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People aren't supposed to like pain.
When you stub your toe, it hurts and ypu hop up and down and curse at yourself for your clumsiness. If you're cooking and accidentally burn your finger on the stove top, you hiss and run it under cool water complaining about it. If someone hits you, you get angry and hit them back to reciprocate that pain.
But that wasn't the case with Pico.
He always hurt himself on purpose.
Never bothered to think of when it started or how he thought of this.
It just happened.
But he stuck with it.
Flashing hallucinations of sick, putrid yellow eyes and screams and sobs for help plagued his mind. The phantom feeling of small, twig like fingers gripping his neck desperately. Images of bloody halls and the smell of smoke filling his senses.
It was overwhelming.
But the pain helped.
Thoughts of Nene from high-school always filled his mind when he did things like this. How she had been so desperate and deranged and begging for the sweet release if death to alleviate her of all of her anxiety and fears.
Pico didn't understand it then. Her always hurting herself with anything she could get her hands on with a smile on her face. Darnell and Pico always trying to stop her much to her own annoyance.
It scared him then. He didn't want to lose her.
And she wasn't like that now. She had been healing and recovering and taking the necessary steps with the support of her loved ones.
And Pico had taken her place.
But in a much more quiet and private manner.
Barely anybody knew about this. He kept it to himself because he knee what would happen. Pitying eyes and forced therapy appointments and trips to the psychologist to tell him every disgusting thing he had wrong with his decaying mental state.
So he kept it a secret from everyone.
But it was the hardest to keep it from Girlfriend and Boyfriend.
Those were their birth names but people had gotten to calling them Keith and Grace to make it simpler.
They were all in a relationship together. It used to be just him and Keith before they broke it off in high school. Pico was too 'violent and aggressive' and instead of talking it out, decided to abandon the relationship.
It was a bad breakup.
And it hurt Pico badly in the process.
The pain helped a lot with it.
But seeing him years later with a pretty girl messed him up badly. Pico could have shot and killed him for the promised money but he made the choice to leave Keith alive despite the emotional pain and agony he caused Pico from the breakup.
The rap battle ended and Pico was fully prepared to go back to his messed up apartment empty handed and ready to hurt himself.
What he wasn't expecting was a tearful apology from Boyfriend. Quite literally getting on his hands and knees and begging Pico for forgiveness.
Pico could only stand in silence as Boyfriend apologized for how horribly he treated Pico all of those years ago during the breakup. He didn't understand the pain and hardships that Pico had been fighting through alone. And had disregarded the fact that he caused Pico endless amounts of pain after abandoning him and the bond that they had together.
He also hadn't been expecting Girlfriend to be the one to explain how important these things were to Keith.
Pico was entirely embarrassed as he made Keith get off of the ground and stop apologizing, mumbling how it wasn't a big deal.
But they all knew that it was a HUGE deal.
Keither proceeded to wipe his tears and fling himself into Pico's trembling arms, attempting to comfort not just himself but also Pico in the process.
And Pico would never admit it but a few tears were shed during the encounter.
And from then, things seemingly took a better turn. Both Keith and Grace began to force themselves into his life with his permission, taking every opportunity they could to spend time with him. Even confessing that they both harbored feelings for him and wish to all be in a joined relationship together.
And it was obvious by now that Pico had accepted. And their relationship had been going strong.
But Pico's relationship with self harm stayed strong as well.
He didn't like calling it that. Self harming. That's what Nene called it.
He called it coping.
Pico never paid attention to the fact that this was a harmful way of coping. It was getting hurt. His arms were littered with scars and bruises from just himself alone.
But it was coping nonetheless.
But Pico never let Keith and Grace know.
He was scared.
They were both so supportive of him already. Helping him through episodes and hallucinations and being there to take care of himself when he was unable to.
But he never let them know about this.
So he always kept long sleeves on around them.
At this point, Pico didn't even own any short sleeved shirts. Probably. If he did, they were lost and unused. Keith and Grace had asked previously about his need for long sleeves and he always just chalked it up to a comfort things.
Because he wasn't necessarily lying.
But he wasn't really telling the truth either.
And he still lived alone despite the fact that his two lovers let themselves into his apartment all the time, never commenting on the mess or lack of food in the kitchen.
They minded their own business.
But they wouldn't let something like this go.
They barely tolerated his smoking and slight drug use. There was no way they would let him go about his own house hurting himself freely.
Pico was terrified of their reactions.
It wouldn't be the same if he had told Nene and Darnell about this.
Nene would understand and Darnell would be as supportive as he could along with Nene herself. She would talk to him and relate to him and help him cope in more healthy ways.
But he didn't read want that.
This was working just fine.
But it was something he could easily expect having known the two psychopaths for such a long time.
But this kind of this was new territory when it came to his lovers.
He hadn't known Boyfriend for nearly as long and even less with Girlfriend. And opening up to Keith all of those years ago resulted in that horrible break up.
And he was afraid of that happening again.
So he didn't even think of the possibility that this would happen again. And he knew that Boyfriend had learned and matured thanks to the help of Girlfriend properly teaching him about mental health but that fear would always linger in the back of his mind and soul.
He was only protecting himself.
And there was nothing wrong with that.
He was always okay in the end so he would never need to talk about it.
Everything would be okay.
—------------------------------------------------------
Everything would not be okay.
Which wasn't much of a surprise.
Everything had been going well for a while. He'd been spending his time with Girlfriend and Boyfriend and he had been feeling fairly nice for the first time in a very long time.
He'd been especially suspicious of the lack of nightmares and hallucinations for a while but tried not to read too much into it in a lame attempt to not jinx himself.
So it obviously didn't take long for things to go downhill from there.
Pico had woken up in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat as his lungs contracted painfully in his chest. He hadn't even noticed himself sitting upright as echoing screams and gunshots flashed through his mind, everything becoming a suck concoction of reality and his own hallucinations.
No matter how hard he pushed his scarred palms against his red ears, her laughter continued to reverberate through his mind. Her disgusting, beaming eyes staring at his own even with his eyes squeezed shut.
He could even feel her breathe on his neck.
The overwhelming feeling of nausea crashed into him like a wave as he threw himself out of the bed, just narrowly making it to the toilet as he began to vomit.
The acid burned against his throat as whispered filled his ears, begging him for his help.
To not leave them behind.
To not let them die.
To save them.
And Pico had failed.
A dry sob forced itself out of his abused, burning throat as he forced his sleeves up. He barely noticed the disgusting taste in his mouth, his mind overcoming and taken over but a stronger urge.
He needed to be hurt.
He wanted all of this to stop.
Pico threw open the cabinet next to him and went through its contents. He hadn't needed to look in here for a while so he didn't know where anything was at first.
But then he found a small, worn out mint tin. Faded pine trees and clouds were etched into the metal. It's been years since he's first started using the tin and he's surprised that it still works properly.
He opened the tin to reveal small razor blades.
He can't necessarily remember when he started actively collecting these but it was probably when he found out hoe Nene kept getting hers. Either just straight up buying them from the hardware store and breaking portable plastic shavers to take the razors from.
Some were old and dull and others were very new. He had no need for the old ones but he always had trouble getting rid of things he didn't need.
He wasn't a hoarder by any means. He barely kept things without throwing them away once their use was done.
But this was just different for some reason.
He couldn't throw these away.
The next few minutes were a complete blur. This never usually happened but he wasn't there mentally right now. It hasn't been this bad in a while so he's not too surprised.
When he came too, it was his left arm that was covered in small injuries. Nothing near as bad as Nene used to. At least not this time. But the stinging helped to calm his mind.
He was a fucking mess. A complete disaster.
He put the razor back in the tin and chucked it into the cabinet, not paying attention where it landed inside.
That would be a future Pico problem.
But it was still the middle of the night and he was tired. He was fucking exhausted.
He couldn't walk back to his room. He was too shaky.
And Pico was home alone anyways, so who said that he couldn't just.
Fall asleep here?
In the back of his mind, he knew that something was supposed to happen today but he couldn't remember it right now.
It would be fine though.
He just wanted to get some sleep.
It would be okay.