#also like askbox nd messages are always open for those who wanna talk

[zwowow]

this might be very triggering so its fine if u dont do it, but kells self harming secretly and em finding out and kells thinks he’s gonna be mad but em is comforting instead

sorry for the ask, im the same anon that went thru a break up and it aint going well

tw: self harm 

I’m sorry my love, break ups are rough and it really sounds like ur goin thru it. sorry this took a while! but hopefully you’ve had time to heal a bit between sending this ask nd now. 

psa to all I’ve never self harmed, so i’m just hoping this captures the idk headspace? alright :/ 

He started when he was a teenager. That’s how long he’s been doing this shit. It’s fucking shameful that he hasn’t grown out of it in over a decade, but it’s also one of the only things that’s consistently soothed him. When weed isn’t enough to calm him, or shake him from a spiral of self-loathing, he always comes back to this. Not because it makes him feel better, but because it makes him feel something. 

He can focus on the pain and only the physical pain. His emotions, the real world shit he has to deal with, can fall to the side for a moment and he can revel in the hurt. The hurt that he has control over. 

That’s a part of it, too. Control. So much of the existential pain he feels is beyond what he himself can change. Everyone gets to have an opinion on him, and regardless if it’s good or bad, he has to know it and internalize it. He has no choice. Time moves on and he can’t control what his past self has done, but the regret eats him alive. His head spins when he thinks about all of the shit that’s wrong in his life that he no longer has the power to change. 

But the harm he does himself? Knowingly and methodically? It’s all controlled. He’s got it all under control. 

Or at least he did. Recently, he’s had the itch to hurt more and more frequently. There’s so much going on in his life that he’s no longer in control of even the one thing that makes him feel grounded. The old scars and fresh wounds are getting harder to hide. Even on his inked skin, raised bumps and sensitive bruises are easy to find when his boyfriend spends all of his time roaming his hands gently over his body. 

But Em can’t find out. Colson refuses to let him. He’d think Colson is pathetic (he is). He’d be disgusted by him (he should be). He’d hate him (but he couldn’t hate him more than Colson hates himself). 

He tries not to hurt himself around Em because of this, but sometimes it’s unavoidable. Sometimes he needs it. 

Colson sneaks out of bed one night at Em’s place while his boyfriend is sleeping. On his way out, he grabs his small bag that has just a few of the items he uses to hurt himself. His fingers shake around the bag and his breath quickens in his chest. 

Ain’t it funny that the shame he feels from doing this just makes him want to do it more? 

When he makes it to a bathroom far enough away from Em’s room that he doubts he would make the effort to find him all the way down here, he lays the bag on the counter and opens it up. 

This hadn’t started with the razor blades and lighters he keeps in the bag. He’s worked himself here from pulling out his leg hair and scratching his own arms raw just to feel the sting. The older and more well known he got, the more out of control he felt, and from there he made the jump from nervous ticks to genuine self harm. 

He used to starve himself, too. He thinks back to only a couple of years ago and picks up the lighter. He could go days without eating, even while on tour. There were times where he’d pass out after shows from the hunger, but he’d write it off to others as exhaustion. That had been one of the most pleasing ways to hurt himself. The gentle build up to physical depletion to match what he felt emotionally was fulfilling in a way he couldn’t possibly explain to anyone. 

And that’s why he stopped. Em started to catch on. He started to ask questions no one had asked before. He was obsessed with feeding Colson and keeping him healthy. 

Colson started eating regularly because Em would’ve hated to know his not eating wasn’t just absent-minded forgetting. He would’ve been so disappointed to find out it was deliberate starvation. Colson didn’t want to disappoint Em. 

He still doesn’t. Colson puts the lighter on the counter and takes out one of his blades, too. Em would hate to see this. He wouldn’t understand. 

Inhaling shakily through his nose, Colson looks between his two options for tonight. He leaves the blade on the counter and picks up the lighter. Em is sure to notice if he has a fresh cut. A burn is easier to hide. 

He flicks the lighter to life and is deciding where to hold it on his body when he hears the first knock. 

“Kells.” Shit. He loosens his grip on the lighter and the flame goes out. 

What is Em doing out of bed, and what the fuck is he doing down here?

“Kells,” Em tries again, “You good?” 

“I’m fine.” He lies. 

“Are you fucking smoking in there?” Outside, Em’s voice grows suspicious. He heard the lighter go on and now he thinks Colson is smoking weed in his bathroom. That would be easier to explain. 

After too long of a pause he says, “No.” 

Em doesn’t give a warning before he throws open the bathroom door. Colson wants to knock his head into the mirror for not thinking to lock it. He dives for the blade on the counter, but Em is staring right at it. 

“What the fuck?” Em looks between Colson and the counter multiple times. It’s a stupid overdramatic response, but he wants to slit his fucking wrists from that look. 

Em’s brow furrows. Colson feels sick to his stomach. Em is pissed at him. He’s disgusted by him. He doesn’t know whether to throw him out or call a mental hospital. He hates him. He must be so angry. 

“I’m sorry. I didn’t want you to find out. I was trying to hide it. I shouldn’t have done it here. I know it’s fucking sick. I know it’s fucking crazy to cut and burn myself, I know but I...” Excuses and apologies trip over each other running off of his tongue. 

“You’re cutting yourself?” Em interrupts him. His intense gaze sweeps over Colson. He’s not disgusted or angry like he’d thought. He’s shocked, confused, and even a bit hurt. 

“I... yeah.”

“Why?” A loaded question like that shoots Colson right through the chest. Why? He can hardly answer the question to himself, how is he supposed to explain it to Em?

Em said it himself, he was just clownin’ when talking about cutting himself, how fucked up does someone have to be to actually do that? Colson doesn’t want to explain to Em how fucked up he is.

When he doesn’t answer, Em looks back down at the blade and then at the lighter still in his hand. Kells sees the thousands of things he wants to say and the million questions he wants to ask in his eyes. Finally his eyes set, and Kells braces himself for the next thing to come out of Em’s mouth. 

“Don’t do that shit tonight, yeah? Just come back to bed.” The response shocks Colson even more silent than he’d been. Does he still want to know why, or is he just dropping it? 

As if reading his mind, Em shrugs, “You can tell me why when you’re ready. Tonight, I just want to cuddle your ass.” He holds out his hand to Colson and laces their fingers together tightly when he grabs on. Em tugs him gently out of the bathroom and down the hall back to his room. Colson leaves the lighter and the blade on the counter. 

When they’re back in bed, Em holds him differently than he has before, His arm feels weighted, it presses Colson gently down into the bed, unable to move from the hold. Em holds him from behind protectively and breathes into Colson’s neck. It’s so close it’s almost claustrophobic, but Colson wouldn’t pull away from it even if he could. The urge to hurt himself is immediately replaced by the need to burrow in closer to Em’s grounding touch. 

He falls asleep easily, letting the last of his shame and fear at Em’s reaction leave his body without a fight. 

In the morning, he goes to clean his stuff up in the bathroom, or to throw it away, but not to use it. When he gets there, the bag, the razor, and the lighter are nowhere to be found. Instead of being anxious at the loss, he feels a bit calmed by it. 

This isn’t the end. He won’t be able to stop hurting himself just because Em got rid of a few of his blades and one of his many designated lighters, but it is a start. 

Em knows now, he’s looking out for it. And if the way he always acts toward him, from the making sure Colson is eating to the cuddle last night is any indication, he’ll be there when Colson needs it. He’ll take care of him. 

#Anonymous #emgk #zwowfic #kind of a rushed ending #but i hope u liked it bebs #also like askbox nd messages are always open for those who wanna talk #tw: self harm