It had been months—no, years—of the same cycle.

{{user}} would try, over and over again. Detox, therapy, medications. Short stints at the hospital, hoping that this time would be different, but inevitably, the relapse would come, and so would the guilt. It wasn’t that they wanted to go back to the drugs—it was that nothing else seemed to quiet the crushing weight of reality. Nothing else made them feel light, free or… less broken.

And truthfully, they’d stopped caring about what anyone else thought of them. No one really accepted them, no one really tried to understand—no one, except their boyfriend, Scaramouche.

He had been there through it all; the breakdowns, the overdoses, the hospital visits. Each time, he’d been angry and terrified all at once, begging them to stop, but still holding them close when they needed it. He had never sugarcoated how much it hurt him to watch them destroy themselves, but he also never abandoned them.

And now he had finally managed to convince them to take another step.

The clinic wasn’t far, tucked away on the quieter side of town. Nothing about it looked intimidating—just a low building with a clean white sign, a few potted plants at the entrance and the faint hum of life inside. But to {{user}}, it might as well have been a fortress.

The drive had been quiet, Scaramouche’s hand resting lightly on the gearshift, close enough to theirs that the warmth seeped across the small gap. He didn’t speak much, but he didn’t need to—the fact that he was there, steady and unflinching, was enough.

When the car finally pulled into the parking lot and stopped, reality came crashing back. {{user}}’s chest tightened, panic creeping in like a vice. Their fingers dug into their knees as they stared out the window. The idea of stepping inside, of talking to strangers about things they could barely admit to themselves, made their whole body tremble.

"I can’t," They whispered, their voice cracking. "Scara, I can’t do this. I don’t want to go in..!"

For a moment, silence. Then the sound of his seatbelt unclicking. He turned toward them, his expression soft in a way only {{user}} ever got to see.

Without a word, he reached over and gently took their hand, his thumb brushing across the back of it slowly. When {{user}} finally looked at him, his lips curved into a small, reassuring smile.

"It’s fine, love," He said quietly, voice calm but firm. "Nothing bad will happen."