Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"WELL, I HATE YOU!" Shrimpo yelled.

Glisten had gotten into an argument with Shrimpo. He didn't even remember how he did, at this point, he just knew that it had definitely escalated to actual fighting.

"Good, because I hate you too..!" Glisten yelled back, albeit not as loudly Shrimpo.

"GOOD!" Shrimpo was still yelling. "I WOULDN'T WANT TO NOT HATE YOU ANYWAYS! YOU'RE A JERK AND YOU ACT PERFECT BUT YOU DONT EVEN HAVE A REASON FOR BEING AN ASSHOLE! I'M SUPPOSED TO BE A BULLY, YOU JUST TREAT EVERYONE LIKE SHIT AND LIKE YOU'RE BETTER THAN THEM BECAUSE YOU CAN!"

Glisten froze. He was right, wasn't he...Glisten tried to shake it off.

"Of course I 'act' like I'm perfect, I am!" Glisten countered. "It's hard to not act like something you are."

He was perfect...of course he was. He had to be. Shrimpo was probably just being mean for no reason, even if he didn't sound like that was the case.

"I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU!" Shrimpo yelled bluntly, glaring at Glisten.

"No one asked for your opinion, bully," Glisten said sharply, regretting his usage of bully but not going back on it. He glanced away, and back at Shrimpo, who was glaring at him still.

"JUST FUCK OFF," Shrimpo said, crossing his arms, "TAKE YOUR FAKE ASS SOMEWHERE ELSE."

"I will!" Glisten said, spinning on his heels and walking away.

᧔•᧓

Glisten was curled up on his side in his bed, arms hugging his stomach and knees pulled up close to his arms and chest. He absentmindedly stared at the wall.

He was perfect, and Shrimpo was just lying to him.

Sure, he was rude. Probably for no reason...did that make him imperfect? No, no, it couldn't.

But still he laid there, turning his argument with Shrimpo over and over in his head.

He kept flip-flopping between fine and on the verge of going fucking crazy.

He couldn't sleep. He knew it has a futile attempt, closing his eyes while his mind was running ten different marathons, but he tried anyways.

He wished Astro were here. They would help. He hoped they would help.

But no, Astro has been mauled on their last run, as if that wasn't trauma enough, and was still in the respawning process. He missed them.

Helping Astro after their nightmare had started something, sort of. The "therapy sessions" became a common occurence. They were always one-sided, with Astro venting or just rambling and Glisten listening. He made it be that way. They had protested at first, but Glisten had insisted he was fine.

Astro wasn't as perceptive as Rodger. They couldn't see the hidden story behind every syllable that left every toon's mouth. That made them much easier to lie to, which Glisten loved in some ways. He hated lying to them, but they couldn't know he was imperfect. They couldn't. No one could, but especially them.

Glisten squeezed his eyes shut, trying to block out the few things he could see in his dark room in favor of absolute darkness. His head hurt, swimming with thoughts and thoughts and thoughts and god he wished someone was here.

His wrists itched. His mind was telling him what to do. He hadn't done it in years. He thought he was better.

He'll never be better.

He tried to push that thought away. Stay firmly curled up. Close your eyes and pretend everything is fine and you're perfect. Which he was, obviously. Perfect.

He moved without thinking. Pulled open a dresser drawer.

Glisten grabbed around for it. He knew it was here. He knew where he kept it. He never got rid of it. He convinced himself he could stay clean, it was just there for protection, he didn't wouldn't shouldn't use it.

He lied to himself. He knew it then, he knows it now.

He felt his finger wrap around it, the sharp side already pricking his fingers, uncleanly digging into his palm. He felt blood wet his palm, but he continued, sitting up slowly and staring into oblivion. He zoned out, dragging the blade across his wrist to snap himself back to reality. He looked down at his wrist, and he dragged the blade over his skin, watching blood bead up around the cuts. 

Glisten pushed harder, forcing a tiny noise out of him as pain shot through his arm from where he had hurt himself again.

He was making imperfections.

Imperfections in his skin, imperfections that would be visible to anyone who looked at him.

He covered up his old scars well.

Fresh ones were harder to hide.

᧔•᧓

Glisten woke up to aching wrists. He sat up and looked down at them blankly, fog filling his mind and swallowing his tears. His wrists were scabbed over, bloodied by his constant, repetitive efforts to make himself hurt, there were more than he remember making. He didn't know when he had stopped.

Glisten stood up reluctantly. He walked over to his wardrobe and picked up his extra pair of leg warmers, slipping them onto his arms.

The fabric brushed his scabbed skin, the unusually rough feel harsh against his body. He wanted to take them off, but he couldn't.

He couldn't let anyone see the imperfections.

Glisten put on a confident face and strutted out of his room, walking towards where all the toons met every morning, figuring out who was doing what each day. Glisten was immediately met by Toodles, who ran up to him from where she was with Rodger, hugging him.

"Hi hi hi Glisten!!" she said excitedly, hugging his tighter.

"Oh, hi Toodles," Glisten said, glancing up at Rodger. He could already see Rodger looking at him intently.

"Good morning, Glisten," Rodger said, "...interesting new fashion choice," he was commenting on the 'arm warmers', oh no- "we're going on a run together today. You can check the list to see who we're going with."

He didn't comment more on the arm warmers, thank god. But a run? Today? Glisten gently separated himself from Toodles, checking the list. He was going with Rodger, Razzle and Dazzle, Cosmo, Shrimpo, Pebble, and Vee. Not Shrimpo..not after their argument. Glisten sighed. Hopefully he could just get it over with.

"Well, is everyone ready? We might as well go," Glisten said, starting to walk away when he felt a hand on his arm.

"You should probably eat something first," Rodger said, and Glisten pulled away.

"I'm fine. We should just go."

Rodger reluctantly followed, and they found most other group members waiting at the elevator. Glisten was met with a glare from Shrimpo, but he looked away and pretended not to see it. They were just missing Cosmo, who ran in a few minutes later, apologizing profusely for being late.

Glisten stayed silent as the elevator started to descend. The sheet had said they were only going to floor 10 today, so it probably wouldn't be too hard to get through. Just keep quiet and ignore how much your wrists still hurt, pretend that never happened.

Pretend you're not so fucking worthless that you relapsed again.

Luckily, no one tried to talk to him. He could see Rodger glancing at him, but Glisten just ignored the looks and strutted off into the first floor after the elevator opened. He quickly found a machine and started spinning the valve, forcing back a wince as the movement made his leg warmers- temporarily turned into arm warmers- rub painfully against the fresh injuries.

He extracted slower than usual, feeling like fog was floating around his mind and keeping him from focusing. He ended up being the last person to finish a machine that floor.

Glisten was met in the elevator by Shrimpo yelling. Great. Fun.

"I DON'T NEED YOUR STUPID HEALING," Shrimpo yelled at Cosmo, and Glisten realized he had a gash along his side. Cosmo was knelt next to him, trying to patch it up while avoiding getting hit by Shrimpo.

"Shrimpo, just let me-" Cosmo started, but got cut off by Shrimpo violently jerking away from him.

"LEAVE ME ALONE!!"

"Shrimpo, you really should just let Cosmo heal you," Rodger said, stepping towards him.

"NO!"

Rodger looked at Glisten for support, who rolled his eyes and said, "Shrimpo, darling, it's probably for the best if you let Cosmo heal you. We don't want you bleeding to death in here."

"I DIDN'T ASK FOR YOUR OPINION!" Shrimpo said loudly, but stepped closer to Cosmo, putting up a little less of a fight.

The next few floors passed relatively quickly. Glisten started doing fewer and fewer machines, feeling useless with how slow ye was extracting right now. When they reached floor 9, Glisten was glad it was almost over. Rodger had luckily avoided him, but Glisten could feel his eye on him for most of the run.

They just had to get through floor 10. Then they could go back up. Unfortunately, it wasn't going to be that easy. When the elevator opened on the floor, a low wail rang out through the air.

Astro.

Shit.

Everyone else ran off to find machines, but Glisten trailed slightly behind. It wasn't like his...slightly maybe more than friends relationship with Astro was public, and he didn't want to give any hints to it.

Glisten eventually found a machine, starting to spin the valve slowly. Stuck in his own mind, Glisten didn't hear the footsteps getting louder and louder, and he only spun around when he heard a wail right next to his ear.

Oh, no no no no Astro was right there-

Glisten froze, staring at Astro- no, not Astro, a twisted- and was only snapped back to reality by four arms attacking him suddenly, knocking the leg warmers off his arms and opening large gashes in his forearms.

Glisten started to run away, trying to focus on literally anyone- Rodger. Fine, Rodger would work-

Glisten teleported to Rodger, stumbling and falling over, accidentally knocking Rodger off his machine.

"Glisten," Rodger started in a reprimanding tone, but paused when he saw Glisten's arms. "..oh."

"Sorry- I didn't know who else to teleport to-" Glisten said, panicking slightly when he actually realized for the first time that his arm warmers were gone.

"It's okay," Rodger said, "why are your arms so hurt..?"

"I got attacked," Glisten said quickly.

"Obviously, you're bleeding, but these are older," Rodger said, hesitantly reaching over to trace the injuries on Glisten's wrists, who flinched away.

"They're nothing," Glisten said, scrambling to stand up, "let's just finish up here."

Glisten ignored the concerned expression Rodger was looking up at him with.

᧔•᧓

That night, the same thing happened.

He couldn't stop himself, and he fucking hated it.

This wasn't perfect.

It was so fully imperfect he shouldn't be doing it. But now he was sitting here, crying, his wrists bleeding again.

Get a hold of yourself.

It kept happening.

The next night.

The one after that.

᧔•᧓

Astro woke up aching from the respawning process. The first thing they realized was that it was night.

They sat up in their bed, trying to use their power to make sure everyone's dreams were okay. They didn't want anyone to have had nightmares because they were gone...

Luckily, everyone seemed to be having good dreams, except Boxten. Astro didn't really know how to help him, they had tried to give him good dreams, but it never worked. They didn't know what to do..

Someone wasn't asleep. Why wasn't Glisten asleep? They hoped he was okay...maybe he was just having trouble sleeping.

Maybe they should go see him. Make sure he was okay. Astro stood up, grabbing their blanket and wrapping it tightly around themselves. They walked over to the elevator and stepped in, wincing at the loud sound of the elevator closing. It was so bright in here..why was it so bright? They shook their head, trying to clear it, waiting for the elevator to open on the first toon floor. The elevator screeched open painfully loudly, and Astro desperately hoped they didn't wake anyone up.

Astro approached Glisten's room, gently and quietly pushing the door open and peeking inside. It was dark, but their blue glow illuminated the room. Glisten's head immediately snapped up, from where he was sitting on his bed- oh, he was crying.

"Glisten..?" Astro asked hesitantly, and Glisten flinched away.

"Go away," he said almost desperately, and Astro felt hurt blossom around their heart. Why had they ever listened to Glisten's attempt to convince them he was fine?

"...no," Astro said, hesitantly walking over and sitting down. They could see now, in the blue glow, that Glisten's wrists were covered in little bleeding cuts, some more clean than others. When they looked closer, they could see older, similar scars.

Glisten didn't say anything, but he pulled his arms as far away from Astro as he could, looking away. Astro could tell he was ashamed, and they needed to get rid of that immediately.

"Don't feel bad...I'm not...mad at you or anything," Astro said quietly, keeping their eyes fixated on Glisten, hoping he would look up. When he didn't react at all, Astro slipped a hand out from under their blanket and gently placed it on Glisten's knee. "Look at me? Please?"

Glisten looked up at Astro, and he looked so unusually unconfident and nervous that Astro wasn't really sure what to do.

"...are you actually here?" Glisten asked in an almost whisper, looking like hr was scared Astro would just disappear.

"What do you mean? Of course I'm here.." Astro said softly.

"So...you actually just respawned, and you came to see me?" 

"Yes."

"Why?"

It was just one word. A very simple question. But it hurt so bad.

"Because I could tell you weren't sleeping and I was worried about you.." Astro said. They paused, before quietly asking, "can I see your wrists? Please? I want to make sure you're not hurt too badly."

Glisten looked almost scared as he moved his arms out of hiding and into Astro's light. Some of those looked really deep... he was bleeding pretty badly.

"We need to wash those. Come with me," Astro said, almost surprising themself with how confident they managed to make themself sound.

Astro stood up and Glisten did the same, following Astro to a bathroom on the floor. Astro hesitated, before slipping another arm out from under their blanket so they had two available. Glisten was probably in no state to judge them for their arms right now anyways, right?

Stop thinking about your own insecurities. Focus on him.

Astro gently guided Glisten's arms to the sink, letting the water run over his cuts and wash the blood away. Astro felt worry swim around their mind, worry for Glisten and his mental health. Which, obviously, was not very good.

Astro grabbed some band-aids from under the sink- all the toons knew where the band-aids were kept on every floor- and placed them over Glisten's cuts.

He wasn't crying anymore. He was just sort of staring at the wall behind Astro, looking completely zoned out.

"Hey," Astro said, trying to get his attention.

"...hmm?" Glisten just made a noise acknowledgement, still staring at the wall.

"...come on, let's go back to your room. You probably feel safer there, don't you?" Astro suggested, but they started walking back slowly, keeping up Glisten's pace.

When they reached Glisten's room again, Astro said next to Glisten on his bed.

"Does this bother you?" Glisten asked.

"Does what bother me?"

"...this. Me needing your help over something so stupid. Hurting myself for no fucking reason-"

"Hey, stop," Astro said, taking Glisten's hands in their two exposed ones and looking him in the eye. "I don't mind. I mean, I'm worried, I'm so worried, but I would never say I'm bothered. This isn't your fault."

Glisten blinked, like he was trying to keep himself from crying again, and leaned against Astro's side. "You're being too nice to me."

Astro hadn't expected the sudden display of affection and closeness, but they welcomed it.

"You deserve me being this nice to you, after all you did for me..." Astro said, their voice slipping into guilt as they said, "I feel so bad for listening to you when you said you were fine...I should've been able to tell something was up."

"But I'm perfect...I have to be," Glisten muttered into Astro's side, insecurity practically radiating off of him.

"No one's perfect," Astro said, "you're too hard on yourself."

Glisten mumbled something unintelligible, his eyes slipping closed. 

Astro was silently working their sleep magic into Glisten, projecting an extra good dream onto him. They knew he needed it. They also knew he needed sleep. So when they felt Glisten doze off while cuddling against the side of their body, they didn't mind.

᧔•᧓

Glisten didn't expect to wake up with four arms wrapped around him, hugging him close. He looked down at his wrists, seeing them covered in band-aids, and he looked up quickly, finding that Astro was hugging him, their blanket covering both their bodies. Obviously something had happened last night, but he couldn't remember it, whatever it was. Glisten carefully slipped away from Astro, looking down at his arms, which has been neatly patched up. Did they do this? Did they know?

Glisten looked over at Astro, and immediately felt his face heat up. Oh, they had fallen asleep...in the same bed...maybe don't think too hard about that.

Glisten thought Astro hadn't respawned yet. Did they respawn, and the first thing they did was come to see him? It seemed plausible, but that meant Astro would've seen him being imperfect, would've seen him being stupid and hurting himself, and if that was the case why were they here? Glisten hesitated, before reaching out and gently shaking Astro's shoulder to try and wake them up. He needed answers right now, even though he definitely felt sorry about making them wake up when he had no idea how much they slept.

"Glisten..?" Astro asked tiredly, sitting up. They quickly realized their blanket was currently laying in between the two of them, and they hurried to wrap it around their body. Glisten looked at them for a second, before looking away.

"So...you probably hate me now, don't you?" Glisten asked quietly.

"I already told you last night, I don't," Astro said, somehow managing to immediately slip from tired to worried. "Of course I don't. I'm just worried about you."

"I don't really remember last night," Glisten admitted.

"You looked like you were zoned out for most of it, yeah," Astro said softly, hesitantly reaching out to take one of Glisten's hands. "You know this doesn't, like...drastically change my view of you or anything, right? You're still my friend. We can still do our therapy sessions or whatever they are, we're just going to focus on you sometimes. But we can't pretend this never happened, okay? I want to help you, but I also don't want to cross your boundaries...you're going to have to help me help you."

"...okay," Glisten mumbled, finally looking back at Astro. "As long as you promise this doesn't change anything. You're not..mad or disappointed or hate me."

"I promise," Astro said, "I'm here for you, too."

Chapter Text

One year.

Just about...what, a few weeks away from one year?

One year without hurting himself. One year self-harm free.

It was close.

But too much had been going on lately. His arms were itching, he felt like he had to claw his skin off to make himself comfortable again and stop this horrible urge. But he knew it would just start up again somewhere else.

Glisten ran his fingers along his arms, fingernails dragging a small, burning pain into his skin. 

Not enough

You worthless piece of shit

Do better

Be

Perfect

Perfect

Perfect

Perfect

Perfect

Perfect-

He needed to talk to someone. Anyone. Just tell them what was happening, they could help, he needed to reach out. He needed to just find a friend and admit to them-

"I used to hurt myself and I'm feeling the urge to do it again and I'm scared I'm going to relapse so bad I can't turn back around"

But the responses scared him.

"Just stop"

"Just don't"

"Stop making a big deal out of nothing"

"You have no reason to be hurting yourself"

"Pathetic-"

His fingernails dug deeper into his arms, the burning pain getting stronger, his arms feeling hot with the sudden rush of blood to them.

He wanted to cry- every part of his mind wanted to cry, but his eyes wouldn't obey. So he ran his fingernails deeper through his skin, hoping the pain could drown out his thoughts.

Hoping he could drown out the rest of the pain with more.