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Josh went for a walk fifteen minutes ago.
Tyler knows he'll be back. Knows his route by heart. Could walk it in his sleep. He's got about twenty minutes to himself. He needs this.
He needs this so bad that he isn't even sure he gets the bathroom door to close behind him. He only thinks about how relieving this will be. So he sits cross legged on their bathroom floor and he digs the blade from his pocket, cutting his finger in the process. He doesn't care. There are crickets outside the bathroom window, chirping away. It's about half past eight on a summer night. Josh went for a walk. Tyler wants to cut himself.
He doesn't even hesitate. Just raises the corner of the blade to his arm and slices the skin of his wrist, quick and hard. A sting, a hum. It subsides. A line of red rises to the surface, bubbles up, runs down his wrist and it's exactly what he needs. He waits, watches the tiles beneath him, and when a drop of red hits the pristine floor, he loses himself to the feeling.
Tyler is fast. He cuts quick, swipes the blade across his arm once, twice, three times within the same second. Hard. Precise. There's purpose behind his movements. Four, five, six times. The lines won't be in neat little rows. He can't care. Each line breeds tiny beads of red that crawl down his skin and fall to the floor. There's a puddle forming, he notices. It's part of his problem. He wants each puddle to be bigger than the last. He wants to make a mess, splash himself all over the floor, more and more blood, no matter what it takes. He needs this.
He loses track, starts dragging the blade across fresh cuts, making a grid on his skin. He bleeds a little harder. It's what he wants. He doesn't stop, not until he makes a particularly deep incision. Skin splits, forms a canyon. Blood pours out, and he is finally satisfied, can finally just watch and enjoy it. More satisfying than a firework display in a big city. Can feel it in his chest like an artillery shell exploding in the middle of the street. Drip. Drip. Drip. Faster than the Tick. Tick. Tick. of the clock in the kitchen. The puddle on the floor grows.
Grows and grows and grows, Tyler isn't good at eye-balling measurements, but he would estimate that he's lost a cup or two of blood. He'll start to really feel it if he loses a pint of blood. Maybe he'll pass out. Maybe he'll die. He wouldn't mind all that much, he realizes. Sometimes he forgets that he's suicidal.
He hears the front door open. Josh went for a walk, he reminds himself. He didn't go far. He wasn't going to be gone forever, what were you even thinking?
He scrambles for the lock on the door, tries not to step in his own blood, tries not to stain his own shirt with the stuff, tries not to make a mess. He should've not done this. He slips, hits the door, tries to lock it. He isn't very quiet. The door shakes against the frame as he anxiously attempts to hide.
"Tyler?" Josh calls down the hallway.
Tyler doesn't answer. Can't. He's trying to get the lock to click into place.
Josh pushes against the door, twists the knob. It isn't locked. Tyler is the only thing holding the door closed, and it opens the slightest bit under Josh's force.
"No," is all Tyler can say.
"Are you alright?" Josh asks.
"I'm fine."
"Can you lemme in?"
He stares at the blood on the floor. He got it on his shirt, on the door, on the floor. He's almost standing in it. "No."
"What are you doing?" Josh laughs.
He feels more blood drip down his arm where he split his skin open. The pain, a dull hum, seeps into his bones. He feels sick, and Josh knows him. Will find out on his own eventually. Tyler is tired, so he lets up on the door. Takes careful steps over the puddles on the floor, lets Josh in. Before Josh, he never let anybody in. Didn't want anybody to see him this way.
"Oh, fuck." Josh says. The hinges creak as he pushes it open the rest of the way. Tyler can only imagine what he must look like right now. Josh doesn't say much after that. He looks down at the floor, back up at Tyler, at the floor again, steps over all the red on the floor, into his space.
"Sorry, sorry," he whispers as Josh grabs his wrist, stains his hands. Guilt. He grabs a towel from the shelf, wraps it around his arm. It's a light blue towel. Tyler wants to tell him it'll stain. "I'm sorry, Josh."
"What'd you use?" Josh asks.
Tyler doesn't answer, can't, can't remember where his blade went. Josh finds it. Crouches down and plucks it from the floor right behind Tyler's feet. He tosses it into the toilet. He wants to scream at Josh, but he knows he's being irrational.
"Why'd you do this, Tyler?"
His head is swimming. From blood loss? From being anxious? Both? Was there something on the blade that entered his blood stream? "I needed it."
"Why?"
Years and years of living with his mouth sewn shut makes it hard to be honest, but he tries. It's even harder to be clear, because he isn't sure himself. "I just. I couldn't. I wanted to bleed. I don't know. I just needed. I'm sorry. Sorry," he presses his forehead to Josh's shoulder and the tears fall before he can stop them. The truth rips a hole in him deeper than any physical damage he's ever done to himself.
A hand comes up to cradle the back of his head while the other one is holding the towel in place on his bleeding arm. The terrycloth feels harsh against his cuts. "Don't apologize, I know, okay? I know, Tyler. It's okay. I'm right here."
"I'll clean it up," Tyler tells him, says it against the plaid of his shirt. Cold, smells like night air. Tyler breathes him in, loves the way Josh smells after he takes walks at night.
"Don't worry about it, okay? I'll clean it up."
"You got sick last time."
"Can I take a look?"
And Tyler shrugs, wants to hide, wants Josh to not look because not looking means not getting sick to his stomach at the sight, the gore, the blood. He pulls the towel away from Tyler's arm. He can't count how many, but it's a lot. Tiny cuts, grid work, spider webbing, blood is still spilling from a few of the cuts. He stares at the deep one. A gash, really, open in the middle. Disgusting.
Josh dabs at his arm with the towel. Tyler tries to form a fist, but he can't feel his fingers. "Let's go to the kitchen."
The kitchen, where Tyler sits at the table, and Josh grabs their first aid kit out from under the the kitchen sink. Tyler grabs a packet of cotton balls and the water bottle filled with homemade saline solution. Saline stings less than alcohol pads. Josh's recommendation, because he didn't want Tyler to be in even more pain. Clean-up. His hand shakes.
"Let me," Josh voices, but Tyler jerks away.
"I can do it."
So Josh busies himself with bandages. Squirts hand sanitizer into the palm of his hand before touching them, before tearing lengths of tape, before messing with gauze. Tyler lets him dress his wounds, still bleeding. Josh gets it more secure than Tyler can get it. Josh grabs his hand when he's done. His fingertips tingle, like they're asleep, and he hope he didn't damage any nerves.
"Can we talk about it?" Josh asks him, and the Tick. Tick, Tick. of the clock hanging over head follows, sits between his question and Tyler's answer.
"I don't know."
"Was there a trigger?"
"It was just a feeling, I guess."
Josh's index finger traces lines into the palm he can't really feel. " Like a sad feeling?"
He shrugs. "Just a bad feeling. One I used to get when I did this regularly."
"What caused the feeling?"
"I don't know."
A beat of silence. "That deep one might need stitches."
Tyler chuckles without humor. "Great."
"We'll have to keep an eye on it." And when Tyler says nothing, Josh puts his thumb and finger under his chin, tilts his head up. Tyler closes his eyes. Can't look him in the eye. Knows he'll cry if he does. Josh kisses him, soft, chaste. Safe
safesafesafesafe
and he breaks anyway, wishes he didn't have to cry. Josh clears the table of bloodied cotton balls and bandage wrappers. Grabs the towel and takes it to the--
"Josh, I said I'd clean it up."
Head swimming as he stands too fast. The floor tilts and his feet shuffle. He wipes at his eyes and his chest tightens. Can't breathe. Can't. Josh is staring at him, standing in the bathroom doorway. Pause.
Play. "You'd do the same for me," Josh says.
"I'm not squeamish."
So Tyler cleans it up. Peels coagulated blood away from the tile with wads of toilet paper. He throws it all into the toilet where his blade sits, sunk. Rock bottom. Tyler deliberately doesn't look at it. Josh is watching him from the doorway as he sprays a lemon scented cleaner onto the dirtied floor. Five minutes or five hours. He hesitates to flush the toilet when all is said and done, and he wishes he hadn't. Room temperature blood. Gooey little bits and pieces of red float in the toilet. Disgusting. Tyler gags. Flushes, Turns around and runs right into Josh's chest.
safesafesafesafesafe
"Are you okay?"
"I will be." He just needs to breathe.
So Josh leads him to their room, and he hands Tyler a clean shirt. Netflix offers its comforts in the form of Disney and animated TV shows. He lets Josh wrap a blanket around him, lets him hug him tight from behind with his entire body, legs arms chest lips pressed into his space. And he lets this feeling wash the other one away.