Green Smoke - Lex & Ethan Oneshots

Beautiful

TW: Mentions of suicide. 

Lex sighs loudly, flopping down on her and Ethan's shared bed in their new house in California. "What's wrong, love?" He takes her hand and kisses her knuckles before dropping her hand. She gives him no answer. "Baby, please? You know that you gotta talk to me so I can help you." He pushes.

"I know." Lex whispers, sitting up. "I'm feeling really shitty. About myself." He sits up, too, taking her into his arms. He always does that when he doesn't know how to fix her sadness. She always appreciates physical affection. 

"Talk to me." He requests, squeezing her body, to make her feel something that wasn't just hatred and anger. "Why do you feel shitty about yourself?"

She sighs again, trying to find the right words to convey exactly how she was feeling. "I... It's mostly intrusive thoughts. Mostly, they're not bad, it's just when they get bad and the voice won't stop." He nods, waiting for her to go on. She sighs once more before admitting,  "When I look at myself in the mirror, I always think something like, God, I'm so fucking ugly." He looks broken. She laughs to herself, imagining how he'd react if 

"But you're not! I think you're beautiful." Ethan says, kissing her hair. "I know you don't see yourself the way I see you, but if I could get you to understand even a little bit of how I see you... But I would like to hear more, I want know what I can do."

Lex wraps her arms around Ethan's waist, and leans against his chest. "I feel like I can't do anything that used to be fun to me without the fucking voice telling me I suck at it. But today it's been persistently worse." He places a hand on her back, attempting to convey that he's ready to keep listening if she's ready to talk. "Today, I was just doodling, and the voice was saying stuff like, just  fucking kill yourself already, and why are you so goddamn worthless?" Ethan doesn't like hearing his girlfriend say things like this, especially about herself.

The grit in her voice tells him just how badly she's hurting. "I'm so glad that you came to talk to me about this. I'm always here for you, alright? I know it's hard, but I'm always right here, and it's gonna get better." He promises.

And she believes him. And then the voice comes back. 'He's wrong. He doesn't even care about you.'

"It's back." She says, wincing. "It's telling me that you don't care about me."

He shakes his head right away. "It's wrong. I care about you. I love you. I'm in love with you. I care about you so much more than you know." She can't hold it back anymore. She begins to sob into his chest. "There you go. It's okay, love. You're safe, you're with me, and it's okay to feel this way. You're feeling everything at once, and it's overwhelming you. You're gonna be okay, even if it doesn't feel like it right now." He promises. 

"Please stop talking. It's too much." She requests. He nods and silently holds her tighter. After a few minutes, Lex is ready to talk again. "I love you. Thanks for being so good to me."

He grins, kissing the tip of her nose, to which she smiles. "Of course! I'm your boyfriend and I love you more than anything ever and it's my job to help you. But whenever you feel like this, just tell me, and I'll be there with my list of three thousand reasons why I love you and why you're the best person in the world." 

Lex hurts sometimes. And that's okay.