Gouge :: [Calliope // Final Four Oneshot]
Dec 6, 2014 19:11:58 GMT -5
Post by L△LIA on Dec 6, 2014 19:11:58 GMT -5
I'm such a goddamn liar.
I smashed up my thumb earlier by accident, trying to nail a loose floorboard back down. Every time I walk down that empty hallway, it screams out against the silence with a creak of complaint, like a personal vendetta against my footsteps. We both know I'm not supposed to be the only one walking this path — that a home isn't meant to hold its walls up for the sake of a single soul — and yet that's the way it is. I've made sure of it. I lost half my family for a fate that was beyond my control, but Poe and our father... fuck. That was me. That was my fault. They could still be here with me, but I swore I didn't want them and look at me now.
The skin didn't break, but it bubbled up with a foul red spot of internal bleeding. A blood blister. Even though it's not very gruesome, it's still hard to look at for some reason I can't put a name to. Looking at it makes my stomach twist and gives me the urge to pop it to make it go away. I know that tearing myself apart like that will only leave a bigger wound, but the impulse lingers. I want to clean myself out and forget about the repercussions that would follow.
Don't I always?
When the hammer was swinging down, the thought flickered through my mind an instant before the collision of metal on skin actually happened. It said: Be careful, Calliope. It'd totally suck if you hurt yourself. Then, of course, I did, because that's what I do. I didn't jerk my hand back, despite the premonition, I just let it happen. Maybe I wanted it to. After all, I couldn't think of anything else when that violent pain was swallowing up my skin — not the creaking loneliness or the haunting of another premonition that has been nagging at me lately, warning me that I'm doing it again.
It's down to the final four and Galaxy is still alive. The television spits out the sound of her mutt battle from the other room as I sit on the ledge of the bathtub, a first aid kit laying open on the bathroom counter as I stare at the blister on my thumb. I'm not the one that needs a bandage right now, but I can't fix the girl in the other room. She's too far away from me — like Poe, like our father, like every person in my life that I could have held onto and chose not to, because I couldn't deny the impulse to dig into my internal wounds, ruining what wasn't broken yet in an attempt to get rid of what already was.
For a long time now, I've been telling myself that I don't need family or friends anymore. Galaxy reached out to me after Aesop died, when no one else would even look at me, and I pushed her away. I'm a stupid idiot like that. "I'm sorry." My quaking voice is even softer than the battle echoing out from the living room. "I lied. I want her back, please, give her back. Please. I'm sorry." I hate the quiet of this apartment, creaking only with the sounds of my own footsteps, three bedrooms and only one occupant. "I'm so fucking sorry."
There's a pair of needle nosed tweezers in my hand, their sharp mouth hovering over the blood blister in my other, hungry to dig into my flesh. My eyes flicker back and forth between my hands and the sound coming from the other side of the door, between one wound and another that hasn't quite happened yet, but that might... any moment now. Years ago I told myself I didn't need Galaxy or her good intentions in my life, but I'm a goddamn liar and I know that now and I'm sorry things had to come this far for me to realize that, but —
I drop the tweezers back into the first aid kit and slide back into the empty pit of the bathtub, closing my eyes and resting my cheek against the cool white enameled metal. The television persists with its promises of violence, but if I don't look at my wounds, maybe I can resist the urge to dig into them.
I smashed up my thumb earlier by accident, trying to nail a loose floorboard back down. Every time I walk down that empty hallway, it screams out against the silence with a creak of complaint, like a personal vendetta against my footsteps. We both know I'm not supposed to be the only one walking this path — that a home isn't meant to hold its walls up for the sake of a single soul — and yet that's the way it is. I've made sure of it. I lost half my family for a fate that was beyond my control, but Poe and our father... fuck. That was me. That was my fault. They could still be here with me, but I swore I didn't want them and look at me now.
The skin didn't break, but it bubbled up with a foul red spot of internal bleeding. A blood blister. Even though it's not very gruesome, it's still hard to look at for some reason I can't put a name to. Looking at it makes my stomach twist and gives me the urge to pop it to make it go away. I know that tearing myself apart like that will only leave a bigger wound, but the impulse lingers. I want to clean myself out and forget about the repercussions that would follow.
Don't I always?
When the hammer was swinging down, the thought flickered through my mind an instant before the collision of metal on skin actually happened. It said: Be careful, Calliope. It'd totally suck if you hurt yourself. Then, of course, I did, because that's what I do. I didn't jerk my hand back, despite the premonition, I just let it happen. Maybe I wanted it to. After all, I couldn't think of anything else when that violent pain was swallowing up my skin — not the creaking loneliness or the haunting of another premonition that has been nagging at me lately, warning me that I'm doing it again.
It's down to the final four and Galaxy is still alive. The television spits out the sound of her mutt battle from the other room as I sit on the ledge of the bathtub, a first aid kit laying open on the bathroom counter as I stare at the blister on my thumb. I'm not the one that needs a bandage right now, but I can't fix the girl in the other room. She's too far away from me — like Poe, like our father, like every person in my life that I could have held onto and chose not to, because I couldn't deny the impulse to dig into my internal wounds, ruining what wasn't broken yet in an attempt to get rid of what already was.
For a long time now, I've been telling myself that I don't need family or friends anymore. Galaxy reached out to me after Aesop died, when no one else would even look at me, and I pushed her away. I'm a stupid idiot like that. "I'm sorry." My quaking voice is even softer than the battle echoing out from the living room. "I lied. I want her back, please, give her back. Please. I'm sorry." I hate the quiet of this apartment, creaking only with the sounds of my own footsteps, three bedrooms and only one occupant. "I'm so fucking sorry."
There's a pair of needle nosed tweezers in my hand, their sharp mouth hovering over the blood blister in my other, hungry to dig into my flesh. My eyes flicker back and forth between my hands and the sound coming from the other side of the door, between one wound and another that hasn't quite happened yet, but that might... any moment now. Years ago I told myself I didn't need Galaxy or her good intentions in my life, but I'm a goddamn liar and I know that now and I'm sorry things had to come this far for me to realize that, but —
I drop the tweezers back into the first aid kit and slide back into the empty pit of the bathtub, closing my eyes and resting my cheek against the cool white enameled metal. The television persists with its promises of violence, but if I don't look at my wounds, maybe I can resist the urge to dig into them.
