FicWad

A/N: Repetition of warnings: Self-harm and suicide attempt (no resolution). If these are issues for you, I implore you to proceed with caution and to seek help if you need it.

This is a terribly angsty original one-shot that I really needed to get out of my system. The title is not mine however, I borrowed it from the Spring Awakening song of the same name because I was listening to it at the time and it fitted in quite well.

By the way, Aisling is pronounced "Ash-ling". I hope you enjoy this (as much as this subject matter can be enjoyed.

AND THEN THERE WERE NONE

I’m crying and I don’t know what to do. I’ve cried in front of her before but now it’s different. Now it’s followed an admission that falls from my lips without my consent. I speak of nights spent covered in my own blood, days wishing my mother away so I can lock myself in the bathroom with a blade, hunched over the sink. The times I was almost caught and wanting to apologise the night I was but not being able to. The sobs become too much to work around and I just pull my knees up and cry into the cold fabric of my jeans.

I feel her weight beside me and an arm around my shoulders but the psychologist’s voice doesn’t reach my ears. I’ve given it all away now and I can never get it back. I’ve given away my chance at sanity – at sanity my way. I never wanted help. But I’m running out of time and I can’t keep it inside anymore. I want the feel of pain in my wrists again but I know I can’t have it and that makes the wanting all the worse. Am I doomed to feel like this forever or is there a way out?

“Of course there’s a way out,” Frankie whispers, as if in my ear. I wish I could turn to him and sob in his shoulder, see the sadness in his clear blue eyes, but he’s only in my head. He finishes his sentence: “But I won’t let you take it.”

“You’re so strong, Aisling, I can’t believe you felt you had to do this to yourself! We’ll get you some help and everything will be okay! You don’t have to keep doing this – will you keep doing this? Do we need to take the knives from you? And have you been looking after the cuts? Can I see them?”

My eyes shot open and before I could think, I was halfway across the room and could feel the strange prickling I felt when I imagined Frankie touching me. A more comforting arm around my shoulders.

“Aisling, can I see-”

“No. No, you never ask to see them-” She took a step towards me but I held out a hand, the glare confirming the warning I gave her. “N-No, don’t touch – get away.” My voice wouldn’t co-operate so I picked up my bag and headed for the door. I had to get out. I could hear her trying to keep me there but my feet were moving of their own volition. I heard the door slam behind me but Frankie’s words were louder in my ears.

“We don’t need her, we’ll fix this ourselves. We’ll do it as we always have – you and me and shitloads of determination,” he said, his imaginary hand clasped tightly around my real one.
The air outside was cold but I always felt safe when it was just Frankie and me. I knew I was okay. We were holding back from running home, my anxiety levels were too high for the run to last long without me falling over. The damage couldn’t happen yet – not out here, it was too open, too many opportunities for someone to stop it. We were almost home now though and I could already feel the whisper of a blade against my skin.

Bursting through the front door, I was thankful to be greeted by the cat meowing at the disturbance but otherwise silence. Silence was good, silence meant freedom.

I could see Frankie now and his choppy blonde hair was gorgeously mussed but the disappointed look on his face detracted from his hotness. I brushed past him, dumping my bag and kicking off my shoes in the hallway before traipsing up to my bedroom.

“Ash, don’t do this,” Frankie pleaded, already in my bedroom, sitting on my bed.
I shook my head as I crossed to the dresser, pulling out the top drawer and reaching in to pull out the bloodstained bandages and the box my iPod had come in, the box that held my best friends. I pulled off the lid and found myself sitting on the floor of my bedroom with the blade of an art knife in my hand.

“Don’t do this.”

“I need it.”

“You’ve never needed it.”

“I miss it.”

“Please don’t say that.”

“I just need to keep up this fucking appearance, okay?!”

I didn’t snap at Frankie very often and the combination of his horrified expression and the sharp pain in my arm as the blade slid across it was a horrible one. I heard Frankie’s gasp of breath and he was by my side in an instant, trying to hold his hands against the deep wound. Blood gushed around his ethereal fingers and I kept cutting. He knew there was no way for him to stop him if I stopped listening.

“Aisling, please, you’re better than this.”

“Aisling, I love you, stop.”

“Aisling, what if your mother comes home?”

He kept muttering these sentimental attempts at stopping me. One more cut, I kept saying to myself, one more cut and then bandage it up. But one turned into three, and three turned into seven. I wiped the blood onto my jeans before I kept going but the blade kept slipping over the skin and it was a mess. I could taste my blood in the air and I felt lightheaded. I could barely hear Frankie but suddenly I felt his arms around me, pulling me back onto the carpet.

“It’s over now, Ash, just stay with me,” he whispered.

“Don’t let go.”

“I’ll never let go.”

“Don’t leave me…” My tongue felt heavy and I couldn’t keep my eyes open.

I feel the ghost of his fingers against my cheek and his lips against my mouth. “I’ll never leave you.”

A soft, imaginary kiss before senses dropped away one by one. Sight, taste, smell, touch.

“I love you,” Frankie whispered.

And then there were none.