Chapter Text
Luz sat in her bed, unable to breathe.
All she could think about was what Hunter had done, what he wanted to do to himself, and how she was powerless to stop it, and if he did it at the wrong place at the wrong time she could be left waiting for him to answer for eternity.
She felt sick.
She wanted to raid her kitchen for all the medicine they owned and down it in hopes that she could die before him and wouldn’t have to experience that.
He had attempted again last night, he confessed to her that evening.
Over the past while she’d noticed the fast growing scars on his arms, noticed how the alcohol cupboard slowly drained of liquid from someone else’s doing, something else she’d got out of him after questioning him about it.
All of it was her fucking fault.
He talked to her about a lot of stuff, which she loved, she would take the venting over the alternative any day but God it was fucking terrifying having to try and get him to eat, and not drink, or hurt himself, or fucking kill himself.
Of course she’d never tell him about this, again she’d rather him talk than turn to his self destructive coping mechanisms or god forbid kill himself, no matter how it made her feel, after all her feelings aren’t nearly as important as his fucking life.
A small rational part new that there was nothing wrong with setting boundaries to protect her mental health but “rational” my ass he mattered more than her fucking emotions she wasn’t selfish enough to want to protect her fragile little emotions in exchange for his whole life.
While all of it hurt she didn’t blame him, she’d been in both positions with her old online friends, both the person having to constantly convince her friend to stay alive and the one constantly talking about how she wanted to die and how she’d relapsed to that other poor kid online.
A while after both friendships had ended she’d looked back and realised how much of a fucking asshole she was, she had been putting someone through the same traumatic shit she’d been put through at the same time, how could she be so fucking selfish?!
Sure she’d been 12 but her age didn’t take away from the fact that another kid with their own issues was having to take on her shit.
But anyway, she knew how good it felt to say the shit you were doing to yourself and have someone comfort you and panic over your life and wellbeing like that, it wasn’t like she could get that kinda comfort anywhere else.
She also knew how it felt to be on the receiving end, which is why she never vented back, that stuff was reserved for her ao3 and her music, no people who knew, or cared, and would get worse because of her issues.
She felt horrible for wanting to kill herself when Hunter cared, and was having his own issues, but God all of this was stressful she just wanted out.
She wanted to grab a knife and drag it along her thighs and arms, not wanting to stop there either, wanting to bring the blade up her body to her stomach and neck and face and leave her mangled corpse in a ditch where no one would ever find her and she’d me missing forever.
She’d got up earlier to grab some hard alcohol (she didn’t even bother checking which) before going back to her thoughts, she didn’t even exactly know when she did it but she was now sitting with a half finished glass of some spirit in one hand and her comfort stuffed otter in her other arm.
She was so fucking selfish for all of this.
Anything Hunter did to himself was her. Fault.
If he knew she was thinking like that he’d probably be horrified and hate himself more so she never told him, but she knew it was objectively true.
Fuck it. She thought, giving into some of the intrusive thoughts.
She placed the otter at the end of her bed, not wanting to “traumatise” it (she knew it was stupid, she knew it was just a stuffed toy, but if somehow for some reason it could see and care she didn’t want that to happen.)
She grabbed a blade out from under her pillow and slashed across her now exposed left arm, all up and down, ten whole cuts, until she ran out of space that wasn’t already taken up by healing cuts and scars or reserved space for if she ever wanted to take her own life by slitting her wrists, as it was too close to her wrist for her to be comfortable having scars there, what if her sleeves rolled up?
She grabbed a paper towel and pressed it on her arm so she didn’t get any on the bed and felt that weird comfort that self-harm always gave her.
She had finished her alcohol, so she brought her cup to the kitchen and washed it thoroughly, making sure to get the alcohol smell out of it.
After that she went to the bathroom and checked her cuts, they’d stopped bleeding too bad.
Since they weren’t gushing blood anymore she put the paper towel in the toilet and flushed, wanting to make sure no one could just find it in the trash.
After that she went back to her bed, a little calmed down, crawled back in, brought her otter back out and snuggled it until she fell asleep.