelling of his heart.

That night he takes the pills and waits nervously for them to kick in. His head starts buzzing again, and he tosses and turns. He’s so convinced he’s just beyond the help of pills.

He’s so far into his head that he startles when he feels a warm hand on his hip.Seokjin shushes him quietly as he gently moves Yoongi over to climb into the empty space on the bed. Yoongi doesn’t complain, just immediately attaches himself to Seokjin’s strong frame, burying his face in the space between his head and his shoulder.

For the first time in weeks, Yoongi falls asleep to Seokjin’s steady heartbeat, and sleeps through the night.