Work Text:
It was a quiet day at the stables; the saddle club were out riding on the trails, Veronica and Kristy had left the stables already to go shopping, Max was in his office, Mrs Reg was about the place and Red was busying himself doing his work around the stables. It had been a few months since the barn fire and in those few months they had sorted out the hay loft and Max and Deborah had got engaged. There was a buzz about the place as things slowly went back to normal after the highs of marriage proposals and the hay loft was looking better than ever after a couple of weeks of hard work. However, for Red, the events of that heart stopping day still played on his mind, causing his depression to rear its ugly head and loom over him as he tried to carry out his duties in the barn. He had tried to keep the thoughts and feelings at bay and during the day he kept himself busy enough to ignore them but at night was when things went downhill. Alone in his own space, he would dwell on every detail of that day, picking apart his words and actions and thinking on what he could have done differently.
Currently, he was finishing up mucking out all the stalls almost on autopilot. His mind wandered back to the barn fire several times throughout the day. The wandering thoughts didn’t affect his work, luckily, but it was affecting his mental state. For about a week now, he’d been having intrusive thoughts about self-harm and even suicide and these thoughts were getting louder, stronger, to a point where he wasn’t sure if he could ignore them anymore. Right now, he couldn’t wait for the day to be over so he could hide away in his room, with his blades. As he passed Max’s office, Max popped his head around the door and stopped the teen.
“Red, do you mind taking Barq for a ride, mum’s not going to have time and neither am I. I’m swamped in paperwork” Max asked hurriedly, wanting to get the paperwork done with.
Red nodded “Yeah, no worries. I’ll do that now.”
Max disappeared back into the office and Red headed to the tack room. In no time, Barq was saddled up and being led outside. Red rode along the trails at a canter, feeling the wind in his hair. He found himself riding back to the location he was at when he saw the smoke rising from Pine Hollow. The panic he felt when he saw the smoke that day came back with a vengeance; his heart pounded, his stomach was in knots. He quickly dismounted Barq and walked around to try and calm his racing heart. With his hands on his hips, Red took a deep breath, his mind running wild with thoughts of hurting himself; Mrs Reg’s words ringing in his ears again ‘You’d rather hurt yourself than hurt a horse.’ Without thinking, Red scratched at his left wrist creating red lines on his skin. He dug his nails deeper and bit his lower lip. Angry marks were left on his arm; Red pulled his sleeves down to hide them and got back on Barq. It wasn’t a terribly hot day so he hoped no one would comment on why he had his sleeves down. He slowly made his way back to the stables in a gentle trot. Once back at the stables, Red untacked Barq and washed him down. The last job he had to do for the day was the feed for all the horses, and making sure everything in the barn was in order before he turned in for the night.
Working late was Max, still in the office slaving over paperwork. Every now and again, he looked up from his work as Red passed the office window carrying hay and putting stuff away. He did notice that Red’s jumper sleeves were down but didn’t think anything of it. Stretching his back, Max decided to finish off the last pieces of paperwork in the morning. He shut off everything in the office and locked the door. Red had just finished his jobs and was looking to head to his room. Looking around the barn, Red was satisfied everything was in order and no fires were going to start in the night.
Back in his room, Red sat on his bed legs crossed playing with a razor blade. He’d been sitting there for a while debating whether or not to start this again; it had been a struggle to stop the first time. There were faint white lines on his upper arms as that was the only place Red could hide such marks; short sleeves would cover them easily. Without thinking too much about it, Red brought the razor to his skin and made a few cuts on his upper left arm. The initial sting made him wince but it was welcomed. All the guilt and anger that had built up was finally being released, trails of blood ran down his arm and a few tears ran down his face. Grabbing some tissues, Red cleaned up the mess he had made and bandaged himself up. What he needed now was a good night’s sleep.
Red awoke at his usual time of 6am and wasted no time in getting ready, ignoring the pain and wounds he inflicted upon himself last night. A part of him wanted to unbandage his arm and do some more but that wouldn’t be wise, he knew that. Luckily, the red marks he had made on his wrist yesterday had faded to nothing. He was almost set to leave for the stables when the urges got the better of him and he headed to the bathroom. Tugging off his jumper and unwinding the bandages, Red cut into his arm again and let the red blood trickle down his arm and into the sink. Relief washed over the teen and for a moment, he wondered why he ever stopped this destructive behaviour. He stopped because he started working at Pine Hollow, a second chance given to him by Max who at the time of hiring him didn’t know about his depression or self-injurious tendencies. He wanted to do the Regnery’s proud, show them that he was a responsible person that could handle being a head stable hand. Up until the barn fire, he had been arguably the best head stable hand they’d ever had but he had failed and let them down by repeating the past. He hadn’t exactly ‘taken off’ but he was still responsible for so much at the stables. If he had been in the barn that afternoon, maybe the fire wouldn’t have happened, or at least not got so bad. A part of him was angry at Jake when he found out exactly what had happened but Jake wasn’t a born stable hand, he didn’t know any better. After replaying the events of the day in his head once again, Red cleaned himself and the sink up and carefully bandaged around his bicep which had seven fresh wounds now. He hurried out to the barn and began his work for the day, his upper left arm stinging in pain.
Throughout the morning, people filtered into the stables; the saddle club, along with other students were tacking up and getting ready for a lesson with Max who was rushing to get some last bits of paperwork done. It was a warm day so Red did have his sleeves rolled up but only to above his elbow; any higher would expose his white bandage and there would be questions, questions he didn’t want to answer. As Red lifted haybales around the barn, he could feel the strain it was putting on his cut up arm and making him worry that the cuts could become worse, bleed through the bandage. For now, he carried on with his work, making sure he drank plenty of water to keep hydrated; the last thing he needed was to faint from dehydration or heat stroke. Red continued with his work, wheeling wheelbarrows in the yard and glancing over at the lesson that was happening, watching the students jumping with Max’s guidance.
After the lesson concluded, Red had to untack Garnet as he usually had to do. Veronica sometimes did but today was not one of those days. Red didn’t mind, usually. Untacking Garnet was more of a chore than usual, his injured arm screaming in pain for him to stop lifting heavy things. Ignoring the pain, Red continued with his duties, moving on to brushing Garnet and then Barq. Brushing the length on Barq’s back with his right hand, Red patted Barq’s neck with his left which caused the horse to nudge his nose into Red’s injured arm. Stinging pain radiated from his arm causing Red to inhale sharply and let out a grown. Max, who had been passing Barq’s stall, stopped in his tracks when he heard Red’s groan of pain. Backtracking, Max leaned against the stall door and studied Red for a moment; the teen had stopped brushing and he seemed frozen in place.
“You alright there, Red?” Max asked.
Red jumped at the voice behind him. He turned his head to look at his boss “Yeah, just fine, Max.” Red began brushing again.
“Sounded like you were in pain just then” Max pointed out.
Unsure of what to say, Red remained quiet, pretending not to have heard.
“Red?” Max questioned, raising his voice, not happy that his head stable hand was ignoring him.
“Everything’s good here” Red finally replied, not turning to look at Max.
With a sigh, Max walked off, having other things to do than have a pointless back and forth with Red. With a sigh of relief, Red quickly finished brushing Barq. After glancing around the stables to make sure nothing urgent needed his attention, Red slipped out of the stables and headed towards the house and his room. He needed the toilet but he also went to grab his razor on the way there. He told himself he’d be quick about it, couple of small cuts and he’d get back to work. He went to the bathroom and did his business, unbandaging himself to inspect his wounds. They didn’t look too bad but some had begun to bleed again because of the strenuous work he was doing. He decided that some of the cuts needed extra bandaging so he put some steri-strips on them to help close the wounds up. Once his existing cuts were dealt with, Red put the razor to his skin and cut some more, internally cursing at himself for showing his pain to Max earlier; he needed to be more careful. Tidying everything away, Red went back to work, making sure the bandage wasn’t visible.
It was now mid afternoon and the saddle club were preparing to go on a hack. Red gave them a hand with getting stuff from the tack room. From his office, Max watched on and could clearly see that Red wasn’t lifting or carrying much with his left arm. Something wasn’t right here and he knew it and Red wasn’t admitting anything. He’d have to have a talk with Red later; right now, he was heading into Willow Creek to run some errands. Exiting his office, he called out to Red to let him know where he was headed. Red nodded in response and walked off to do something.
A couple of hours later, Max returned and was sat in his office with Mrs Reg, discussing his concern about Red.
“I’m getting worried, mum. Something’s not right here and I’m not sure how to go about asking him. He shut me down earlier when I asked if he was alright.”
“Do you want me to have a word with him?” Mrs Reg sipped her tea as she leant against the desk.
“Maybe we both need to. When the stable is quieter, I’ll bring him in here and hopefully we can get to the bottom of this.” Max explained.
“You said he was favouring his left arm?” Mrs Reg pondered.
“Yes.”
“You don’t think…” she trailed off, not wanting to say her suspicions out loud in case it was true.
Max looked at her, waiting for her to continue. Mrs Reg gave him a look as if to say that Max knew what she was on about. It took him a while but Max caught on.
“It’s a worrying possibility and I hope he hasn’t” Max exhaled, running his hands through his hair “I’ll get him in here in about an hour.”
Mrs Reg nodded and sipped her tea again.
The next hour was pretty uneventful. Max sat in his office reading papers and documents, all the while thinking about this conversation he was going to have with Red. He remembered what he’d told the teen ages ago, that if he ever felt like hurting himself that he would come to him first. Mrs Reg entering the office brought Max out of his thoughts. She asked if he wanted her to go find Red and Max nodded, mentally preparing himself for this difficult conversation.
Red was outside with Lisa as she waited for her mother to pick her up.
“Red, could I borrow you for a minute?” Mrs Reg approached with a smile.
“Of course. See you tomorrow, Lisa” Red began walking towards Mrs Reg.
“Bye Red, bye Mrs Reg” Lisa replied as he mother pulled up.
Mrs Reg waved to Lisa as she and Red began walking towards the stables. Red could tell something was up, call it a sixth sense. As they walked, Mrs Reg smiled at him, giving almost a sympathetic look towards him. This unnerved Red; she was up to something and Red dreaded what it was. As Red was led into Max’s office, a sinking feeling pooled in his stomach. The door closed behind him and he was invited to sit on the sofa. He did so and scanned their faces, heart pounding in his chest.
“Red, mum and I have noticed that you look to be in pain. Are you injured… or have you injured yourself on purpose?” Max didn’t want to beat around the bush.
Red bit the inside of his cheek and looked at the floor, he’d been found out and there wasn’t a way out of it “I’m really sorry, Max. I know I should have come to you but I…” Red sighed not knowing what to say.
“I wish you had, Red. We’re here for you, as your employers and as family” Max spoke softly.
Red looked up, surprised “You really consider me that?”
“Of course we do, Red. You’ve been with us long enough and it doesn’t look like you’ll be going anywhere anytime soon. We are worried about you and what you are doing to yourself” Mrs Reg replied, sitting down next to Red, careful not to bump his injured arm.
“In future, come talk to us, please. How bad are your injuries?” Max queried.
“They’re not bad, I know how to properly take care of them” Red quickly said, hoping to put them at ease.
Max nodded “Go get some rest. If you need any time off, let me know. Don’t want you to injure yourself further.”
“I’ll be fine, Max” Red reassured them.
“Before you go, can I ask why?” Mrs Reg butted in.
“The events and the stress of the barn fire are still on my mind” he confessed.
“What happened, happened. I know it was an accident and there was miscommunication. We move forward” Max said, leaning over to Red to give him a comforting squeeze on his right shoulder.
“Okay” Red whispered, feeling guilty that he had given in to his urges.
Mrs Reg put a comforting hand on Red’s shoulder and Red thanked them for looking out for him. It was going to be tough to stop self-harming again but he had people around him that would support him all the way.