Author's Note: This is a companion piece to Relapse. But if you haven't read it, its not really necessary.
Summary Of Relapse: Emily struggles with self harm, and falls into a 'friends with benefits' relationship with JJ. Eventually Elle comes to town, originally to catch up with Derek, but she ends up catching up with the whole team. She and Emily fall totally in love, fluffy goodness ensues, and Emily stops cutting. JJ and Spencer become involved, and Derek and Penelope are engaged to be married.
Warning: So we're back on the subject of self harm. This one is quite a lot more detailed than Relapse. It deals more with the fear, and the cause. It also contains a bit of femmeslash.
Oh, and this isn't a Mary Sue.
Black.
Its empty.
White.
Its flashing.
Red.
Its dripping.
You're not sure where you are. You look around as your eyes adjust, and you realize you aren't alone. You feel your heart quicken as she turns in your direction. You don't know how you know, but you know she is a she.
Your mind flashes (again?) to the red, and you realize its dripping from your wrists. Deep gashes accompany a dull pain, and you cringe as you see the mirroring marks on her own arms. You wonder if that isn't the only thing the two of you have in common. Her hair is dark and matted, missing in clumps. She smells dead. You try to breathe through your mouth as she stands, lurching towards you, sending the smell wafting in your direction. It doesn't take you long to realize that it tastes worse than it smells.
Much worse.
She steps forward and you shrink back, away from the smell of decaying flesh; away from the look of hunger in her eyes. You continue this dance until you're backed against the wall and she is inches from you.
She touches your face. A caress not unlike that of a long time lover. You shudder under her touch as she trails her index finger over your jaw. Your chin wrenches up as she continues down your neck. You shake harder as she slides her hand between the valley of your breasts. She turns her hand so that her palm is resting against your ribs and her fingers are hanging over your stomach. Your eyes close and you wish suddenly that your breathing wasn't so ragged; that your heart wasn't beating so quickly.
She takes a small step back from you, and a single tear makes its way down your right cheek. She grins at you and all you can do is watch helplessly as you realize that she doesn't just smell dead.
She is dead.
The pain floods through you before you realize that she's clutching the bottom of your sternum in her hand. You're vaguely aware through the white hot flash that you learned the name of the particular region she's gripping. It started with an 'x', and you remember it solely because it was called a process.
She wrenches her wrist around, and you scream silently as she rips your chest apart.
Xiphoid Process. The words are forced violently from your throat, and you have a fleeting hope, as if she will stop simply because you chose to pay attention in class one day. She simply grins wider and her face cracks as your blood washes over your hands. You don't understand how you can still be standing when you've lost so much blood.
She takes a step back, wiping her bloody hands on her tattered jeans. You realize for the first time that the blood on her white shirt is much darker in some places than others, leading you to believe that it doesn't all belong to you. Who else has she done this to? Why are you still conscious?
You watch in horror as she takes another step back, her skin turning black and breaking open as she winks at you.
Then she jumps.
And you scream.
She's jumped into the gaping hole she put in your chest. She's folded herself into the cavity that they all say is supposed to hold your heart. You wonder briefly where it went. You can feel her moving, and you're vaguely aware that she's pulling your body closed. You can feel your bones threading back together, your skin sewing itself shut.
It hurts, having her in there. But you realize that it has hurt all along. And you wonder, not for the first time, if she hasn't been there all along.
Emily opens her eyes, and the first thing she is aware of is the pain in her ribs. The second, is the fact that she's sweating, but she's freezing. She's shaking, the kind of shake she only gets after her nightmares. She pulls herself upright, heart pounding, and slinks out of the bedroom, sparing a glance for the woman who shares her bed. She hesitates momentarily, on the verge of waking her bed mate, but realizes she wouldn't know what to say. So she shuts the door behind her, and heads to the bathroom down the hall.
She isn't sure what she's looking for until she finds it. The plastic feels odd in her hand. It isn't what she wants. She smashes it against the counter, watching as the shards fly. She gets an odd satisfaction from the way the light twinkles off of the blade that is not laying on her counter.
She lifts it gingerly, feeling the power it wields. It is cold to the touch, and it soaks up the heat radiating from her fingers as if it knew she was coming all along. She drags it across her wrist, her heart slowing as the blood starts to flow. She is calming down.
She stares blankly at herself in the mirror, and a flash of a girl with dark, matted hair has her panicking again. She knows that this is not enough. She turns and rushes from the bathroom, and she is gone perhaps twenty seconds before she is back in front of that mirror, the serrated knife from the kitchen in one hand.
She nips into the medicine cabinet behind the mirror for the bottle of sleeping pills her doctor prescribed. She hasn't touched them before now, but she opens the bottle and dumps them into her hand. Knowing that she doesn't want anything more than to get it out, she puts most of them back, leaving her with seven pills in her hand. She takes three, and draws the knife across her skin, as if she were testing the A string on a precious violin..
She breathes a sigh of relief as her heart slows again. Sliding the knife into her left hand, she slices through the skin at her right wrist, grabbing the other four pills and shoving them down her throat. She holds her wrist to her mouth, washing them down with the blood spilling forth.
She wants out.
She collapses to the ground, her head slamming into the wall, and she smiles dully as the sedatives start to take effect. The last thing she is aware of, is the knife clattering to the floor, the blood, bright red from its stint with the oxygen, splattering halfway across the room.
Such is the horror that Elle awakens to.
A/N: So, even though I've probably got you convinced I belong locked up somewhere where my mind can't get at other peoples', you should still review. Because I'm quite interested in what you're thinking right now.