Work Text:
Today, Vinestaff’s legs were hurting more than usual.
The reason as to why wasn’t necessarily “normal.” It certainly wasn’t the excuses that she spouted to those who questioned her, at least. She had said just about everything to everyone, desperate to cover herself. It ranged from blaming it on the cats at Thieves Rest, to faking embarrassment over a hypothetical stumble down her apartment stairs. Anything that would satisfy the curiosity of those around her, even if momentarily, or if they truly seemed like they didn’t believe her.
After all, it wasn’t exactly easy to excuse the slight limp in her gait, or the way she slightly hissed when her hand brushed against her thighs.
But nobody can say she didn’t try to keep everyone else’s peace, no matter how suspicious other Inphernals got.
However, the world seemed to be against her today. It seemed to throw everything it could at her, anything to make her wince or nearly buckle. Of course, much to her annoyance.
This was only seen in ways solely visible to her. Her pants lightly sticking to her legs before she tugged at them, situating them once more. Or the way that she went to the bathroom more frequently than regular, only to curse under her breath when the canvas that was her thighs weren’t looking the way she wanted to. Of course, risking infection wasn’t something she wanted to do, but she could only waste so many bandages before it looked odd to Slingshot and Shuriken.
And seeming odd to those two was the last thing she wanted. She could handle a few questions in the morning, and she could handle keeping her story straight for so long. But giving them any more reason to interrogate her? Well, she’d rather disappear off the face of the Inpherno.
…
Unfortunately, the world kept spinning despite her issues. As much as Vinestaff would prefer to stay home all day and (she didn’t exactly want this, but she knew damn well it’d probably happen) wallow in her thoughts, she couldn’t exactly leave her brothers hanging at work. With a heavy sigh, she grounded herself once more, trying to take in the world around her after it had all felt so fake. She had been on autopilot all day… she’d be bound to get a few questions or weird looks if she didn’t straighten up. So much depended on her being normal and fine!
She carefully weaved between tables and seated Inphernals, trying her best not to disturb her customers. It was essentially second nature to her, trying to avoid others, to be as small and unnoticeable as possible. Even when partially zoned out, it wasn’t exactly hard for Vinestaff to tiptoe around chairs and make sure she didn’t step on some poor cat. All she had to do was stare down at the ground and pay no mind to the slight burning on her hand due to the plate… some fresh, warm pastry that she hadn’t cared to take note of piled high. Whatever she was holding wasn’t her biggest issue, not when trying to quench the urge that the slight burning caused. All she knew was that she had to stamp it down like the horrible wildfire it’d soon become if left unchecked. And of course, she couldn’t let something like that burn out of control. That’d be out of character.
Vinestaff finally sat the plates lined up on her arms down onto a table, sliding them towards whichever Inphernal raised their hand to signal it was theirs. A sort of relief flooding through her as she recited the same polite words, the same questions that she asked every single customer every day. The relief was almost instant, but… perhaps temporary as well. She caught herself glancing down to her hand, where the skin was now slightly red from the heat of the plate. Staring for a few moments wasn't something that she intended to do, but… it happened regardless. Same with the thoughts that came flooding back into her mind. Unwanted thoughts, little roaches that crawled back in no matter how many times she slammed her foot down onto them, or tried to ignore them skittering around.
She couldn't have been more grateful that the interaction with the customers was brief enough for them to not notice. Albeit, she didn't even want to give her brain the chance to catch up. To truly process what she was thinking, and perhaps spiral even further into that. That wouldn't solve any problems now, would it? That wouldn't pay any bills, and that wouldn't keep up the image that she had so carefully crafted.
…
Telling herself those things did little to actually eliminate the thoughts.
Whatever. All she had to do was make it through the day. Then she could do whatever the hell she wanted to her legs after.
Just make it through the day.
Everything had been a blur. Working days normally were, that wasn't anything out of the ordinary. The only issue was the monster slowly crawling up her spine, trying to pry its way back into her mind. It was a little irritating, truly, how it always crept back to torment her despite her efforts. Vinestaff could focus on her tedious work all she wanted, but those horrible urges always stayed in the back of her mind. It felt impossible to fight them, even as fingers brushed against plates or lifted up tips left for her. Work wasn't distracting her enough as she had hoped. Hoped, not expected… she should never set her expectations for this job high, let alone expecting it to offer some ‘escapism.’
At the very least, she was back in her shared aparment. A groan managed to escape her lips, a hand flying to rub her forehead. It was as though she was trying to rub away the horrific thoughts—graphic depictions of her own blood dripping down her thighs—with a physical action. To anyone else, it seemed awfully normal; perhaps soothing an aching head after a long shift at work. Surely nobody would see this and think it was anything more than her irritation, just as she preferred.
How others saw her was everything, she told herself, she couldn't afford to be seen as something they had to walk on eggshells around.
But not even that thought could stop her from silently shutting the bathroom door behind her, and locking it with a tiny click.
Nobody had to know what she was about to do. Nobody was going to know, not with every precaution she took.
Vinestaff settled herself onto the cold tiles of the bathroom floor, pulling down the waistband of her pants enough to expose her hip. One of the… ‘better’ spots for this as she had come to learn. Not without its drawbacks, in her experience it hurt leagues more than any wound of the same depth on her wrists, but it was easier to hide. Far easier, as she didn't have to worry herself with the possibility of a sleeve rolling up, or even that same threat when wearing shorts.
Vinestaff almost moved impatiently, carefully taking the razor blade into her hands so as to not graze any of her fingers. Not that she had done such by accident, but she sure didn't want a bleeding hand whilst trying to… well, cause other parts of herself to bleed.
The action wasn't instant. It oh so rarely was, and it was rarely some clean swipe. If not every single time, she found herself hesitating. Even she found the notion of that stupid, as it's not like she was being forced to slice her hips open… so why did she hesitate? Why did her breath hitch, why did her hand pause right before dragging the blade across her skin? This was something that she wanted, something that she purposefully did in order to relieve herself from the stress of the day.
So why the hell did she get so nervous?
Vinestaff groaned, irritation quickly mounting within her. She pressed the edge of the blade even harder against the pale skin of her hip, already enough for a small, angry red to begin to form should she lift the blade up. She closed her eyes, trying to let the frustration of the moment spur her on rather than hold her back. She had been waiting all day for a second to relieve herself in this way, and now that she had the chance to do so? She’d only grow more upset due to her being such a pussy.
She didn’t think about the action itself, not as she dwelled on her own self-depricating thoughts instead. All she could think of was how stupid she was, for postponing her own coping mechanism! The very thing that she had been waiting for after she realized that the wounds from the previous week were already healing, no longer open and weeping. Now, the most discomfort she got from them was the itching caused by the healing process. Not the discomfort that she was after, as she reminded herself.
She hadn’t even noticed the initial sting of the cut, not like normal. It was typical for it to sting more than this, immediately aching as the cold air of the bathroom hit the now open wound. It hardly hurt this time, not anymore than a dull ache. That should have been the first sign that things were different.
Vinestaff slowly opened her eyes, glancing down towards the area that she had dug her blade into. The wound wasn’t the same thin, red line with tiny beads of blood as they usually were. Normally, it was rare for those crimson beads to be big whatsoever; especially not enough for it to slide down her thighs or hips more than a few centimeters away from the initial cut. It also wasn’t normally a color other than red.
Of course, that sounds stupid on paper. Why wouldn’t a wound be red upon its infliction? Did it not bleed?
It felt less stupid when she realized that she was actually looking at that. A cut in her hip that was wider than normal, almost gaping. Although a relatively small aspect of it, the white coloration of the wound hit her harder than the immediate size of it. It was pure white, blending it with the pale complexion of her skin. Blood pooled in the sides of it, filling in the white space at an agonizingly slow pace.
Perhaps she should have been scared, or at the very least alarmed. She had never done a wound like this to herself up until now, and she knew it was slightly worse than those tiny cuts that barely broke her skin. Yet, no matter how hard she tried to rouse any sense of anxiety within her, she simply couldn't. At first, it was a feeling of apathy. It was as though she hardly even cared about what she had just done to herself, completely shedding most of that frustration that weighed down on her. However, it didn't take long for that apathy to morph into an almost inappropriate frivolity.
A smile slowly spread across her trembling lips, eyes wide as Vinestaff stared down into the gaping wound on her hip. All she could do was watch as the blood spilled from the cut at the same time as it filled the sudden void, dripping down the exposed skin of her hip. She didn't move to stop the bleeding; the only movement she made was dragging a finger over the running stream of blood, attempting to stop it in its tracks so as to not stain her clothing. She didn't care that the blood smudged against her skin, coloring it a pink-ish color with the blood's residue. She simply, slowly, brought her finger up to her face in order to get a good look at it.
Obviously blood was something that she had seen before. Her own blood wasn't anything new, either, but… something about this instance felt different. Vinestaff didn't know why, not one bit, but that did little to change the lingering feeling of shock that resided in her.
It wasn't the reason for this shock, Vinestaff knew that well, however she couldn't help but believe that the odd coolness of the blood was part of it. The droplet was cold against her finger, and even colder as a new trail of it crept down her hip. It felt akin to stepping out of a warm bath and feeling the water run down your legs… of course, the water was far from cold and you knew it, but somehow it still felt cold against your skin.
Vinestaff's gaze slowly trailed back down to her wound, the amount of white within the wound that was still visible now very little. She almost felt a pang of disappointment, as if she hadn't been able to fully capture the sight of her own layers of skin within her mind. Rationally, she knew the idea of that had to be sick. A thought that most would find repulsive, just as many felt about the idea of carving into ones own skin. But she couldn't bring herself to care about how others would think and how they would judge her actions.
Really, Vinestaff hadn't even realized how the sudden surprise (and, as humiliating as it is to think about, the giddiness) had completely overridden any of her previous irritation from the day. She was almost stuck in these thoughts of hers, regarding the new depth that she had reached all on her own. This new feeling that had spawned was exactly what she was after— distracting herself from the pain within her mind, with sensations upon her lower body. Sensations that will surely continue to ache throughout this first week of healing, but is that not what she aimed for? If anything, the new guarantee of a more sensitive wound made that smile of hers even wider.
If it hurt more, that meant it would be harder to ignore. If it's harder to ignore, it's easier to distract herself with the pain that she willingly put herself through… and that pain was something she was a lot more keen on enduring than the mental turmoil that came with the end of every single work day.
Why lay in her hammock late at night, stuck on the knowledge that she would have to simply go right back to work in the morning, when she could be cutting on the bathroom floor? Why be so hung up on horrible, horrible thoughts when she could think about how beautifully the wounds stung, how the blood reminded her of her favorite flowers, and how much she wanted more scars to blossom along her hips, and all the way down her legs?
…
Vinestaff wouldn't dare bring herself to worry about the worries of others, how her brothers would be horrified if they ever saw what she did to herself. It seemed so silly— hurting herself like this wasn't affecting anyone else, so why did she have to hide it like it did? Should they not be happy for her when cutting herself like this elicited a reaction such as this one, allowing her an escape from the battles within her own brain.
They should be happy for her, she decided.
She was getting what she wanted.