2 Teen 4 This- JohnnyBoy/Stevepop

2 suicidal 4 cuddles

(June 25th, Wednesday, 3:45pm)
(⚠️TW⚠️ self-harm, sexual assault, suicide)
Steve's POV:
Maybe I shouldn't have come home early. Maybe I shouldn't have said what I said last night. Branty is now begging for me to tell her what exactly I meant by, 'when our parents cared, they saved my life.' It's not really meant for me to tell her either, so I'm just gonna wait until mom gets home to say anything. It's not like I wanna tell her. It was awful. But nevertheless, Mom gets home at four, so as soon as she gets here Branty's gonna start throwing questions at her.

"Why won't you just tell me? You tell me stuff all the time when you don't want to." She tugs at my hands like I'm gonna tell her so fairy tail.

"Because I don't wanna cry, and you don't need to know."

"It's okay if you cry." She softens and I almost feel like I've upset her.

"I know, baby. But I don't want you to cry either."

"It's okay if I cry. I wanna know." Ugh, determined little sucker.

Mom tiredly burst through the door and tosses everything she has down, "it is hotter than satan's ass crack out there. Don't drink water if you want, but you will fall out. Just saying." She brushes her hair out of her face.

"Mom, can I ask you a question?" Oh shit.

"Sure but don't make it stupid. I've had enough of those in the last ten hours." She laughs to herself.

"How did you and Dad care about Steve so much you saved his life?"

If someone could have put a pause button on my mom. Then they just did. She went pale and stopped.

"What could make you ask that?" She looked horrified, just how she did when it happened. When everything happened.

"Yesterday we were talking and he ended up saying, that when you guys cared about him. You saved his life. Did he drown or something? What happened?"
Branty gave a big shrug and me and mom exchanged a really fast glance.

"Uh." She let out another sigh and really thought.
"Let's talk about it when your father gets here." She continued trucking to their room to put her stuff down.

I think I traumatized her. Mom's probably one of the most independent people I know despite having so much family. But even she needed someone else to get her through this story. This was the first time we had brought any of it up in five years. And that's for a reason. We're All Still Scared.

Mom gets back and we all silently watch tv together. It feels like Branty's not even here. It's just me, Mom, and bad memories. Bad bad memories.

4:30, 5, 5:30, 6.

"Guess who's home family?" His last word is faded when we're all staring at him.

"Uhm." He frowns and his thinking is all over his face, "someone died?"

"Hey, why-" I shoosh Branty and Mom tells Dad to come sit.

We're all smooshed into the couch like KitKats. Stuck. Lost in sad remembrance. Remembrance of things that are meant to be forgotten.

"So... are we gonna talk or?" Dad is still confused, but maybe that's for the best.

"Branty asked how we saved Steve." Mom explained.

"Oh..." his voice dropped and he got that same worried look as mom.

"You can start us off, she's gonna stay confused if you don't tell her why you needed saving." Mom looked away.

This didn't feel awkward, just tense. I mean it was.

"Well on the cruise I had already told you everything that happened with Polly. But I left a lot of things out so I'm basically gonna fill some of it in." I begin, "On May 6th, 2018 I tried to kill myself. I slit my wrist and went to sleep and when I woke up there was blood smeared all over my bed, I had a headache, but I was still alive. That same day I told Polly I had tried and she responded with, 'Maybe you should try again, so I can fuck your dead corpse'. "Fuck this I'm crying.

"I called the suicide hotline thirty-seven times that week and a total of four hundred eighty-three times that year because I really thought I had no reason to live. So I told myself that on December 30th of that year I was gonna try again and it would work that time. So the year went on. I was burning myself and cutting every so often. Forgetting to eat, sleeping too much. Telling people I was fine."

"I remember how happy you were that Christmas when she was here." Mom was wiping her eyes.

"I was happy. That was the first time I was genuinely happy in a while because I thought it was my last Christmas. I was excited." I sniff.

"I remember the day we found out. It was because I told your mom something was wrong. I think I had been subconsciously noticing things, but I didn't truly act on it until felt something in my stomach I couldn't shake." Dad joined us.

"No it wasn't subconscious. You tried to tell me but I kept panicking and I was trying to shake it off. I could feel it too I just didn't wanna panic. I didn't want to be a bargey mom."

"Well." Dad sighed and mom picked everything back up.

"On December 30th, a day before my son was supposed to kill himself your dad spilled out all this stuff about how something was seriously wrong and how Steve hadn't eaten anything the whole week and I was really just hoping that it was a whole lotta yada. So I went in his room closed the door and said, 'take your shirt off' because he wasn't eating he look starved right? And he said 'what'. And I said, 'take your shirt off'. And from that point on I wasn't talking to Steve Randle anymore I was talking to demons inside of him."

She went silent for a moment and I can feel Branty getting colder and colder she's getting scared. But everything about it was scary.

"He said, 'I hate you' over and over and over again. But it was just straight screams and sobs. But I knew he didn't hate me, he was screaming out in fear and pain, not hatred. It was a mess, so I called your dad in there and I was just like, 'hold him down' and he did. And I stripped him. Worse thing I've ever done in my life. I'm ninety-nine percent sure I almost passed out. Cause he was crying and his words had really fizzled out. And if this wouldn't have been my own son I probably would've guessed that he was only ten or eleven because he was so skinny. And he was just covered in burns and scratches." Mom was now covered in her tears and so was I, and Branty.

"I thought he was dead. In that moment I was really questioning his presence. I remember it went silent and I said, 'why, Steve? Why do you hate us so much?' And he said, 'Because I was supposed to die tomorrow and y'all didn't let me.' And we all just kinda sat there and cried in his bed. For a long, long while. And Cellee was like, 'what do you mean die tomorrow?' And he said, 'This was my last Christmas I was gonna kill myself tomorrow.' And then went silent for another long while and another and another. And then finally again was asked, 'why'. And he poured out a long list of shit that Polly was doing. And how nobody would care if he was dead, but Branty. But she would've been fine again sooner or later so he was supposed to die. So yeah that was the day we saved Steve's life." Dad sighed it off with only a tear going down his face.

"Well it was few weeks, Ya'know. Y'all had that cop her to keep me on suicide watch, so I wouldn't get sent off." I laugh.

"I remember him. You told me there was a burglar near by so the police had to stay with us." Branty sniffed under me.

"Well there was a burglar. He was trying to take my life." I giggle and so does everyone else.

I think we're all a little happy it's not a secret anymore.

Johnny's POV:
I'm cuddled up with Pony watching another dumb show on his TV. Reality TV is a bitch. It's just women in big cities with rich husbands and one or two kids pretending like they have problems and challenges.

"I wish I could live like them." I turn to Pony.

"One day." He's rubbing my belly and honestly it feels great. He's holding all her little weight.

He smiles at him, "I can't get over her little wiggles."

I give him a small kiss, "I can't believe what the body does sometimes? We made a human. On accident, and everything's really just happening."

"Crazy." He nods in agreement.

"I love you." I pout.

"I love you too, Johnnycakes." He kisses my cheek and I blush.

I'm so happy to have him. I'm so happy to have affection.

-longer chapter today, very sad, but happy ending 🥱 hope y'all enjoyedddd-