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It wasn’t cold, but Rev couldn’t stop shivering. His hands were twitching, his body shaking, his breaths shuddering. His stomach hurt, he felt unbelievably nauseous. His head ached, a searing pain that made him understand why cavemen would hammer holes into their skull for relief.
He hadn’t taken enough.
Not enough to kill him, not even enough to coerce his body to properly puke. He was dry heaving so loudly it was almost embarrassing. If he was grounded enough to feel his body, he’d recognize his heart was beating unbearably fast.
Everytime he managed to stop gagging into the trashcan for even a second, his jaw would chatter like he was standing out in a blizzard with a bathrobe as a jacket.
This was horrible.
This felt horrible.
He’s ripped his arteries in half, then watched them magically sew themselves together. He’s witnessed shattered bones in his legs reshape themself into whole. However, for those instances, his body graced him adrenaline that dulled the pain.
Those moments where he’d be technically dead for a minute or two, were usually enough time for his system to fix itself, but he wasn’t bleeding out this time.
There was nothing to sew, no bone fragments to be reconnected. Just his stomach and the two full bottles of anti-depressants he thought would be enough.
Mark had awoken the minute Rev started gagging loudly and still hadn’t returned to his coffin. This was unfortunate for Rev, as now he had to deal with an over-emotional-because-he’s-sleepy Mark and the way his body was torturing him just because he took a couple thousand milligrams of Sertaline.
How is this the worst suicide experience he’s had so far? Out of everything, the pills are the most wretched?
”Maybe we should get a teacher…?I’m pretty sure Professor Lovecraft is on dormitory patrol right now…” Mark worriedly supplicated.
Rev swallowed heavily, wiping his mouth of drool since, really, nothing was coming out. He hadn’t eaten enough for his stomach to have anything to puke out. He tensed his body enough to mostly surcease the tremors in his hand to grab Mark’s wrist.
“Absolutely not.” Rev’s voice was hoarse from the violent near-vomiting, and shaking as his vocal cords tightened uncontrollably.
Mark just hummed a strained, scared sound, taking his wrist back from Rev’s grasp.
“What’d he do this time?” An oh, so familiarly monotone voice asked. Seraphim must’ve had some sort of angelic hunch that pinched her awake to alert her Rev was in trouble again.
Ugh. Guardian Angels and their protectiveness.
Rev tried to groan out of annoyance, but it devolved into another heaving-gag, hunching himself over the mini trashcan that he cradled between his knees.
Mark shrugged. He had tried to ask earlier, wondering why his bestest friend ever was puking, shaking, and mumbling at the ripe time of 3am.
Rev hadn’t replied then, but this time is different; he rasped out “pills” as he finally puked something. It burned like it had to have solely been stomach acid, and by it’s yellowish color, definitely was.
Uncharacteristically, he whined. He wasn’t going to cry. Not when this was his own doing, his own failure, but he did screw his eyes and hide his face in the trashcan. The way his shoulders shook were side effects, not sobs. The ever-so-barely-there dampness at his waterline was from how tightly he was keeping his eyes shut, not tears. He was mumbling something mean and distasteful yet remarkably witty towards Sera and Mark, not trying to whine for his parents.
...but his head did hurt so horribly. His throat felt burnt dry, but he was still drooling. He was still shaking, still couldn't quite feel his body except where pain radiated. He almost, kind of... just wanted this to stop. He only kind of regrets this attempt. He only kind of wishes he had a hair tie, to keep his too-long hair from sticking to his forehead and neck with sweat on his skin that he couldn't feel.
Mark, unusually, does't screech out when configuring this was the dues of another suicide attempt. Maybe he had started to become used to the unending ways Rev sought his own demise, but he's only still for a second before getting up. Rev would consider this respite of Mark's presence a relief if he wasn't gagging again.
Sera quickly replaces Mark's placement though, so Rev doesn't get to be alone for too long.
She slides a band off of her wrist and easily ties Rev's too-long hair into a little ponytail, even brushing his fringe behind his ears and dabbing off the sweat on his forehead with her pajama sleeves.
There something her touch does.
It must be her holy powers or something, because Rev finally gets a break from dry heaving. His eyes stop watering and his shaking is lessened by a sliver.
Maybe guardian angels aren't so bad, at least for their healing powers.
"Normally his body recovers so quickly from..." Mark trails off, voice quiet and tired.
He's returned, now holding two basically empty pill bottles. Rev is swaying, his body deciding if he wants to lean against the wall, the floor, the trashcan, or into Sera's shoulder.
Sera's head-wings flap in response. She's too occupied observing Rev and keeping him from fully falling over, patting sweat away as it beads. She can't decide if she wants to take off the heavy jacket he wears or give him a blanket to quell the shivering and jolting he's doing.
"The bottles say overdose symptoms include shivering, vomiting, head pain, stomach pain... and…Good Grief, so much more." Mark reads aloud. That must've been what he had walked away for, to search for the bottles.
"Major overdose— Did he take both bottles in full?" He's reading from something his phone now, looking at Rev like he'll give an answer. His eyes are almost closing and Sera looks just a bit panicked.
Mark's own stomach hurts with just how anxious he is. Worst case scenario is death, but considering Rev won't really... you know, actually die, it's not something to be horribly worried over... but, still, that's his friend who’s in pain, and Rev just looks so pitiful.
He shuts his phone off. The only search results he'll get for "Sertaline Overdose" is for helping humans who don't wake up three minutes after their heart stops.
Sera is now fully holding Rev, tapping his face repeatedly to keep him awake. He’s lulling, barely conscious. Mark can’t tell if it’s because of the pills or if exhaustion was finally getting to him; it was 3am.
“You should get Bella. She probably has a potion that can help with this.” Despite how her wings are twitching with stress, Sera’s monotonous voice doesn’t express that.
Mark doesn’t nod, he just gets up. He slides on his quietest slippers before practically scurrying out the door and down the hall. He’s absurdly lucky to come in no contact with any skeleton or teacher on dormitory patrol as he skitters to Bella’s solitary dorm and creeps into her room.
Shes angry and grumbly at being woken up, but when Mark answers her grumpy question of ‘why’ with ‘it’s Rev’, she removes the pillow she tried to hide under off of her face.
She sits up slowly, rubbing her eyes. Mark itches with the urge to pull her up and drag her to back to his dorm so she could figure out what alchemic mix could ease Rev, but he waits. Lets her stretch her arms and yawn, lets her step into sandals, shrugs on a sweater, and grabs a bag.
When she’s eventually awake enough to ask about what exactly is so dire with Rev that she had to be woken up, Mark answers with what he knows. When he mentioned the overdosing, her eyes widen and she quickens her gait. When he details the symptoms, her strides get even faster. Now it’s Bella who resists the urge to pull Mark along.
Again, they manage to avoid nightly hall monitors. Lady Luck has to be on their side for them to scamper through the halls like rats so easily.
“What day is it?” They can hear Sera asking.
“Fuh..uh, gTuesday.” Rev murmured back. It was Thursday, technically Friday morning.
“Where are you?”
“Room.”
“When’s your birthday?”
There is no distinct answer, but Sera doesn’t accept a grumble as a proper answer, so she keeps asking questions.
“Do you know your name?”
“Rev Vennet.” He replies, but it sounds closer to ‘re-vennuh’.
Bella sits infront of Rev. He’s at least not gagging anymore, but the trashcan is sat close to him, just incase. She puts a finger to his neck for his pulse, then a hand to his heart. Both are too fast for how slow his breathing is.
Sera continues her inquiries,
“Do you know who I am?”
“Sera.”
When Bella takes a hold of Rev’s wrist, he looks at her like he hadn’t recognized she was there before now.
“Do you know who she is?”
Rev closes his eyes. He’s either falling asleep, or getting annoyed and giving up at answering the questions.
“We know he won’t die, but to ease the symptoms I can give him some sort of leveler potion. It’ll counteract whatever’s in his system and lessen the side effects.” Bella digs in her bag and pulls out a small glass vial that holds a pure white liquid. It’s almost luminous in the poorly lit room.
Sera finally stops bombarding Rev with questions. Mark’s standing over the three of them, fidgeting silently. Bella is lifting the potion to Rev’s lips when he grapples at it with fumbling hands. He may feel as numb as a stone, but he still sentient enough to want to keep whatever’s left of his shambled dignity intact.
He manages to drink the potion in small sips. There’s a stagnant tension in the room, not getting thicker nor simpler. It only feels slightly easier to deal with when vial is empty.
“Bella,” Rev starts, though it comes out as bluh.
”Yes? Do you feel better already? Is it working?” Bella couldn’t help but get a little energetic at the thought that her own mixture remedied Rev’s ailments so fast. Her heart was only a little broken when he shook his head ever so gently and half-heartedly waved a dismissive hand at her.
He tries to turn his head to Sera, only succeeding in 30° of the 90° he’d have to turn to see her face.
“She’s Bella.”
Ah. He was answering the question a full five minutes later. At least he was cohesive and appeared a scratch more cognizant.
Sera nodded in recognition that Rev had gotten the question right, however late he was to reply, but didn’t seem far from fully nodding off. Mark sat down with the rest of the group, but decided quickly he’d rather get comfortable and laid on the floor, resting his head on his arms.
It’s only ten minutes until both are asleep and Sera is snoring.
Rev looks asleep, mostly anyways. His eyes are distant and his breathing is slowly steadying. His arms are limp and to his side, except for the one that Sera has crossed around her arm. She has a finger placed on the veins of his wrist, just to ease herself as she rests.
Now that Bella is standing up, taking off her sweater, putting her bag and slippers near the doorway, she can see Mark has thrown the arm isn't under his head over Rev’s outstretched legs. Just to feel the warmth that assures him Rev is okay.
She itches to be back in her own bed, but still felt tightly wound from basically being shaken awake to help care for an OD patient. Bella slowly looks around the room. It's not the first time she's been in here, since Mark insisted weekly sleepovers were necessary and that study sessions held in the dorms were better than studying in the library, but there was an uneasy tension in this area now. One that espeically emanated from the still woozy looking Rev, who managed to look unpeaceful even in his almost-asleep state.
She plucked a book from a shelf that had to be Mark's, since it only had fantastical genres with the most colorful of covers. Sitting on the floor was definitely temping, with it's plush carpet and how everyone else was already on the floor too, but the empty bed that was right next to the pile-of-people seemed much more comfortable. She took her seat and started the book, knowing sleep wouldn't find her for hours.
Bella wasn't surprised as the hours ticked by.
As the sun rose, as Mark's and Rev's alarms went off, as none of the 3 got up.
She turned their alarm clocks off for them and closed the curtains for extra measure. She didn't need to ask to know; that none of the three were going to go to classes today. She figures that her grades can handle her missing a single day's worth of classes as she flips another page, already halfway through the book.
"You're still awake?" A soft, raspy voice asks. It's not quite a whisper, but not quite a regular speaking level. Bella glances at the floor to see that it was Rev who asked.
"Had to." She keeps her words simple, it's hard to think of a lengthy response when she's so tired that it makes thinking difficult.
"Why?"
"Make sure you didn't seize... or, somethin'." Bella shuts the book softly, making a mental note of the page number. She finally lays down, her backside numb from how long she's been sitting still.
Rev doesn't reply.
Something builds inside of him, and it feels adjacent to how that bile did, those few hours ago. Sickening and like a rock in his gut. He recognizes it to feel like how he did when he yelled at Sera the day he had forced Bella to teach him 'empathy', which lead to those vial viles of physically bottled emotions.
He feels guilty. For making such a big deal of a few pills, for getting everyone else roped into it, for making them worry. Rev is still shaking, but he's not puking, and he can feel his body. He can feel how heavily Sera is leaned against him, how she's still holding a finger to his wrist. He can feel how Mark had, at some point while asleep, shifted to be completely hugging Rev's legs, even using Rev's knees as his pillow.
He feels warm for a second, but then that heat grows and grows, and grows and grows and grows, and he gets so uncomfortable, that, for a second, he wants to scream. He's never felt a warmth like this, how it was so close to his heart and quelled the pit in his stomach for a quick moment.
Rev was about to kick Mark and Sera away and push Bella off his bed so he could properly sleep when a book falls off the very mattress that Bella lays on. She makes no reach for it, and it's clear that her exhaustion finally caught up to her.
He sighs. Frustration dissipates as quickly as it built. He's already done so much, he can't add furtherly disrupting her sleep to the list. He clenches his fist, the one that's so close to being held by Sera, and wiggles feeling back into the legs that Mark has clung to. He's being sitting upright for hours, his back is tense where it isn't numb.
Whatever, he thinks. I can survive it.
And, if sitting in the same position does somehow kill him, he's convinced that these three would find a way to bring him back before ten minutes even passed.