Personal Hell
Empty. He was so empty. No feeling, no desire to breathe or eat or exist. Emptiness was dulled only by the pain he experienced when the blade dragged across his skin.
The pain chased away the emptiness. The blood made him feel, he was exhilarated with each pool of red liquid that fell to the ground.
Hiding these injuries was easy to him. He had experience from when he got back from the war. Now he was living his own personal war and needed an escape. So hiding these incisions was easy.
Making people not worry was another story. Everyone worried. The Iceman worried, the DI worried, his landlady (who was his housekeeper for the time being) worried. They worried and it sickened him. Made him cut deeper. But being a doctor meant he knew when to stop how deep he went. Didn't mean he didn't try to fight the impulse to stop.
Three years, 1 095.726 days, and just as many (if not more) incisions. His skin was destroyed. Arms, legs, torso, everything. Chopped to little pieces. Fresh blood and dried blood, new scars and old scars. Each held a story of how much pain he felt. And it was this day, on the three year anniversary, that he decided to take the final plunge.
Carving two words into his arm, he picked up the gun and loaded it, clicking the safety off and pressed the metal barrel to his temple. His hands weren't shaking. They were steady as he slowly moved his finger over the trigger. A centimetre away when he heard that voice. A deep baritone voice calling his name. Saying a word. No, not saying, sobbing it. "Don't." Over and over again. Sobbing, begging, pleading. And the scarred man dropped his gun as he was scooped into an embrace. His angel whispering those two words bleeding from his skin.
"I'm sorry..."