Stockholm Syndrome

Scabs

I stare vacantly into a dark mirror, hot water running over my hands for the first time in what feels like years. I've given up trying to process what's happening in my life anymore. None of it makes sense. It would make more sense if I was diagnosed with madness. The cut across my neck is starting to heal now, but it's still grim and dark with scabbing. We've been in hiding. Hiding from Randel and the fury he'll undoubtedly feel when once he's recovered from what Derp did to him. I don't remember what happened after Randel slit my throat, but I've been told from Rose that Derp lost total control and nearly killed him. Max seems shaken, and right now he and Rose are talking in private about something, it seems important. I'm not sure where Derp is.

Surprisingly, I can't even seem to bring myself to care enough to now. In this moment, I feel simply bereft to everything. I've been hurt in all ways to the point where I just feel numb, and fear no longer affects me. The only emotions I can feel are adrenaline, and desperation. I need to get out of here, before I am reduced to nothing but an unfeeling robot. I look down and watch the water illuminate the scabs and scars on my hands as it runs over my skin, glimmering in the dim candlelight nearby. I glance up and see a ghost looking back at me in the grimy, stained mirror. A ghost that I do not recognise as myself. My grey, broken eyes are sunken and my cheekbones sharpened, cheeks shallow; my lips are chapped and the grim shadows beneath my eyes are tinged purple and red. My brown grimy hair hangs lank and lifeless around my white face, skin sun-starved from lack of real light for days on end. I look dead, and I feel dead too. I even wish that I was dead.

I hear a scuffle behind me and see a foggy face appear in the mirror over my shoulder. Icy blue eyes filled with tension and fear, hunched up shoulders clothed in ratty, torn clothing, and rough facial hair covering a prominent chin and arcing over chapped lips. "Ian..." I sigh and look at the sink. "I want to die right now Joseph. Leave me alone." I hear a whimper as I speak his real name. Silence falls, thick and suffocating. I feel it creeping into my lungs and expanding within their ragged cavities, filling me with hopelessness. Give in. End yourself. End the pain and the suffering. Then, I feel a pair of wiry arms wrapping around my torso from behind, pulling me close to a heaving, bony chest and holding me tightly, tight enough to ground me to reality once more. "Look...Ian...I think I love you. I, I really do. I know that because it hurts me, h-hurts me to see you so s-sad all of the t-time...I know I won't be able to survive in the outside...but I am prepared to die trying to get you out of here...a-a-away from this h-hellhole."

The grip loosens as I gasp quietly; I turn in the arms and my eyes meet his crooked ones. So much insanity surrounds us and madness encapsulates our messed up past together, but right now, the feat in their arctic iris' has diminished and been replaced by gleaming determination. "R-...really?" Joseph manages a small smile and leans in, kissing my forehead softly. "Yes. Really, Ian. I want to see you happy at least once before you l-...leave me." My eyes sting and well up in tears, and I know in that moment that I can't possibly leave Derp behind. I care about him too much to leave him in this putrid darkness, trussed up in chains by Randel and tortured to death by him for aiding me in escaping. No. I will not let that happen. "Joseph..." Seized by this sudden impulse and a heady sense of recklessness, I grab Derp by wither side of his face and wind my fingers into his thick shaggy hair, pulling him forwards and down to me and pressing my mouth to his.

It's a messy, rough and far from elegant kiss, but its passionate and carries all of my messages to him in a physical way that my words cannot say. My heart pounds in my throat and my thoughts turn to mush as I breathe in his thick smell of metal and blood and allow my knees to buckle, his hands supporting me at the waist. Supporting me now, all of the way.
***
Rose's auburn hair fell across her face, hiding her sad green eyes; her lips were slightly parted and her fingers nestled nervously in her lap. We were sitting upon Derp's bed, still recovering from past events of trauma and shock. She had just told me about what happened between her and Derp a long time ago. She seemed remorseful and broken, shaking and often tearful throughout the emotional retelling of her traumatic past memories. All I could do was hold her hand and try my best to utter hushed words of comfort and reassurement. After she finished, I reached out and threaded my fingers through her hair gently, breathing shakily. I didn't want to pretend any longer that I did not feel things towards her. She was gentle, endlessly kind and always there for me, for everyone, and I needed that in my life. I wanted to be her sticking place, the one she could turn to when she needed somebody most.

She slowly raised her head, tears brimming and shedding from her eyelashes when she slowly blinked. Bloody beautiful. I exhaled softly, then looked down at the covers, my hand falling to rest upon her knee. "I uh...I know this isn't great timing, what with, um, recent events and all but..." I steeled myself, feeling her curious gaze resting heavily upon me. "Look. Randel recently told me that he's taking me to a scientific conference. It's the first time I'll have been out in months, if not years, and I...I wanted to take you with me as, a plus one. I respect your medicinal knowledge greatly and I'd lov-like, to have you with me there, for, for reference." I stuttered greatly, despising how childish and self absorbed I sounded, but how would she have reacted if I had simply told her that I needed someone with me who wasn't a raging sociopath/psychopath with crazed tendencies to slit people's throats?

I sat silently, listening to every acute sound she let pass her lips with an anxiety I'd never experienced before; anxiety of being near a woman I greatly cared for. "Um... Wait. Did you say...out...outside?" I raised my head and to my surprise there was a small spark in her green eyes. "Y-yes, yes I did." "As in, out under the night sky? Surrounded by...by other people?!" I couldn't help but crack a grin. "Yes. Yes! As in, outside!" I found myself leaping up and stretching my arms wide. "Outside! Away from this bloody mad hellhole!" Rose clapped her hands in joy and leapt to her feet also. "Of course! Are you mad?! I'd give my left arm just to get out of this place for five minutes!" I laughed and somehow my arms had found their way around her and I was picking her up and spinning her around, and there was joy in her eyes for the first time in all the time I'd known her.

Her auburn hair danced in a halo around her head and soft strands whipped across my face as she laughed. I found myself stopping, and pausing, and our foreheads were nearly touching. Did she feel as I did? How did I feel? Was I just lonely, or was it real longing I felt in my heart? Her soft exhales washed over my face, her eyes like emerald pools, dripping into flushed cheeks and yet reeking and broken with sadness and emotional repression. I knew why she was sad. She poured her life and soul into her love for Joseph only for him to be completely changed by Randel in a second. She'd lived her whole life in this hellhole, and I wanted more than anything to set her free, if only for one night; I wanted to see her happy. "Uhm, well, don't worry - giving your left arm won't be necessary in this transaction." Rose laughs again and my heart begins to sing.
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(A/N: ...guys...I don't even have an excuse as to why I've been away from this book for long. It's been over a year... I am so incredibly sorry. All I can hope for is that you all have enjoyed this long awaited chapter, and that I now have managed to get out of this writing rut enough to continue my SSundee stories. Thank you all so so sooo much for reading this, and I shall see you all in the next chapter. Squeaks, out! *tomska-style salute*)