Mirror

Two hours ago, he wouldn't have thought of this. He wouldn't even have considered it. It didn't exactly disgust him... it was just something he'd never thought to try.

It hit him when he'd run to the bathroom after cutting his tongue on a can of Jack Daniels. It was like losing a tooth, the amount of blood that came out – at first he was scared he'd cut it right open. But, upon his inspection, he found it really wasn't that bad and he was being a fucking wuss. As he turned his attention from his tongue to the rest of his reflection, he noticed a few small droplets of red trickling down his chin.

And he liked it.

Had the blood been on anyone else, he probably would have scrunched up his nose and told them to go rinse their mouth out and chew on a tissue.

But something... something about it being on his own face, dripping from his own lips... that was what made it what it was. He hadn't seen himself like this in forever, and the combination of the mirror and the coppery taste in his mouth just overtook him.

It was more than nice. More than hot. It was fucking sexy.

He cracked open one of the unused shaving razors in the top bathroom drawer, using his nails and teeth to rip off the plastic that held the little blades together.

He'd never done this before, but he'd read about it. Heard about it. Even seen people doing it. Not for the reason he was, but all the same.

He jumped a little when his fingertip accidentally slipped across a blade as he pulled it out of the plastic casing, red liquid immediately surfacing. Pain... pain he liked, but only when he expected it.

“Breathe, Cat...” he muttered to himself, his stomach buzzing with foreign nerves. He didn't want to turn into a cutter. Maybe he was even scared that he'd like it so much he'd go and beg Whip to take a kitchen knife to his ribs. He'd heard the stories, and he didn't want to become one of them.

But he wasn't doing it for attention or because he was actually depressed. It was the blood. The look, the taste, the mark it left behind on his flesh. He liked the way he looked all bloodied. He'd never done it on purpose before – never – but this time he just couldn't resist.

He pulled his shirt off over his head, discarding the thin black material somewhere on the bathroom floor.

He put the metal to his skin, on the back of his wrist at first. Three perfect, fine lines of red started forming, a stark contrast to the pale of his skin. He brought his arm to his lips, sucking the fluid from them as if it were the first thing he'd drank in years.

Collarbones. He'd always liked his collarbones. They were as pretty as the rest of him, but he just... he liked them especially. He was pretty, and he knew it, but he just liked collarbones.

The surface of them were dotted in little lines of red by the time he properly withdrew his new best friend. He smudged the blood around with his fingertips, wincing a little at the pain at first. He licked it off the long, thin digits, letting out a small sigh at the taste again.

It was just so... nice.

He had no other word to describe the feeling as he started on his ribs, his shoulders, his forearms, his hipbones. It was just one of those feelings, those sights, those tastes, that leaves one at a total loss for intelligent words.

It wasn't anyone else's blood, and maybe that's what did it. To see himself, not anyone else, bleeding out like that was like a lustful murderer bent over his next victim.

The feeling of being covered in the warm blood, the metallic taste that hits the tongue as red stains the lips.

It was fucking beautiful, that's what it was.