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You don't know what you're doing.
You don't know why you're like this.
There is a certain nature to hating yourself.
There is a certain nature to smoking a pack of cigarettes, and not feeling the smoke for even a moment.
You can feel the metal that traces up your throat though, can feel exactly where the metal begins and you end.
Cigarettes don't even help really. It's just muscle memory, the half comfort of a repetitive action.
The smoke curls in your lungs and gives not a moments relief from the itch that is your brain yelling for nicotine.
You'd have quit eons ago, cigarettes are a bitch to stockpile, but it's not like the nicotine addiction can fuck off in immortality.
You died with it, so it's here to stay.
God. What the hell are you doing?
What is wrong with you?
Every cigarette you finish, you press the still-burning butt into your arm until tears prick your eyes and you have to clench your jaw to bite back a whimper.
Your skin tender and burnt. It's not exactly pleasant, but you press on it hard as it rapidly heals, just to feel something.
You make a line of scars up your arm, circular puffy burns that ache like hell for a minute or two before blinking out like stars in a polluted sky not even ten minutes later. Faded to a ghost of a circle, layered over all the countless other scars you’ve picked up in the last few millennia.
You don't lose your arms enough for the scars to reset anyway.
The burns might've even looked pretty if you hadn't known what they meant.
You think you deserve it.
You know you deserve it.
Your lungs exhale. A sharp, jerking motion as they contract. The smoke is expelled in a puff.
It took ages for you to get used to having no control over your breathing. To the dull pain that comes with your ribs never fully expanding or contracting.
You toss the cigarette to the side, and stomp on it. Watching the embers sizzle out.
You still flinch when people raise their hands sometimes. Still freeze up when there isn't enough food.
Still obsessively check after things that are yours, still don't let anyone touch anything you actually care about.
(You still look after everyone with a sharp edge because you were always the oldest.
Always the one making sure the kids didn't starve because like fuck if anyone was ever that for you.)
You remember being eight. You remember sitting on that damnable cot that was your bed, stomach aching like the end and near dizzy enough from hunger your vision went black when you stood. Holding that ratty bear to your chest like it's the end of the goddamn world.
The world isn't kind to orphans.
Especially ones who aren't nice.
Especially ones who get caught starting fires.
Especially trouble makers.
Mickey took you from that hellish place, gave you food. Ruffled your hair and made you feel every emotion you'd never had before.
You felt cared for.
Looked after.
For the first time you can remember an adult was seemingly happy to take care of you.
You'd introduced him to Mr. Brown Bear once you'd felt safe enough. He'd smiled, reached down and shook Mr. Brown Bear's arm and asked him "How do you do?" Doing a fun voice. Sounding everything but malicious.
You remember laughing, and hugging that damn toy close.
Then you lost one of the bags you were running, and Mickey was pissed.
Towering over you. Large, imposing, and nothing like the friendly uncle he’d painted himself as.
He'd snatched Mr. Brown Bear from your arms, you were screaming.
You remember how he dug his fingers into the hole in the seam and ripped. Tearing him apart.
Fluff covering the ground.
Not blood but it certainly felt like it.
He'd killed him.
"You lost something important to me." He'd explained softly as he drew you into his arms as you sobbed so hard you couldn't breathe, rubbing your back and holding you close. Pressed a kiss to your head as you sobbed and wheezed in greif. "So it's only fair I took something important from you. But now we're even, Ashes, so make sure you don't lose another, eh?"
You had tried to piece him together, once or twice, but you were never great at sewing, and your hands started shaking too hard when you looked at him.
Eventually, the pieces got lost in the shuffle.
If you cried, you hid your tears beyond heavy eyelids.
Later, you’d think about it as he clapped you on the shoulder.
As he called you a real good kid.
Eventually, you rationalized it as necessary. You were too old to carry around a toy everywhere anyway, being 12 and all, and you did lose that bag.
You know thats bullshit reasoning now, but well. It got you through being a teenager around him, so it's good enough.
What is a Mechanism without the shittiest coping mechanisms known to the universe?
Once you recall you screamed at him, you forget why you were upset. If you were upset. For all you recall you could have just been being an irrational child. Upset over nothing and reacting ridiculously.
Probably, to be honest.
Doesn't matter now anyway.
But Mickey was angry.
Properly so.
You weren't allowed dinner, and when you went to get food the next morning, near shaking from how hungry you were, he placed a hand on your shoulder and said "We're making your favorite this morning!" Smiling and for just a moment you felt safe.
They had you sit at the table, and you weren't allowed any.
You just watched.
Stomach aching.
You stole a roll when he wasn't looking, pocketed it and ate it in the bathroom.
But well.
Really, you're fine now. And it taught a lesson well.
You fucking deserved it.
All of it.
Eye for an eye after all.
You were a shit kid anyway.
You deserved it.
Yelling at him like that.
But he never hit you, not until you were a bit older.
Not until you were what?
Maybe 13? Younger than 14, you're sure.
You screamed at him, something about someone dying and him letting it happen maybe.
You don't remember why you did anything you did.
It's all hazy and most of it's just not there.
Lost to the centuries, and the fact a lot of the shit happening was traumatizing.
But you deserved it anyway.
Who the hell were you to yell at him like that? To get in his face and scream.
Who were you to ever think about disrespecting him like that?
You deserved it when he slapped you across the face.
He was so much stronger than you when you were that age, he could’ve killed you in an instant. You're lucky he didn't with how you were acting.
After that you just took it. After that no matter what he said, no matter what punishment he doled out you stood still, nodding, apologising, reacting like he wanted.
Kinda fucked up but well.
You lived right?
You hold a new cigarette to your lips and wait for your lungs to inhale.
Takes a moment, but they contract, then expand, and you're as close to properly smoking as you can get.
You shut your eyes so tight your ears buzz.
It's not fair.
None of this is.
You fucked up.
Plain and simple.
You fucked up.
No excuse would get you out of this.
No clever words would make it right.
You're immortal now.
And that's that.
You figured it would make you stronger.
Make you better.
Figured that no one would ever hurt you again, no one could ever get the chance too.
Because you’d be immortal, and you’d outlive all the fuckers who had you killed.
But it didn't change much of anything in the end.
From one shit family to another.
And now death isn't even an option.
You shouldn't have taken her hand.
You press the cigarette to your arm in line before you spiral. Clinging to the pain.
You don't pull it away after your eyes start to water.
You don't pull it away after you whimper a bit.
You want it to hurt longer than a goddamn half a minute.
Your hand spasms and you drop it. Pain spiking and you grin a horrible grin as you brush at the tears.
You dig your nail finger into the burn, breaking tender flesh and drawing blood.
It hurts.
You're glad for it.
It's something to focus on other than the fact that you’re immortal, and in another goddamn hell of a family.
(You remember once when Mickey pinned you against the wall, held his cigar to your arm until you were screaming. You'd fallen after, crumbling against the wall, shaking.
You'd messed up so of course you deserved it. You'd nearly been caught, nearly been shot even. If the Aces had caught you it would've been hell. Sure you were 14, but that's no excuse for mistakes as simple as the one you made.)
You miss Malone, is the worst bit.
And you hate yourself for it.
You flick open a pocket knife and trace the edge of one of the burns.
You miss him too. And you don't want too.
You don't fucking want to.
You miss Mickey, miss the younger sevens, miss the family that was never really loyal to you but they were all you had anyway.
But he betrayed you. You shouldn't miss him.
He had you killed.
Burned.
But as you clench your teeth, it doesn't change a thing because the facts are you fucking miss him.
You flick the pocket knife open and shut and force yourself to stop thinking.
You can feel your heart racing but it's fine.
You're fine.
This is your reality now, has been for eons now.
It's fine.
You don't need to have another goddamn crisis over being immortal. Over the fact that you chose this.
You rose from the ashes like a phoenix, and Mickey burned just as bright as one.
You just needed to distract yourself.
More.
You don't need anyone.
You've never needed anyone.
You decide you're going to go to a bar, probably. Maybe. Or maybe you’ll pick a fight, or maybe you’ll just try and get yourself killed so you can stop thinking for a single goddamn minute.
You don't plan on going back to Aurora.
You'll end up back there eventually, or they'll find you.
Hopefully by then this breakdown will have blown over.
No one will bring up long you were gone, or ask if you're okay.
Because you're Ashes O’Riley and you don't need help.
You have a feeling you would be hyperventilating if your lungs didn't only have one setting.
Inhale 5 seconds. 1 second pause. Exhale 5 seconds. 1 second pause. Repeat.
No variation.
You feel tears behind your eyes but like hell if you'd let them fall.
You fucked up badly, taking her hand.
And there is no painting it in a good light.
This is your new goddamn reality, and you had better get used to it.
Mickey deserved to die anyway. He deserved what happened to him.
It's only fair.
You hurt your family, you pay for it.
You hurt your family, you're punished
That's why you burned him after all.
(That's why you burned everything, after all)
You don't really care what happens to you, as you walk.
You just want to stop thinking.
Whatever happens, happens.
You dig your thumb into a burn on your arm and wince at the pain.
You start walking a bit faster. You have no destination nowhere in mind, no destination in sight, and force yourself to not think.
You have nothing in mind and nowhere you're headed.
Whatever happens happens.
You're an awful person regardless, and you deserve whatever happens to you.
You miss Malone.
You miss it and you hate that you do.
You miss sitting round a table, beating Mickey at his own game.
Winning, and he scoffs, says you must have cheated but still slides over the money.
“You’ve gotten good kid.” He’d say, then smile at you.
For half a second you’d feel pride.
Then he’d stand up, walk past you, pat your arm, and leave.
You’d buy cigarettes, and whatever the fuck you want, and sometimes it was nice.
You’d hardly been able to believe it when you learned he was the snitch.
The betrayal still cut deep, hundreds of years later.
You miss him, and you hate it.
He killed you.
You keep walking.
Trying not to think at all.
Immortality was supposed to be better.
You were supposed to be better.
No more Mickey, because you still hated him with everything you were back then.
No more playing adult when you're hardly one yourself.
Finally some peace.
But immortality was exactly the same.
Instead of Mickey there was Carmilla, and instead of the other Sevens there were Jonny and Nastya.
But the dynamic was the same.
You were supposed to be powerful now.
You were supposed to be smart now.
You were supposed to be better now.
You were supposed to be in charge now.
But everything was the same.
New lungs, same bullshit.
New lungs, same Ashes.
You keep walking.
Somewhere a logical part of you says there is no way you should be alone right now. That you should call Brian. That you should send your coordinates and let them get you.
That you should crawl home bleeding.
But isn't that what got you killed?
Isn't that what had you burned?
You keep walking.
You aren't looking where you're going just focusing on the steps.
The movement of walking forward.
It's not as grounding as pain, but you're out of cigarettes.
Your thoughts are racing and your heart is pounding but your lungs keep breathing at the same steady pace as ever.
You blink tears from your eyes.
You should just go home.
Just as you think that, headlights hit you, and you look up just as a car slams into you.
You die.
And you hope you don't wake up.
(You do of course, in a hospital, but the pain is enough to distract you for now.)