A/N: Fanfiction for me is theruapetic and this is a 'therapy' kind fanfic and I'm sorry on before hand if you're gonna cry.

TW: Cutting. Don't read if you're triggered by self-harm

Enoch felt as though he couldn't breath.

He had been sitting behind his work desk, relaxing and enjoying his work while the others went out on their daily walk. He'd been excused due to having slept badly the night before.

Everything had been fine, until suddenly, it wasn't. Suddenly, he was perched at the edge of his seat, panting and gasping for a breath he couldn't seem to catch. Each intake of air came faster than the last but no matter what he did it didn't seem to help, and he could feel the panic and fear building up in his chest, scaring him.

Nonononononono

There was only one thing he could do that'll help.

His hands shot out in front of him, searching blindly for something to help him cope. After a minute, his fingers close around the handle of the knife, that he always had lying around on the table, because he used it when he fixed with his dolls. He hold the knife tightly in his fist, looks at it and contemplate what's about to happen. What he's about to do.

He felt calmer already, and was slowly starting to catch his breath again. But he knew it could get worse, the suffocating feeling and the panic could come back, and only one thing helped to keep it at bay.

Don't do it! A voice in his head whisper, try to convince him it's a bad decision. It's there every time eh gets in this position, it never seemed to help.

DO IT! A much stronger voice demands, and he brings the knife closer to him, hold it up in front of him and knows he's already lost the battle. The little voice never won.

He press the tip of the knife against his palm, try it's sharpness and hiss when it punctuate his skin, tiny pinprick pain pulsing in his hand as he close it into a fist, hard, before opening it again and seeing the tiny droplet of blood having surfaced from the tiny wound in his palm.

He needed more. This was just distraction, a way to delay the inevitable because he felt bad about it. He shouldn't, really, because he couldn't help it and it was as said inevitable, but he still felt shame and regret as a result every time he did it.

Maybe it was because he knew everyone would feel shame and regret on his part if they knew. Maybe. Not that he ever cared what other people thought, though.

Sighing again, he slowly unbuttoned the hem of his shirt arm and rolled it up, exposing his arm underneath the fabric. It was a mish mash of scars, white and brown and long and short. Some were pink, scabs still healing from his last incident. It had been a few months, he reckoned, not counting the countless times he used to bury his nails in his palm when he felt stressed in between

There was a thousand little things in between every time with the knife or razor blade, but he told himself they didn't matter. Didn't count.

Slowly, he brings the knife to his arm, holding it against his skin without actually harming for a moment before pushing the blade down, deep, splitting the milky white skin open and leading trails of red liquid out of their confinement within him and down his arm, running freely in large red waves as he watched it, enchanted by its mesmerizing beauty.

He was just about to make a second incision, when he heard feet in the staircase, and a voice.

"Enoch? Are you in your room?" It was Olive. She and the other children must have returned from their daily walk already.

He know he should care, should be afraid that she'll walk in on him and see what he'd done, but he's not. He's perfectly calm.

Slowly, her pull down the hem on his shirt over the wound, ignoring the way it immediately turned it red. Slowly, he hid his arm under the table, scalpel still in hand. Slowly, he call out for Olive. "In here!" He says, knowing she will come whether he answered or not, and decided he wanted to keep it on his terms.

"There you are Enoch! I thought you'd be sleeping on the couch and the you weren't and I…" She comes sweeping into the room like a fire-red hurricane, ginger hair flying around her hair as she, still running, grab the doorframe to throw herself into his rooms and laughing as she landed, skidding a few meters on her bare feet. "I went to check for you here. How are you?"

She look at him, smiling and expecting a positive answer, but before he can offer any her smile unexpectedly disappear, replaced with a look of horror as her eyes seemed to have locked onto something on his desk.

Right by the edge, where he kept his arm, there's a blood splatter painting the dark wood with vivid red.

"Enoch, what happened?" Her voice was cautious, she was no idiot. Olive knew how much blood usually dropped from the hearts he used for his dolls. This was a lot more than that, and he would never be able to convince her it came from them.

"I slipped with the scalpel." He says, caught somewhere halfway between a lie and a truth as he put his bloodied arm with the bloodied shirt on the table.

Olive gasped, hands coming up to cover her face before they came down to remove the shirt from the wound instead. "Enoch! This is bad, how could you just slip with the scalpel? And why didn't you take care of it?!" She demanded answers, inspecting the wound and then heading for the first aid kit he had hanging on his wall. He could see her extracting bandages and piece of cloth to clean it up, and he wondered what he was to tell her. He hadn't exactly thought much of the story.

"I didn't slip. " He said finally, tired and with a headache from trying to think up a lie that he couldn't support while Olive fixed his wound. She'd gotten water from the bathroom to help clean it and was just finishing bandaging it. "I did it."

He didn't know why he was confessing, and could already feel the shame and guilt clawing at his guts, but he did it either way.

By his side, Olives frozen, pausing mid action out of shock for the sudden reveal. He didn't dare to look her in the eyes, beating his lip and trying to will away persistent tears.

"I love you."

"What?" He looked up at her, meeting her eyes. They were hurt, but also filled with warmth and love.

"I said, I love you." She smiled, squeezing his recently bandaged arm and sitting down on the chair beside him. "I'll help you, and you'll talk to me. That's what you do when you love each other. We'll work it out." She smiled, both hope and despair playing across her face after her little speech.

She was so beautiful, with big blue eyes and

Red hair that mimicked the flames in hands, dancing around her head when the wind blowed. Sometimes he'd sit in a corner of the garden and watch her play with Claire and Bronwyn for hours, having tea parties and dancing around with stuffed toys and what not. He'd observe the happiness on her face and think, that he wanted to bring her that happiness.

But he didn't know if he could give up harming himself. It was a defense, a weapon against panic and suffocation and a million feeling piled on top each other that he simply could not dispose of. He didn't know what he'd do if he had to give it up.

"Yes." Despite all his doubts, his immediate fear of giving up his only protection about the overwhelming sensation that would attack him when he least expected it, he promised. Because her smile was addictive and her dancing hair intoxicating and he wanted no more than to have all that by himself, to kiss it and love it and call it his own. "If you love me."

If he could have her, than he was sure that she could find away to chase away all that forced him to turn to knifes against his arms and nails digging into the palm of his hand, and everything would be absolutely okay, because he had her.

"Yes, always." There's a bright smile on her face, again, and he smile too and suddenly they're kissing and it's all he ever wanted, distracting him so to the point he doesn't notice how she steal the knife from his hand where he's still holding it. She wanted to help him not need it anymore.

He was no fool, though, and realised it would not just go away even if he now wished it would, but with Olive by his side he could have a chance to fight it. She could be his reason to fight it.

He hadn't had that before and, somehow, he feel as though it will make all the difference.