Chapter Text
It had been months.
Months since Aiden’s last relapse, his last fallout with himself. He’d felt the urge, of course, but done nothing about it. For the last few months his record has been clean, barely a blemish here and there. In regard to cutting, at least.
Until today.
Nothing bad had even happened, this time. Not much Aiden knew about anyways, but his subconscious certainly did. For the past few months he’d been feeling the urge, the need for metal to tear his skin open. The sight of a shiny substance rising from seemingly nowhere, accompanied by a beading red. Memories he recalled were all fuzzy, missing all the details.
He remembers hating it. Regretting his actions every slice, agony wracking through him when he noticed a recent cut was going to scar, knowing he doesn’t have any opportunity to go to the drugstore to buy the right bandages or paraphernalia. Then knowing he can’t do anything about the scarring, being forced to sit and watch as his own fear marks itself in his skin. Aftercare was almost nonexistent for him usually. Purely out of fear from being found out by Ben, or re-found out, who would instantly tell someone. Their friends, Aiden’s parents, even Ben was a horrifically terrifying person to know. It had happened once before, just after he came to stay with Aiden and his family. Talk about a warm welcome. At least it grew them a close bond after that, but Aiden always hoped Ben would forget. That was part of why he had to be careful; with the times, the tools, the clothes, even if careful meant damaging himself further.
The exact same brand of blade, he’d been using for years. When he ran out of fresh blades, he picked out the non-rusty ones to use. Who even cares if they have chunks of blood and flesh leftover, or some assorted stain that he really doesn’t remember from before—Aiden sure doesn’t.
Any thought against that wasn’t welcome in his mind anymore. Those were just the bad times he’d had, the ones Aiden remembers every time he goes to shower, or shave, or nicks himself on something. That was it, and all the negatives. Lined up in order on his hips and thighs. He’d lived with them all this time, it wasn’t so bad. Looking back he couldn’t remember his reason for quitting. Fear got the better of him, or something. There shouldn’t be any reason for him to not start back right then and there.
A completely neutral state of mind guided him to his ensuite bathroom. If he were to lie and say he was feeling sad right now, or pained, then actual sad must feel like agonising depression every time, and pain would feel like.. him. Under the roof, locked in desperation and scalding blood. Where every second seemed to fuzz out more from pure adrenaline.
Hesitance riddled his movements for just a second, before shrugging it off. 75% of self-harm was non suicidal, he should be fine. It wouldn’t develop at all. He’d just do one cut.
Without rushed movements, Aiden pulls out a tissue from the box, running half of it under the sink for just a second. That would be enough for just one cut, he could both clean and dry it with just that. Drops occasionally fell down AIden’s shaky hand as he locked eyes with himself in the mirror. It felt uncomfortable, so he squeezed most of the water out. Damp was enough, at least much more care than he used to act with.
Every moment ticked closer to 4am. He agreed to one-on-one practise baseball with Tyler at 8:30, which meant he had to be awake at 7. If he went to sleep at 5 exactly, he’d have 3 hours. Which is also more than he used to have, much worse than his average now but he was allowed an off day. Besides, he wasn’t going to make this a tradition at all. Nothing more, and certainly not a habit. Smiley Aiden Clark with blond hair and red eyes and a whole entire friend group would never have a habit of cutting himself. Anyone who would even suggest that was insane, and probably never compared him to his past self. Despite the fact he was the only one talking to himself at the moment. He suddenly got washed over with a hint of worry. Fear was normal, though, so he’d bite it back and finally get this over with.
Aiden walked out of the bathroom without washing his hands or splashing his face. He walked outside with a completely damp tissue, which had consumed the dry half with moisture. Freezing marble changed into carpet as Aiden stepped out of the bathroom. It felt satisfying enough to no longer be sore from the cold tile. Almost as satisfying as it used to feel to slice his skin open. It might even be more this time, since it’s been so long. He hoped so.
His bed gave way when he sat down, and a few seconds later he ransacked his own drawers. Somewhere in the bottom one had a stick of blu-tac, with a tiny sharpener blade lodged in there. It was the only one left, which he forgot about. All this other blades had been disposed of after a few months of no urges. How he was starting to regret doing that. There’s a lot of regret he carries with him, at all times it’s something different. This time, Aiden regretted not cutting earlier. Always, every moment of the day he had to regret. That was a part of being human, but he didn’t expect it to be this often. Never did he run out of regrets to go over, and every second he regretted just the moment later.
For now, he was free of regret. Beside multiple books in a stack, a pencil-case and some broken puzzles it stood. Slightly hidden but still shining though was his blu-tac collection, he made quick work of peeling the casing down on all of them. Two, three, four and nothing. Only after a double-check did he realise it was higher than he remembered. At least this was a great hiding spot, Ben would never be able to tell if Aiden himself couldn’t.
Aiden carefully removed his blade from its prison, and just for a second he felt a familiar feeling. Nausea crumbled at his insides, like a sick case of non-painful pins and needles. If Aiden had any semblance of a smile on his face before, it was definitely gone now. Pale skin turned paler, and all of a sudden a helpless feeling washed over him. He was going to cut himself after all this time, yet he couldn’t say no. Panicked eyes fell back into routine, checking that the door wasn’t opening. Shadows under the door, they weren’t moving. Vigilant ears listened for any slight sound, a tap on the tiles outside, a sniffle, anything to do with human presence.
One idle sound too many, Aiden dropped the blade on his bed. Drops of water had already leaked into his sheets off the tissue, making a small damp puddle. He stood up from his prepared area, taking just a few moments to lock the door. Aiden checked the lock was working, it gave no way as he pushed it down. That should be fine enough. There was always the potential that Ben would be able to find him, he had an easy-to access window after all, if his dear cousin thought something happened. Like always, he’d have to be fast to not arise suspicion.
Plopping down, his bed sunk down again, before bouncing him back up. Once the mattress settled, he picked up the blade and unbuttoned his pants with a sigh. A memory flashed into his head. One time he had done this it went horribly wrong. Blood leaked into his mattress and across the floor as he desperately held a black cloth to his thigh to stop the bleeding. He lay limp against a wall with tears pricking in his eyes.
That time he was reckless, tired out of the potential to reason. It won’t happen again, not this time. Fear shouldn’t be wracking his body right now, his hands were shaking, he can’t do anything like this. Flesh on his right hip got pressed down by the small blade, sinking down and calming his shaking, but not breaking skin. It didn’t even hurt, somehow. Maybe he really has destroyed the nerves.
A few steady breaths out and he was ready again.
The first one was tiny. Barely a scratch. After a few seconds he couldn’t even tell anything had been done. Aiden tilted his head, but after just a few seconds more of staring, a white glaze started to glisten over the cut. It was this easy to make red beads before, but now he’s questioning if it was just his mindset dulling the strength he’d used. A few small ones more got placed and he concluded, he’d have to slice with force. As much as he could, which really wasn’t much at all. He’d been getting weaker every year.
He tried again. Harder this time, dragging the blade with all the force his right forearm could manage. This time he was too slow. Somehow, it only made a small scratch too. Now the area was tinting with red under his skin. Wrong side for his goals. Pounding of rain on his roof made him freeze, before deciding to tune the sound out. It was terrifying, the thought of being discovered after all this time. Ben would be so disappointed in him.
On the other hip, he sliced. Hard and fast, and after a few seconds it picked up some blood. Leaning back, his stomach fluttered with excitement, but when he looked to the other side he was greeted with the sight of some pinpricks of blood. Apparently it just took a few seconds to bleed now, which was fine. At least there was something! Although it was nowhere near enough. He came for self harm, not the same effect he’d get bumping into the table. Even accidental cuts bled much more than this. It was really pathetic, in his opinion, that he couldn’t even make a proper bead. He’d have to keep trying until he actually cuts himself, and it bleeds properly. Anything less didn’t matter, he just needs one proper cut.
When the wet tissue was pressed against his most recent cut, Aiden leaned his head back and sighed. It’d been so very long since he’d felt this relief, the knowledge that his blood was no longer trapped. He was no longer trapped in his own body. Little drops of him were dying, escaping, and that was comforting. Even then, he wanted more.
Aiden felt around the nightstand beside him, not wanting to look away from the increasing red his cuts were glowing, pink tackling the slices in chunks. If he wasn’t feeling so out of touch, he may have gazed lovingly at the sight. Eventually his hand landed on the opened stick of blu-tac, and he placed the blade back in. He proceeded to replace that with his only other blade. A partially rusty boxcutter, red and cheaply made. It rattled when his hands shook, and the blade was difficult to drag out. For some reason, though, its edge never dulled, and it always made the best cuts. It was his first tool, and it worked almost as good as his favourite razor blades.
It opened with the same amount of force it used to. A small section at the end of the blade was perfectly free from any sort of dirt, shiny like new. That was where he used to cut with. Aiden pushed the blade further out, about three times as long as he used to. He held the blade to his upper thigh, dragging it across somewhat hard and somewhat fast. They, like the others, took quite a few moments to actually start bleeding. Somehow his flesh was tougher than it ever was before, bleeding much less, so he’d have to slice harder.
Slicing hard wasn’t too difficult, he made it easy. Dealing with the panic, the utter stress of what he’d done, unfortunately was. Trembling fingers overcompensated for stability, and so he was left with a cut that took his entire strength to make. Without anything holding him back, as he flinched hard when cutting. Almost immediately, blood leaked from somewhere near the middle of the cut. Worryingly, it didn’t stop at just the little amount. Blood continued to flow even after he wiped it off with the tissue.
Now, Aiden wouldn’t say he was against good cuts at all. Quite the opposite, most days. But you would probably be able to understand how it would be extremely stressing to see a cut much bigger than he wanted, in a fresh spot on the side of his hip, without stopping the flow of blood for a single second. This almost never happened before, but when it did, it only ever brought stressful situations. Even as he held the tissue firm against his hip for a good amount of time, lifting it up just to check before placing it back down, it didn’t stop. That may have been because his definition of “a good amount of time” was ten seconds, and he kept peeking, but that still counts.
Although he certainly was stressed, and the blood wasn’t stopping, he decided to get up and search for a black cloth. Before, his shelves were stacked with a couple, but over the past two years the numbers had been dwindling. It was only after a minute he found one, soft and fluffy as always, which he proceeded to hold up against his hip firmly. This earned a wince, for some reason the cutting never hurt but cleaning them after did. And holding a towel against them, apparently.
After some time he took a seat in his swivel chair, spinning around a few times, still holding the cloth. Soon enough he got bored, and started looking around at various objects to pass the time. A nearby Rubik’s cube was difficult to solve with just one hand, so he let the towel fall loose against his leg as he shuffled, then sorted it, taking his sweet time with every turn. Being honest, he knew the solution from his first glance at it. The turning was slightly difficult though, he’d left his smooth turner at the graveyard once, and he’d forgotten to collect it since. All he was left with was a themed cube that clicks as the sides turn.
After a couple minutes, he lifted to cloth to find the cut had stopped bleeding, thankfully. Solving the cube over, and over again had helped him feel much more relaxed. Although once he saw the cut again, the fear of gnarly scarring got pushed back through his body in a negatively electrifying wave.
No way was Aiden going to leave it like this. No, aftercare was still on the table. The blond stood up from his chair, before walking over to a set of nearby drawers. In the middle one, he found what he left there for a purpose scarily similar to this one right now. Inside lay a tube of burn cream, that he probably wasn’t going to use, and an entire collection of band-aids. Aiden picked one up, but after looking at it he determined it was Elsa themed. As much as Aiden loves Elsa, it would probably be a bad idea to associate her with one of his depressing secrets. So he looked through a few more, set aside the big ones, the plastic ones, before coming across a fairly neural one. What you think of when someone says ‘Band-aid’.
Just as he placed it over the worrying cut gently, he realised his mistake. It’d be so very difficult to remove whenever he was to take it off, maybe replace it. The surrounding area, smaller cuts surrounded in a blazing red would open again, ruining the healing process. There were a whole lot more than he remembered creating, but that wasn’t a bad thing. Quickly, Aiden made the decision to lift the band-aid off, taking just a little time and a lot more hesitance. By the time he’d lifted it all the way off, it was slightly less sticky, so he planted the bandage right back where it was before. Afterwards, he rubbed whatever loose, wet blood was left off. Not much came off at all, he presumed the red was just from his flesh. He wasn’t completely against that.
That night he slept well at 5am, without a care of what he did just before. Maybe he could get used to this again, it wasn’t so concerning after all. He’d just have to wear pants around the house more often, until his thighs heal over. Everything should be fine until then, he’d remember.
That was what he thought last time, too, just before Ben found out. If he regrets one thing in his life, that may very well be next to the whole convincing Ashlyn to go into the sorrel weed house thing. Y’know, top two tragedies of his life.
At least it got him off the cutting for a while. They say you never stop self-harming, your highest sober streak just gets longer. While it wasn’t true for some people, they were able to quit and restore normalcy to their lives, it was exactly the case for Aiden Clark. Before, his longest clean streak was just a week. What a shame he had to ruin this one.