For every day he's been away from Keith, Ellis makes a mark. Trigger warning for self injury.
One more notch I scratch
To keep me thinkin' of you
One more notch does the maker make
Upon my face so blue
Rufus Wainwright, The Maker Makes
"Ellis. Ellis, c'mon, you're gonna bleed to death if you don't let me patch ya up. It's nothing I haven't seen before," Nick pressed, grabbing for Ellis' hands to pry them away from the ragged hem of his shirt. The young mechanic struggled for just a few seconds more before finally falling limp. He had his lower lip between his teeth and was biting down on it nearly hard enough to draw blood. Nick let himself think it was because he was in pain, but he had a sneaking suspicious he was about to discover something Ellis didn't want anyone to know about. "Quit your crying, overalls," he murmured, finally peeling the sticky material back from Ellis' tan skin.
The wound was nothing worse than they'd all had to deal with before. Nasty, yes, but nothing new. Not enough to slow them down. Nick would clean it out as best he could, slap a wad of gauze on it and they'd be on their way. But still, Ellis sucked in a sharp, pained breath, the toned muscles of his abdomen tensing as Nick cast a critical eye over his injury.
"Nick-" he began, fingers already moving to stop the conman's movements, but Nick ignored him completely and pushed his shirt the rest of the way up.
His stomach lurched at what he saw, and he heard Ellis' little moan of anguish just at that moment.
Aside from the various ragged cuts, scrapes and bruises that decorated all the survivors' skin by now - well, that of the three of them still left surviving - a line of very precise, clean cuts was visible across Ellis' torso.
They were organised like train tracks, each roughly two inches long and only a centimetre or so wide, beginning at the top of the boy's ribs, to the left. There wasn't much space between them, thirty or so of them in total, and they were in various stages of healing. The first few were probably a few weeks old, beginning to scar. Those at the bottom were far fresher, the last still bleeding a little. It had been made today.
Nick didn't dare look up to see Ellis' expression. He could picture it well enough in his mind without humiliating the kid further. Nick's fingers travelled over the cuts without quite touching them, jaw tense with the effort of keeping emotion off his face. Several strained moments passed before the older man spoke.
"Did you do this to yourself, Ellis?"
It was phrased as question, but it was clear that he knew the answer. What he was really asking was why.
All he got in response was a darker glare than he'd ever seen on the kid's face. "Aw, go t'hell, Nick," he spat, though his voice was choked and the anger was forced. He snatched the medpack from Nick with shaking hands, and shuffled away from him into a corner. Moving clearly was a great deal of effort, and Ellis seemed to be struggling just to get the pack open, but he'd be damned if he was going to give up.
Nick just sat and watched him for a good two minutes while he fumbled with the medpack's fastenings. Finally he couldn't stand to watch the boy struggle any longer, so he got up to cross the metre or so that separated them and crouched next to the mechanic. Ellis flinched away from him instinctively, cheeks colouring. "Ah c'n do it by m'self," he insisted weakly, but Nick just shook his head, extracting the first aid kit from Ellis' fingers. The boy was too drained to really protest.
"Look, kid, just let me clean you up, alright? Pretend I didn't ask." His voice was softer than maybe either of them had ever heard it; Nick surprised himself a little. But it worked - Ellis nodded slowly, bottom lip pushed out in a childish pout. Nick nodded back once, and Ellis finally lay still enough for the gambler to clean out his wound and patch it over with gauze and medical tape, a somewhat awkward silence falling over the men as he worked.