Work Text:
A year or so before Savannah, Aiden had a really bad problem with self-harm.
He'd always had some issues with depression and there had been a lot of stressful changes in his life at that time that drove him to this. The physical infliction helped him to cope with the mental strain of it all, regardless of how harmful that was.
He never cut too deep, so they usually scarred over in thin, manageable lines. He wore hoodies most of the time anyway, so he wasn't too worried about people seeing the old scars and questioning him. Even when he did wear short sleeves, no one noticed because the scars were so thin.
However, in the days following his head injury in the Phantom realm, Ashlyn was sitting by him, just talking to him, and noticed the little scars. Before he could even process what was happening, she was eyeing his whole arm and putting two and two together.
"Aiden, did you hurt yourself?"
"What?" he said, confused. It was then that he noticed what she'd found. "Oh, yeah" he confirmed. There wasn't any point in hiding it now since she'd figured it out anyway. "I don't anymore, though, don't worry" he told her. "This was from last year"
"Oh..." she breathed, unsure of what else to say. He smiled at her weakly.
"Sorry"
"No, don't apologize" she told him. "I just... If you ever feel the need to do that again, you can always text me" she told him. "I know I'm not particularly good at comforting people, but I'm here and I care about you"
"Well, thanks, Ash" he said. "That's behind me, though. I was just having a hard time"
"I'm glad" Ashlyn smiled. "That you don't feel that bad anymore, not that you were having a hard time" she clarified, earning a chuckle from the blonde, who shut his eyes.
He seemed so peaceful, which was absolutely insane to Ashlyn considering he was recovering from a dream world head injury and had just opened up about cutting himself, but she supposed that was hardly the weirdest reaction Aiden had ever had to anything.
She leaned back in her chair and smiled to herself.