This fic has in depth descriptions of vomitting, self-harm, suicidal ideation and mental illness. If you struggle with any of these topics, please read with caution and take care of yourself first and foremost.

Crossposted from AO3. Full A/N can be found there for more information.

Facetious exchanges were nothing new to Subaru. Absinthe stained words drowned him; every sentence he spoke, every placation - people drank from him. That wasn't to say he was a strong liar; on the contrary, he merely relied on people's good faith to hold him to his word. Evangelical in his propriety, Subaru would parade himself a hero knowing that his success relied on bloodsports and failure alone. Death never feels like the release people believe it to be.

And he knows there is a chance his habit would be uncovered. Not exactly a surprise when his presence was a staple he'd forced on the mansion, something he'd worked towards since his arrival with Emilia. Depressing as it is, he had almost hoped for someone to pick up on his cues just to validate his worth - even if he knew there was no way for him to explain the reason he'd picked it up in the first place.

He wants to be seen, to be saved, but he doesn't want to go through the process of salvation. Getting help would mean sticking his neck out, and it's been lopped off enough times that he doesn't really fancy losing it again. It doesn't matter if each line in his leg gives him a limp, or if the streaks of red on his arm makes him wobble with every chore he clears.

The stars wouldn't miss him, and neither would the mansion. Subaru lets the Sun droop out of the sky, and retires to his private quarters. Beatrice is spending the night with Petra, so now is as good an opportunity as ever to get his usual dose of agony.

Whenever night falls, he thinks about it.

One thin line on his right thigh, and one thin line on his left. The blade runs an arc smooth into his skin, rivulets of blood slipping from each corner, and the faint stinging resumes from yesterday. Biting down a hiss, he grabs for a cloth to clean the area as best he can. While watching trails is...fun, for lack of a better word, he needs a sterile surface to continue making incisions where he pleases.

Gliding and gliding across patches of his leg. There's nothing neat about the wounds he leaves, each appearing as different lengths and depths. His mother used to say there was beauty in asymmetry. Looking at how mangled his legs are, he can't bring himself to agree with her.

Subaru wonders if she knew. As best as he cleaned and wrapped himself, the pinpricks of red that seeped through his pants weren't exactly subtle, and he made no effort of going out or hiding them as the result of fist fights gone wrong. Maybe that was why she had been so understanding and careful with his shut-in lifestyle. Better a broken son than a dead son. He has to wonder how she's dealing with everything now. Would she have intervened if she knew he'd go missing only a few months later?

Maybe she's happier now her burden's gone. It's an unrealistic thought, knowing how much love went into each extra spoonful she served him at dinner, but the idea still drives the dagger much deeper than he intends to go.

That's going to be a hard one to patch up. Healing magic would be ideal, but Beatrice shouldn't have to see the viscera he self-inflicts just to temporarily hide it all from the others. It's not exactly fair to expect someone to choose you when you regularly choose to brutalise yourself over talking your feelings out.

Satella's got him covered on that front. Return by Death's curse is inconvenient and weighty, but at least he has an excuse not to try therapy or airing out his problems. It's better for him to suffer alone. It's what he deserves.

It's not his fault he's too weak to keep going. If he dies in the bathroom, he'll at least have a fresh canvas in the next loop to carve into.

His vision goes blurry for a second, and he worries that the tears will leave his eyes red-rimmed and wet. Face and hands are off-limits, so any sort of residue has to be properly washed away before he even thinks of stepping out of the bathroom. He's a butler, or he was, so it's his duty to keep things as tidy as possible. That includes his face too, since it's the first thing people will see when they look at him.

Not the deeply set depression, nor the shadow of red that nips at his heels.

Facecloth now a satisfying pink, he lifts it from his right thigh to the sink, wringing the colour out with soapy, soapy water. The tap runs a mute colour, and it's his least favourite part of the process, watching rivers flow from his cloth down the drain and away from him. It's still a light pink, but the water runs clear when he wrings it for good measure, so he takes care to pat away at his puffy eyes until any traces of tear trails are gone from his face.

Subaru's gaze moves back to his legs, a smatter of scarlet and peach, and he tries to cherry pick the next spot of contention. Left thigh loses by a thin margin, and he goes to work once more trying to even the playing field across his lap. Counterbalancing his wounds is important; limping with one leg is far more noticeable than limping with two. One's an injury, one's easier to explain as a matter of exhaustion.

It isn't even a lie. They can scrutinise him all he likes - a lie of omission won't satisfy the requirements for perjury.

When he's satisfied -

(he's never satisfied, but the more he digs the more likely it is his progress will reset)

When he's ready -

(he's never ready to face the truth, to let his skull hit the concrete and begin anew)

When his time's up, he lets the wounds weep, leaking his life down his weary, weary legs. It's enchanting, the way it trickles down too-thin legs and settles in a pond around his feet. Wiggling his toes in the aftermath should feel grotesque, but at least the action helps with circulation.

His instincts demand more. Why have a pond when you can have a lake?

If he goes any further, it'll be game over once more.

Reluctantly, he drops the blade in the sink and reaches for a familiar pink cloth. Coating his thigh in the fabric makes it sting, but he needs to clean up his wounds before applying any sort of bandage to them. Infections were bound to happen, so he never bothered with proper aftercare, but he couldn't pass off bloodstains as just him "tripping."

Once again his face cloth turns red. With how much the colour chases him, maybe he should've replaced his orange jumpsuit accents with rivers of crimson. Or maybe not - as frayed as his mental state is, he knows when he's being edgy and contrarian for the sake of it.

Plus, orange looked good on him. His dad's favourite colour was -

Ah. He's living in his father's footsteps again. He'll never escape that cycle, not even in another world.

Kenichi should've been transported instead. Far more physically fit, far more capable than Subaru has ever been in his 17 years on Earth. Everyone loves his father. He'd find a way back to Earth in no time at all, and he'd be regaled as a hero for his good deeds. No one would die.

But if he was transported, mother would be sad. So maybe it's a good thing Lugunica got the shitty offbrand version of Kenichi, because something's better than nothing.

If you could even consider Subaru a "something," that is.

He's getting off track again. The cuts are clean and are no longer seeping into the cloth. With Beatrice off with Petra, he's got all night to finish up his ritual, but the longer he sticks around in the bathroom the more the white tiles piss him off. All it takes to fix up the bathroom is a little elbow grease, yet to patch himself up it takes practiced, careful movements to keep things from becoming permanent.

Return by death isn't something he likes to experiment with, so he's not sure what happens if his save point moves after he loses a limb. Subaru sticks to more simple vices when it comes to scratching that self-destructive urge. Alcohol costs money, and raises far too many questions for him to shrug off. Cigarettes, or whatever Lugunica's version of them are, carry that strong tobacco smell and can stain his nails if he's not careful. As satisfying as it would be to press the lit end of a cigarette into his calf, he's not in the business of drinking or smoking while underage.

So he stays by the more cliche methods of torture. Blades and nails, starvation and insomnia. He's in control of what he does, and it's the only time he can think. Trimming away the fatty incessant thoughts with a dagger is a far too indulgent vice.

Candles worked just as well. Holding his arm towards the flame, he feels it tickle the hairs, incinerating and inevitably dying the flesh raw. He itches and itches and itches at the mark, but the colour only darkens, and he resolves to wear a long sleeve no matter the weather. Burns take longer to heal, so he rarely dabbles in the art, but he takes to clawing at his arm all the same when there's no eyes on him.

He scratches like there's bugs under the surface. Digging his nails in, raking them out of his body, but he can never dig deep enough. There's not enough time between loops for his fingernails to grow, and it takes all his control not to grab for the pristine dagger by the sink and cut them loose before the crawling takes over.

Maybe his blood acts as a nectar to them. He can't see anything in the cuts on his legs, but there's something there, and it drives him all the more and more in his effort to pry the creature out of him. If his smell or whatever can attract the mabeasts, there has to be something else

Parasites and maggots are inside him, boring through his veins and muscles, and he wants to tear them out. But there's an off chance that one of them will worm their way to his brain and gnaw whatever part of the organ makes him think, so that his inner dialogue will finally shut itself down. Why does he need to think in the first place? Satella only brought him here to kill her. Saccharine works of loving yourself won't act as a pesticide to the demons that lurk underneath the surface.

Oh, she's a hypocrite. A disgusting, manipulative monster, who may or may not be a victim or tormentor depending on the time of day you ask him. Subaru's raked himself through the coals for a lookalike of his kidnapper, and he loves Emilia to pieces, but every loop results in the shards becoming unrecognisable in the final product. No one can piece him together right anymore. Faux words of encouragement merely work as duct tape as it stands, but as the tape gets removed, shreds of himself gets removed alongside it.

And it's all her fault. Her, or Witch of Envy -

(who's keeping track at this point, anyway? Him, because he's such a self-serving saint who promised to save a broken woman when he can't even save himself. If she's a hypocrite because she can't control her own actions, God knows what that makes him.)

- or the Witches in general. With the way Echidna spoke, he wonders if they all gather and have tea parties while watching him rip into himself. Would they serve biscuits as he lay in bed for hours, letting the stomach pangs ring and ring until they defeaned him? Maybe they run bets on which way he'll unravel himself next; a roulette wheel of self-harm and all the contestants win is bragging rights to other dead people. That's the satisfaction he takes over Echidna, and what keeps him from regretting having ever opened up to her in the first place.

She's dead, and he can't die.

Must suck being confined to a garden for all of eternity. She deserved it, and deserved far worse for trying to fuck with him with that offer. Though he can't exactly fault her ambition to free herself from the hand she'd been dealt in life (Afterlife? Afterdeath? Purgatory, he settles on.)

Being stuck in some purgatory for the rest of his life didn't seem appealing, and he knows a thing or two about living in hell. Figuratively, of course. Despite what he has told Garfiel before, he's yet to greet the man downstairs, to meet Yama and have his soul weighed for all his deeds. Given how much he brushes shoulders with death, he should probably focus on being a more pious man, to do right by God and by his faith.

He shrugs the thought off with care not to agitate the raw skin on his forearm. A righteous God wouldn't subject a person to the agonies he's been though, so God can go fuck himself.

Thunder crackles a few miles away from the Mansion, and Subaru immediately rescinds his words with a prayer.

He's… forgetting something again. But his brain is all mushy and his vision is swimming with the fishes, so he lets himself derail any meaningful train of thought. They're all full of spite and malice from days of bottling his feelings up, but it's not like anyone's here to listen.

Salt-laced words will rub in his wounds and make him feel worse in the morning, he's sure. Getting mad at everyone will merely satisfy his ego for the night, and that's enough for him right now. He's invested all the self-hatred in his cut already, which… he should probably address.

Unwrapping a coil of medical gauze, he gently presses the end of the strip to the top of his leg, weaving it around until he couldn't spot a cut peeking out of the wrap. Blood has yet to fill the stretch of canvas red, so he moves on to pinning it in place through careful folding and usage of a safety secure, he moves on to his left leg, repeating the process until his lap looks spotless in white. It won't last long - he's seen bandages sour enough times to know how long they'll hold - but it should last long enough for him to wipe the floor and toss his face cloth in the laundry hamper.

His arms remain bare, and he debates if he wants to go through the effort of burying them beneath more gauze than necessary, if only to keep it away from idle hands during the day. The thought is tempting, but sneaking medical supplies by Ram is risky, so he tries to use bandages as sparingly as he can. With the bitter chill of winter settling in his bones at night, he's got plenty of reason to stick to his jacket and butler overcoat.

Getting up seems painful. He's got his back against the bathtub, head leaning against its rim, and he feels something moving in his veins again. The mix of copper and body odor is particularly pungent from his position on the floor. He wants to heave, but he's already thrown up his lunch earlier, and he doesn't feel like hosing himself down of the weird concoction of vomit, sweat and blood. Doesn't feel like getting up at all, ever again.

Whatever. Beatrice isn't around to nag him into his bed, so he can probably just pass out on the bathroom floor with nary a care in the world.

A good place for a dog like him.

On the nights he cuts, he dreams of nothing.

There's static in his ears and cotton in his mouth. The world is fuzzy and cocoon-like, and he feels like he's about to go through a metamorphosis.

Like he'll become something better, more grandiose, the deeper he goes.

(If he strikes an artery, does he strike gold?)

...He can't bring himself to ever go through with it. Suicide hurts like a bitch, and he's traced the area where he was impaled oh so many times. They don't deserve to see him in that way again, even if the world resets with him.

Or maybe that's the excuse he likes to use. As much as he hates himself, he can't seem to let go.

Subaru wants to sink in the fog that swells in his brain. To accept the "I love you" that ensues, if only to reprise his role as the lead of his life.

He loves too much to give in to her, and instead shifts his energy into thoughts of a half-elf who thanks him for his hard work.

Now's the fun part.

Subaru wakes with a jackhammer digging through his skull. It doesn't pierce low enough to kill him, but the buzzing and stabbing are brutalising him in a way he could only dream of doing himself. His head's still cozied up against the lip of the bathtub, so that rules out the likelihood he dropped and gave himself a concussion. Must be the lack of sleep this time. Far easier to work with than a brain injury.

Moonlight peers through frosted glass. Subaru had to have been only out for a couple hours at best, going by how quiet the halls outside the bathroom are. Now he's just got to pick himself up and scrub at the ground, hoping none of it has set in the grout between tiles. The puddle at his toes still seems wet, so he should have plenty of time to set himself straight.

He reaches out for the cloth in the sink, only for his arm to seize at the movement. Okay, weird, but he's not going to try that one again. If he rights himself and manages to sit on the edge of the tub, he could probably just kick the rag around the tiles, mopping up without having to move too many weary muscles.

Subaru instead opts to let his hands grab on the sink ledge and floor, trying to lever himself up off the ground. The movement is excruciating. His bones crack like he's arthritic, and every muscle in his leg screeches at the effort. He's pretty sure he's crying now, too, going by how damp his shirt's getting.

No matter. The corridors are empty, so the only one who sees him in this state is God. Him and his stalker, but Subaru could care less about the opinion of the woman who digs her fingers in his chest whenever he speaks of his plight.

There's a problem, though.

He can't get up.

Every time he presses his palm flat on the ground, pushing himself up, the bandages on his legs dye a pretty scarlet colour. His wounds weep with him, and his legs drown in the fluid, engorged in gore.

He went too far, and paid the price of hatred.

But he's not ready to die. Sure, he hurts himself. Tortures himself with every slice and burn. He's staved off several morbid thoughts of going further than just portioning his skin into small servings, and he's been juggling his precarious mental state with the mask he wears in front of everyone.

It's important to let the mask slip occasionally so they don't suspect something worse. He's read it in a book or two - something about suicidal people appearing calm or at peace before taking the plunge, and he doesn't want anyone to ask unnecessary questions. So to answer any question of "are you okay?"

No, he's not, but he's hanging in there.

(He'd rather hang himself, but that goes unsaid.)

But - that's besides the point. Not relevant to him bleeding out on the cold, dead surface of the restroom. Why's it called a restroom anyway? He's not resting at all. He's dying alone as he deserves. He doesn't want to die.

He does, but he doesn't.

All his talks of hypocrisy, and he's the biggest hypocrite of all. A walking oxymoron.

He doesn't want another loop of this. Confiding in others is hard and he hates that he let it get this bad. How can he answer the stares? How can he repay the kindness they've shown him?

They won't accept his blood as an offering. For whatever reason, Emilia wants him alive, so he'll stay alive to be with her.

(But that's a lie, isn't it?)

Every death is another compact falsehood. A goodbye to a world he promised to save. The blood on his hands is more than his own. Each life ends with yet another person he fucked over. Rem's comatose and he can't even kill himself to bring her back. For once, he lives through the consequences of his failures.

And this is another failed loop. He can see the strings dangling in front of him, and he goes to tie a noose with the tether keeping him alive. Fighting to stay alive is pointless.

He promised Satella though.

(she's a hypocrite.)

He's leaving Beatrice behind.

(she'll see him again.)

He can't afford to rinse and repeat the same, tired bloodbath.

(Is that the truth, then?)

That's the answer he settles on. It has never been about Beatrice or Satella. Emilia is everything to him, but it's not the reason he wants to keep going right now.

In a fit of shocking honesty -

In a realisation that should have come sooner -

Subaru just wants help. He wants a reason to believe there's hope for him. For someone to tell him he's not broken beyond repair. He doesn't want to die for no reason.

He wants to live. He wants to smile. He wants to love. He wants to be happy.

He wants to breathe. He wants to learn. He wants to sleep. He wants to dream.

He wants to eat. He wants to drink. He wants to exist. He wants to be better.

(He wants to see tomorrow.)

The thought beats his breath right out of him. Tomorrow has never been on the cards for him. Thinking about the future is an impossibility when you exist in a state of constantly revisiting the past.

Deja vu has nothing on Subaru.

...There's a point he was going to make, but he forgets where it was going.

He tries once more to readjust and give him leverage to get up properly, but he crumples the moment he moves his arm away from the ground. A laugh bubbles out of him, half-sob in cadence, as he realises how fucked he truly is.

Now he knows he wants to live, it makes dying all the more painful.

In a last ditch effort, he crawls towards the bathroom door. Every second is pure misery, tiles rubbing against his bandages and aggravating the cuts with each slide forward. He's certain he'll have a trail leading from the pool where he carved himself to the door, but he can worry about clean-up when he's not inches from death.

One push forward, and he can feel the tendons in his arms crackle.

Another, and his eyes blink white. It takes a minute to clear, yet the haze sticks around.

He vomits on the fifth push. Most of it goes sprawling away from his body, but he knows some has been absorbed into his shirt. The feeling reminds him of the bugs wriggling inside him, and he hurls again.

The seventh push has him black out for a bit. Microdosing on sleep gives him a little more energy while instilling a stronger fatigue in his bones than before. If he stops, it's game over.

When he reaches the door, he's about ready to keel over and die. Should've given up earlier. That nagging voice was wrong - he is better off dead, and he's one foot in the grave already. He's a pitiful, disgusting man who deserves to die covered in filth.

A dumb shut-in who couldn't even start anew when given the chance for a new life.

(...)

He let Rem lose everything, and let Ram lose her sister. He's done more harm than good. Roswaal had said he was just like him, and Roswaal was a scumbag, so what does that make Subaru?

(...)

There's no response. Somehow, that stings more than the wounds on his legs ever did.

Even the voice in his head has abandoned him. He's all alone, and that's all he'll ever be. An empty, broken man clinging to a set of false hopes. Yama is mocking him for believing he was anything more.

(...)

"Say something," he cries, wanting someone to fill the silence.

His own conscience has ditched him. It's fitting, right? What he deserves. Dying alone and unloved. Fuck him for ever having hope.

Subaru doesn't know why he tries anymore, but he makes a grab for the bathroom lock. Headbutting the door open, he lets his body kiss the tiles once more in anguish.

A hallway light batters his senses, and he's all too relieved by its presence.

"Beako…" he rasps, but there's nobody there.

"Emilia… Ram…"

The silence speaks for itself. One final trick before curtain call - a light that held no meaning of freedom.

Time's up.

His eyelids clam shut. There's a distinct feeling of floating that comes with dying, experiencing the world from a third person perspective. It's like he's looking down on himself, watching his last moments as a spectator rather than an active participant. It's nothing unfamiliar, however. Drifting in and out is pretty common when it comes to the more slow-acting deaths he's experienced.

What is uncommon, though, is the sharp sound of glass and metal clattering to the floor.

"Natsuki-san!?"