I wrote this story for Self Injury Awareness Day (SIAD), which is on March 1st (though I'm uploading it early because I'm going to be away then). This is a subject that is pretty close to me for a number of reasons that I won't go into here, but I like to raise awareness where I can. Feel free to message me if you're particularly interested in the reasons behind this, or if you want any more info on SIAD.
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the people that I have borrowed for this story! I also do not own the opening quotation.
Warning: Fairly graphic descriptions of self-harm, and a little bit of swearing.
I know "Depressed Dougie" has become somewhat clichéd of late. This wasn't meant to be a Dougie story when it started out, but he seemed to fit the character so much better than any of the others. I've tried to write it in a way that will still be interesting to read regardless!
Please read and leave a review, I'd really love to know what people think of this story.
"Scar tissue has no character. It's not like skin. It doesn't show age or illness or pallor or tan. It has no pores, no hair, no wrinkles. It's like a slipcover. It shields and disguises what's beneath. That's why we grow it; we have something to hide." – Susanna Kaysen (Girl, Interrupted)
Dougie sat awake in bed, unable to sleep through everything that was racing inside his mind. He missed his own bed, his real bed, at home. He missed so much about home. He missed his group of friends at school, he missed his little sister, however annoying she may be, and, as uncool as it made him feel to admit, he missed his mum. He missed the safety of knowing that nothing he did really mattered, that he had time to mess around and be young. It had been two months since he'd lived at home, and still he missed it every night. Not that what he had here wasn't fantastic, because it was. Three new friends, a house in London living with said friends, no adults, no school, and the prospect of a future he'd always dreamed of. But it had happened fast, so fast. He'd barely spoken to most of his friends back home since he'd joined the band, and they all seemed to be getting on without him just fine. It was like everyone had moved on and forgotten him, when in actuality, it was him who had done the moving away.
Everyone else in the house, his bandmates, seemed to have bonded far quicker with each other than they had done with Dougie. Tom and Danny had known each other for a while already, and Harry was confident and charismatic enough to get along great with anyone the second they met him, leaving Dougie the quiet, shy outsider of the group. In a way, Dougie felt like this was not real life, not his real life at least, that this was all some elaborate movie-set joke on him, and that one day he'd find out none of this was real, or the band would find someone more suited to replace him, and that he would have to go back to how his life used to be. It was like the fear of loosing it made it too hard to truly live in the moment, to enjoy this strange turn his life had taken.
It felt like he had no one to turn to when he felt down on nights like these. He was nowhere near close enough to his old friends to call them up at 3am anymore, nor was he close enough to his bandmates yet to wake them up to talk to them, he wouldn't even know what to say. He could call his mum, but as far as she knew, everything was going brilliantly with the band, and it was, apart from when he got himself wrapped up in his own negativity. No, he couldn't call her, he didn't want to worry her into making him move back home, because as much as he missed home, this was his chance at doing something he had always wanted to do, and he didn't know if he would get another. So he turned to what he always turned to when he was down, an old habit he had picked up a few years ago, a messy, addictive, time consuming habit that Dougie had thought he was over until a few weeks before he joined the band when it had resurfaced. He knew he shouldn't, he knew it wasn't a good way of dealing with things, he heard every rational part of his brain screaming at him not to do it, and still before long it had all started again.
Dougie reached over to the bedside cabinet, opening the top drawer, pulling out a small wooden box. He flipped the lip open, revealing an array of thin, metal razor blades, some perfectly straight and shiny, others bloodstained and bent in the middle, his code for knowing which had been used without having to throw any away, for fear of someone finding it in the bin. He took out a fresh blade, and put it carefully in the pocket of his hoodie, before taking out a small bundle of gauze and medical tape which he also placed in his pocket. He picked up his mobile phone to use the light to guide himself to the bathroom, not wanting to turn any lights on, not wanting to wake any of his housemates up. He made his way onto the landing, past the staircase leading down to the kitchen and living room, and the one leading up to Tom's room, past Harry's bedroom door, and into the bathroom, closing the door and switching the light on.
Slowly and methodically, Dougie took the blade out of his hoodie pocket, placing in on the ledge above the sink, staring at his regretful eyes looking back at him through the water-marked mirror. He took out the gauze and the tape, placing them next to the blade, before slipping off his hoodie. Dougie stared at his arm, lined in marks and wounds in different stages of healing, from old, white scars, to fresh, scabby cuts. He sighed, realising he was fast running out of free space on his forearm this time around. It hadn't always been like this. Before a few months ago, before he'd started again, there had been months where he hadn't even so much as thought about hurting himself. Having started when he was thirteen, he had been dealing with this for a couple of years, and had learned from experience how to hide it. Everything from withstanding the heat of wearing long sleeves in summer, to a reliance on wristbands and other bracelets passed off as fashion. And, of course, there was the main rule, the one that he had not stuck to this time around. No injuries in obvious areas, meaning he usually steered clear of his forearms, opting instead for his shoulders and legs, though nowhere felt quite the same, nothing had quite the same value to Dougie as an injury on his forearm. When he had started back up, he had allowed himself to cut his forearms, something he had not done in over a year, thinking it would just be a one time thing, one last time. Of course it wasn't one last time, it never was.
Dougie tugged up the sleeve of his t-shirt, revealing his bony shoulder, also filled with old white scars. Just how many scars he had acquired over the course of the couple of years astounded Dougie when he saw them. Dougie picked up the razor and perched on the edge of the bath, bringing it to his left bicep, or at least, the place his bicep would have been, had he any muscle mass to speak of. He stared at the razor against his skin for a second, inhaling deeply, before pressing the blade down as hard as he could, dragging in across the skin in a forwards motion, exhaling sharply. He felt the familiar pinch of the sharp edge puncturing his skin, but little aside from that in terms of pain. He stared at his arm, seeing his flesh tear open. It was deep, deeper than Dougie had expected, deeper than he had cut in a long time. He took the razor away from his skin to assess the damage, cursing himself for going so deep when he knew he'd have to use his arm to play bass in the morning. It always hurt more the next morning.
The cut gaped open, blood only just beginning to show through the Rice Krispie-like layer of dull, yellow-grey fat he had hit. He hadn't meant to do that. It was just meant to be a little cut, enough to feel everything he had come to attach to the action, but shallow enough to wrap up in a bit of gauze and go to bed after. He knew he should stop, he knew this would be enough to deal with now, but one cut was never enough. He put the razor to his skin again, drawing it along a couple of times in quick succession, blood forming droplets almost immediately on those. Dougie rested the blade down on the ledge, grabbing a mound of tissue to hold to his bleeding arm, trying not to let any blood drip onto the white tiled floor. He sat on the edge of the bath, applying pressure to the wound, trying to stop the bleeding.
Staring at what he had done, Dougie felt the familiar feeling of regret and disgust coming into light, as that always did, and as he always forgot about until they came back around. Why did he still have to resort to this? It was stupid, childish, a waste of time and energy. But then again, wasn't everything? There was no point to anything, really, and he was tired, so tired, always, but could never sleep. Lifting the tissue, Dougie checked on the cut, which showed no signs of stopping bleeding anytime soon. He yawned, stretching out his back, cutting always made him sleepy, too tired to deal with the hassle of having a wound to treat afterwards. It could probably wait until the morning, Dougie thought, risking bleeding through onto his clothes and bed sheets. He took a piece of gauze, and doubled it over to increase the thickness, placing it over the cuts. Blood seeped through almost instantly, though Dougie left it in place, layering tape over the dressing to create a barrier which blood could not get through as easily. He pulled his t-shirt sleeve back down, and placed his hoodie back on, not wanting to see any sigh of what he had done to himself.
The soaked through bandage was uncomfortable on Dougie's arm, his drying blood cold against his skin, the tape slightly too tight, restricting his arm movement. The wound's dressing, in fact, for the time being, felt more unpleasant than the actual wound, though that would set in tomorrow, after the pain numbing adrenalin had faded away. It was all part of the routine, the safety net of familiarity that surrounded the act. He couldn't keep doing this, he'd have to stop soon, this couldn't go on forever. Dougie was sure his bandmates would get suspicious eventually, if he ever stopped keeping them at arms length long enough for them to notice. It seemed so obvious to Dougie, he constantly scanned other people arms for possible scars, but then again, it was all so normalised to him, having been part of his life for so long, he was more attuned than most would, or should, be. Dougie gathered up the used blade and remaining gauze, putting them back in his pocket, flushing the bloodied tissue down the toilet, making sure every trace of his injuries were gone from the bathroom. He picked up his mobile phone, ready to go back to bed and try to sleep.
As he opened the bathroom door, expecting to need the light from his phone to guide him back to his bedroom, Dougie felt his eyes blinded by the harsh light of the hallway. Who else was up? Dougie considered going back into the bathroom, or running all the way to his bedroom, not wanting to bump into anyone. He was in no fit state to talk, not even for late night hallway pleasantries. He stood in the doorway for a second, frozen in time, panic gripping his body, forcing him to remain static.
"Dougie? Are you not asleep yet? We've got a really early start for the studio tomorrow," Tom said, coming up the stairs from the kitchen, a glass of water in hand.
Dougie opened his mouth to speak but couldn't find any words to say, instead just nodding and hoping Tom didn't hear his mumbled stutters of shock. This wasn't right, he wasn't supposed to see anyone now, not until he'd slept. Not until he'd had time to forget about what he'd just done, until the pictures of split skin pouring blood weren't so fresh in his mind. He bowed his head, and went to walk back to bed, hoping he could pass his rudeness off as him being half asleep come morning time. Dougie began to walk, flinching as he felt Tom's hand on his left arm, stopping dead in his tracks. Fuck. How the hell did Tom know? Did Tom know? Dougie felt his heart racing halfway down his stomach, his chest tightening his airwaves. This wasn't happening, this wasn't happening, this couldn't be happening.
"What happened to your arm? You're bleeding," Tom said, his voice thick with concern.
Dougie looked down, seeing that Tom was indeed correct, blood seeping through the light grey sleeve of his hoodie. He cursed himself for not having tended to the wound better, for not having worn a black hoodie on which the blood wouldn't have shown, for not adhering to his own rules about cutting in less obvious places. What the hell was he going to say? His mouth was dry, his palms drenched in sweat, his body tense and shaking.
"Oh, it, uh, it's nothing," Dougie spluttered, trying to pull his arm back from Tom's hands, now grasped around his shoulder.
"It doesn't look like nothing, Dougie. Here, let me have a look, I've got some plasters and stuff in the bathroom upstairs," Tom pressed, trying to take down the sleeve of Dougie's blood-stained hoodie.
Dougie suppressed a slight smirk, his mind twisting Tom's attempts to help, intertwining them with dark humour. A side effect of years of self inflicted injuries was the ability to care for said injuries as second nature, a plethora of learned medical knowledge. Dougie was fully aware of the healing time required for cuts of different sizes in different places on his body. He knew almost exactly the amount of time they would take to stop bleeding, when to change the dressings, what sort of wound required what treatment, and how to prevent them from getting infected. Right now, for example, he knew that the deepest of the cuts required some sort of help to stay shut, the help of steri-strips, or, in the unlikely event he did not have any to hand, a strip of the tape used to hold the sodden gauze in place. Though he had become somewhat desensitised to the severity of his injuries, Dougie knew how they would look to someone not so accustomed to them. For Tom's sake as much as his own, Dougie could not risk letting him see them.
"No, really it's fine," Dougie said, sounding more defensive than he had intended to, attempting to tug his arm back from Tom, wincing slightly as a jolt of pain hit the cuts as he attempted to move his arm.
Tom saw the younger boy flinch, taking it was warning more so than anything that something was wrong, and more determined to find out what Dougie was trying so hard to keep him from seeing. He knew Dougie didn't like asking for help, that he wanted to prove that he could look after himself, and that was fine, most of the time. Whatever had happened, Dougie was hurt, or why else would the sleeve of his sweatshirt be soaked with still-wet blood stains? Couldn't Dougie put aside this manly persona and pride for the sake of a plaster?
Before Dougie had a chance to react, Tom grabbed a hold of the top of Dougie's unzipped hoodie, "Dougie, stop being silly, what happened?" Tom asked, getting slightly fed up with Dougie's resistance. When they had all moved in together, just a few short months ago, Dougie's mother had taken Tom aside, and made him promise to watch out for Dougie, to look after her son. He had given his word that he would make sure Dougie was okay… what if whatever had happened to Dougie's arm was a more serious than Tom thought? Not that he knew what he thought, really. What sort of accident could wound the top of an arm through a permanently-attached hoodie? No, he had to know what was going on here, why Dougie was acting so suspiciously, why he was so nervous and jumpy tonight.
"I said it's nothing!" Dougie replied, raising his voice ever so slightly, though still not much above a loud whisper. He gave his arm a final tug to retrieve it and go back to bed. Tom's grip on his hoodie tightened. Dougie pulled his arm back, though not before Tom had pulled the sleeve down to Dougie's elbow, revealing Dougie's injuries and scars, from the old, almost to faint to see, to the very new, the blood soaked gauze in full view. Dougie heard Tom inhale a sharp burst of air at the sight, as he felt his heart racing faster than he had ever felt it before. He grabbed onto the top of his hoodie, pulling it up over his arm once again, but it was too late, for he could not make Tom un-see what had already been seen.
"Dougie…" Tom sighed, his eyes wide and mouth agape, "What have you done to yourself?"
Dougie could not think of a response. He didn't want to respond, he wanted to go to bed, to forget this late night hallway meeting ever happened. He didn't want to have to explain himself to Tom. He didn't want to have to let Tom in on his secret. It was his, the one thing in the world that was solely his. Tom would fain concern, try and make him stop, force him to stop. What give him ultimatums about staying in the band? Dougie felt his world crashing down around him, like sandcastles being washed away by the tide. It only takes a moment for something to be destroyed.
So he ran. Pushing past a still-staring Tom, Dougie ran down the hallway and into his bedroom, slamming the door shut behind him, no longer thinking, or caring, about who else he might wake up. He ran to his bed and lied down, tears of confused anger springing to his eyes, sniffling into the pillows into which he had buried his head. He lay there, shaking, crying, too much spinning through his head to make sense of anything. He wanted to cut again, it would help bring him clarity, help him to focus, rid him of the adrenalin surging through his veins, making him restless, and, once more, unlikely to get to sleep any time soon. But he couldn't cut again, could he? Granted, he hadn't known Tom particularly long, but if Dougie's knowledge of him was anything to go by, Tom wouldn't stand for Dougie running off without so much as an explanation. As if on cue, Dougie heard a tapping on his bedroom door.
"Go away," He mumbled into the bed sheets, well aware of quite how much he was acting like a child, but not caring.
Tom pushed the door open, ignoring Dougie's request, revealing the pitiful sight within the room of Dougie crying into his bed. Tom sighed, shaking his head. He didn't want Dougie to feel like this, he didn't want to have been the one to make Dougie feel like this. He wanted to make everything better, it was his job to make everything better, his responsibility. But what could he do? What could he possibly say to this crying wreck of Dougie?
"Look, Dougie," Tom began, softly, walking over towards the bed, "I get that you don't want to talk to me about this right now, and that's fine, but when you calm down, we're going to need to discuss this. I can't know what you're doing to yourself and let you just carry on as if I hadn't seen. Now, I don't understand what would make you want to hurt yourself, but I know you're not the first person to have ever done this, you know, and you definitely won't be the last. You should really try and get some sleep though. When you're ready to talk about this, we can, anytime you're ready, come get me. You can get through this, Dougie, this doesn't have to define you."
When Dougie did not respond, Tom made his way over to the bed, Dougie's sniffling letting Tom know that Dougie was still awake, and therefore probably heard his speech. Tom placed a fresh bandage from his medicine cabinet upstairs on Dougie's bedside table, his feeble attempt at a peace offering. In a way, Tom was relieved that Dougie didn't want to talk tonight, it gave him time to process what he had seen, to work out what he should do. He needed time to wrap his head around what he had found out. He reached out to touch Dougie's shoulder, in an attempt to comfort him, to let him know he was there for him. Dougie jerked slightly at the contact, Tom realising it was not having the intended effect. He sighed again and went to leave the room.
"Goodnight, Dougie," Tom said, as he approached the doorway.
"W-w-w-wait," Dougie said, through his tears, not quite sure why he was saying anything. Something Tom said resonated through his mind. This didn't have to define him. He could stop; this didn't have to last forever. Maybe the first step to stopping was making it through the night without cutting again, something that Dougie, at this moment in time, doubted his ability to do on his own.
"Yeah?" Tom asked, stopping in his tracks.
"C-c-c-could you stay w-w-w-with me for a b-b-b-bit, please?" Dougie asked looking up from his pillow, his eyes rubbed red and glistening moisture.
"Yeah, of course," Tom replied, making his way over to the bed and perching on the edge. He put his arm around Dougie's shoulders, and before he knew it, Dougie head was against his chest, sobbing through the fabric of Tom's t-shirt, "It's okay, it'll be okay, Dougs,"
Dougie didn't know it yet, but that was the day everything started to change, the day everything started to fall into place. Dougie had always though that the day when someone finally found out his secret would be unbearable, but instead, it had set him up in good stead for recovery. Six years on, he looked back on those times through different eyes, barely being able to comprehend how his younger self had felt, a collection of fading scars his only traces that he had indeed once felt that way. From that day on, Dougie let himself become closer to his bandmates, stopped pushing them away, until they fast became his three best friends, his family. Danny and Harry found out too, eventually, but it was Tom who really helped him through, stayed up with Dougie through the long and difficult nights, taking his mind off of things, being there for him to talk to when he drifted to dark places. That night was not, of course, the last night Dougie cut himself. That would come later, years later in fact, but it would come. It was hard, as all addictions are, but in time this story would come to a close.
Thanks for reading! Please review to let me know what you think! This was just meant to be a one-shot, but I don't like ending stories particularly, so I might carry it on, so please let me know if you think I should do that, or just leave it as it is.