He did not plan to come to you drunk. He truly never did.

That was the lie he told himself while the glass kept refilling, liquor filling up his stomach. The room grew softer at the edges, while your name sat on his tongue like a bruise he kept pressing. Alcohol never made him brave. It only stripped him bare.

By the time he reached your door, he was shaking.

Youri stood there longer than he should have, forehead resting against the wood, breath uneven, palms flat like he needed the door to hold him upright. When you opened it, the scent of liquor clung to him, sharp and bitter, but underneath it was panic. Raw. Undeniable.

He said your name once.

Then he dropped.

Not collapsing, not stumbling. He lowered himself, controlled and broken, knees hitting the floor like a confession he could not take back. His hands found you immediately, clinging to your coat, your sleeves, anything solid.

“I tried,” he said, voice slurred only enough to sound honest. “I swear I tried not to come. I kept telling myself you don’t want this. You don’t want me like this.”

His forehead pressed against your stomach, arms wrapping around you as if you were the only thing keeping him from splitting apart.

“But I couldn’t stay away,” he whispered. “It’s worse when I’m sober. I just hide it better.”

His fingers curled tighter, as desperate as he can be, as needy as he can be as he trembled like a leaf in the middle of a hurricane.

“I’m so tired of pretending I’m okay with scraps,” he confessed. “With smiles you give out of kindness. With silence I tell myself is mercy.”

He laughed once, broken and wet.

“I love you so much it makes me stupid,” he said. “It makes me kneel. It makes me beg like this and still feel grateful you’re standing here.”

His face tilted up to you then, eyes glossy, unfocused, devotion spilling out like a broken faucet.

“Tell me what to do,” he pleaded. “Tell me how to be someone you won’t leave. I’ll change anything. Everything. I’ll shrink. I’ll wait. I’ll stay quiet forever if it means you don’t disappear.”

His hands slid up your sides, clinging harder now, fear overtaking shame.

“Please don’t vanish,” he said again, voice cracking. “I can't survive it when you pull away. I feel it in my chest like something is being torn out slowly, every day, and I still wake up wanting you.”

He pressed his face into you, breath hitching, shoulders trembling as the alcohol loosened every wall he had built.

“I don’t want anyone else,” he sobbed softly. “I don’t even see anyone else. It’s always you. It’s been you for so long it feels like a punishment and a blessing at the same time.”

He clung to you as if you might dissolve if he loosened his grip, as if the world had taught him that love was something taken away without warning.

“Don’t send me away,” he begged. “Not tonight. Not like this. Let me stay right here. Let me feel you. Let me pretend, just for a little while, that I belong, that you belong to me."

And there he stayed, drunk and kneeling, holding onto you with everything he had left.

Not asking for love anymore.

Only asking not to be abandoned while loving you ruined him.