[TRIGGER WARNING! SELF-HARM, SUICIDE MENTIONS AND DEPRESSION PRESENT!]
Brian has been suspicious for weeks now. How you always wear long-sleeved shirts; how you wince when one of the guys takes your wrist in their hands when you go to jokingly lock hands with your friends; how your smile never reaches your eyes like it used to, superficial and broken, much like the happiness you try so desperately to convey.
He sees right through it.
Arriving at your house - for impromptu visits are not uncommon - he knocks and waits for you. Seconds trickle into minutes, and those minutes are filled with silence that both relieves and horrifies him. Silence is both the most serene and desperate of sounds, and if it was filled with a scream would it make any difference?
Q tries again, raps his knuckles harder against the door. When he receives nothing again, he tries the handle. Unlocked. Slowly peeking his head through into the darkened hallway, he's stunned to see everything in disarray: table flung onto its side, shattered glass from photo frames that once sat on the mantle, papers that he can only assume were from assignments or tests. Disbelief knits his eyebrows... and he doesn't even realise he's hurtling up the stairs when he hears a distressed scream come from the bathroom.
"[Y/N]!" he cries as he sticks an arm out and clumsily grabs the handle. It won't budge. Barging his shoulder against it, it holds. Have you... barricaded yourself in there? From the other side of the door, he can hear you sobbing, sounds that make his stomach churn and his heart ache as he rattles the handle once more. "[Y/N], what are you doing in there?!"
Breathing picks up pace, fear present in his wide-eyed gaze as he shunts his weight against the door. It's no use.
"I can't, Brian... I can't DO THIS SHIT ANY MORE!"
And nothing else follows but unintelligible screaming. Repeatedly, Q barges into the door; he's almost certain his entire right side is beginning to bruise but he couldn't care less, adrenaline fueling his actions as the lock flies off from the force and he's left to shove as hard as he can against whatever the hell you've put in front of the door.
Eventually, he makes a gap big enough to squeeze through and staggers into the small room. What he sees horrifies him for you hold a glass shard (from the broken mirror) to your neck, pulling it back, presumably about to jab it into it. Q flings himself forwards, grabs your wrist and winces as you yelp with pain and drop it. Pulling his hand back, he notices it's covered in blood. Oh God... your wrists are in such a state, red coating them like paint.
Desperately, you bend at the knees to retrieve the glass, but Q slams a boot over it and kicks it across the room, listening to the agonised screaming as you attempt to push past him to get to it, movements jerky and delirious as your eyes are blinded with tears and blood (presumably from when you'd attempted to wipe your eyes, Q muses). Brian wraps his arms around your middle, pulls you into him and leans heavily against the wall, sliding down it slowly so that he's sitting. His position forces you to sink down with him, though you are by no means peaceful about it.
"Get off of me, GET OFF, LET GO!" You're screaming, wailing, thrashing against his strong arms, but Q holds firm and buries his face in your neck, choking back sobs as you continue with your protests. Your noise wounds him. "I want to FUCKING DIE–!"
"No, you don't!" The Joker shouts, holding you tighter when you scrabble against his arms, nails scratching. His teeth grit together as he holds back tears, for your current state reminds him of his own all those years ago. That all-encompassing darkness that had swallowed him whole; how he'd turned to alcohol, and depression had swarmed him like a pack of stinging bees. "You DON'T!"
You're beginning to weaken, strength leaving your veins as you settle for laying there limply in his arms, throwing your head back and sobbing loudly. Q rocks you gently from side to side, face contorted into an expression of pain as he strokes your hair and leans in close, forcing tears back in order to seem firm.
"I know what it's like, all right? You think it's never gonna get better - that if you hate yourself enough, you'll disappear. Well you DON'T. You sit there, and you stew in it, and you hope it'll end but it never does, [Y/N]. You know what fixes it? Reaching out. Letting people help you. God, let me help you..."
You just cry. What else can you do? With pain twisting your voice into a heartbroken cacophony of noise, you yell and curse and bury your face in his chest, body curling in on itself with the urge to disappear. And all the time, Q is there, nursing you with soft words of encouragement and equally soft hands that card through disheveled hair and soothe you.
It seems like hours that you sit there in his arms, blubbering and sniffling and crying, and not once does the man complain, just stays there and promises you that it'll be okay; that he's going to help you get your life on track; that he's going to be there every step of the way so long as you need him. Because maybe today you hadn't wanted to be saved but eventually you would look back on this day and appreciate that he had stopped you from ending it all, that he had rescued you.
And that was how Brian Quinn saved your life.