Summary: Life itself is hard as is, but it gets even worse when you're battling the constant feeling of drowning. Luckily, Katsuki is always there to pull you from the water.
Warnings: hurt/comfort, self harm, depression and anxiety
1k words
self-harm
/sɛlfˈhɑːm/
noun
1. deliberate injury to oneself, typically as a manifestation of a psychological or psychiatric disorder.
Mental illness often manifests itself in different ways, depending on the person it inhabits. For her it was like drowning. In her everyday life, it felt like she was floating in the ocean, letting the waves roll over her, occasionally, one would push her down a bit deeper than normal but she would always pop back up. That was, until a storm would hit. It would send her falling into the water, and the water itself would latch onto her, sinking its teeth into her flesh and dragging her down. She would watch as the sun's light faded from view, she would thrash around trying to get free, but eventually she would sink.
As she saw it, she had two options when she began to drown, let herself continue to fall, or find a way to snap herself back to reality. This was something she had come accustomed to dealing with on her own. When people would ask her how she was doing, there was no hesitation in her response. She had her emotions in check. She didn't worry, she didn't feel sad, she didn't even really care. Her favorite phase to tell people was "I'm just going with the flow!"
When in fact, she was not "going with the flow" she was drowning in an ocean of thoughts. Her senses were overloaded with the voice in the back of her mind, reminding her of all the bad in the world, reminding her of all the sadness. That voice seemed to know her better than she knew herself, purely because that little voice, knew exactly what her biggest fears were. It knew exactly how to keep her up at night. It knew exactly how to make her hate living. Lucky for her, there was one person among the rubble of her mind that knew exactly what to do to silence that pest of a voice.
He was like a knight in shining armour, riding in on a white horse. Raising his sword, he would slash right into that little voice and watch it disintegrate into thin air. Regardless of how many times he would vanquish it, that little voice would always find a way to rise from the ash, but he never thought there would be a day where he could no longer save his princess. Unfortunately, the day came where he was faced with that exact issue.
Katsuki found himself banging on the bathroom door, his screaming only added to that static she heard in the background. She was too focused on the little voice plaguing her mind, telling her the only way out was to disappear. There was no point in living a life full of anxiety and sorrow, it was easier to simply end it all. In an attempt to free herself from the voice that plagued her mind, she decided that pain was her outlet. If she was focusing on physical pain, she could escape her personal prison.
Her hysterical screams were enough to get Katsuki to bust through the door, breaking the handle in his haste. The blood drops on the counter trailed to the sink where her arm was being covered in rushing water as her sobs filled the room. It took one swift movement to scoop her away from the sink and onto the floor where she held onto his shirt.
He held her close to his chest as a mix of her tears and blood soaked his shirt. Rubbing his hand in a circular motion between her shoulder blades. His attention was on the lines that indented their way into her skin, and the blood that oozed from them. He was thankful to have gotten in before anything else had happened, but he was still laced for worry.
"Damnit, you're supposed to tell me."
It took her a moment to respond, as she tried to both calm her shaking body and decide on her words, "I'm an impossible case Katsuki, I'm going to drown one day and if you keep saving me, one day you'll get dragged down with me." To anyone else it would have been surprising that Katsuki was even able to understand what she was saying between her sniffles and hiccups, but he had spent years learning to handle her during an episode.
His eyes softened as he gently pushed her off of him so he could look her in the eyes, making sure to wipe a few tears off her cheek with his thumb. "When will you get this through your thick head? I wouldn't let you drown. I'll always be here to pull you up from the water. To deal with any waves that come your way."
"Why would you bother yourself with me? I'm not worth your time or your love. There's so many other ways you could be spending your life, so many other people you could be spending your life with."
"Quit spouting nonesense. There's not a single other person that can compare to you. I'll work through every bad day with you if it means I get to spend every good day with you. Besides, if I'm going to drown, there's not another person on the planet I'd rather drown with then you dumbass."
As she laid in his arms on the bathroom floor, she realized that it was never pain she needed to feel, it was the need to feel loved. The need to feel like she wasn't alone. The need to have someone present with her, willing to help her work through her problems. It was there, on that bathroom floor, that she realized the voice was only so powerful. She realized that even if she did get pulled under the waves, he would come save her. As long as he was there, she would never drown.
A/N: This was very dear to my heart, thank you for reading.
-xoxo brunette
