Fear the Reaper [malexmale]

Chapter Four

It'd been hours since Rowan and Tatiana left me to go to one of their secretive little meetings. I tried to follow, but sure enough, I ended up hitting a barrier and conked my head on it. I gave up and somehow found myself back in front of the stained glass windows, staring at them and trying to figure out who I saw.

In the ones of self-harm, I saw Theo first. I knew Theo's story well. I'd actually showed up quite a few times during his childhood, cloaked so he wouldn't detect me, and so Thanatos wouldn't have a hissy fit that I was invading his territory. Theo had almost died so many times, I nearly lost count. He'd cut the wrong way, he'd cut too deep, he'd gone too far with his addiction to pain. Or sometimes his mother hit him too hard, sometimes she went too far. He'd always end up on the floor in the middle of his room, sprawled out like Prometheus waiting for vultures to peck out his insides.

But instead of laying there in tears, Theo would always be smiling, his eyes closed. He looked completely at peace with all of the pain, especially when it went too far. He needed the pain, or so he thought. He needed to know he was still alive, to know that he could still feel.

Who else did I see... Menoetius.

Menoetius was Hannibal's half-brother. Born to Iapetus and Clymene with four other brothers, Menoetius was always an odd one. Since the beginning, he wasn't a big fan of crowds, of other people in general. He liked his privacy. He liked curling up with his books, in the safety of his room. But that didn't last long. Once his family had discovered his infatuation with Hannibal, they'd ostracized him as badly as they had Hannibal. He was ruthlessly mocked, abused, to the point where he needed the pain to cope with what was happening.

He'd taken to hurting himself too. But his daily ritual as he called it was borderline OCD. He needed to have everything set up in the right way. He needed clean tools to work with, needed to have his quiet space, needed to be relaxed.

I could go on forever of all the people I'd known who'd done shit like that.

I'd never done it. I had never felt the need to. I was tired of being in pain. I was tired of wallowing in my own misery, tired of laying curled up at night, frozen in terror, crying until my throat was raw, until my eyes were puffy, until my face was a gross mess of snot and tears. I was tired of suffering.

So I told myself... fuck it. Fuck Xiphrus. Fuck the abandonment. Fuck the dying. Fuck it all. I was tired of giving a shit about people who didn't give a shit about me. I was tired of caring and getting nothing, but pain and woe in return. I was going to live for eternity and damned if I was going to live that eternity in agony.

But damn, these windows... nothing said look at it so aggressively like having stained glass windows of everything you tried to bury your head in the sand about.

I grimaced. Michael had so eloquently used that same saying. Bury your head in the sand. Pretend everything is fine and dandy, while the world around you is burning up and you sit there, just smiling and drinking tea.

It was giving me a headache.

"Admiring my work?" I stiffened for a split second before turning around to see Viviana coming down the hallway toward me, walking like a runway model. One foot in front of the other, perfectly balanced, hips swaying provocatively. She was decked out in a snug black pencil skirt with a ruffled red blouse with long sleeves, her lips painted black today and her nails painted red. Her glorious head of jet black hair fell in fat curls around her shoulders, part of it pulled up with what looked like one of those bumpit things.

"You made these?" I asked. She nodded, coming over to stand beside me, looking up at the one I was staring at. Even though her eyes were basically just black pits in her head, they somehow managed to be incredibly expressive. They looked teary for a moment, then she blinked them back.