A/N: Um. Once again, it's kinda depressing and extremely OOC. Sorry... You can sort of think of this as an extended scene from Depressed, but they're not really related. Though in both fics, there's this one line that I recycled...

When Sabo first saw Ace cutting himself, he thought that he must have just been imagining it... because this was Ace, and Ace was strong, and he would never do something like this, not to himself.

And yet, when the question escaped him, the disbelieving, horrified, "What are you doing?", he could tell from the look of fear and regret in Ace's eyes that this was real.

"I'm sorry, Sabo." Ace's voice was low... soft and terrifyingly unlike himself.

"Why?" Sabo had heard about this... read books about it, even. But he had never thought that anyone... especially not Ace... (how much had he not know? How long? This was sick... so, terrifyingly sick, and he hadn't even realized...) "No... you know what? I don't even care why. Stop it. This isn't okay." But why are you doing this? Not just to yourself... but also to me? Why can't you trust me? Why don't you ever trust me, you idiot?

"You don't get it." Ace sounded exhausted.

"I get that you're hurting yourself." Sabo replied angrily, an odd mixture of disgust and sorrow and fury that he allowed his brother to do this (didn't Ace trust him?) welling up inside his throat. "And that's not okay."

"You don't get to tell me what to do." Ace replied, his voice rising defensively.

"I'm your brother." Sabo's voice was rising as well, even though he hated yelling at Ace, especially when he looked at the scars marring Ace's arms. He looked away quickly, knowing that he should have been disgusted, but instead just hating himself for not knowing sooner.

"You can't control me." Ace's voice was stubborn, and yet sounded defeated.

"I'm your brother!" Sabo was yelling now, but he couldn't find it in himself to care. "I'm supposed to be here for you, and stop you from doing stupid things like this! You're supposed to trust me, to tell me when something's wrong! I'm supposed to know when you get pushed over the edge, I'm not supposed to sit here and watch you kill yourself. I can't control you, but I'm still going to try my best to keep you alive."

Ace's face crumbled as he repeated brokenly, "You don't get it."

"Then explain it to me." Sabo's voice was firm as he pulled the blade from Ace's hands.

"You won't get it." Ace replied, not even attempting to get the blade back. "You'll think that it's stupid."

"Of course it's stupid." Sabo replied with a roll of his eyes. "But I'm your brother, and I'm supposed to be always here for you."

Ace lowered his eyes, and finally sighed, "It's like... like it hurts so much inside that when you're hurt on the outside, it's a distraction from the real pain. Like when your skin is cut, it doesn't even matter, because inside it hurts so much more."

"Why didn't you tell me?" Sabo asked quietly.

"I don't know." Ace averted his eyes.

"You don't trust me." Sabo realized.

"I didn't want to burden you." Ace replied quickly. "I trust you, Sabo... you're my brother. Of course I trust you, I just..."

"You didn't trust me with this." Sabo's voice was like a ghost, barely there. "You chose this..." He held up the blade, "Over me."

"Sabo... it's not like that..."

"It is." Sabo shook his head. "I'm always here for you, you know that, right?"

"I do." Ace agreed. "It's just that... I... I can't stop. I've tried before. But it gets too much, it's just so overwhelming, and I can't, I just need to..."

Sabo examined the blade and shook his head, before cutting a neat slice into his own skin.

Ace's eyes widened. "What are you doing?" He demanded as he reached for the blade. "Sabo, what..."

"For every time you cut yourself." Sabo's voice was eerily calm with resolution as he watched blood begin to drip from his arm. "I'll do it, too."

"You can't..."

"I can." Sabo cut into Ace's protest, still calm with determination, as he reassured his brother, "And so can you."

"I can't." Ace protested weakly.

"You can." Sabo replied. "And you will."

Ace bit his lip, and demanded, "How can you have such faith in me?"

Sabo shrugged. "You're my stupid brother." He replied with a slight laugh. "I know you better than you know yourself. So, I know that you can beat this."

Ace's eyes lowered to the knife in Sabo's hand, before raising his head to peer at his brother. "You're not kidding." He realized.

"Of course I'm not." Sabo replied, a slight smile making it's way to his lips. "You're my brother."

A/N: I'm kinda displeased with this ending, because nothing got resolved, but Ace needs lots of time, and he's going to have reprocussions, and when he stops, it'll be after a lot of change happens. Should I continue this? I feel like I'm probably not the only one displeased with my ending... but I also don't know if any of you actually like it...