Your Ginger Housemate (Jerome Valeska X Reader)

14

A/N

TRIGGER WARNING: There is mention of self-harm. It is only a small part (para. or 2). If this is a sensitive topic, please skip. You may PM or chuck me an ask and I can edit out those mentions of you would really like me too. However, this part will be kept as it adds extra depth. I'm sorry to those who disagree.

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It had taken you hours, but you eventually returned to the land of the functional. After standing in the same position for who knows how long and staring at the back door, you moved yourself to the couch and quietly sat there staring at the wall instead.
You don't know what dragged you out of your trance. Maybe it was the dwindling source of daylight through the windows, or perhaps it was the knowledge that your parents would soon be returning home. Regardless, you had heaved yourself off the couch. You didn't know what exactly to say to your parents once they got back, but you guessed that Jerome's college project idea was the best way to go.

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~ Narrator POV ~

Explaining to her parents that Jerome had gone to the college to help with a school project had been easy enough for y/n. The next day they had all stayed in and watched movies and other small things they hadn't been able to do as a family in a long time because of the rain. Y/n's mom had found the massive pile of horror movies that had begun to accumulate thanks to... him.  When her mom questioned her about it, she had only shrugged and said Tyrone liked them. 

Neither parent seemed to realise she was sinking, but she hid it well. Her parent's had had to leave a day early because of issues with her dad's work which would have upset y/n usually, but now, it was almost a relief.

It had been two days since Y/n's parents had left, and four since Jerome. She sat on her bed staring at the phone in her shaking hands. She had just gotten the worst news, her friend was gone. Kelly Terryl. She'd never mentioned her to Jerome, more for Kelly's own safety. She had been y/n's closest friend at school and studied at the college near her own. However, she had been lucky enough to study medicine in Afganistan or maybe unlucky. Long story short, now Kelly was gone. It was too much. All of it was too much.

Y/n was devastated, hurt and a little scared and just decided to shove everything out. It was something she hadn't done in years, shoving out her emotions.  When Y/n was in high school, things got hard and it caused her to go through a form of depression she guessed was mainly anxiety based. She didn't cry or scream, she just... she didn't do anything. Emotions were something of a hindrance and better if they didn't need to be dealt with, so that's how life went for a good year or two. Then Kelly came along and helped y/n out, and now she was gone. Sometimes, the pressure within herself would become too much, and she needed a release, but not with emotion. No. Physical relief furled by anxiety in the form of scratching. That's all it ever was. It was scraping up her arms, dragging her fingernails up and down in one spot until the pressure was relieved, the skin broke, or they had begun to bleed. Even then, sometimes, a little blood wasn't enough, so the scratching continued until she was satisfied. She knew it wasn't right, but there seemed to be something tragically romantic about the inflictions. She knew it was wrong, but she couldn't help it.

Now, everything seemed to be crashing down again, Kelly was gone, and so was Jerome. She hadn't realised she'd become so attached with the Ginger maniac and scoffed at the fact that these feelings all being triggered by a guy, a criminally insane one at that. But he had become more than that. She realised that now. A now he was gone, the pressure began to come back. It was the type of pressure one might get when they want to cry, but y/n didn't want to. She refused to. So she dealt with it the only way how. Staring at the wall across from her, y/n pulled up her sleeve and ran her fingers gently along her forearm, feeling the slight imperfections that had accumulated over the years. They all around a finger-length long and a centimetre wide. She started to add another, picking up speed and pressure as to relieve another.