A/N: This has been floating around my head since the episode last night, and it finally forced it's way out.

Trigger/Warnigns: Attempted Suicide

Glad You Came

The sound his shoes make in the empty hospital hallway seems too loud. He's never been to a hospital before, at least not as a visitor, but he can't help but wonder why there aren't more people around. Occasionally he sees a nurse, but they're always walking with a purpose and no one stops to ask him what his is. It's good, because he doesn't know what the hell he's doing there.

He looks at the room numbers with a vague disinterest, passing by the one he got at the front desk several times before coming to a stop outside. The door is cracked open just enough that he can see the occupant is in there alone. Before he can change his mind, he lifts his hand and pushes the door open a little more, enough that he can see the boy on the bed is awake but not looking at him.

He lets his eyes linger for a moment, trying to identify if there's any difference in the boy now. The only change is the harsh red burn around his neck and maybe his shoulders are a little more hunched. But no; all he can see is the same boy he'd shared countless drinks with in a smoky bar, casually insulting just as he does with everyone.

"Sebastian?" He didn't realize when Dave noticed him, but he can't miss the huskiness in Dave's voice that can only come from having his windpipe constricted, hanging from a rope. He doesn't have time to pull on his nonchalant façade, opting instead to try out a hesitant smile. It feels foreign on his lips, and he drops it as soon as he puts it on.

"Can I come in?" At first, he thinks Dave is going to refuse. He wouldn't blame Dave if he did. After a moment's hesitation, Dave just nods, talking obviously still painful. That's okay; Sebastian is the only one who needs to talk right now. He just wants Dave to listen.

The words don't come as easily as he expected them to. He busies himself with pulling a chair over from the far side of the room, pretending it's heavier than it is just to put off the moment when he has to look back at Dave and come up with a reason why he came. Somehow, sarcasm and biting comments don't seem like they'll work here, but it's been so long since he's been anyone else that he can't figure out how to start.

That night at the bar, the one where he was already drunk before walking in the door because his parents had decided to bring over another of their friends' daughters to foist on him, kept replaying in his head. He'd wanted to hurt someone, and Dave had been there. He didn't believe any of what he said; Dave was a type, Sebastian's type. But Dave was also insecure and constantly seeking approval and Sebastian was drunk and the admittedly small filter between brain and mouth vanished. By the time his brain had caught up with exactly what he'd said, Dave was gone and Sebastian hadn't seen him at Scandals since.

"I'm an ass," he says bluntly, deciding anything else would only come out wrong, "Especially when I'm drunk."

"It doesn't have anything to do with you," Dave says, his voice barely above a whisper but everything is so silent – where is everyone? – that Sebastian has no problem hearing him. What he says next isn't supposed to sound arrogant, but it does.

"I know." He wants to duck his head, but after so long modest and shy would seem like a pathetic act that he pulls himself up straighter instead, forcing himself to hold eye contact as he talks. "I heard about what happened at your school, I mean."

The words he needs to say now are the hardest. They taste like bile on his tongue as he forces them up, but he won't be cowed by three syllables, no matter how stilted they sound. "I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry," He says again. As if they open the floodgate, words start spilling out. His hands move, punctuating points and betraying nerves and weakness that he hates but suddenly can't seem to control. He has very few friends, despite how many people are drawn to him. He knows it's fear that leads people to follow him. It's exactly how he wants it to be, because if Sebastian is good at anything, it's manipulating emotions.

When his hand reaches up to his face and comes away wet, it's a surprise. His voice never breaks, there are no sobs, but there's a track of tears on his face that cool in the circulating air of the hospital room. There aren't many of them, and he wipes them away as soon as he notices and no new ones take their place, but the last time he cried is so far removed from the present moment that it may never have even happened.

What he doesn't expect was for Dave's hand to reach out or for his to close the distance and hold on to it. The grip is intimate in a way Sebastian has never been with anyone else. It's chaste, offered in friendship, but even that contributes to the intimacy of the moment. No one has ever done that for him before, and the sincerity behind the action stuns him into silence. Here is Dave, who less than 24 hours ago decided that death would solve his problems, reaching out and supporting him.

"You should hate me," Sebastian says calmly. Only his hand, skin stretched white over knuckles as he grips Dave's, betrays any hint that he isn't completely at ease sitting in the hospital room.

"You're probably right," Dave says, never releasing Sebastian's hand. Their contact is almost forgotten now, like a casual thing without which neither would stay afloat. "But I was too busy hating myself to hate anyone else. Even you."

"I was there once, too, you know." Sebastian feels something in him respond to Dave's half smile, but he pushes that phantom thought away. Instead, he offers Dave the only thing he can right now; the truth. "Before I was at Dalton, I was in France."

He can see the scoff in Dave's face, even though no sound come from the other boy. His smile is tight as he steels himself to say the words he has never spoken out loud. "I was in France, because my sister got home thirty minutes early and found the note I left for her in her room and stopped me before I could…"

"What did you chose?" It's a macabre question, but Sebastian can't deny Dave at this point, not when he's already come so far. It's not what any of his therapists asked. In a way, it's easier. There are no emotions.

"Pills," He says. "I didn't want to be ugly at my funeral." He meant the words as a joke, but they fall heavy in the air. "Why did you choose hanging?"

"Because it was there," He says. Therapists would dig for a deeper meaning, but Sebastian doesn't. He recognizes the truth in the way Dave's whole body stiffens at the words and he draws in on himself. "Does it get better?"

"I'm not the one to ask. I ignored my feelings by insulting other people and getting drunk and fucking any available guy." It's a relief to talk so candidly about it. He's used to people walking on eggshells around him the moment they learn about his past, but Dave is blunt just like him.

"Would you do it again?" He doesn't have an answer for that. Sometimes he thinks he would, given a chance. Other times he hardly believes he tried once. Instead he just shrugs, a simple rise and fall of the shoulders that probably says so much more than he knows.

"Would you?"

"No." Dave doesn't need a moment of hesitation. "Life's going to suck, but it has to get better eventually. Maybe when I leave Lima…"

"You'll run in to a whole new bunch of ignorant dick heads, pardon my French," Sebastian said. Dave looks up at him in surprise and Sebastian hits his stride now that the conversation has moved away from the painfully personal. "There are narrow minded, homophobic idiots everywhere. But you'll get better at ignoring them."

His hand is his own again and he doesn't remember who let go first, but the warmth from the contact lingers on his fingers and he tries to retain that feeling. As if a silent cue, he stands up, struck all at once by how small Dave looks lying in the hospital bed. All at once feelings come to the surface, feelings he's pushed aside since the first time he saw Dave at the bar. "I should go."

"I'm glad you came," Dave says with a smile that doesn't quite reach his eyes.

"Me too." Sebastian glances around, watching a nurse walk past the door without even glancing in. "I'll be back tomorrow." It's more of a question than a statement, but when he doesn't see any reluctance on Dave's face, which has always been so hard to read but now seems like an open book, his resolution firms. The sound of leather shoes on the tiles suddenly doesn't seem so empty.

A/N: Please let me know what you thought of it!