If You Were Gonna Leave This World How Could It Be Without Me?

*Kellin's P.O.V.*

"Vic, I'm home!" I called out as I locked the door to our house and threw my keys on the table.
"Vic? Where are you bab-" I stopped in the middle of my yelling when I saw him curled up on the couch, sound asleep. I walked over to him and knelt down in front of him and moved some of the hair out of his face.
I was there for a good five minutes, just admiring him. His beautiful tan skin, his cute little nose ring, and the adorable way his mouth hung open a little while he snored softly. He was literally the most perfect thing I had ever seen and I loved him so much that it hurt. I could watch him all day, really, but I knew he had already been resting all day and I had to get him to eat something. The doctor told me he needed a lot of rest, but I couldn't let him skip any meals either. His anti-depressants made him tired but he couldn't take it with an empty stomach, so after another minute of admiring him I started to shake his shoulder lightly.
"Vic, baby wake up. It's time to eat" I whispered close to his ear. He didn't open his eyes but he stopped snoring so I knew he was just faking. "Vicky come on, you need to get up" I started to kiss right under his ear, then his jaw, trying to get a reaction out of him, and when he finally opened his eyes with a defeated "hmph", I pecked his nose and made my way into the kitchen.
As I started to gather everything I needed to make french toast (yes we eat breakfast for dinner) I looked back and saw him sit down at the kitchen table rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and muttering about how I was an asshole for always teasing him. I turn back to the stove with a smirk on my face.
It's been a little tense this past week with his recent... issues, but it made me happy that he was feeling good enough to insult me. "I hope you're in the mood for french toast" I said while I flipped the sweet bread. "You know I'm always in the mood for breakfast, Kells" Vic replied. My heart stuttered a bit. He hadn't called me by that pet name since before the incident. I turned around with the two plates of food in my hand with a grin plastered on my face.
"What's with the creepy smile?" he asked as I handed him the food. "Nothing, I just love you, a lot. You know that, right? I don't know what I'd do without you, Vic"
He put his fork down and looked away from me, " I'm sure you'd be fine without me." he muttered lowly, but I heard him. And it broke my heart because the little bit of progress I thought he had made just vanished. He still didn't know how special he was, how much he meant to me.
The atmosphere was tense and awkward now. I didn't know what to say because no matter how much I try to tell him how beautiful and important he is, he won't believe me, he just gets aggravated and I don't want to make him upset right now.
"You need to take your pills now, Vic" I say cautiously. I know he hates them, but I he needs to take them.
"They don't help, Kellin. They just make me tired and give me a headache" he says with a sad look. Almost making me want to throw the pills out the window and cuddle him instead, but I know it's for his own good.
"I know, but Doctor Carlile says that you can't just stop taking them, especially since you just start-" I was cut off by his fists slamming on the table, "Dammit, Kellin I don't give a fuck what he said! I don't need this stupid medication to fix me!"
"Yes, you need them Vic. It's for your own good." I tried to respond to him calmly, without raising my voice. Because I knew how he was, his emotions were like a hurricane, when he got too wound up they completely consumed him and made him irrational.
But he was still yelling. "For my own good? You mean for your own good! You just give these to me so you don't have to fucking deal with me, I know it." He countered. His words hurt, and I felt myself start to become a little unhinged.
"Vic, listen to me!" I sighed, lowering my voice again, before continuing, "I'm not doing this for me, I love being with you. This is for you, your'e just a little broken right now baby, but this medication will help you get better."
"I'm not broken!" He yelled at me with such conviction I didn't know how else to get through to him that this was necessary, that this was all for him. He didn't trust me, and it made me upset.
"You tried to fucking kill yourself, Vic!" I slapped my hand over my mouth the second those words left my mouth, but it was too late. Vic's face fell from anger to hurt instantly. "I'm sorry, I-I didn't mean it, Vic I'm-" I began to rush out my apology while holding back tears, but he held up his hand to shut me up and walked away towards our bedroom with tears streaming down his face.
I was frozen in place, unable to follow him into the room. I couldn't believe how I could say that to him. He was so fragile, being released from the hospital less than a week ago. I screwed up big time, there was no excuse for me to be such a jerk to him when he was the one who was broken.
Wait. I stopped my thoughts there. That's exactly what he didn't want me to think about him. But he IS broken, he was damaged and reckless, enough so that he tried to take his own life. Seeing his reaction when I said it made me think though, maybe broken wasn't the right way to describe his current state.
It hit me then. I needed to know what HE was feeling, not what the doctors told me about him just being depressed, or how I looked at him as fragile, I needed to understand what he was going through.
With that in mind, I made my way to the bedroom. The door was cracked open but I knocked anyway, calling to him softly, "Vic? Can I come in?" Silence. "Vic, please. I'm so sorry about what I said, I just wanna talk." I waited a minute more without receiving a response before pushing the door open. Light flooded into the dark room, illuminating his figure, and I suddenly felt like the biggest dickhead on the planet. He was facing away from me but I could see his shoulders shaking in silent sobs, I could tell he was covering his face with his hands and hiding his tears. I saw him on the edge of his side of the bed bent over and sad, and even though I tried not to think it, the only word I could use to describe what I saw was broken. And I knew that I needed to find out what emotion was coursing through his veins.
I made my way over to him slowly, sitting down next to him before he finally looked up at me with tear-stained cheeks and shaky breaths.
The tears finally came, in salty streaks down my face as I tried so hard to hold it together and be strong for Vic, but I couldn't. When Vic reached up to wipe the tears from my face I caught his hand and held it, bringing it closer to me. I examined the white bandage that covered the stitches up his entire forearm, knowing that the deep cut he made could have taken him from me forever. I looked up to meet his gaze but he turned his face away from me and just squeezed his eyes shut. I reached forward to touch the side of his face, like he had done to me seconds before, and turned his head to face me.
"Look at me." My tone wasn't demanding, it was soft and pleading. I wanted him to look at me and open up. We've been together for three years and it makes me feel like I've failed him somehow by not knowing that he was suicidal, that he was hurting so bad. But I guess he was good at hiding it, and all of the emotions that he kept bottled up inside and hidden finally become too much for him.
"I'm so sorry" He whispered, glancing down at his wrist, most of the bandage covered by both of my hands. "I'm sorry I put you through this, just because I'm weak."
"You aren't weak, Vic" I replied, instantly wanting to defend him but then realizing that I needed to let him speak exactly what he felt. Sighing, I tried to get him to say more, "Talk to me. I-I wanna understand, I want to know what you feel and what you think. I want to be able to help you because I feel so useless, just sitting here going off whatever generic bullshit the doctor told me. I want to understand what you feel now, what you felt when you... tried to commit suicide. Please let me help you." I ended my rambling by lightly squeezing his hand then returning it to rest gently on his bandaged arm.
He took a deep breath before answering me "Kells. I love you. So much. And your'e wrong, you aren't useless because I can guarantee that if didn't have you I'd already be dead. But what I feel is just really hard to explain. I guess because I feel this way most of the time it's hard to distinguish this terrible feeling from any other fleeting emotion like happiness." He uttered a hollow laugh at that last word, like he was surprised it was still in his vocabulary. "Happiness. You are my world, Kells. All of my time with you is what keeps me here. You are my only real happy times, and I'm sorry that I always ruin our time with these feelings. But it's just so hard to hold on to the light feeling I get with you because every fiber of my being is so used to being this way I don't know what else to be."
I felt like I should tell him that he didn't need to apologize, that he was my happiness too, but I needed him to keep going. And I knew what I was about to ask him was difficult. "What is is like?" I asked him softly in the darkness.
He didn't respond for a while, he just stared at my hands on his arm, shaking slightly from the tears that still hadn't ceased. He thought for a bit more before he took a deep breath and answered me.
"It's like drowning, except you can see everyone else around you breathing." He paused and I realized that what he had just explained wasn't a broken person like I had thought he was, it was so much worse. It sounded so terrifying and inescapable, I felt a tightening in my chest because I had allowed him to go through that alone.
He continued "It feels like I'm constantly running out of breath but I can't find the surface of the water to relieve the pressure in my lungs, and I'm hoping for the moment where I pass out or die but it never comes and that's all I want, for it to end. I want this numb feeling in my head to leave because I'm trying to be happy, I really am, but it comes in waves and I just have to surrender to it and let it bury me. I don't want to feel this way anymore, Kells."
He leaned forward to cry on my shoulder and I just held him tightly, like I could keep whatever he was feeling away with my own body. And I tightened my grip more when I heard his small, vulnerable voice speak again. "I don't want to feel this way anymore... and that scares me. I scare me. Because I know what I'm capable of and I know that the thought of ending it all will cross my mind again and that the weight of it all will be too much for me to handle. I can't do this on my own. I'm weak, I can't take it, but I know if I take the easy way out I'd be leaving the best thing that ever happened to me. But I'm not okay, I need help Kells."
I moved my fingers under his chin and tilted his head up again and kissed him softly on the lips with as much love as I could muster. He responded immediately and the kiss was needy and sloppy and wet because tears were pooling between us, but it was passion and love, and understanding. He kissed me hungrily, almost like I was giving him my own breath to inhale and keep surviving. I felt my chest start to burn but I didn't care, if it meant that Vic felt something other than pain for even a moment then I would have given him my last breath in that kiss. When we finally broke apart I looked in his chocolate eyes and I swear that I've never seen such dark eyes with so much light in them. And that's all I wanted, for that light in his eyes to stay there and spread, never leaving him in darkness again. And I would try my hardest to help him in any way I could. "You don't have to do this on your own. I'm here for you, and I swear to God I will never leave you. You'll never be alone baby, I promise, You aren't weak, because your'e still here, fighting. You had one moment of weakness but that doesn't mean that it's over for you. I know how strong you are, and I love you with every fiber of my being, so please, promise me that you won't try to leave this world without me. Because I'll never let you drown."