oneshots. （ a. knight ）

0.6 worst ♡

this will be a difficult one. please keep yourself safe and if you are easily triggered, please do not read this. tw: panic attacks, self-harm, suicidal thoughts

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The pain inside him was a living thing. Formless and deadly, it felt like tiny little needles pricking him everywhere inside. He was drowning in sadness, inhaling water every single time he drew breath. There was no escape. He was on tour when she shattered him, shattered them; there was no escape. His friends kept asking if he was okay. Awsten didn't know what "okay" was anymore, but he needed them to leave him alone. I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm dying. I'm fine.

Two days after the phone call that broke him, because she was such a fucking coward that she had to break up with him over the phone, Awsten wrote a song, recorded it, and sent it off into the world. He unlisted the video on YouTube, tweeted the link, and deleted it a minute later. He didn't need the label blowing him up, yelling about stupid shit he didn't care about.

He should've stayed off social media. It was toxic and disgusting normally, but he certainly couldn't handle it now. She posted some flimsy, fake ass paragraph, typed in her Notes app like the fucking cliche she was, and the fans were going nuts. More than once, Awsten found himself hovering his thumb over the button that would delete his Twitter. He wanted to be done. He wanted to delete his social media, break up the band, and let the ground swallow him whole.

The worst part of all of this was Entertainment. They were releasing their highly anticipated follow-up to Double Dare and Awsten felt sick just thinking about it. The entire album was a love letter to her, telling their love story, the good and the bad. He was going to marry her. She was his final destination.

But now the thought of releasing the album into the world make his stomach roll inside him. Soon everyone would hear those songs, the soundtrack to his humiliation. Everyone would know just how fucking much she meant to him, how desperate he had been for her attention and affection, how much of himself he had changed or stifled to keep her happy.

Awsten had called Benji first, told him that he wanted the entire album trashed, scraped, deleted. He didn't care how disappointed the fans would be. He couldn't, wouldn't, let those songs be released. Nobody could know. He was so humiliated, embarrassed. "It's too late, Aws. The record company has the album. I can't stop it. I'm sorry," Benji had said. Whatever was left of Awsten inside was gone now. He was hollow, a ghost with a beating heart.

The only thing left to do was wait.

They released a video for Lucky People not long after, a simple but painful visual metaphor. Awsten believed in the intelligence of their fans, knew they'd spend hours on Twitter debating and discussing it, picking apart the meaning of everything. They filmed it in Boston after the show, which seemed only fitting because it was this city that he had whispered to her that he was in love with her and wanted her all to himself.

What everyone didn't know was that this video, this specific song with this specific visual, was Awsten's goodbye. People usually left a note, didn't they? Some would apologize, some would point fingers. Awsten was sorry. He was sorry to his friends and family, who would all surely cry when they found him dead. He was sorry to the fans he was letting down. He always tried to be so positive and uplifting, but he couldn't lift himself up this time.

He was standing in the middle of a crowded room, screaming so loudly his throat was going hoarse, but nobody looked up. Nobody cared. Diediediediediediedie.