Chapter Text
Most of the time, Wise was doing fine.
Well, his definition of the word "fine", at least, but fine all the same. Not truly fine, but still fine.
Even if he wasn't, he wouldn't tell anybody, not even his sister. After all, he didn't want to bother anyone with his struggles.
There was already so much the siblings had to deal with. The mortgage, the (thanks to Fairy's atrocious electricity consumption) electricity bills, commissions, management of the video store and their work with H.A.N.D were enough things for Belle (and himself) to deal with. She shouldn't also have to worry about her older brothers well-being.
He had to sigh at the thought alone. Would she hate me if she noticed? Call me selfish? An attention seeker? Would she think I'm a bother? She probably would, wouldn't she?
He let out a shaky breath, head hanging low as he shook it lightly, his long, grey bangs falling into his face.
Slowly, his skin started to itch, a burning sensation that creeped up all the way from his fingertips to his elbows. His hands curled up into fists, fingernails digging into his palms, which would end up leaving red crescent moons gracing his skin.
He has been clean for 3 months, why did this need to happen now? Everything had been alright up till this point, had it not? God, couldn't his stupid brain just leave him alone?
He ran his hands over his face, trying to regain some control over his thoughts. But they just kept on racing. Thoughts upon thoughts went flying through his head. He couldn't grasp on any of them clearly, except Useless. I'm so goddamn useless.
He shook his head again dropping his hands from his face. He started to scratch the inside of his right thumb with his pointer finger, slightly easing the burning sensation in his limbs. But, the feeling just wouldn't leave him, the itching and burning only getting more server as the minutes dragged on.
He reached out to grab his phone from where it was laying next to his pillow, unlocking it to check the time. '00:21' the clock displayed. He bid his lower lip, eyeing his closed bedroom door.
Belle should be asleep already, well, unless she was staying up to watch some new movie. Though, she wouldn't just come out of her room if she heard him leave his room to just go to the bathroom, right? But what if she caught him red handed anyways? Wait, now he was just overthinking things.
He bid his lip harder, so hard it almost started to bleed.
Fuck it, it was already becoming unbearable. He had to, no, needed to soothe this feeling in his arms, just scratching and pinching his skin wasn't enough. His hands were getting restless already. Mindlessly, he started to fidget, which didn't do anything other than making him more restless.
Pathetic, pathetic, pathetic. I really have no self-control. He thought bitterly, getting up from where he was seated at the edge of his bed and walking towards his door.
His hand hoovered over the handle for a bit, hesitant. He slowly pressed the handle down, pushing the door open with a quiet squick. The hallway was dark, only illuminated by the moonlight shining through the singular window right above the stairs.
There was no sound coming from Belle's room. He heaved a sigh of relief, thankfully she seemed to already be asleep, otherwise this would have been much more nerve-wracking than it already was.
He slowly entered the bathroom, closing and locking the door behind him before switching on the light.
In the cold light, he was greeted with his own face staring back at him in the mirror. Dark circles under his eyes, slightly paler than usual. He looked tired, has been tired for a while now, not entirely because of a lack of sleep, but that definitely played part in it as well. His hair was slightly messy. He tugged away a strand of hair that almost fell into his right eye.
He sighed again, dragging open the cabinet mirror and starting to rummage through the things inside until he pulled out a small toiletry bag, which was meant to hold his electric razor. He pulled out a small container, shaking it once before putting the bag back into the cabinet.
He held the container to eye level, seeing through the transparent plastic. The small blades from one if the blade cartridges he had dismantled a few months back bounced around as he shook the container again.
He popped open the lid, tilting it to let a singular blade fall into his hand. The metal piece looked small against his palm, it was almost crazy to think just what kind of damage it would surely do to his skin. Just how it would cut and slice and draw blood from his pale skin in mere seconds.
He wasn't sure if he was dreading or anticipating it, but he felt the need to. The need for it to hurt, to bleed, to leave marks that reminded him just how utterly worthless he felt sometimes.
Actually, that last one could be debated, but more times then not, seeing the already healed scares on his left arm grounded him, pulling him back out of his spiraling thoughts as he softly traced them with his fingers.
Sometimes though, on nights like this when every bottled up thought of the past weeks came to him at once, simply seeing them wasn't enough. He needed to hurt, to sedate the unbearable sensation that settled under his skin whenever the thoughts just became too much.
He knew it was not ideal, an outright unhealthy coping mechanism he should've never picked up, but, sadly enough, it helped.
He also knew that in their current situation, with bills as high as ever and commissions not bringing in as much money after they lost their previous Inter-Knot account, affording therapy on top of everything wasn't possible. Wise wasn't going to give Belle anymore struggles than they already had. No way he would have her shouldering his struggles, her older brother, the one that was meant to take care of her, as well.
On top of it all, he would just become a border. No on would see anything more than a sad, pathetic, useless version of himself. They would start treating him like glass, probably getting tired of him and of feeling the need to look out for him. Maybe they would even start getting mad at him, telling him how he was way to well off to need to do this.
You know that leaves scares, right? You'll just ruin your arms like this. You are not doing it anymore, are you? A voice rang in his head, he couldn't quite tell who his brain was making it belong to. Maybe Belle, maybe someone else, he really hoped it would never actually belong to anyone he knew.
He absolutely didn't want this, didn't want people worrying about him, didn't want them treating him like glass and absolutely didn't want them to think of him as a inconvenience. So, he decided that it would be best to not show, not tell.
Unhealthy coping mechanism be damned. He wasn't throwing their funds into thin air or hurting anyone other than himself, so he deemed it alright, finding himself standing in front of their bathroom sink like he did often before, small blade pressed against the inside of his left arm, a good chuck above his wrist at about the middle of his forearm, not yet cutting or drawing blood.
When he first started, he was scared to cut there, fearing he may accidentally slit open an artery. He would cut on the side, where there wasn't a lot of soft flesh, right above the bone. He quickly found that positioning dissatisfying. It wasn't drawing enough blood, not hurting enough to pleasingly ease the ever growing sensation under his skin.
At some point, Wise found himself slowly moving more inward with every time he started cutting again and, against his better judgement, it was way better than before. It drew more blood and was easier to cut, looked way better on his pale arm. The cuts on the side were always perfectly fitted under each other, due to limited space and fear of slipping, but now, he had way more space, but without getting too close to his wrist. Again fearing he may slip and slice open his artery, which had always been clearly visible under his skin.
It was almost pitiful how he felt the need to lower the blade into his skin and make a quick, shallow cut next to the already healed ones, biting his lip again as it began to sting, blood slowly flowing out of the new wound.
He watched the cut bleed, small blood droplets forming on its edges. It wasn't deep, the first one after so many months of not cutting never was, but it still let satisfaction settle into his gut for a few seconds.
It didn't last long though, so he made another cut, then another, and another, and another. He kept on cutting, mindlessly setting the blade to his skin, sometimes stopping to watch the already made cuts bleed slowly, before continuing the cutting.
It took him about 2 minutes to fully come back to himself, dropped the small, slightly red tinted blade into the sink. Closing his eyes, he took a deep, shaky breath, stumbling back to lean against the locked door.
He opened his eyes again, lowering his gaze back to his arm. All the cuts varied from each other, ones were deep, others more shallow. A few were long, most quiet short, not bleeding much. He traced his right pointer finger over one of the longer ones, wincing at the sting upon the contact. Bright cherry red blood coated his finger as he held it up to his eye level.
Suddenly, a wave of nausea hit him like an upcoming train, prompting him to slide down on the metal door until he sat on the floor of their bathroom. He felt like throwing up, head spinning and a slight ringing building in his ears.
The cold tiles soothed him, however, slightly easing the nausea and mushy feeling in his head.
He felt tears form in the corners of his eyes, one slowly rolling down his cheek. Goddamnit, this really was what his life had come to know, huh?
Stupid, stupid, stupid. He thought to himself, pressing his right arm to his eyes, preventing more hot tears from leaving trails on his cheeks, This is so goddamn stupid. I'm so fucking stupid.
Lowering his arm from his eyes, he gazed at his utterly ruined skin, hot and red from the self-inflicted wounds. A blood droplet rolled down from one of the deeper cuts, landing next to him on the floor, staining the white tile red just like his finger.
He blinked, just staring the the blood trail for a few seconds. He really needed to clean this up.
He stumbled up to his feet, ignoring the burning in his arm as he pulled himself up by the sink.
He opened the tab, letting the water run for a bit until it wasn't ice cold anymore. He winced as he put his arm under the tab, the water running over the cuts stinging ever so slightly and effectively washing the blood away. His right hand gripped the sink tightly, fearing he might fall over from how his head was still feeling mushy.
Closing the tab again, he took a towel from the rag and started dabbing at his wet arm, careful as to not to stain it with his blood too much. He didn't want Belle too notice after all. He stopped for a moment, checking if any of the cuts started bleeding again. He sighed in relief when none of them did.
He doesn't think he ever took proper care of his cuts, only ever rinsing them and applying wound spray before rolling his sleeve back down, ignoring the burning as he did. It wasn't like it actually mattered to him, he found it good when they hurt, reminded him that he was living and not just alive.
Today was no different as he pulled out the wound spray from the cabinet before applying it onto his arm. He shoved it back into its original place, then rolled down the sleeve of his long sleeve. He picked up the blade and put it back into the plastic container, before burying it deep inside his toiletry bag, putting it back and closing the cabinet again.
He almost jumped at his reflection, somehow, he managed to become even more pale. His eyes looked puffy, slightly red from how he was, unbeknownst to himself, still crying, leaving trails down his cheeks.
Damnit, he wasn't just stupid, he was also weak, he thought to himself.
He sighed, running his hands over his face, one then dropping to feel over the lumps forming from the cuts. His eyes felt tired, he really needed to sleep.
So, he found himself back in his room, laying on his side in his bed. His left arm layed next to him on his pillow, sleeved rolled down again. He observed the bumps, feeling over them with delicate fingers. Did he get too carried away? He made a lot more cuts than he did last time, he will need to put in a lot more effort to hide them this time.
But, surely it would be fine, he would make sure no one would ever see these. They were only for himself to muse over, only for his eyes too see and he would try his absolute hardest to make it stay that way.