Josh's P.O.V.
Poor Vikk. I had said from the beginning that the video was an awful idea, really, who can gain the most weight in 24 hours? It was an excuse to push ourselves too far and by the end of the day everyone just ended up feeling shitty, lying around at Simon and JJ's apartment at the end of the day. Vikk ended up being sick even though he ate the least of all of us and so I ended up driving him back to his apartment, making sure he was inside and safe and heading to bed before I said goodbye.
"I'll be alright Josh." He whispered, rubbing his eyes. "I just pushed myself too far. I'm gonna go to bed and just sleep, okay?"
"Alright. Just... call if you need anything, okay? I just want to make sure you're okay." He nodded.
"I will. I'll be fine." He managed to give me a smile, but something twisted in my chest. Something was wrong, but I didn't know what.
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I think that was the beginning of his relapse. He had been recovering before this moment but I think it was honestly this video, doing the exact opposite of his history, that made it all turn around. He had been doing alright before this, eating normally, exercising normally, looking healthy and taking care of himself... this had pushed him too far, too fast, and I think his throwing up gave him flashbacks back to that time, when he was suffering from anorexia and bulimia.
But as the days passed and turned to weeks, then months, I noticed that Vikk was visibly dropping weight. He had always been skinny before this and although there had been a period of time where he had been working out, gaining a little bit of muscle and looking must happier and healthier, that video reversed the entire thing. Within a month of that video he had dropped probably 8 kilograms which was nowhere near healthy because of the speed and his already low weight.
I went to talk to Tobi first, the boy I had known the longest out of the Sidemen and I knew he would take me seriously. In fact, he had probably noticed already.
"Tobi?" I called, knocking on his office door. He looked up, grinning when he saw it was me.
"Hey Josh!" He said, gesturing for me to come in. "What's up?"
"I- I need to talk to you." I said quietly, straining to even get the words out. Tobi immediately stood up, face pinched and worried, coming over to me.
"What's up? I know something's wrong." I nodded and he took my hand, leading me back to sit on his bed. "What's on your mind?"
I breathed in deeply, but the words flowed like a waterfall the second I gave myself the chance to speak.
"I'm worried about Vikk." I managed to say, and Tobi's eyes widened.
"You've noticed, have you?" He finally said, wringing his hands. "Took anyone a while, I thought one of you guys in the house might have noticed earlier considering you lived with him for 6 years. I didn't really want to talk to him on my own."
"Well I'm glad I'm not the only one." I managed to breathe, leaning back against the wall. "I just... I don't know what to do. I don't want to confront him about it because lord knows I'll only make it worse and I thought everything was going alright cause he had been improving and going to therapy and everything and now... I think it was that video that set everything off."
"That's exactly what I thought." Tobi sighed. "But we need to do something. We had to intervene last time and I don't want to let him go too far. If he goes too far then it's going to be a fight to get him back." He looked at me. "Gather the troops?"
"Gather the troops."
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The troops were every single other member of the Sidemen so literally two hours later all six of us were gathered at my apartment, which was the closest to Vikk's. Everyone knew why we were there and everyone knew exactly what we planned to do but first things first we had to discuss exactly what we would have to do and what we wanted to say.
Simon was finally the one who, in a completely exasperated voice, suggested something we could agree on.
"For god's sake you lot, we've done this before! We've been through this whole situation literally a year and a half ago, let's just go and talk to him! Keep calm, talk to him and make sure he knows that we're there for him when he needs us. It's his health and potentially his life we're talking about, not about how awkward it is for you. Suck it up, would you?"
Both Tobi and I nodded our heads in agreement and just like that, it was agreed. The six of us piled into two cars to drive around to Vikk's place. The other boys pushed Tobi and I to the front but I don't think either of us minded because we had been the ones to blow the whistle on the situation, so we should probably be the ones to talk to him about it first. I rang the bell.
When Vikk finally opened the door I winced, because it was obvious how far the situation had gotten in just a few months. He was stick thin, leaning against the door, black bags under his eyes and god, the amount of weight he had lost was painfully obvious. He looked pretty surprised to see all of us standing there, mouth open and not sure what to say.
"H-Hi?" He finally stuttered, eyes wide. "What are you all doing here?"
"We need to talk to you." Tobi said, softly. "Can we come in?"
"Ye...yeah?" He had gone pale the moment Tobi said that line because it was exactly what we had said to him the first time around, and he knew exactly what it meant.
It was painful and it was scary, but it was needed. We all cried the afternoon, especially when Vikk confessed that it was that video that set everything off again and that he had, for almost four months, been eating almost nothing and purging anything he did eat. I think talking about the relapse was more difficult than the first time because we all ended the evening curled up on Vikk's bed, said boy squashed in the middle of all seven of us, three of us either side of him.
Somehow I ended up closest to him with Harry on his other side, Tobi sleeping curled around my back. Vikk was sleeping mostly soundly and everyone else was fast asleep around me when I finally settled back to try and sleep myself, yawning as I did so because I really was exhausted after a long, emotional day but until that point I hadn't wanted to sleep because Vikk was still stirring, tossing his head and moving every couple of minutes.
This was what I think Vikk truly wanted though. He wanted comfort, he wanted others to coddle him sometimes but because he lived alone and we hadn't been very physically affectionate, it hadn't happened until now. So maybe the Sidemen house was coming back with a few extra members, and so maybe we had all agreed that this was a better arrangement.
Yeah, it was great.
