Trigger Warning- suicidal thoughts and MAJOR self-harm. Please do not read if this triggers you. Take care of yourselves xx
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Time went by in a blur. Months. Years. It all blurred together.
Nikki and Tommy, even Mick had tried to contact you. They came to your house, but you never answered the door. You couldn't talk to them. You couldn't face them after what had happened.
Mötley Crüe was finished... and it was because of you.
Then you saw on the news that Mötley Crüe had come out with a new album with John Corabi as their new lead singer.
It was bittersweet.
On one hand, you were happy for the guys and relieved that Mötley Crüe could still live on. But at the same time, it upset you.
There was no Mötley Crüe without Vince Neil. Sure, they were still recording music and now apparently going on tour, but it wasn't the same. Maybe you were bias, but Vince was the voice of Mötley Crüe. They couldn't replace the frontman of the band and expect it to be the same.
You never tried to get in contact with the band. It hurt. You still loved them all dearly, but they didn't need you as a backup singer, and you didn't want to do it without your brother there. It wouldn't be right, and the guys wouldn't want you there anyway.
This whole mess was your fault to begin with.
So, you isolated yourself. From Nikki, from Tommy, from Mick, from everyone. You rarely left the house. What was the point? What would you even do? You had nobody left.
Growing up you had no one except for Vince. Your entire childhood was nothing but a blur of shitty memories and an even shittier father who never wanted you in the first place. Your own mother had abandoned you as a baby. And now Vince didn't want anything to do with you either.
There was a common denominator in those situations... it was you.
You had nothing before Mötley Crüe. You were a waitress at a diner getting paid minimum wage and living in the back of your truck. You could barely afford food let alone anything else. Until Mötley Crüe happened.
The band changed your life. It gave you friends. It gave you a new family. A family that loved you and cared about you more than your own flesh and blood ever did. It gave you a purpose. It gave you a reason to get out of bed in the mornings. Mötley Crüe was more than just a band, it was a family, and it was your life. It was everything.
And now it was gone.
It was all gone.
So, what was the point of anything anymore?
Being alone this long with nothing but your thoughts was dangerous. Without the band, without the guys, without coming up with new songs or going on tour... you've had a lot of time to just think. And it wasn't good.
The car crash back in '84 still haunted you. The sound of metal on metal when the vehicles collided... the smell of burnt rubber and smoke... the broken pleading voice of your brother, 'Raz, wake up. Wake up, man. Raz, wake up.' and seeing Razzle's dead body in Vince's lap still kept you up at night.
Having all this free time to be alone with your thoughts had those memories and feelings rising to the surface along with something else that you had tried these last few years to forget... the miscarriage.
The pain of losing a baby was something you were not expecting. Hell, you didn't even want a child anyway, but the pain hit you harder than you ever thought possible. So, you shoved those feelings into a steel box, locked it and threw away the key. But now, that key had resurfaced, and you couldn't stop thinking about it.
All your past trauma from your childhood to your utter loneliness was simmering to the top and you were drowning in the pain.
So, you reverted back to an old self-destructive habit to numb that pain despite swearing to never do it.
-
"I expect that homework to be done by the time I get home, understood?" Your father demanded.
"Yes, sir." You answered, your voice trembling after just being screamed at for 10 minutes straight about mathematics homework.
His hard eyes stared at you for a moment before he nodded and stormed out the bedroom and a few seconds later, Vince was taking his place after having overheard the whole thing.
"Are you okay? He didn't do anything, did he?"
Vince's eyes scanned your body looking for any injuries your father had caused, and you could pinpoint the exact moment he saw the blood on your flannel sleeve against your wrist and your stomach dropped.
No, he wasn't meant to see that.
Fuck. No, no, no, no.
It was too late to hide it. He saw the blood. He saw it.
It was like your brain had just short circuited because all you could do was stand there, your mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water, but you couldn't say anything.
"Shit. What's that? What did dad do?" Vince questioned, grabbing your arm as he stared at the blood stain.
"What..." You trailed off as realisation hit you.
He thought your father did it. Vince hadn't figured out that it was you who actually caused the blood. And you were going to keep it that way.
Your brother didn't need to know about the things you did with a blade. He wouldn't understand. It was a fucked up habit, you knew it was, but it helped. The physical pain helped subside all the other pain deep inside of you, but how were you meant to explain that to him?
Quickly, you pulled your arm away not wanting him to see the cuts. If Vince saw the cuts, he'd know it wasn't from your father.
"It's fine. It's nothing, don't worry. it's fine." You hurriedly reassured, but he didn't listen and grabbed your arm again. "Vin, wait. Don't-"
It was too late, he was already pulling up the sleeve and you couldn't stop yourself from wincing as the fabric stuck to the cuts on your wrist.
"Shit, sorry-" Vince began to apologise before stopping midsentence as he stared at your now exposed wrist.
You didn't look. You couldn't look. You knew what he was staring at, and you watched his brown eyes widen in pure shock. A million different emotions washed over him, but they were masked before you could decipher any of them. You looked down at the ground not wanting to see the hate and disgust in your brothers' eyes.
"Y/N..." Vince couldn't finish his sentence, his voice cracking as he stared at the cuts.
You could feel tears starting to burn in the back of your eyes but refused to let them spill.
Vince was going to hate you. He was going to hate you and then he was going to tell your father and then... shit. You didn't even want to think about what your father would do.
You yanked your arm from his grasp and rushed out the bedroom. Vince shouted your name, but you ignored him and slammed the bathroom door shut behind yourself.
You turned on the tap in the sink rolling your sleeve up before shifting your wrist under the steady stream unable to stop yourself from wincing as the water stung the cuts. Bright crimson blood mixed into the water, trickling down the drain.
You stared at the tainted water, your hand shaking under the tap before the bathroom door opened and you lifted your head and caught Vince's eyes through the mirror in front of you.
He leant against the doorframe watching you with his arms folded across his chest. He seemed conflicted. Like he wasn't sure if he wanted to be angry or sad, so he settled on being silent instead and that was worse.
His eyes lingered on your wrist under the water before flashing back to you through the mirror. His expression was unreadable as you looked right back at him, afraid to move or say anything.
You waited for him to start shouting. To start screaming at you for being so stupid and careless. You waited for him to get angry, to yell about how disgusted he was with you, but he never did.
He just stared at you silently.
Tears started to rise in your eyes, and you averted your gaze looking down at your wrist.
A moment later, Vince stepped into the bathroom and leant over your shoulder switching the tap off before grabbing a clean towel and gently dabbing it around the cuts to get rid of the water.
You lifted your head to look at him, his brown eyes focused intently on the task before putting the towel down and grabbing the first aid kid from the cabinet. Neither of you spoke while Vince wrapped a white bandage around your wrist and that was all it took for the unshed tears to fall silently down your face.
"Hey. Hey. It's okay." Vince insisted when he looked up and saw your tears.
"I-I'm sorry." Was all you could say, and you barely recognised your own voice.
Vince's expression broke as he put the first aid kit away and met your teary eyes with his own, "why did you do this, Y/N?"
How were you meant to answer that when you didn't even know yourself?
It just happened... you don't even remember what made you do it. The only thing you knew was when the blade sliced through your skin, you finally felt something. The pain gave you something else to focus on. It grounded you in a way that you were unable to explain and once you started cutting, you couldn't stop.
The pain helped. Because if you were focused on the physical pain, you weren't focusing on anything else. But how were you meant to explain that out loud? You couldn't.
"When did you start doing this?" Vince asked, seeming to realise that you weren't going to answer his other question.
"A while ago..."
Vince sighed, "why didn't you come to me?"
You shrugged your shoulders, silent tears still falling down your cheeks.
"You know I would have helped you, right? I would have been there for you."
"I know, but..."
"But, what?"
"I didn't want to be a burden. I didn't want you to know... I didn't want to annoy you or make you hate me." You admitted, averting your gaze refusing to look at him.
"You're my sister. It's your job to annoy me." Vince answered with a sad smile. "If you feel the need to do this to yourself, you come to me. I don't care if it's the middle of the night or during class, you find me and talk to me, okay?"
"I will." You whispered, lifting your head to look at him and you were surprised to find Vince's own eyes were swimming with unshed tears too.
"Swear to me. Swear that you won't do this again. Promise me."
You sniffed, "I swear. I promise."
-
All these years later, you broke that promise.
You had tried to reach out to Vince for months. But he had ghosted you. Not that you blamed him.
Sharise kept you informed on his movements though. The two of them still kept in touch and coparented Skylar despite their abrupt divorce. If you were being honest, her and Skylar were the only people you spoke to.
Sharise told you that Vince had been in and out of rehab for a long time, but it never worked or lasted. He was still out partying and getting hammered, but on the weekends, he got sober and would play with Skylar which he needed as much as she did.
Vince had begun working on a solo career. But like the new Mötley Crüe, it was flopping. It was falling apart just like your own life.
The knife in your hand trembled. A fresh cut glistening amongst the still healing ones on your wrist.
In your head, you knew this was wrong. Even as a kid, you knew it was wrong, but you still liked it. It gave you something else to think about. It gave you something else to feel and you clung to that pain like a lifeline.
The moment the blade pierced your skin, everything else faded away. The emotional pain, the loneliness you felt deep inside, the sadness, everything.
The blade sliced through the skin on your wrist like it was butter and you watched the blood slowly drip from the cut before pressing the knife back down and doing it again, welcoming the sting of pain.
Everything else faded away around you. The pain of the cuts overtook those other feelings and emotions, and it was like a drug. You needed more, and you couldn't get enough.
Then out of nowhere, the phone suddenly rang.
It startled you so badly that the knife slipped from your fingers and hit the floor. The blood on the blade began to stain the beige carpet as you stood there and watched it.
The phone rang out and after a few long tense seconds it began to ring once again. So, you answered.
It was Vince.
You hadn't heard from him since that day at the studio. So, you knew whatever he was about to say over the phone could only be bad news.
Vince had been crying. His voice cracked and broken as he told you...
"Skylar is in hospital. She-she has a tumour in her stomach."
You dropped everything and raced to that hospital.
Nobody would tell you what was going on or let you through to see your niece. So, you paced up and down in the waiting room anxiously until your brother walked out the set of double doors and you saw him for the first time, in a long time.
He was a mess. His eyes were red from crying, his cheeks streaked with tears. He wasn't clean shaven anymore either, a small stubble beard had grown, and you realised that in your entire life, you had never seen Vince look so broken. Not when he was at his worst with alcohol and cocaine. Not when he went to jail for manslaughter. Not when he had been beaten so badly by dad, he needed to go to hospital. This was a whole new level of brokenness and your heart shattered into a million pieces.
"I-I'm sorry. I'm so sorry for everything-" Your brother began to apologise but you didn't let him finish before you rushed across the waiting room and threw your arms around his neck hugging him tightly.
"It doesn't matter." You dismissed. And it didn't.
What he said and what went down in the studio, it didn't matter. Not anymore.
Skylar was in hospital. Nothing else mattered.
Vince's body was tense in your arms not expecting the hug, but he soon melted into your embrace and hugged you back as silent tears fell down your cheeks, staining his shirt.
"How is she?" You sniffed pulling away and wiping your eyes.
Vince's glistening brown eyes met yours and he shook his head, "it's not good."
The tumour, the doctors said, was the size of a softball. You couldn't wrap your head around how something that size could be inside the little girl. Cancer and tumours were meant to happen to old people, not your four-year-old niece.
Vince took you through to his daughter's hospital room and seeing her attached to all those tubes and machines broke you.
A week earlier, Sharise had bought Skylar over to your house to babysit. The little girl had been running circles around your legs all afternoon and made sandcastles on the beach. She was perfectly fine. So, how the hell did this happen?
"I don't like it here, Daddy." Skylar whimpered. "Make it go away."
Vince leant over the side of his daughter's bed while you sat in the chair nearby biting your lip and fighting back tears.
"I know, sweetheart. You're just gonna be here just a little while longer, okay?" Vince explained gently.
"But why?"
"Well, you see, sweetheart, you have something growing in your tummy-"
"Like when Mummy had me growing in her tummy?" She asked innocently.
"No, honey. It's more like... it's more like a flower. You have a flower growing in your tummy, but it's a type of flower that's not supposed to be in there. And the doctors, they're gonna make you sleep just a little bit while they do an operation."
Silent tears were falling down your face and you quickly wiped them away not wanting Skylar to see you cry but the tears just kept coming.
"After the doctor takes the flower out, then I can go home?"
"Yeah." Vince nodded, his voice breaking. "Yeah. Then you can go home."
You reached forward and placed a comforting hand on your brother's shoulder trying to ground him while he fought back tears himself. Vince reached up and placed his hand over your own, squeezing it gently while he smiled down at his daughter.
Operation after operation, treatment after treatment. Skylar wanted to go home, and you all kept telling her just one more day and it would all be over. But every day, the news got worse and worse.
Vince got back into drinking heavily. When he wasn't at the hospital, he was getting so drunk he couldn't even remember his own name. It was his way of dealing with the pain and you didn't know how to help him. Hell, you didn't even know how to help yourself.
Every day you went to the hospital. You sat with Skylar, reading, singing, playing games, anything to distract the little girl from her pain. And once you'd get home at the end of the day, you'd grab your knife and use it to distract yourself from your own pain.
You sat on the edge of Skylar's bed holding the little girl's hand brushing your thumb gently over the back of it in soft soothing circles. She had been crying for the last two hours in pain and after yelling at the doctors, you eventually got them to increase her pain medication to make her more comfortable.
It seemed to do the trick. Her pained wails faded into sad sobs while you held your niece in your arms and sang softly trying to calm her down. It became your nightly routine to sing her to sleep, and she clutched your hand like a lifeline until she drifted off to sleep.
Skylar was scared, and in pain. And it broke your heart into a million pieces because there was nothing you could do to help her. The only thing you were able to do was make sure she was comfortable, so that was what you did.
"She asleep?" Vince's voice whispered.
You looked up to find your brother hovering in the doorway, "yeah. It took a while."
Vince nodded walking quietly into the room before plonking himself down in his usual chair on the opposite side of her bed. He looked beyond tired and probably required a good 24 hours of sleep, but instead of going home to his own bed, he was here for his daughter. He's had a few drinks already, probably coming straight from the bar. He wasn't drunk, but you could always tell when he wasn't entirely sober.
You didn't dare comment on his drinking. It was his way of coping, and it wasn't like you could talk about unhealthy coping mechanisms when your wrist looked like a red barcode.
Skylar looked so peaceful in her sleep while you caressed your thumb over the back of her hand being mindful not to bump the IV needle that was keeping her pain at bay. Vince remained silent in his chair content with watching the two of you together.
A few minutes of comfortable silence passed when out of nowhere, your brother suddenly leant forward and reached for your hand holding Skylar's.
It took you a moment to realise what he was doing but when you looked down and saw that your sleeve had ridden up a little exposing some of the cuts, your stomach dropped.
You released Skylar's hand and pulled the sleeve back down covering the damage on your skin so Vince couldn't see, but it was too late. He already saw it.
Fuck.
-
A/N: I know self-harm and cutting in particular are hard topics to talk about and not what everyone wants to read in a fanfic either, but as someone who has been through it, writing about this helps me. I am not condoning this type of behaviour, but I understand it and know how easy it is to relapse and how hard it is to stop.
I'm not going to share my personal story. I've written about it before in a different fic, but I am a few months clean now and trying to do better. If anyone else can relate, I just want you to know that you are not alone ❤️