the lucky ones

bleeding

   If you're still bleeding, you're the lucky ones. 'Cause most of our feelings, they are dead and they are gone

It was the next morning when Kian woke with new purpose, back to questioning the female body and making airplanes out of his hands. The only difference now being that Jc felt more depressed, more anti-social, more willing to hurt because as of late he's started to feel a bit too much. Crying 24/7 made you quite tired, and the only thing that stopped Jc from crying was bleeding and the only thing that could make Jc bleed was a blade and flick of his own wrist.

He snuck away from the rest of the boys as they got ready to travel again and sat against a tree. There he took out the blade from his pocket (a dangerous place to hide it) and began to color his arms in red, a natural paint. It wasn't like the other boys would mind, they saw the cuts anyway, and he just felt it would disgust them to do the act right in the open. And maybe even be enough to push Connor over the edge.

The pain was none existent, the act alone numbing his whole body and he sighed in relief. Finally.

It felt good to bleed, to finally let it all out.

Growing up were he did, with parents who punished you for human emotions and had the highest of expectations, he learned to release all tension with sharp metal. His parents hated that he was diagnosed with depression and told him how wrong it was to be sad. So after 15 years of suppressing emotions he ran and never looked back. Now he cries at least once a day, lost in his depressing thoughts and insecurities.

His thoughts become more warped as the blade becomes harder to hold and less places were cuttable. Maybe that was it, the day he finally let's go. He hates the memories and he hates how big of a wuss he was and his untreated mental illness was becoming harder to manage.  He brought the blade to his main vain on his wrist and sobbed as he's about to cut into the flesh and-

"Jc?" A timid voice questioned as he looked up. "We're leaving now..." He quickly wiped his wrists on his pants, wincing at the feelings and nodding.

"O-okay."

"Were you going to do it?" Tyler asked. "Finally end it all?" It took a minute but eventually he nodded with a sad ashamed frown.

"Okay, that's fine. But what about us?" Jc's head shot up.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I heard you and Kian last night. He'd be lost without you. I don't know about Troye or Con but it'd definitely be less fun without you here. We care about you and it would suck to see you go." To say Jc was surprised would have been an understatement.

"Oh."

"But it's whatever you want. I'll understand if you want to go. Con might be a bit jealous but I get it. Would you like me to leave, so you can... you know." Tyler said awkwardly and Jc shook his head quickly. Now he had more purpose, he had people who wanted him, needed him even. He couldn't go.

"No, I'll just...I'll stick around a bit longer." Tyler nodded as Jc rushed past him and back to the camp with only one though on his mind.

Maybe who still bleed are the lucky ones, and that he doesn't want to be numb.

Tyler stared at the dirt covered ground as Jc rushed past him. His pep talk cheered only one of them up as he considered his options. Where Tyler had grown love wasn't something you were granted like it was in most families. Instead he was forced to believe that no one in this world could love him. His father abandoned him as an infant and his mother was nothing short of an alcoholic. Mix the two together and you get an insecure teenager with a drug problem and the willingness to do anything that gets him some kind of affection. Whether that's mindless sex or someone to cuddle with, Tyler would take either.

He just wanted to feel, feel anything really because after all the mistreatment growing up he'd learned- or more like forced himself- to become completely indifferent towards feelings. To say the least, he'd become numb.

Back to the options, the ones Tyler had been debating before his mind traveled to his past in one last desperate attempt to feel something. There in the dirt laid the blade that was covered in Jc's blood. It would have been hypocritical of him to pick it up, he knew that, after all he'd just told Jc what a waste it was. In nicer words of course.

Tyler could either pick up the metal and let the feeling of its sharp edge take him to paradise, or he could leave it there to rust and continue to pack what little belongs he had salvaged. He thought of the sweet release from his dull world that seemed to be haunting him, or he could make his way back to his friends and try to persuade the next stranger they met into a one-night stand or a simple kiss.

He picked the latter, leaving the blade to rust and made his way back to the Volkswagen. He decided that his friends- believe it or not- were more important that any cheap thrill the blade could have gave him. It didn't matter that Jc would still be bleeding, that Connor would still be brooding with Troye on his tail, or that Kian would still be going on about women without their clothes on.

"You ready Ty?" Connor asked slightly grumpily as Troye attempted to grab his hand.

"Yeah...yeah I am."

He decided then that those who bleed were the lucky ones, that maybe he didn't want to be lucky, and that his feelings were dead and gone.