Depths

29. Red Hands

Phantom gulped when he and Danny walked into the raven's bedroom and he caught sight of the dried blood on the side of their bed. It was a deep shade of crimson mixed in with a brown dryness that reminded Phantom of the horror films that Danny forced him to watch with him every few nights.

Danny looked between Phantom and the dried blood on the floor, wishing the latter would disappear when he looked away. "I'm sorry," he said again as he went downstairs to grab a mop.

When the raven disappeared from view, Phantom tore his tired gaze away from the scene and decided he would take a bath while Danny cleaned up the... mess.

Phantom turned on the cold water, watching with a sigh as the tub filled up for a moment before going to the sink. He had seen Danny use a few of these when he treated himself to a hot bath to destress, and Phantom remembered how nice it smelled, so he grabbed one of the lavender bath bombs and dropped it in the half-filled tub.

The merman sat in interest for a minute as he watched the bath bomb disintegrate, flower peddles releasing to float around as the water turned a light shade of purple. It was pretty and looked inviting, so Phantom undressed. He usually had about 5 seconds after the first drop of water touches him before his legs go away, so he had no trouble getting into the tub before he changed.

The cold water soothes him. The heat exhaustion that he went through seemed to slowly ebb away as he relaxed into the chill of the tub. He could already feel himself getting better. This is definitely what he needed.

He could hear Danny shuffling in the bedroom, mopping up the floor and changing the sheets, but Phantom wanted to lose himself in the water, so he sank down and under the surface.

He took a deep breath, the gills on his neck filtering out the water from the oxygen as the lavender worked to soothe his nerves. His tail flapped around dryly over the edge of the tub due to the lack of space for his entire body, it was uncomfortable, but what could he really do about it? His body was much too large to curl up in the tub comfortably.

He kind of just had to deal with it.

...

Danny struggled with the effort of carrying the basket full of laundry out of the room and down the stairs, curse his petite size.

He especially struggled when he turned the corner and bumped right into his father, fully dropping the basket on the ground, the bloodstains visible to all who looked.

When Danny saw his father's face go pale at the sight of the stain, Danny quickly shuffled to cover them up, clutching the bedsheets to his chest protectively. "Sorry, I was on my way to clean them."

Jack swallowed, "no point, it's a b-blood stain, it's not going to come out. Just get rid of them."

Danny looked everywhere but at his father, "yeah, sure, okay, Dad. I will." That's when he noticed the bottle of wine in his father's hand, and his eyebrows rose in concern when he realized his father was just downstairs in the wine cellar.

Jack cleared his throat, unable to look at Danny anymore, "we will talk about what happened tomorrow."

A wave of shame wrecked Danny, and he wished he knew why he had done what he did, and why he couldn't stop himself. He had so many options, so many people who would have helped talk him out of it, even would have distracted Danny long enough to get the thought out of his head without him having to tell them what was going on. He once again searched himself, putting everything he learned in psychology and from his sister to use, and he knew that he was not depressed enough to desire suicide.

So how did he give up so easily? It wasn't like him.

His father walked away, and Danny did a u-turn towards the front door to dispose of the sheets.