Disclaimer: I do not own Static Shock
Summary: AU! At the age of fifteen, Richie ran away from home because it was safer than living at home. He got mixed up in a relationship he can't seem to forget, and is now living on the streets while, at the same time, protecting them. When his partner, Static, finds out his real name, everything gets turned upside down for them both.
Warnings: Homelessness, depiction self harm, implied abuse, implied rape, homosexuality.
A/N: Serious trigger warning on the self-harm. Please be careful, you guys. I don't want any of you triggered.
One more day.
Virgil's birthday is in one day, which means so is his party, and the last thing he cares about is either of those. Currently, he's worried about finding a job and his exams. He got a call back from every place he interviewed, all of them saying he was not what they were currently looking for. As for his exams, as if taking them were not stressful enough, now he's worried about how well he did on them. Those two factors alone are enough to drive him completely insane with stress and anxiety.
Not to mention, Virgil is still preoccupied with attempting to figure out whom Richie is, and why he sounds so familiar. His preoccupation with Richie is, also, the reason Virgil is so stressed out about exam scores—if it weren't for obsessing over who this mystery man is, he probably would have bothered to study for his exams a little more, and would, therefore, be more confident in whether or not he passed them.
So far, living alone is not all it's cracked up to be. Granted, his dad is supplying him with rent money, and an allowance for groceries, but he wants to be able to do more, and without a job, he can't even go out on Friday nights with Shay. Thankfully his birthday is coming soon, because at least then he'll have a little bit of spending money for a couple weeks.
Until then, though, the only thing Virgil cares about is the things stressing him out.
With a loud sigh, Virgil falls backward on his bed and crosses his arms over his eyes. He slows down his breathing in an attempt to regain control of his thoughts. Unfortunately, though, they're all spinning at once and he can't seem to gain control of them. His eyes spring open and he's met with the posters hanging on his ceiling. Groaning painfully, he pushes himself up and looks around his room.
Everyone—including Sharon, Robert, and Shay—thinks Virgil quit cutting at fifteen, after he became Static. They all think that because Virgil became Static, he now has something to focus his attention, and he doesn't need to cut anymore. They all think Virgil has gone nearly five years without cutting.
Unfortunately, that's just what Virgil convinced everyone of, and not what's actually true.
In actuality, Virgil barely made it six months after becoming Static without cutting. Becoming a hero was a godsend, so to speak, because it became the perfect excuse to make everyone think he stopped for good. As soon as everyone believed he quit, he started it up again. Now, he barely goes three weeks without cutting. He tries to not do it, doing everything else imaginable to keep himself from it, but sometimes his stress gets so bad that he can't take it, and he caves.
His cutting isn't about his mother anymore—that may have been how it started, and is probably subconsciously still the reason, but he really does it because he needs it. It's an addiction—the feeling if pain, the sight of blood, and the sense of feeling alive; the feeling of life—that Virgil refuses to give up.
With a soft sigh, Virgil gets up from the bed and makes his way to his dresser. Somewhere in the back of the top drawer is as small box. It's full of broken metal scraps—ranging from jagged to straight, all of them stainless steel. He's almost ashamed to say that most of his tools are metal scraps from inventions Gear has worked on in the past, but there was no other way he could covertly get something for cutting. If he tried to buy razors, his father would have questioned what they were for, because even though he believed Virgil quit, he still also knew there was the possibility of a relapse.
The thought made Virgil nauseous with guilt—the fact his father never demanded to see his arms, because he trusts he stopped.
Opening the box, Virgil grabs one of the more jagged pieces and drops the box back in his top drawer. He holds the piece tightly in his hand and sits back down on his bed. Rolling up his right sleeve, he rests his scarred arm on his leg and stares at it for a few moments, deciding where he wants to cut, because it isn't a matter of whether or not he wants to anymore—he wants to.
Virgil closes his eyes, deciding he doesn't care where he cuts, as long as he can just feel the relief of it. As he pushes the metal into his skin, he lets out a low groan of satisfaction. He relaxes into the bed, his back and shoulders slouching.
It doesn't even hurt. It just feels good.
By the time Virgil drops the bloodied tool and opens his eyes, he has sixteen new, crisscrossing cuts on his arm. He watches as the blood beads and drips down his arm. This is the sight he loves; the sight of life dripping down his arm; the reminder that he's alive and not just some kind of walking dead. Not to mention, as he watches the blood drip, he sees his anxiety and stress leaving as well. He watches as worry about his grades leaves, the stress about who Richie is and how he knows him, the anxiety about getting a job—he watches it all leave with each drop of dark red blood that slides down his arm.
Above all else, though, Virgil can now go another stretch of time without thinking about his mother. Her death may have been almost a decade ago, and he may have talked to therapist after therapist about it, but the fact of the matter was, nothing was ever going to make the pain of her death go away.
Nothing, that is, but bleeding.
-SS-
"Backpack, that party is tomorrow."
For close to an hour, Richie has been pacing back and forth in front of his workbench. He has been wrestling endlessly with whether or not he should go to this party. On the one hand, he wants to go because he promised himself weeks earlier that he would. On the other hand, though, he doesn't want to go because he has no idea why Virgil wants him at this party, but whatever the reason, Richie is absolutely positive he's not prepared for it—be it a desire for a relationship or a desire for just plain friendship; he's not ready for either of those things.
Richie's not ready to trust anyone.
After running into Virgil on April first, merely two weeks earlier, Richie has experienced more flashbacks than in his entire four years of living on the streets. The severity of his flashbacks in the last two weeks has ranged from memories of his dad simply slapping him around in Kindergarten, to the night Francis and his buddies…
With a soft sigh, Richie sits down on the couch and rests his arms on his lap. Slowly at first, but with increased speed over the course of a few minutes, Richie snaps the rubber band around his left wrist. He closes his eyes, enjoying the wonderful sensation; enjoying the fact that it's giving him something else to focus his mind on, so he can both not think about Francis or his dad and not think about science.
Right now, he just wants to think about nothing.
After about five minutes, Richie's finally put a stop to his flashbacks enough that he opens his eyes and looks down at his wrist. His tanned skin is red from the numerous times he flicked himself, and he smiles at the sight. He knows after a while those red marks will fade, but for right now, it's wondrous to just look at them and know his mental anguish is real; that what he remembers is real, and it really happened.
That the scars that were reddened by the rubber band are real; that the people who have hurt him actually did hurt him. He sees all of this in the red marks created by the rubber band because, otherwise, he wouldn't be doing it; he wouldn't be flicking himself with a rubber band to stop flashbacks if what he is having flashbacks about didn't actually happen.
At least, that logic makes sense to him.
Sometimes, in heightened states of emotion like this, Richie wonders if his thought processes make sense or not. He knows it makes sense that he flicks himself with a rubber band, given his past, but when he tries to put scientific logic to it, he wonders it makes sense, or if he just sounds like a rambling idiot.
As the red marks begin to fade, Richie looks up and sees Backpack still in his spot. He bites the corner of his bottom lip and bounces his leg. He stares at his lap as he debates whether or not he wants to go to this party. He doesn't want to let Virgil down by saying he doesn't want a relationship, but he also doesn't want to let him down by not going.
Especially because he doesn't know what sort of mental state Virgil is in, given that he knows exactly what type of person he is. Not to mention, he essentially promised him he would go when he talked to Static about the party the other day. Granted, Static doesn't know Richie knows who he is, but he still promised him, and that means he should go.
Richie sighs. "Backpack," he says, and his robot beeps, "why is social stuff so confusing? Why is that, as a super-genius, I don't even know how to properly interact with me? When did I become so damn pathetic?"
Backpack beeps again.
Richie sighs again.
How could I let my life spin so far out of control?
-SS-
"Yo, Virgil," Shay calls out. "I'm here to help you get the place ready for your party!"
Oh. Shit.
Virgil goes wide eyed as he looks down at his arm. It's still bleeding, and now he has no way of getting to the bathroom to clean it up, because he can hear Shay coming down the hallway, and he will see the cuts and reprimand him for cutting, and lying to him, when Shay thought he's gone five years without this.
Fuck, fuck, fuck. I need to figure out a way to fix this.
Just as Shay is twisting the doorknob to his bedroom, Virgil quickly gets up and goes to his dresser. He grabs a pair of socks and ties them around his arm. Just as Shay is coming, He shoves his sleeve down and sits back down on the bed. The arm he has cut is pressing the arm with his bigger scar against his chest, and he's doing his best to not seem nervous.
Unfortunately, it's not working very well because, as Virgil's best friend, Shay can see right through it. He always has been able to see right through Virgil's fake emotions.
Shay presses his hands against his hips and raises an eyebrow. "Why do you look nervous?" He narrows his eyes. "And why are you holding your arm? What did you do? What happened?"
Virgil bites his lip and looks down at his lap. "Um…"
Oh, God, hurry, think of a lie. He's waiting for an answer; think of a lie!
"I um—"
"Were you scratching yourself again?" Shay interrupts.
Well… that works.
Virgil bites his lip harder and nods slowly. He's doing his best to come across as remorseful as possible. Given that that's an emotion he's worked on, it's not all that hard.
Shay sighs and rubs his forehead with the pads of his fingers. Coming completely into the room, he sits down on the bed next to Virgil. Virgil scoots over slightly, clutching the implement he used to cut tightly in his hand. He knows it's covered in blood, and the last thing he needs is for Shay to see it.
"Let me see it," Shay says. It is, and always has been, in his nature to take care of Virgil—especially since his mother died. "I can—"
"No, I got it!" Internally, Virgil goes wide-eyed. He shakes his head and stands up. As he talks, he backs up to his bedroom door. "It's not that bad; I promise—I can clean it up myself. I'm just going to go clean it up really quick, and we can get started on the party stuff." He's in the doorway when he adds: "I'm sorry. I'm just stressed about midterms and Richie and—"
"Virgil, seriously," Shay interrupts again, softly, "go take care of your arm." He rolls his eyes with a soft smile. "I don't need an explanation."
Virgil spins around on his heels and hurries to the bathroom. As soon as he locks the door, he slides down it and pulls up his sleeve, removing the socks. He drops the bloodstained socks on the ground as he stares at his arm. With a soft sigh, he lolls his head forward.
Virgil hates lying to people he loves. He hates lying in general, as a matter-of-fact, and he hates that he can't just stop cutting; that he needs it so desperately that he would lie to people he loves about quitting, but continue doing it, anyway. It's almost pathetic, in a way, that Virgil is that much of an addict to self-harm that he resorts to lying.
Before getting up to clean up the cuts, he puts three more.
How can I honestly want to start a relationship with Richard? Look at me; I'm fucking addicted to self-harm. I'm not even mentally stable enough to have a relationship; all I do is lie to people I love about cutting. God, I am so pathetic.
Make that four more.
When did Virgil's life spin so far out of control?
