A/N: Contains self-harm. I like to think I handled it tactfully, but I suggest you leave if this triggers you in some way.
This piece is angsty, obviously. Let me know if you want me to continue. I don't know as it stands.
Red was numb.
She sat in her bunk and stared at the wall, not thinking, not truly seeing. It was almost as if she were asleep.
It could have been viewed as a defense mechanism - a way to cope. But this wasn't coping. It was denial.
She wasn't thinking, because if she did she would think about Nicky, and about how she'd just watched her closest daughter get dragged away to what may as well have been hell.
Not of her own volition, she found she was walking. Red was seeing everything in a kind of haze. She felt like a ghost. She almost wished she was.
Without realizing it, she'd stopped at Nicky's bunk. She cursed herself for it, but kept going even as she did. Looking around, she finally allowed emotion to pierce her fog of indifference.
All Nicky's things were there, untouched. It still smelled like her, Red observed as she sat. It was there, in the shadow of the lively, beautiful woman that was her daughter, that reality hit Red.
Quiet sobs filled the air, hers, as she tried to find solid ground. Her world was a sea of confusion and she was drowning in it.
"She's gone," she whispered, over and over. "My baby is gone…"
Red was always the strong one, always the rock. She was expected to comfort others, never to need that for herself, but right now more than anything she wanted a shoulder to cry on. She needed not to feel so alone. If she kept this up, it might kill her.
And still, in this moment of feeling, she felt numb. Imprisoned in her own skin, experiencing someone else's heartbreak.
But her body was not responding to her commands. It was content to remain where it was, shaking with uncontrollable sadness.
"Oh, Nicky," she said softly, "why didn't you tell me?"
Did she not think that Red would listen? That she would always listen? Had she not made that clear?
Had she not shown her love?
Her sobs grew in intensity. Was it her fault that her daughter had returned to drugs?
The more she thought about it, the more she believed it was.
Normally, she would be heavily berating herself for this. She was in a semi-public place, showing such weakness…
But nothing about these circumstances were normal, and she could do nothing about it. She was so past caring at this point.
Red had to get out of here. The place was filled with reminders of how she had failed Nicky. She couldn't face that right now.
She forced herself to move, pulling herself up, wiping at her eyes from what felt like a stranger's tears and concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other. One hand was at the small of her back and the other hung at her side. It was a familiar stance, one that usually made her look strong, but now she slumped and seemed to exude defeat.
Before she knew it, Red was in the kitchen. Glancing around, she saw no-one and breathed a sigh of relief.
What did she need? She wasn't sure she knew. This place felt like home, somehow. Somewhere safe. It lightened her breathing slightly, though she didn't know what it was about it.
Red had to work through this. Get back to herself. But it had only been a few hours and she didn't need to work until the morning. This was her time, and if she wanted to spend it in crushing sadness she could do so.
And a part of her did want it. Wanted to punish herself for not seeing it sooner. For not being able to help Nicky…
The rest of her just couldn't really prevent it, and she had resigned herself to that fact. She was no stranger to depression, and she knew the signs, but she couldn't bring herself to care anymore.
Red couldn't really see a reason to live at the moment - what with the only light in her darkness having been stolen from her. That was what prison did, right? It took anything good and ripped it to shreds.
She should never have gotten this attached to any one person. How could she have been so naive?
It was with a kind of detached self-loathing that she thought all of this, the feelings dulled but the reasoning seemingly unflawed to her own mind.
With Nicky gone, she had no reason to keep going. It was as simple as that.
Red couldn't feel anything. She was, even in the midst of intense emotion, only at her core experiencing a blank nothingness. An excruciating numbness that covered her and made it hard to breathe. She found that right now, she wanted nothing more than to really feel.
Everything felt superficial; fake. Pain seemed the only thing that would get through to her as true and real. Pain was something she trusted. Something safe.
As if watching someone else's movements, she pulled a small knife from the chopping block.
Red had enough common sense left not to kill herself this way - if she were to go she wanted it to be peaceful. Quick.
Carefully, and lightning fast, with a precision only a seasoned chef could have, she brought the knife to her palm and cut.
It was shallow, not deep enough to do any permanent damage, but damned if she didn't feel alive.
White-hot pain raced through her, electric and addictive. It was both a punishment and an indulgence. This, she knew for sure, was real. It was an experience, a feeling, she was well acquainted with, and it exhilarated her to understand that it was honest.
This was something encoded into her very being, as it was with every flesh-and-blood human. It was part of a most basic set of abilities, to feel pain.
She felt like a person again, if only for a moment.
Another slit, this time on her arm. Just above the wrist, avoiding any arteries.
She would do anything to bring back the part of her that left with Nicky, and though this was a poor substitute it was so, so much better than nothing.
Blood, crimson and thick, trickled down her arm. She closed her hand into a fist to catch it, watching.
This was the color that defined her. The color that made her name. It somehow comforted her to be reminded that it flowed through her, to every inch of her body at all times. That she was her, and nothing could change that.
Another, maybe an inch above.
All too soon, the rush of adrenaline faded from her system. She wondered, absently, if this is what Nicky felt when she came down from a high.
She couldn't bring herself to move for a time, holding the knife as if sacred and keeping her eyes fixed on the cuts. She felt dazed; everything was muffled.
"Red?"
She thought she'd imagined it. Nothing seemed real to her now. It wouldn't be much of a change.
"Oh my God, Red, what the fuck?"
Gloria.
"No, no, oh my God… is this really happening right now?"
She couldn't see Mendoza, merely hear her. Something inside of her shifted at the panic in the other woman's voice.
What the fuck am I doing?
The knife fell to the floor, the clang of it reverberating off the walls. Her shoulders shook with repressed emotion.
"Red…"