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Tango relapsed hard. His thigh felt nothing but numbness but was covered in a sickly red. He was practically addicted to self harm. The word burnt his tongue.
It was all mucked up. The splashes of crimson dotted his vision like nether stars.
He was back and still coated in red. Legs folded beneath him sitting up. Hands clammy or so he thought.
He couldn't feel what he was seeing. What he was feeling. He was in his bathtub-- that horrible red colour rubbing off him.
Tango didn't think he liked the colour red much anymore.
It was all over him.
His eyes,his favourite sweater,one of his favourite colours,the colour of his fingernail polish and the stains on all his towels and bathroom tile.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tango had lost a lot of blood that hazy night. So now he was sitting in bed,weak and poorly running a low fever,impulse forced to watch over him. He was about-- a week into rehabbing from it when impulse stepped in his doorway with a confused smile on his face.
“Hey. Are you feeling any better today dude?”
“Mph. I dunno. I still feel numb but I think I haven't felt much in a while.”
“Did you take your medicine and eat?” impulse asked sternly.
“Yes.” Tango answered, truthfully.
Impulse tried to read his expression for any lies or cracks in a facade. Tango hoped he didn't find anything wrong.
“! I'm proud of you, dude. You're making progress!”
“Thanks? I just-- didn’t want to burden any more.”
“Burden!? Man, you're filled with crazy ideas if the burden is what you think of yourself. Tango I've told you never changes and I meant it well besides all this of course” impulse gestured meaninglessly,tossing his hands like he was dropping marbles through one of those plastic race courses-or better yet joes pinball machine.
“Thank you. Honestly. You're such a big help.”
“Anyhow, I got a surprise for you. Bdubs said he wants to come over with uh- something he called ‘the kit’ if you want that.”
Tango was shocked by the smile that started to pull the corners of his lips.
“Yeah. That'd be great.”
“Okay! I’ll tell him to come on over then.”
Tango smiled seeing a warm smile on impulses face. It made him happy that tango was happy. Maybe there was a reason to smile. His best friend's sake.
“If I may ask: what is ‘the kit’?” impulse inquired.
“Hm- oh it's nothin!”
“Okay…i'm gonna leave now alright? You're gonna be good alone?”
“Yeah. I'll be fine.”
Impulse left tango on his bed quietly waiting. Bdubs was always a bit loud but the idea of hanging out with him sounded pleasurable. Suddenly, the man of the hour was storming in his room.
“TANGO!!! It's so good to see you dude! What you been up to?”
Bdubs hesitated in hugging him, a deep frown tugging at his face.
“Besides..all this of course.”
Tango bit the inside of his cheek.
“So impulse told you?”
“Yeah. yeah he did. I'm sorry tango. I- I didn't realise how tough things were for you.”
Tango sat back in shock as bdubs eyes became moist and his face trembled. Tango scooped him in a hug.
“Hey..hey….shh shhh. It’s okay--i’ll be alright. I'm sorry for making you cry.”
“Hey! I didn’t cry! You just keep it so dusty in here my eyes were watterin’!” bdubs fought.
“Okay okay. There were no tears. I promise i’ll keep my lips shut” for emphasis he brought his pinched fingers to his lips and dragged it across like a zipper and flicked it away. Bdubs snorted.
“Okay. Hands where I can see ‘em mister.”
Tango complied and bdubs pulled out a small tin of nail polish from a shulker. Tango slowly slunk his hands out from under the covers and winced. His arms were covered in scabs and scars and dead flaky skin.
“Can ca-n you grab that sweater for me dubs?”
Bdubs nodded and pulled tango's favourite red sweater off the edge of his bed.
“Are you cold?”
“No-just don't like looking at my arms. Ya know?”
“Oh.. why not though?You can learn to love it you know. I can help you through body dysmorphia-i've helped a little with it before.”
“Really?”
“Yeah! Scar used to be a bit dysmorphic about his face but I helped him out during the campaign season.I can help you too!”
“How?”
“We’ll just- trying new things! Slowly if you do a bit more with yourself like try out an outfit you always wanted to, try shorter clothing Or a new style and sooner or later you’re more confident about yourself.” Bdubs explained.
Tango stopped to think for a moment.
“I know where to start.”
“Now you're getting into it! Where?”
“My nails. Lets try different colours?”
“Ohhh~hell yes!”
“What ones?”
“Blue and purple.” Tango shot back, sitting up from his spot,brushing pale fingers against his nightstand for balance. He went to sit on the edge so bdubs had better access to his hands.
“Oh no you don't. Right down back to bed with ya miser! You're still poorly--i can tell! I ain’t blind!”
“M’fine!”
“You're barely able to hold your ding dang body in place for a second. Ain’t no way that some’n who almost bled to death a week ago is just dandy!”
Tango flinched and turned away. His mind swam with pictures of spilling blood running down in fountain spurts. How numb he was and how he didn't even feel it after a while.
A cold shiver ran down tango's spine,seemingly running down his muscles and achilles heels as well. It was infectious.
“Hey. hey! Tango, snap outta it!”
“Wha-? Sorry”
“Don't be. I shouldnta mentioned it. Sore spot and all.”
Tango nodded and begrudgingly layed down,feeling dizzy. Bdubs silently painted his nails in bright tones,mentioning something about colour study. Tango couldn’t bring himself to care that much and just listened intently to bdubs’s lipsing voice and stutter.
“.....Done!”
Tango paused and sat up to look at his nails. He liked it--bright robins egg blue in his ring fingers and everywhere else amethyst purple.
“Great job dubs! Now my turn to do yours! What colour do you want?”
“Hm..lets go black for the centre three and have the other two be either hot pink or highlighter yellow!”
Tango hummed in agreement and started working. He did the first layers well enough,hardly smudging. He waited for a moment as the middle ones dried by working on the other two. He flopped back and did the second layer.
“Dang! Sorry, scuffed your thumb up a bit.”
“No problem! Just glad to see you happy man..”
“Yeah…”
Tango looked up from his work.
“I'm glad I'm feeling happy too.”
~~a few weeks later~~
Tango walked up the steps to bdubs monolith,adrenaline pulsing under his skin. He knocked firmly on the door and upon hearing footsteps went back to curling his hands around his body. Soon,bdubs was there in front of him,smiling a large grin.
“Hey. I wanted to know if you wanted to go to the meeting with me.”
‘Sure!”
Bdubs then took a second to look tango over. He was wearing a light blue shirt with white cuffed edges. It was also short sleeved,allowing the plethora of scars on tangos arms to show.
Bdubs crushed him in a sudden hug.
“Woah! Okay mr.snuggly.”
“I'm not snuggly.” bdubs fought.
Tango rolled his eyes.
“But seriously, I'm proud of you dude.”
“Yeah yeah”.
“No, I mean it. I care a lot about you-- we all do even if you don't think so at times. It’s nice to be able to see you like this.”
“Thanks dubs.. Yeah. I'm glad to be feeling happier. I still- not feeling fantastic but I can laugh again and…I'm almost two weeks clean!”
“Aha! That's fantastic news! Does any of the server know?”
“Not yet, no.”
“Then let's hurry up and tell em!”
Tango laughed nervously and followed bdubs to keralis’s house to attend the meeting. He followed bdubs in and sat down on a nice oak chair.
“Hi bubbles! Tango! Good to see you guys! Big eyes reunite!”
“Hi keralis!”
“He-y keralis. Good to see you.”Tango forced his voice to be steady.
“You too. I'm liking the shirt by the way-- it suits you.”
It caught tango off guard. It felt like he was lying. But keralis wouldn’t lie to him right?
“Thanks.” flat monotone. Perfect.
“Could I get anyone anything? I got chocolate and blueberry muffins and a coffee filters.'' Cleo suddenly shouted,walking in the room with a rather large tray of baked goods.
Tango made a move to help, lifting the tray out of her hands and onto the table with a bouncy clunk.
“There we go! That’ll be easier I'd say.”
“Coulda got it myself! But thank yo-uu-- what happened to your arms?!”
Tango flinched hard and stole a glimpse at his cut up bruised and scabbed the different lines with different stories. Tango backed away.
“what?”
“Your arms there-”
“Purple light! I'm going outside.” Tango shouted their server wide safe word and took off outside. He ran out and quickly thumped down on the grass,breathing heavy.
~~~~~bdubs~~~~~
“What? Is He okay? What happened?”
Bdubs gave a quiet sigh and looked to xisuma.
“Cleo, you didn’t know and it's not your fault.”
“Just tell me.”
“Tangos been suicidal! He hurts himself. When he was sick for that week he hurt himself real bad. Nobody said anything to the other hermits because Tango didn’t want us to and we needed to make sure he was comfortable and felt somewhat safe.” bdubs blurted,stammering aggressively.
If cleos face could drain, it would’ve.
“Oh my god..I need to go say sorry!”
“Cl-cleo? Im shaken up by this info too but- we need to leave him be. W-e don't wanna scare him like that again.`` Keralis reasoned.
“I'm going to go talk to him. I roped him into showing his arms and I wanna help him out of this-- and I know he’d trust me on this.”
The whole table agreed and bdubs went outside. Tango was sitting in the grass outside Keralis's house by himself. He didn’t look paniced or like he was about to hurt himself, he just looked sad.
“Tango?”
“Hi.”
Bdubs sat down next to him. “I'm sorry bout making you do this.”
“No, don't be. It was- a good first step but…I just wish Cleo took it better. I know she’d never do that on purpose but-”
“Cleo and Keralis know…now. Cleo didn’t mean to make you freak out.”
“I'm not freaked out-Im just sad. How can I move on if I can’t even wear a t-shirt?If-If I can't even look at my arms without feeling disgusted?”
“Exposure. It's the best thing we can do. It's going to suck But the more you do it the more comfortable you are.”
“Why does life have to be this hard?” Tango asked,setting his chin on his knees.
“Because if it weren't there wouldn’t be anything easy.”
“Why do we need either? Why can't we be a medium?”.
“What's the fun in everything being the same level of difficulty? If decked out was always just mildly inconvenient traps and puzzles would it be fun.”
“No,I'd be annoying and frustrating.”
“Exactly-” bdubs paused to pat his leg.
“Wanna get back to that meeting?”
“Yeah. I really wanna get back to that plate of muffins” tango profeced.
Bdubs chuckled and they went back to Keralis's house, ready to try again.