#and it started with Emerens reaching the breaking point

[hel-phoenyx]

(TW suicide mention and suicidal ideation, also internalized homophobia and dark af intrusive thoughts)

"What do you mean, Leonard attempted suicide ????"

The most surprising part for Willy wasn't the fact her brother did try. He didn't seem well these days, after all, and refused any kind of help. The most surprising part was that the one who told her was Emerens.

He knew very well his cousin would be dumbfounded. Him and Leonard had the coldest relationship in all their generation. They were too different, polar opposites in every way. Emerens often expressed how much he didn't care about his eldest cousin. His face, however, was pale when he told her the news.

"Yes. Doctors say he's not in danger anymore, but he refuses to see anyone. Except me."

"Wh-what ?!"

"I'm as surprised as you are, Willhelmien, sighed Emerens. That's how I came to know, by the way. I'm going to the hospital in the afternoon. I'll give you some news, if you want to."

"And you want to go."

That probably was the most surprising part for Willy.

Emerens nodded.

"You know me enough to remember I take suicide very seriously. Whoever it is that attempted."

Those were the words running in his head when he opened the door to his cousin's room.

Leonard was sitting in his bed. Far, far away from the stiff jurist Emerens was used to know, his hair was disheveled, hanging around a pale, adorned with dark circles face. His glasses couldn't even hide the emptiness in his eyes, not fading even when he heard the door open.

He didn't even say hello to Emerens.

The visitor sighed.

"Hi, Leonard. I heard you wanted to see me."

A pale smile dug into emaciated cheeks.

"I didn't think you would come."

Emerens said nothing. He just sat down on the bed, trying his hardest not to look at the perfusions, the scars he could see on his cousin's arms. They were old, not the method he used to end up in that bed, but still there, unnoticeable before but overwhelming now. He could only look at how much Leonard had grew thinner these days.

Adelheid died three years ago. Since then, Emerens had distributed the immense van Heel wealth to everyone he cared about, including, surprisingly, his eldest cousin. In an act of fairness, he said. He even left him the mansion, prompted by Leonard's demand, and he thought possessing something proving he would live on the family legacy would made him feel a little better.

He was no stranger to the man's inner turmoil. He just didn't expect it to take such proportion.

"I guess asking you how you are feeling is out of the question, said Emerens, a little wicked smile on his lips. You look like shit, Leo."

A little pause.

"Well. Not dead, at least. That's good."

And he meant it.

Leonard shrugged.

"Apparently medication is not that efficient. I will ask the psychiatrist to up my antidepressants dose like I meant to since Adelheid's death, maybe at the very least it would lead to a success..."

"I'd rather not, Leonard."

That sentence was sharp as a blade. Joking about suicide this way was absolutely out of the question, no matter how much he hated his cousin. because of the memories, because of the thoughts that still ran into his head, further and further away since Hope's adoption and Alexander's birth but still there.

And because he didn't want to go to another family funeral yet.

He already skipped his grandparents'.

Leonard's smile faded.

"Surprising to see you care so much. Genuinely. I didn't think I was worthy in your head."

"The fact you were a piece of shit bootlicker that made a point to tell me how I was weak to surrender to my "darkest desires", and by that i mean me being queer as hell, doesn't mean I want to see you kill yourself. Everyone is worthy to hope."

He didn't name his daughter that way for no reason, after all.

A little laugh went past his cousin's lips. Painful.

"Weak... I insulted you so much, and look at me now. I'm the weak one. I couldn't even suppress everything that told me I failed at my life. I failed at finding a wife, producing a heir, even in inheriting the family legacy. I failed at making my family proud, or even in having my siblings love me. Everything I got was nothing but handouts, from Adelheid, my father, and even you, the one I held so much in contempt. Pretty pathetic isn't it ?"

"Well, life is handouts, Leonard. My whole existence, celebrity, wealth, happiness is a handout. I am no self-made man. Nobody is."

"You take it so much better than I do, though."

"Maybe it's because I attempted earlier."

This was said under a joking tone, but Emerens's face was dead serious. Since his children's arrival in his life, he really worked on facing his whole trauma. As of right know, only five people knew what exactly was the Saint-Cyr Tragedy : Himself, the mother of his second child, his two best friends, and, as of right now, Leonard.

Leonard's eyes widened. Just a second.

"... I remember. It was something Adelheid tried so hard to erase from our counsciousness. But still... Getting the news... About Willy, too... Not my fondest memory."

"Fair. Wasn't mine either."

He chuckled.

"I now more than ever see that I was wrong to think you're weak. Joking about that requires quite the strenght of will."

Silence followed that little banter. Long, heavy silence, words only carried by green eyes locking into green eyes. The dark circles on both their faces were so similar, noticed Emerens. And he could recognize that haunted expression anywhere.

Maybe that's what prompted him to visit his cousin.

It lasted for so long. Minutes, maybe, stretching thin in words none of them could say. Before Leonard sighed, eyes lowering, going on his arms covering in scars, and those, now tattooed, of Emerens.

"... How can you stand it ?"

"What ?"

"Everything. The feeling of being a disappointment. Those thoughts everyday that murmur in your ear that you will never be worthy. That taking that knife on the counter to cut your own head would be beneficial to everyone. That you are not what this world needs, to your very core."

Emerens kept silent. Somehow, he knew Leonard needed this. Even if he didn't think himself to be the one fit to receive all those thoughts, at least he was getting them out, one way or another. And he understood that all too well.

"I tried so hard," said Leonard, voice heavy with tears. "To be the son he wanted. To be the heir SHE wanted. I suppressed everything they didn't like, my desires, my.... inclinations, everything, to mold myself into perfection. And it still wasn't enough."

A single tear rolled on his face.

"She deemed the legacy a failure to the point she gave everything to the one who hated her the most. And he discarded me immediatly afterwards. My life was assured, but I ? I just lost everything I fought for."

Emerens wasn't even sure he was still aware of his presence.

"What's the point ? At least you realised that sooner and could enjoy your fucking life. I'm almost fourty, goddamnit. Even if I wanted to, even if I wanted to embrace that role as well as you do, it's too late for me. My best years are behind me, and I ruined them myself. What's fucking left of me, Emerens ?!"

There was only supplication on his face.

Just enough to create an ache in his cousin's chest.

Just enough to feel Leonard and him weren't that different, after all.

He smiled. Still coldly, but there was only compassion behind the fortress of ice he built all those years.

"That's a lot of questions. For which I will start to say I'm not holding out as well as you think."

Leonard blinked, but Emerens wasn't finished.

"What I lived at thirteen fucked me up to the core. While you were repressing yourself, I was destroying myself. It took years to rebuild something good enough to even consider having children, or just talking with you about what I... what we both suffered from. The only difference between me and you is that I reached the breaking point sooner."

"You still look more free than I ever was."

"Well, considering you tried to overdose on prescription, at the very least you got help before you attempted suicide. Also, as for the gay part, since I saw you on Grindr, I'd say you weren't completely repressing yourself, eh?"

"Oh, ew, don't remind me about that time we matched, I still cringe even remembering that."

Emerens laughed a little bit. Funny memory it was than the day he matched with Leonard while they were both under false identities. Him because of his celebrity, and Leonard because if his father saw him on a gay dating site, he would lose his shit. Or maybe because, now that he thought about it, to indulge in his sexuality Leonard created a persona that could live what Leonard van Heel was never allowed to.

He knew the feeling all too well.

"Seriously, Leo, it's never too late to start rebuilding your own identity. Talk with your therapist about that. And if you want advice to navigate through very much homosexual hookups, well, I am an expert in the matter."

Leonard sighed again.

"Oh, how I don't want to remember your little shenanigans. They created so much conflicted feelings in me."

"Jealous of my fabulous sex life, dear cousin?"

"You're laughing, but a little. Not exaclty what, or who you were getting into," he said with a frown when Emerens burst out laughing. "More about the absolute collectedness you told it with. I wasn't even allowing myself to think about a man.... that way, so hearing you narrating your hookups as they were just another adventure? Quite the experience."

"Thank you, thank you. I am after all not a renowned writer for nothing, am I?"

Emerens' smile was getting a lot warmer by the minute. Something Leonard was no stranger to. Him, too, was smiling more and more, forgetting just for a moment the ache in his heart he tried so hard to dull out with medication. Just listening to his cousin talking seemed to do the trick, after all.

He never thought he would get such a confession from a man that hated him with the fierceness of ice, and yet Emerens was still talking, more and more warmly.

"To tell you the truth, Leonard, when I still was at the hospital for my cancer, I listened to many stories. Stories about people like me, but people like you, too. Trans people who started transitionning at fifty. Gay people who buried themselves behind layers and layers of hate and lies. People who always were happy, on their death bed, to at least have tried."

"... You think I can still try?"

"You're still alive, eh? Then you can. End of story. Or better, the beginning."

Leonard smiled a little more widely.

"You know what ? Thank you. For coming even after everything I did to you. And telling me that. And... You know. Surviving."

"Hardly think my life is anything to thank me for."

"I would have said that years ago. Because I was jealous. because you were living the life I wanted. But I think now it's more something like hope. Never too late to be free, right ?"

Emerens winked.

"You're getting the hang of it."