Well, um, this is a thingy that I started about 3 months ago, then finished in homeroom today ^_^    Warning: Self-loathing Schu!*cries/self mutilation(don't read it if it makes you uncomfortable! …even though this isn't the most descriptive kinda self-mutilation fic I've read, trust me…)/angst/angst/angst    Special thanks to my Kittie Oracle cd and my NIN Downward Spiral cd for inspiration!

                             ~*~REFLECTION~*~

"Brandishing a cold loaded smile Simplicity,
subtlety, discordance fate and allegory
Everything has it's purpose and you will suffer for what you've done"

                                      -Kittie 'Oracle'

/Whore./

That was the one word that came to mind when he looked in the mirror.

/Slut./

Well, there was another.

/Tramp./

Yes, why not finish with that. He slowly let his eyes trail down his body, past his neck marred with bruises, past his abdomen, so thin that his ribs now protruded from it, and finally to the sickeningly white porcelain sink before him. It was spotless and white, overly sterile looking. Just like Brad. Infact, everything in the oracle's room mirrored him. Clean carpet, clean walls, clean bed, clean curtains. Everything so fucking white, a total contrast to Schu's room, which was littered with magazines, old cigarettes and mountains upon mountains of dirtied clothes that he hadn't bothered to pick up. Being in this apartment made him sick to his stomach, being able to feel his stomach churning and the vomit rising in his throat when his eyes surveyed any of the rooms. Something about this place was just disgusting, whether it was the smell of overly sterilized plastic or the actual inhabitants, he couldn't tell. Right now, there was only one thing he was sure of.

He hated himself.

Yes, he always hid it behind that smug grin and the wicked laugh, but behind that was a tired, broken man. He had to smile no matter how much it hurt. What he had endured from the time he was born, to being at RosenKreuz to Schwarz had been physically and emotionally brutal. He grabbed his pack of cigarettes from where they lay on the counter, shook one out and lit it. He slowly brought it to his lips and took a drag. Yes, his faithful cancer sticks…at least he'd always find some solace in them. He exhaled and blew the smoke into the mirror, toward his reflection hoping it would cloud the image, but in seconds the grey had disappeared and he was left staring at himself again. He scowled and furrowed his brows. He was sick of looking back at that face every single damned day. He wanted to scream and hit the mirror, smash it to pieces, slam his fists into it until his hands were drenched with blood, wrists laced and crimson dipping from between his fingers. But he didn't. He just stood there. Stood there and acted as if he enjoyed staring into it, enjoyed gazing into the cat-like jade eyes, enjoyed how the grim smile played across his lips, enjoyed the way the reddened bite marks contrasted to the almost glowing ashen skin. He'd lost the color in his skin months ago and was left was a sickly white. Why bother to go out into daylight anymore? He'd mind-fucked enough people to get his fill and they were all the same. Not one pure person had he ever come across. Even the eyes of the children seemed so much older, jaded by this pitiless vile world. Slitting his eyes, Schuldig remembered his own childhood, orphaned and alone until he was picked up by RosenKreuz to be their whore. Sure, he could get high and wasted at night to temporarily forget about the things that occurred in that place by day. He'd eventually broken out, but that still wasn't enough, it still didn't matter. All that mattered was forgetting about everything, not to let the memories of the past days to swim into his head and torment him at night until he couldn't sleep. Then he met Crawford. The businessman. The staid entity. The callous bastard. How many times had Schu tried to tell him he loved him and how many times had Brad blankly rejected him, passing off their relationship as sex only? Balling his hand into a fist, Schu bit his lip and willed his eyes to squeeze shut and not let the tears escape. Why did he have to love him? Since when had he started giving a fuck about anyone other than himself? He slammed his knuckle into the sink feeling a familiar stinging pain, then lifted it to observe any damage.

Nothing.

Angered at the absence of blood, something like a growl rose from his throat and he smashed his fist into the mirror, feeling the tiny pieces of glass embedding themselves in his flesh. What had not crashed to the floor clung to the frame and refused to stop reflecting the German, enraging him all the more.

"I…fucking hate you…" he whispered at the eyes that bore into his head before drawing his fist back and slamming it into the remaining pieces so hard that a shower of silver crystals rained about him. He drew in a shaky breath and slumped to the floor against the wall, eyes stinging with tears that he wouldn't let escape. He wasn't allowed to cry, it wasn't part of his image. He couldn't be seen as weak in the eyes of others.

He wasn't allowed to feel like crying.

His eyes flitted over to a shard of glass that littered the floor with various others that shone like hope in the disgusting white bathroom light. It just seemed beautiful to him amidst the feelings that were welling up inside him at the moment, so he reached out and picked it up. He sat for a moment just watching it shimmer against the light before running a few fingers along the sharp edge, grinning slightly we he felt it cut into the flesh. He lifted his hand to examine the damage, only a few shallow slits in the skin. Dissatisfied with the minimal amount of blood, he gripped the shard in his palm, pressing until he felt a wet sheen fully cover the inside of his hand. He drew the glass upward a bit, feeling it slide into the skin of his inner arm, pain and a delicious adrenaline rush creeping through his body. A euphoric sensation filled his head as he braced himself to go deeper. After a moment he brought it to a slow stop, right before the flesh of his upper arm and looked down at his work. Crimson played over the glass and his fingers, it was smeared about his arm and slipping from skin onto the perfectly white tiled floor. He smiled knowing that he'd gotten his punishment for his sign of weakness. But peering at the glass made his smile instantly fade into a look of shock. He saw himself, only this time reflected in red, covered in blood. A sea of his own blood. He drew back, throwing the shard down and curling up in his own warmth. So, he really was weak. The mirror had reflected him drenched in crimson, so that it looked as if he were a wide-eyed corpse that hadn't died from someone else's hand, but his own.

He was dead because he was weak.   

 He tucked his knees to his chest and bit his lip, willing himself as hard as ever not to succumb to this weakness, but it was all ultimately pointless. Soft cries emitted from his lips and he buried his face in his knees, gripping his hair roughly in his fingers as he wept.