sdmn one sh~i~ts

Slipping /minishaw

words: 2670
warnings: mentions of self harm⚠️

Harry rides a slippery slope.

He has done for a long while.

He's been troubled. It's not a recent effect. The full throb of his chest and the numb feeling in his fingers is far from new. He's had it for as long as he can remember, so long that he can't remember what it's like to have lived without it. For Harry, it's hard to remember what it feels like to feel present in his own body, for him to not feel like a ghost wandering without purpose.

And he has purpose. He's been told that at least. By his therapist, his friends, his family. He's heard it all before. He has a job, a home, a life.

He has purpose.

But the lines of purpose that define him- friends, family, work - it tends to blur.

When it blurs, everything goes hazy. He drifts back into that space where his breathing feels off and his body feels foreign. He presses his fingers to his thumb, starting with his pointer finger, all the way to his pinky. It's supposed to help.

It's what the therapist advised. Think on what you want to move, then move it, the memory echoes in his brain, show yourself you have control.

But the thing is, Harry doesn't have control.

He's pressed his fingers together for several minutes now, waiting for his mind to latch onto the feeling, to prove to himself that yes- this is his body. But it doesn't. Instead, it drifts, thinking about how cold the touch is, but how it doesn't feel cold, that it feels like nothing to him, how he's desperate to feel something.

It's a slippery slope, that feeling. Sometimes it can be directed positively, like he can stand in the sun and feel its heat, or feel the wind as he sits out on his balcony.

But other times, there's nothing he can physically do to feel anything, like his brain has blocked off the entire section of feeling.

The numbness is what drives him to his worst. It's what makes him want to dip his toes back into the pool of the ocean he's been drowning in for years now. It's like his mind craves the rush of losing his breath, of feeling his lungs burning as they overexert themselves trying to get him to breathe.

He misses the heat against his skin that blooms every time he makes a cut, misses the red that contrasts against his pale skin. He misses the burn of the blade he hasn't touched in six whole months.

It's a slippery slope.

One he finds himself currently braving at half past two in the morning.

He's wide awake, staring at the endless patterns in the ceiling, silently mocking him as he shifts in the bed. Nothing feels comfortable. It all feels foreign, like he doesn't belong, like he shouldn't be here.

Maybe you shouldn't be.

He touches his fingers together again, thinking that maybe, this time it will work.

It doesn't.

His skin itches underneath the smooth sheets, and he wants to scratch, to cave. But if he does that, there's no stopping him. It'll start as a scratch. Then a cut. Then a deeper one. Then another one. And another, and another, and another until-

Harry squeezes his eyes shut, bathing himself in darkness once more. He shouldn't think those things. He's supposed to be getting better.

Six months is a lot of progress.