1.
The first time Caius admits something's wrong, he's seventeen and alone in his room, wishing desperately for someone to hold him. The future is staring him right in the face, and he's terrified and exhilarated. He's not thinking when he looks at his room, the place he's always been safe from everything, and whispers "I'm terrified of growing up. I don't know if I know how." He bites his lip against the tears threatening to fall; wrapping his arms around himself in order to ease the empty ache inside his chest. He's not a good student, somewhat smart but unable to learn something that doesn't interest him. He doesn't like looking in the mirror because he's apprehensive of what he'll see, even though most days he's okay.
It gets easier to ignore most days, drowning out the voice in his head saying that years from now he'll be a failure with YouTube videos and fanfiction, living vicariously through people he's never met and situations that are passing him by. He turns away from his friends, only really caring about a select few but not daring to think about whether or not they care for him. He's not sure about anything but he doesn't want to admit he needs anything so he shuts down, putting up a mask that hides him from sight until he can't take it anymore and breaks quietly in the solitude of his room, wishing he had the strength to cut or hurt himself the way others do. He just cries softly into his pillow, loathing everything about himself. He wants so badly to be successful and smart and have it all together, but most days find him in bed, resolutely ignoring the world because he doesn't have the energy or interest.
2.
The second time he's thinking about how when he was younger he had the energy, and would write and sing and had a million interests. He misses that, and at three forty-eight in the morning pulls out his phone and sends a text to the first person he thinks of, asking if they're awake. He doesn't wait for an answer before sending his follow-up, which reads 'I feel like my entire future is behind me.' He wants to say he needs someone to call him and tell him everything's going to be okay, that he'll be fine and at seventeen and a half he's not a failure just because he still struggles with basic math and isn't planning on going to college as soon as he graduates. He doesn't, and there is no answer until that afternoon, when his friend finally responds that it's normal to feel like that, almost a whole day later than when he really needed it. The comfort feels cold and routine, but he thanks them anyway.
That day he gets on the scale and wants to cry. He's gained ten pounds and feels like everyone will judge him for it. It's stupid, he knows, and it's just his idiocy so he swallows hard and tries not to eat for two days. He turns vicious when he breaks around two in the morning, raiding the fridge for something sweet, berating himself the entire time for not being able to lose weight, for being stupid and disgusting and needy. No one's going to love someone who's faking their way through life, no matter how well he hides it. It's just as well he isn't in public school, or his façade of being smart and calm and fun would shatter faster than glass on concrete. Later he hears a family friend has died, and can barely squeeze out a tear. He thinks maybe he's going numb, but if he is then that's better, because he doesn't feel the pressure anymore.
3.
The third time he's just come from meeting with his friend group, and he feels choked and off but does his best to hide it. He wishes desperately someone would see through him, and is almost painfully relieved when someone does, asking him what's wrong and holding him while he sobs gently after he finds he can't fully articulate why he's upset. He isn't used to having someone care, and he feels strange afterwards, like there's a part of him that's been ever so slightly soothed. It's no matter though, and once he's home he picks up a long thin metal crochet needle and whips himself with it, striping his arms red as he counts out his punishment for the cracks in his mask, for making himself a burden on someone who didn't need to know he's drowning. After, rubbing his arms and feeling them throb; he stands in front of his mirror and writes "I'm scared to be a failure. I don't want to be a burden on successful people." He cries reading it, and ends up curled on the floor in a mess, his head pounding from losing so much liquid to his tears.
He wishes he could be self-destructive in the way addicts are, because they can get help for a real condition. He's just pathetic, too pale and weird and not normal or right or skinny or any of the things he wants to be. He tries too, thinks about bulimia and anorexia more than he should, wonders if they would help. He buys fashion magazines and looks at the models in them, both the men and women, tracing their skeletal forms with a finger and hating his own stockiness, particularly since nothing he does seems to get rid of it. It only gets worse when his friends drag him out of his room to go shopping and the fluorescents of the mall make him look uglier and fatter than usual. He can feel the lump in his throat but he can't make excuses and breaks down in the dressing room, thinking about how the mannequin for the plus size section looks like him and god, is he really that big and why does anyone wants to be seen with him, there's no way any of the them really like him, he's far too disgusting for them to want anything to do with him.
It catches all his friends off guard when he can't hide his tears from them, and he feels strangely comforted by the pain in all their expressions. Cornered by hurt and guilty faces and soothed with promises that he wouldn't be blamed for not speaking up, he slowly lets out the majority of his issues. He feels as though he's finally being seen and can't quite decide if that's a good thing. He keeps his punishment ritual to himself, and carefully freezes the crochet needle before striping his thighs with angry red bruises, the frozen metal sticking slightly to his skin. He feels guilty afterwards, for a reason he can't quite understand, and gently cleans the marks he's made. It gets rid of some of the guilt and he swallows the rest down and attempts sleep.
4.
The fourth time happens months later, just after his eighteenth birthday. He's slowly been getting better, forcing himself to double down on his schoolwork at friends suggestions and making a list of three positive things per day in order to combat the negativity that follows him. For the first time there's real amusement when he laughs with his friends, he's genuinely in the moment and so it catches him off guard when the topic of college comes up and shatters the fragile progress he's made. It hits him hard suddenly that everyone is leaving, that he's the only one staying in town for a few more years, and despite being surrounded by people he feels alone. He can't explain the tears that well up any more than he can explain the immediate emptiness. He's wasted his chance to be something and it hurts to know they'll make better friends with less problems and more optimism while he desperately clings to the two people who have sworn to keep in contact. Emails are traded and he feels each empty promise like a white hot brand.
It hurts too much to move now, to be social. He's eerily aware of his weight and cuts down to one meal a day. He stops noticing time passing and is horrified that summer is almost over when he looks at the calender. His friends try to help, inviting him to all night video game sessions and putting up with his cold and uncaring demeanor. He tries and hopes they can tell how much he appreciates the fact they're still there but still catches glimpses of anger when he responds underenthusistacally and hears the quiet conversations about how worried they are about him. It grates on him and he takes to whipping himself nightly, hating himself for ever letting his mask break, pathetic, ungrateful, weak. Weak. Weak. He repeats it over and over, one stripe for each word, branding into the bruises the very thing he's trying to beat out of himself. He's slipping, he can feel it, losing hope with each day and unable to hide his scarred soul from those he unintentionally bared it to.
5.
The fifth time hurts more than he ever dreamed it would. He's had a particularly bad day but keeping commitments is important to what's left of his facade and so he swallows his aggravation and goes to spend the night with friends. He doesn't want to be there, not really, but he's expected to stay all night and so he grits his teeth and tries not to let his antagonism dominate him. He snaps at three am, lashing out against everyone there, being cruel because he can't deal anymore before curling up away from his friends and sobbing silently. He hears the quiet conversation that follows, the audible knife to his heart as his friends call him a bitch and wonder why they put up with it for so long. He pretends to sleep, swallowing down his tears and pain because he was right, they don't want him, can't deal with him, why did he ever think he was safe with them? His fingers itch for the crotchet needle and it startles him, he keeps his punishments behind locked doors where no one can tell him how he's ruining that too.
It becomes clear the next morning that one of his friends knew he was listening when he gets a phone call trying to explain. He's not a bitch, not really, but he's very negative and sometimes it's too much to handle. He's loved as a person, but his attitude needs to change before they can be around him again. Why can't he just be easy to hang out with? Why can't he just talk about tv shows and personal life events? Tears sting his eyes, but he swallows and promises to work on being optimistic, to be someone they want to be around. He worries daily about it, overthinks texts in order to avoid even the possibility of negatitivity, keeps a false smile on his face and dissiociates from the world. He was trying before but it wasn't enough, and he understands now that nothing will be. Still, these are his oldest and closest friends so he tries even harder. It doesn't occur to him until he looks in the mirror, seeing himself clearly for the first time in a while, that he's gone completely numb. He doesn't remember what it is to be happy for the sake of it. He shakes the thought away. There's no one who truly cares if he's hurting, so he stops acknowledging it. They don't care, why should he?
+1.
The first time someone really sees through Caius, sees him past the stony silence and cold attitude he's surrounded himself with, the first time it doesn't hurt to let someone else in, Caius is eighteen and two weeks from starting college. He's forced himself to stay for orientation and is genuinely surprised by a face he doesn't recognize. Long dark hair has him assuming the teen is a girl, and it makes him smile slightly to realize that he's looking at a boy, and a rather cute one at that. Dressed in black jeans and boots with a Panic! shirt, he's already more appproachable to him than anyone else there. He takes a deep breath, mentally checking with himself that he's okay for minimal human interaction, before he takes the seat directly next to the teen.
"You don't have to do that."
The light but solid voice makes him jump. Cautiously he looks over to the teen. He's scarily focused on Caius, seeming to see into him despite his hair covering his face. His fingers twitch slightly as he stares before he blinks and immediately drops his gaze to his feet. Caius feels vaguely misplaced somehow, as though the world has come loose from reality to give him a hint that he can't quite decipher.
"I assume you mean sit next to you, which I hope it's okay I'm going to do anyway." He blinks once before realizing he's actually spoken. His mind is flooded with worry, what if he sounded upset at the other teen's words? He glances over to in time to see a smile form, small and unsure.
"Please, do. It's nice to not be avoided or just given pity courtesy for once. Everyone sees the black and immediately assumes i'm either mean or emo, so no one goes near me."
He's genuinely surprised by that. He hasn't known the teen more than two minutes but he can already tell that he's neither of those things. He realizes it shows on his face when the teen laughs softly.
"I'm so used to it by now that I forget there are people who see past it. It's a refreshing change. I'm Aro, by the way. I swear I have better manners than this."
Aro. It's an interesting name, and he can feel long dormant curosity stir.
"Caius. How did you end up here?"
"I needed a change from home. My father and I don't have the best relationship and as soon as I could get out I did." Aro seems determined to hide behind his hair, but Caius doesn't mind. He's sure that in time he'll get to know the face behind the black curtain in front of him. His surety throws him, but somehow he knows he will. He answers Aro's unspoken question while trying to find his eyes through the hair.
"I'm local, born and raised. It's... things have been rough for a while, and I thought this would be a good place to restart." He watches Aro nod once before forcing his eyes away from the mass of hair to his clothes.
"You like Panic! At The Disco?" The question is surprising in it's honesty. No one else Caius knows listens to Panic!, and he thinks briefly about how nice it would be to have at least one other person agree with him.
"Doesn't everyone? Brendon Urie is the best human being in the world." Caius is truly unsettled by the sincerity in the grin he gives Aro for that answer. It feels foreign on his face, but not bad and he thinks he likes it.
He looks towards the front of the room, the grin fading away as orietation finally starts. He listens carefully as the rules are outlined and details finalized, starting when he feels a piece of paper pressed into his hand. He doesn't look at it until they're dismissed, Aro disappearing at some point between dismissal and the few minutes it takes Caius to get out of his own head.
He bites his lip, worrying the folded edge of the note. He debates throwing it in the trash and walking away, but he imagines not talking to Aro, being alone again. It dawns on him that his ever present negativity hadn't been present at all while he was talking to the other teen. This thought alone has him opening the note. He smiles, actually conscious that it's there but the three words there make it so he can't find it in him to care.
I see you.