Hello! Thank-you so much to everyone who read/reviewed/favourited this story! Based on the reviews I got, I've decided to carry this on into a longer story, though I don't know what's going to happen in it, so if you guys have any suggestions or anything that you'd like to see happen, please let me know! Do you want it to be a story built around the self-harm thing? Or do you have any ideas for other bits of plot? Please review to let me know what you think of this chapter, I hope you all like it!
That night, Tom sat in Dougie's bed, awake, after Dougie had eventually cried himself to sleep. Tom had tried to sleep, but it was too hard with so much going on his mind, and in the unfamiliar surrounding, not wanting to leave Dougie for fear of what he might do if he woke up. Tom wondered if he should call Dougie's mother. Did she know what Dougie was doing? Was it his place to tell her? Surely she had a right to know, Dougie was only fifteen, he was still just a child, wasn't he? But she had been worried enough about Dougie moving away from home, she didn't need this now too, especially seeing as there would be nothing she could do that Tom or the other's couldn't; Dougie wasn't even technically in her care anymore. Dougie must have been doing this for a while, Tom thought, thinking back to what Dougie's arm had looked like in the brief amount of time he had seen it uncovered. If it was something he had under control, even vaguely, then maybe there would be no need to bother his mother if Dougie didn't want her to know.
The electronic screams of Dougie's alarm clock pierced the room, making Tom jump, pulling him out of his thoughts. He left the alarm clock going for a second until he saw Dougie stirring under the covers, making sure he was awake so that Tom would not have to have the unnecessarily awkward job of waking him up. Dougie peeked his head out from under the covers, scrunching his eyes up at the light and the noise, flailing his arm around until it landed on the alarm clock, ending the racket emitting from it. He rolled over in the bed, about to stick his head back under the covers in the hope on another five minutes sleep, seeing Tom sat on his bed as he did so. Stopping in his tracks, Dougie's eyes opened wide, fear and embarrassment gripping him as the events of the night before unfolded in his mind, his secret no longer his, worrying about what, if anything, he should say.
"Sorry, I, um, you fell asleep while I was in here last night, didn't want to wake you by leaving," Tom said by way of explanation, seeing Dougie growing uncomfortable with his presence.
Dougie nodded slightly, lifting the covers away from his body and going to stand up, wincing as he bent his left arm. He looked down at the sleeve of his hoodie, congealed with dried blood, sticking to his skin and the bandage underneath. He ran his right hand inside the sleeve, trying to prize apart the fabric from the wound and bloodied dressing. It hurt. The whole area around the wound ached, his skin tender and bruised from the previous night's trauma. The wound itself stung, but it was nothing Dougie wasn't used to; after years of waking up with new injuries, the pain had stopped being so noticeable, just another part of the process. The pain was almost a side-effect of cutting, so removed from the reasons behind it. Not that those reasons were abundantly clear to even Dougie anymore, these days it was more just giving in to urges, scratching that deep itch that only self-harm could reach. He pulled his hand out from under the sleeve, sighing as he saw he had caused the wound to open up again, fresh blood wet on his hand. He hated all the hassle it caused, all the aftercare it created the next day that he never thought about in the moment. Dougie went to remove his hoodie and begin on cleaning the injuries up, before remembering Tom was still sitting on his bed.
"Uh, can you go? I, uh, I have to bandage this, and, I, uh, I don't want you to see," Dougie said, keeping his eyes fixed to the floor and feeling himself blushing. It felt wrong having someone, anyone, particularly someone who Dougie didn't know all that well yet, in such an early stage of their potential friendship, knowing what he was doing. It was private, it wasn't for anyone but himself to know the ins and outs of it all.
"I don't mind seeing," Tom replied, misinterpreting Dougie's coyness.
"No, but I mind," Dougie clarified, his voice film and final, so strong and out of character that it shocked Tom slightly.
Tom nodded, pushing himself up from the bed, "Oh, right, of course. I have to go get ready anyway. We've got to leave in about half an hour, alright?"
Dougie nodded, mumbling, waiting for Tom to leave so that he could fix the cuts up enough for the day, The smaller ones would be fine, but it was that first one, the deeper one, the one that was seemingly still bleeding that he needed to get a better look at.
"And Dougie?" Tom said, from the doorway, "We're going to talk about everything this afternoon, okay? I know you don't want to, but we have to,"
Again Dougie nodded, rubbing his eyes with his hand. Why did they have to talk about it? What was there to discuss? Dougie cut himself, he had been doing so for years, nothing was going to change that now. Truth be told, Dougie had little to no intention of stopping anytime soon, when he really thought about it. He knew it wouldn't be a habit he turned to forever, but for the time being, it helped him through the day, it helped him to feel better, to externalise what he couldn't talk about. Why mess that up by quitting? He was careful, it was manageable, accidents like last night, things like cutting a bit too deep, hardly ever happened any more, he was too well practiced with the precision amounts of pressure required. What if Tom tried to force him to quit? The idea was terrifying, the thought of not being allowed his one tiny vice filled him with dread. He thought back to a few months ago, to his period of lucidity, the few months during which he didn't cut. Though it wasn't long ago, it seemed like a lifetime had passed, so much had changed. Dougie could hardly remember how he thought for felt back then, how'd he'd managed to go so long without giving into the urges. Had he not had the urges then? That seemed impossible, and yet the alternative, the urges being present and Dougie somehow being strong enough not to act on them, seemed even more unlikely. It worried him that he couldn't remember, like his body and mind were so completely removed from then now, almost like he wasn't even the same person anymore.
Opening his bedside drawer, Dougie took out his medical supplies, bandages, tissues, gauze and tape, and sat on the edge of the bed, taking the hoodie off. Usually, he would have gone to the bathroom to do this, but too much of his privacy had been snatched from him to risk it. He folded the hoodie over, placing it on the bed, making sure the blood didn't touch the sheets, trying to keep the mess to a minimum. Inhaling deeply, Dougie pulled up the t-shirt sleeve, the soaked-through bandage practically falling off with it. Dougie balled up some tissue, and pressed it to the wound, not really wanting to look at them. It was weird, in the act of cutting, he could have stared at the injuries for hours, but the next morning, when they were not so fresh, when he had had a chance to think things over, seeing exactly what he had done to himself always made Dougie feel a little bit queasy. When the bleeding had lessened, Dougie took a look at the cuts. The shallower ones were fine, blood coagulating, beginning to scab over slightly, though, as Dougie had suspected, the deeper one would need some attention. The edges of the cut were still gaping wide open, a good centimetre in width, blood coming out in a controlled yet steady stream. He reached for the beside table drawer, pulling out a packet of steri-strips, opening it and peeling off one of the sticky-backed pieces of thin, translucent plastic. He held it, stuck onto his pinkie finger, as he pinched the edges of the gaping cut together until they met, blood droplets squeezing out of the top as he placed the steri-strip over, sealing the wound together for the time being.
Though he knew his aftercare wasn't the best, that it probably wasn't clean enough, that he should let it stop bleeding first, and that the very fact that it was still bleeding the next morning was possibly something to be concerned about, Dougie couldn't really find it within himself to care too much. He had done worse, and treated it the same way, and everything had healed up fine in the past. Had it been an accidental injury, he would probably have take more care with it, but this was how Dougie treated for his self-inflicted ones, this was part of the routine. There was something about injuries, however severe, done to oneself, which made them fundamentally different from anything accidental, something Dougie didn't like to spend too much time dwelling on. He covered the newly closed wound with a fresh piece of gauze, taping the sides down securely, hoping it would last the day.
It was stupid of him to have cut on his arm of all places, in retrospect, Dougie thought, when he would have to be able to move it today, They had a studio session booked, recording for their upcoming album. Dougie hoped that playing his bass would not cause the wound to open once again. Not that there was anything that could be done about that now. Dougie sighed, standing up and making his way over to his wardrobe, pulling out a pair of three-quarter length, light blue denim shorts, and a black t-shirt, dark coloured just in case the wound did re-open, to hide any blood that could seep through. He got dressed without showering, he couldn't be bothered with that today, and besides, he would have to keep the fresh cut dry in the shower, which was just too much effort for so early in the morning. He stuck a black woollen hat on to cover up his somewhat greasy, bed-head hair, and put on his black and silver studded belt around the slightly too low waistband of his shorts, taking a quick glance in the mirror to make sure he looked vaguely acceptable for the day at the studio.
The start of the day was always the worst, the mornings after he'd cut, the injury raw and painful, the skin bruised, his eyes sore from lack of sleep, and all the guilt and regret swilling round inside his stomach. He wanted to get back into bed, to wrap himself in the covers and sleep, sleep until he felt better, sleep until he felt ready to face the world. Nothing seemed right anymore, nothing was in order. A few months ago, when he was still at school, he could just skive off, skip his classes and have the day to wallow, but now he had a career, a life that he couldn't put on hold or take time out of. He could be on a path to greatness, to what he'd always wanted, and still it was both too much and not enough. Even if everything externally was fine, Dougie didn't know if it was possible for him to ever stop feeling like this, to ever stop feeling stuck inside his mind and its addictions. Sighing, Dougie made his way out of his room, staring at the floor as he went down stairs, hoping that the day would not be as bad as he feared it could.
Please review, and remember to give me any suggestions you may have! Hopefully I should be able to get another chapter up in a couple of days :D.
Also, I feel like I should add, please, please don't do anything silly that you read about in this story. The point of the story is to raise awareness of the issue and, possibly, to deter anyone away from it. I sound like that voiceover before Channel 4 documentaries, but if you are affected by any of the issues raised in this story, feel free to send me a PM if you are so inclined!
