dichotomy ; gawsten

twenty two

this is a lot. i am warning you now. this is the climax of the story. it's dark. it's heavy. it's intense. be careful. 

heavy trigger warnings for self harm, anxiety, panic attacks, depression, and like, body image kinda stuff (only a couple paragraphs at the beginning) but once again. this is heavy. intense. triggering. please be careful. 

that Big Thing i've been mentioning on tumblr? it's here. 

(also this is set a little over a week after the last chapter)

"Jesus fucking christ."

He bites his lip, pulls his shirt completely over his head, and tosses it to the floor behind him. He inches forward a bit, shifting his weight, and steps out of his sweatpants. They join the shirt, and then he just stares.

Stares at the soft, alabaster skin of his stomach, the slight curve where his belly juts out, the soft trail of hair on his chest, going down, further and further. He stares at the oval the curve of his belly makes, reaches out and runs his hand down his skin. It's not smooth. There's that indent, that bump, that mark of pudge he's never been able to get rid of. It's not something he thinks about. His naked body is not something he looks at a lot.

He's been in this position before. He remembers the days well, of white walls and crisply ironed scrubs, of daily weigh-ins and body checks, of feeling like he was an eating disorder patient without an eating disorder.

The blade feels warm in his hand. He turns it over in his palm. The pads of his fingers brush against the edge. He pulls his lip in with his teeth, pressing his pointer finger directly into the edge of the metal and biting down at the same time his skin breaks.

The blood is barely a dot and it dries quickly. He grips the blade tighter and looks in the mirror, moves his hand to the sharp, jutting out bone of his hip. He walks his fingers down lower, past his hipbone, to the taut skin right underneath, and in one motion, drags the blade across.

The pain is different. He presses down harder on his lip and squeezes his eyes shut to keep from crying out. He knew it would hurt more. There isn't as much fat here. It was what he wanted but there are tears burning in his eyes and his stomach is at his feet. He blinks rapidly, feels the tears on his lashes and reaches over for some toilet paper to press against the wound. The crimson is starting to run in trails down his thigh, multiple tracks mixing together to form a river of red.

He's been here so many times. He remembers nights on tour, the rare occasions when they got hotel rooms, finding himself in the bathroom in front of the full length mirror, tracing lines on his skin with his fingers, poking with his nail, wondering when this would stop when he would get better why he was so fucked up to begin with why couldn't he just be normal why couldn't he just be like everyone else why did he have to cause so many problems why was he such a problem.

There's no more space on his wrists.

This is all he has left.

He's having dinner with Chloe in an hour.

This is all he has left.

...

"So this customer came in today, and..."

He glances down at his plate and pulls on his tie uncomfortably as she launches into the story. He hasn't stopped shaking. It's a different kind of shaking, the kind where he holds his hand out in front of him and watches his fingers shake uncontrollably. He's not in control. Some puppet master up there is pulling on the strings and elevating his heart rate and making him feel like his stomach is going to eject up his throat.