Ineffable Omens (Crowley x Aziraphale)

17 Years Fucked Up

Trigger warning: I don't know what to call this a trigger warning for. Self-harm? Anyway, this was all written through experience and I got a little carried away and probably didn't have to go in that much detail. Anyway, I'm sorry this is so sad!

Aziraphale did the only thing he could think of and hopped on a bus. It was a long shot at best, but it was a shot he had to take. He couldn't reverse what the almighty had done, but maybe someone else could. Someone who had found a way to fix broken things before and bring back what had once been lost. 

He found himself in the cold standing outside a small house in Tadfield which he knew to be the residence of one Adam Young. He cast a small miracle to make the Youngs believe him to be a perfectly acceptable gentleman to accept into their home, and he knocked on the door.

"Aha, erm, excuse me, but who are you," asked Mr. Young upon opening the door.

"I am a, er, tutor, of Adam's. From school. He had a couple of questions I wanted to help him go over."

"Oh," said Mr. Young, a glazed expression passing over his face as Aziraphale's miracle kicked in. "Yes, I suppose that does make sense. He's upstairs in his room."

Aziraphale made his way upstairs.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Adam had stumbled into his room and let his backpack fall off his shoulder and hit the ground with a heavy thud. He closed the door and collapsed, his back against the closed door, and he buried his head in his knees. He wasn't ready to cry yet, he just sat there, shaking. Everything moved too fast. His thoughts had just become one massive trainwreck and he couldn't stop any of it. He wanted to scream or cry or break something, but that would alert his parents something was wrong, and he couldn't have that. He had to keep pretending to be the perfect child. 

It was what he had always done. It started when he was fifteen, both depression and anxiety. What a wonderful roll of the genetic dice. A perfectly normal, easy life, and Adam ended up with a genetic predisposition for anxiety disorders and depression. He ended up with both, despite everything in his life telling him he should be fine. 

He should be fine, so why wasn't he? Why did it constantly feel like the world was crashing down around him? Why couldn't he slow down his thoughts? Why couldn't he feel okay? For someone who could will anything to happen, why couldn't he will himself to be happy? Why was there this wall in his head crashing down on him and preventing him from being happy?

Tears welled up in his eyes, and he let them pour out. He had learned a long time ago that no one could hear him crying in his room, and if they did, they didn't care. He didn't tell his parents any of it. They couldn't know how broken he was ... how fucked up he was. 

He rocked back and forth, sobbing as he tried to grasp on to some steadying thought—anything, to stabilize him. After a few minutes, he managed to grab his phone and earbuds and open Spotify, immediately playing the playlist he had curated for these situations. Listening to happy music felt fake and hurt even more, so while it was probably detrimental to be listening to sad and depressing songs, it was all he could do. As Linkin Park's "Heavy" blasted through his earbuds, he lost himself, spiraling further and further into his own pit of whatever the fuck was wrong with his mind.

He was seventeen, a senior in high school, and he wasn't sure he was going to make it to his graduation. After about half an hour, he managed to stop his crying and take a few deep, steadying breaths. The more he thought about it, the more he wanted to cry again, but he just pulled himself away from the door and to the other side of the room, making the chance of anyone hearing him that much smaller. Night had come, and his room was almost pitch black, illuminated only by the dim light of the moon shining through his window. He curled up between his bed and his bookcase, grabbing the pair of scissors from his desk.

He was shaking as he grasped for any sort of clarity. He needed to be in control. He needed to scream, but he couldn't let anyone hear. It was like a silent scream, pulling back the sleeves of his hoodie and holding the blade over his arm, shaking. The crosshatched cuts already there brought tears to his eyes—he couldn't keep doing this to himself—but it was the only thing he knew how to do, even for a moment of relief. 

He wasn't doing any real damage to himself. They weren't deep, barely drawing enough blood to be considered anything real. Just enough to leave a mark and searing pain. Just enough to distract him. The scissors were dull, but he had found it worked well if he pressed hard and slit fast, leaving a thin trail of red to slowly ooze from the small cut in his skin. He told himself it wasn't a big deal. They would all heal and none would leave scars, but the crosshatched red patterns across his arms and thighs told a different story.

One cut wasn't enough, and he slid the scissors across his skin again, the tears streaming down his face. He resisted the urge to let out an animal sob, too scared someone would hear him, and he threw his hand in his mouth, holding back a sob as he bit down on the skin on the back of his hand, a little too hard. He needed the pain though. He didn't care about the bite marks left on the back of his hand. He needed ... something. 

Why was he so fucked up? He shouldn't be doing this. There was no reason for him to feel so broken. So why was he such a fuckup? Why did he break everything he touched? Why was everything fucking falling apart him around him? And why was it all in his head? Why did no one know he was struggling? No one know how hard it was just for him to get out of bed in the morning? Him showing up at school was a miracle each day and took so much energy just to get to that point, but his anxiety wouldn't let him explain to teachers that he couldn't get the assignment in on time, so he rushed it quickly on the way to class. His grades dropped. His parents didn't notice. Teachers asked if he was okay, but when he lied and said he was fine, they forgot about it completely. Pepper, Wensleydale, and Brian had no clue. He knew it was foolish for him to expect them to know, but for some reason, he thought they would. They should've been able to tell he wasn't okay, right?

Adam took a deep breath and made another small cut before setting the scissors down, promising himself he wouldn't do it again tonight. A flimsy promise, but it was something. His thoughts started to flood back in and the tears threatened to come again, so he turned his music up to unsafe volumes to drown everything out. 

He nearly jumped out of his skin when he heard a knock at the door. His parents couldn't see him like this. He kicked his scissors under his bed and pulled his sleeves back down, wiping the tears away to the best of his ability. He was hoping he'd have enough time to jump under the covers and pretend to be asleep, but the door opened, revealing a strange man he had never seen before.

"Oh, my dear boy," the stranger said. "My dear, dear, boy."

Just a reminder to anyone out there struggling for whom this chapter might've hit a little too close to home: IT GETS BETTER. Talk to me, if you want to. I understand. Anyway, just a little reminder to everyone, that it doesn't matter how small the cut, if it's just scratching, biting, hair pulling, ANYTHING, if it's done with the intention of hurting yourself, IT IS SELF-HARM. Don't tell yourself it's not. Don't tell anyone else it's not. GET HELP. Stay strong. I love you. 

Also I promise a happy ending for everyone.