Dig Your Fingernails Into My Chest and Pull Out My Heart

You're Finally Breaking Skin

August 31st, 1981

The minute Steven gets home, via one of the bartenders who had helped him up, he lets out a sound that he had been holding back. A mixture of a painful cry and a blissful sort of moan, though not entirely pleasure-full. He leans against the door as he shuts it, another spike of pain shooting from his side as he stumbles up the stairs to the bathroom.

He was upset that John had reopened the healing stab wound that he had been so graciously given from his altercation last Friday, but he was so very happy that those pale, warm hands were wasted on his face, on his chest, everywhere. Sweet havens, he's on a sort of high; everything in his body feels hot and light, though it might be due to blood loss.

Steven looks at himself in the mirror that hangs just above the sink. He's bruising, of course, and there's dried fluids caking the bottom half of his face (i.e. blood, spit, a little bit of sweat). His neck is red (he doesn't know why) and his shirt is wrinkled. His eyes are red from crying, and the clavicle area of his body is covered in cuts from an unknown source on John's body.

He stripped his shirt off, sitting on the counter to examine the injury on the side of his body. The bandage wraps had come undone, similar to a sweater, and the obnoxious looking wound spat out blood, the scabbed skin flaked around. He can almost see inside the incision from where he sat, and the curiosity gets the better of him.

Steven's bony fingers trace up the side of his body, a small whimper exiting his thin lips, splitting past his curved Cupid's bow. He lifts his leg up, resting the side of his knee against the doorknob, his foot desperately trying to stay put on one of the carved in notches. He brushes past the bone of his thin hips, another small noise passing out of his vulnerable mouth. Steven stalls, steering clear of the bandages, running over the hair covering the space between his pectoral muscles.

After about a minute of him self-consciously moving over his cut clavicle and bruised breastbones, Steven reaches for the stab on the side of his body. He touches the skin around it, gasping out in pain, his leg jerking up and hitting the doorknob.

There's a moments pause as Steven hears footsteps walk past the door, and then he lets out a breath as they go down the stairs, the front door quietly opening, then closing. That must've been Jackie going out; his mother was staying at work for a tad bit longer, or that's at least what the note by the door had stated. He wonders why she'd be leaving the house at half past one in the morning, but it's none of his business. Besides, he can pry later if he really wants to figure it out.

Though, he has other things to worry about now. Slowly, once again, his fingers crawl towards the incision, and he hisses at the contact on his red, raw, bloody skin. Was this a good idea? Most likely not. Was it worth the pain? No, of course not. But was he still going to do it because he felt like it? Yes.

His right hand fingertips spread the wound open, and he curses, pain hitting him again and again as he forces his skin apart; the very skin still trying to reconnect and heal.

And then, it feels like he's being pulled apart at the side as his hesitant, freezing cold left handed fingers push into the wound on his side. Steven leans back against the mirror, unable to choke out a noise, and there's one hundred percent tears running down his face. It hurts so bad. The contrasting cold of his hand to the welcoming warmth of the inside of his body.

His nail scrapes against the membrane of the coated muscle and Steven screams. It's loud, piercing, and it sounds freakish, not matching the usual deep, poetic sound that his voice usually is. He's shuddering, and his leg that rests against the door jerks up at every slight movement, hitting the knob every time.

He sits there for a while, two fingers second knuckle deep in the stab wound on his body. His breathing is labored, and he can feel blood drip across his skin. There's a twitch that runs through his body as he tries to pull out, and he fully has to halt, feeling heavily overwhelmed.