Give me a sign (I want to believe) Reader x Brendon Urie

Nicotine

You glare down at your arm in disgust, watching the tiny rivulets of blood run down it and onto the bathroom floor. You're aware that letting that happen means you'll have to spend longer cleaning up after yourself, but somehow, watching your blood run onto the bathroom tiles is almost comforting, therapeutic much like the pain the blood accompanies.

Worthless. You're worthless.

You feel the urge to add another line to the several fresh ones already there but you resist. You hate this, hurting yourself only to add scars to your arm, making yourself even more of a freak than you were. But you need it, too. It's like a drug; you hate it but you crave it at the same time. Every line distracts you for the barest instant, but at the same time gives you even more to hate yourself about. It's a vicious circle you've gotten yourself stuck in and you're not sure you can get out.

After a few minutes of the silent self-loathing that's become part of your ritual since basically the beginning of time, you breathe deeply and will yourself to snap out of it. Your parents are going to be home any minute, and although they might not be the best parents ever, you still doubt they'd like to see their child standing in a bathroom with blood on the floor, on her arm, on the metallic, silvery blade of the razor clutched loosely in her dominant hand.

So, with a sigh that echoes surprisingly in the tiled room, you grab a couple of paper towels from the roll you keep in there- much better than using an actual, regular towel and having to explain why the hell there are brown stains on it- and get to work on the floor, leaving your arm untended to for the moment. You know you deserve the extra pain- no matter how most of you might not like it- especially after the events of the past month.

Thankfully, you hadn't allowed the blood to dry on the floor- even with tiled floors, it would've been a pain in the ass to clean- and, within a minute or so, you've basically cleaned all of it up.

You quickly tear of a double sized paper towel and put the bloodied, used ones in the middle, carefully wrapping it as neatly as you can. When a bit of the blood leaks through the thin covering, you sigh and add another. You can't let anyone know- you hate yourself enough already for doing it. You can't imagine what someone else's reaction would be and honestly, you've been the outcast for long enough already. You really don't need to add anything to your reputation.

Once you're done cleaning up the floor, you move on to your arm, rather harshly cleaning and disinfecting it- you'd rather die than let anybody see what you've done to yourself. Although, seeing as you've been tempted to kill yourself several times without anyone even knowing about the cuts, that's not really saying a lot.

Pulling yourself abruptly out of your thoughts, you carefully put band-aids over the cuts- again, if anyone saw a dark stain in your sweatshirt there's a chance you'd be found out and you can't let that happen-, pull your sweatshirt sleeve back down, and give the bathroom a final once-over. When it meets your inspection, you open the door and flee to your room, where you promptly grab your phone and earbuds; they're your only source of solace these days, whether that be through YouTube or iTunes and you know that without them, you'd probably already have offed yourself. You find a playlist containing a list of your favorite bands and press play, swiftly putting the earbuds in your ears and plugging in the cord in order to miss as little as possible.

But the moment you hear what your phone had, by virtue of shuffle play, chosen, you press the next song button, almost faster than you can blink. It's a song you know far, far too well- Hurricane by Panic! At The Disco.

You've been in love with Panic! for years; they've always been one of the bands you could rely on, whether to help you vent your frustration by screaming out the tune with them or to provide comfort when you had a particularly bad day, but recently...