AN: This is chapter 3, of our story Razorblade Romance. As you may have guessed from the title, this story involves self harming, strong language and scenes of a sexual nature (yay for fax!). This is a joint story between myself and the-only-english-rose. Oh yeah, and in this chapter, i think i definitely missed out on some of the americanisms, so sorry about that. And it's long! YAY!

Disclaimer: Obviously, we do not own any of the characters you recognise, however, there are quite a few characters and places names etc that we do own. You may notice that this story shares a few plot details with CrimsonScarz story, "scars" and we've spoken to her abut this and she's absoloutely fine with it. Also, i'd like to point out that we introduce a character named Jesse who is hispanic in this chapter, he is not, however, Meg Cabots Jesse de Silva, he is a friend who is important to our lives and so he has a part, the name and descent is a coincidence.


MAX POV

I jumped up as an impossibly loud bell rang througout the room, nervously checking for erasers or flyboys. That was, of course, before I remebered that I was stuck in a adolescent mental institution because of Fang's problem.

I was glad I was here, I mean, if I wasn't there was no way Fang would even consider trying to get better.

However, I had no idea why I was here, I mean, I don't have a problem and I really wanted to stay here the whole time with Fang which means… I have to make one up?!

What if I don't do it right??? They'll know immediately! Awh, God. Why does the school make everything so difficult for us???

Anyway, I decided to think about that later when I'd observed some of the other people here, and see which is the easiest to mimic.

So I looked over at my room mate who was facing the other way and taking off her pyjamas.

Oh Shit.

I could see every bone in her body, which was riddled with bruises and cuts, many of which formed patterns and shapes.

There was no way she could have done some of those herself.

She turned around then, and I saw that her front was equally damaged, her skeletal frame shaking slightly in a cold draft passing through the room.

A lump formed in my throat and I slapped a hand over my mouth as I saw what was carved into her concave stomach.

Fuck. She had cut "Fuck," into her stomach. Oh my God.

The strangest mix of emotions washed over me then. Revulsion, anger, shock, sorrow an strangely, remorse.

I sunk slowly back onto my bed, strangled sobs emerging from my throat. That poor, poor girl.

She looked up to meet my eyes, then rushed cover herfelf up, coming to sit down next to me, putting a sticklike arm around my shoulders.

"Hey, what's up?" she asked in a quiet, concerned voice.

Suddenly I was angry.

"How, how can you do that to yourself?" I demanded, tears flowing freely now.

"What would possibly make you think that that," I gestured loosely at her, "Would make anything better?"

I buried my face in my hands, and she wrapped her other arm around me, rocking me gently.

A few minutes later I had calmed down.

"Sorry," I said. "I just.."

She nodded. Ugh, she probably thinks I'm a complete weirdo now, I don't know what came over me. I'm never like that!

"That's okay. I guess I shouldn't have just undressed like that. Are you squeemish about blood?" She asked.

I shook my head.

"No. Just the whole… cutting thing."

It's weird, how het up I get about it, really. I've seen Fang's cuts often enough, and it still strikes a chord.

"Stay clear of the bathrooms, then." She joked, her gaunt features rising into a smile.

I smiled back. "I'm Max, by the way." I told her.

"Cool. I'm Clara. We'd better get dressed, it's breakfast in 15 minutes."

She got up off my bed and rummaged in her draws, throwing out random articles of clothing.

I followed her lead, pulling on dark blue jeans, a white teeshirt and a baggy grey hoody, carefull not to let Clara see my wings, but she wasn't looking anyway. I cleaned my teeth and brushed my hair, pulling it into a loose bun. Tying the laces of my sneakers, I looked over at what clara was wearing.

Let's just say. Wow.

She had on jet black drainpipe jeans,which were turned over at her feet, revealing electrick pink lining and black converses with crazy, non-matching laces.

Her top was short sleaved and vertically striped with alternating pink and black.

Around her neck she wore a long chain reaching to her midriff where a large, black and white plastic star hung.

Her arms were covered with pink fishnet armwarmers, and on her right wrist she wore a thick, black and white striped plasitc bangle.

Her hair was faded red, on the brink of pink and was pulled into two plaits, with a plain black plastic hairband separating it from her diagonal emo-fringe.

In her ear was a black and white striped ear-stetcher and her eyes were painted with first black, then pink eyeshadow.

I was just starting to recognise a pattern when she threw a green jacket over her arm. I looked at her in confusion, and she smiled.

"My pink one's in the wash." She said, then grabbed my hand and pulled me down the corridor.

To my surprise, she stopped and leaned against the wall outside Fang's bedroom. How did she know that I wanted to wait for him?

The door flew open and a tall, hispanic looking boy came out and started to walk off down the corridor before Clara grabbed his wrist and pulled him back.

"Jesse - Max, Max – Jesse.." She said.

"Hi." I said.

He just nodded and gazed distanly at something behind me. The door flew open again and Fang came out and gave me one of his, "I-would-smile-if-we-were-alone looks".

"Clara – Fang, Fang – Clara."

I introduced. Clara gave me a look which I interpereted to mean, "You didn't tell me you knew someone here."

What is it with these people and overly complex facial gestures?

Anyway, we all made it down to breakfast, and sat at a table with three other people and two of the staff.

Once the room was full, kitchen people came out with huge stacks of toast which they put on each table, where a selection of butter and jellies already stood.

One of the staff on our table said, "Okay, everyone, dig in. Two pieces each."

Fang and I were the first ones to grab a couple of pieces of toast, buttering them thickly, and spreading on copious amounts of jelly.

I was halfway through my second slice when I noticed the staff member at the end of the table staring hard and pointedly at Clara.

"Have some toast, Clara." He said.

She smiled. "No thanks, I'm not hungry."

"Clara, have some toast. You can't possibly be not hungry."

"Well, I'm not eating it." She said.

"Clara, please, it's just a piece of toast. It's hardly anything. You know you have to eat it."

"You can't make me," She said, glaring angrily at the man.

"Toast is very god for you, it's full of fibre and cereals," he picked up a piece of toast, buttered it and put it on a plate and handed it to clara.

She crinkled her nose like it was something disgusting and yelled accusingly.

"You're justr trying to make me fat! You want to make me fat like you! Wel, here's news for you; I'M NOT EATING IT!"

She stressed every last syllable, then picked up the plate of toast and smashed it against the floor.

No one else in the cafeteria more than looked up for a second, before turning back to their meal.

Clara's eyes gleamed in triumph as she stormed out of the room, letting the door slam behind her.

Woah.

I wish she'd eaten it though. It looked like she really needed it.

I was still really hungry though; we have to eat more than twice as much as normal people.

Tentatively, i asked the man who had argued with Clara, "Excuse me, Please can i have some more?" I pointed to the few pieces of toast left uneaten.

He eyed me with suspicion then said, "Don't you think you've had enough? This bread is very filling."

I guess not then.

"This is ridiculus," I whispered to Fang. "How are we supposed to –" He grabbed my hand, cathcing me before i could say, "fly on an empty stomach." But he did nod slightly.

A boy on my right, tapped my shoulder lightly and said under his breath,

"If you need more food, meet me outside the boys toilets on this floor at break, oaky?"

"Thanks," I murmured lightly.

The rest of breakfast was uneventful; Clara didn't come back, and at half nine, we headed off to classes.

FANG POV

Ok. I can do this, really I can.

There's no point being scared of a counsellor. All they do is talk to you right? And if its too bad I can just be anti-social and not say anything.

No problem.

But sat in class, wating for it to be my turn to go out, I'm more worried than I can say.

Shit.

A doctor's come to the door.

"Nicolas Seven? It's your turn to see Dr Ken Flockton."

I stood up, hoping it wasn't obvious how much I was shaking. I walked towards the doctor.

That was another thing about this place which annoyed me; all the doctors.

They had to 'escort' you everywhere as well. You could go to the toilet by yourself, other than that though…

I glared at the doctor, who set off down the corridor without saying a word to me.

After endless miles of gloomy corridor, we arrived at a door with the sign "Ken Flockton" on it.

The doctor pushed the door open and left.

At least this room was a little more cheerful than all the others I'd been in. The walls were a pale yellow colour and the capet was white, with a small multicoloured rug in the middle of the floor.

The only furniture was a whiteboard and a small wooden table in the middle of four bright blue chairs.

On one of these sat a tall, middle aged man, with short brown ahir and an impossibly big smile.

I hated him at once.

All thoughts about how I was going to try this for Max were consumed with hatred for him.

"Hello. You must be Nicholas?"

He leapt to his feet and tried to shake my hand, however my arm remained glued to my side.

"I'm Ken, Ken Flockton and I'm your counsellor. Have a seat." He gestured to one of the chairs, which I unwillingly perched on the end of.

"So, Nicholas – or may I call you nick?"

"Whatever," I mutterd, almost inaudibly.

"Well, Nick. We're here to talk about you, and to try and help you get better. Anything you say here I will hold with complete confidentiality. Unless, of course…"

I stopped listening.

"So, Nick?"

"What?" I glared.

"I'm going to be asking a lot of questions today, so that we can get to know each other really well alright?"

Yeah, right.

Get to knjow each other well.

What he really meant was he was going to nosey into my life and expect me to tell him everything coz I'm depressed.

No way would he tell me anything about his life.

This sucks.

"Tell me why you're depressed, when did things start to go wrong. Is it that you feel you're no normal, not accepted?"

Well, for your information Mr Fucking Flockton, actually, I've been depressed since a young age, the fact that I was turned into a mutant bird freak when I was 3 wouldn't have anything to do with that would it?

No? I didn't think so.

Then there's the fact that we've spent basically our whole lives on the run from erasers who would either kill us or take us back to the school who thought it was very 'interesting' to torture us and write down everything that we did on pieces of paper attached to clipboards..

Wait.

Argh.

Ken's writing everything I say down on a piece of paper.

"If you don't want to talk about this then I understand completely Nick. How's your family life going? Do you have a nice house?"

I nearly laughed in his face.

Nice house. Nice cave more like. And we were lucky if we got food from the rubbish tip. As for my family, well...

No way would I talk to him about my feelings for them…Max in particular…

After about half an hour of these pointless questions Ken seemed to have given up. "Is there anything at all you'd like to talk about Nicholas?"

Good. my silence had paid off.

"Right, well, you've got a choice now!" He said it like I was the luckiest kid in the world or something.

"We can either do a family tree for you, or a timeline of important events in your life time. Which would you prefer?"

Well a family tree was definitely not a possibility. Time line though? Well, when I was a baby I got turned into a mutant freak with wings.

Then we escaped The School. Jeb left us and we've spent the rest of our time escaping erasers. Until we failed.

That's how I ended up at this place.

I could just imagine Kens response; "Yes, and how exactly did that make you feel Nicolas?"

All the time with that stupid smile on his face. Did he really believe I thought it was genuine?

Having still refused to talk for the entire hour.

Ken tried a shot at one last question "So do you like animals? Do you have any pets?"

This made me think of Total and, obviously, Angel.

Before I knew it I had images of the whole flock floating round my head. It hurt so much to think about what tortures were happeding to them at the school.

I stood up.

"I have to go back now. Good bye." And I walked out.

But I didn't go back to class, I went to the nearest toilets, as our rooms were locked. I crumpled to a heap in a corner, grateful that they had at least restrained from putting cameras in the toilets.

It was a good thing I'd bought so many razorblades, as the searches always revealed at least one.

I pulled a razorblade out and just looked at it.

The emotions were whirling around my head so fast I barely recognised one before another took its place.

Hurt.

Anger.

Sadness

Loneliness

Fear.

Uselesness

Neurotic

Insecurity.

I'm messed up.

Big time.

Just as I was looking forward to the relaxing sensation of cutting to drive away these feelings and replace them with joy, a male nurse came in.

Shit.

Another razorblade down and I didn't even get to cut.


So, how was it??? Thanks to all those people who have already reviewed the last couple of chapters, btw, it's so great getting reviews!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh yeah, and in the breakfastscene, i heard somwhere that americans call "jam" "jelly" so im so sorry if thats not right!!!! gawd, that would be a bit embarrasing actually.

Anyway,

please review!!!