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It was quiet, pleasantly so. Which was extremely rare for the Moby Dick, but it was also the middle of the night. You were probably the only one awake, well, maybe not. That didn’t matter though. What mattered was that you were awake, and there was something you wanted, nay, felt you needed, to do. There was a problem though, said problem was asleep, but he was still a problem. If he woke up, if he saw, if he caught you, you’d never hear the end of it.
Worrying Ace was the last thing you wanted to do, he had plenty of his own issues to deal with. He was also busy, and you’d hate to get in the way. You, as quietly as you could, slipped out of bed. Ace didn’t even seem to register it, he didn’t even move. He was gone, out like a light. You just hoped he’d stay that way long enough for you to do what you wanted, needed. You continued your quiet adventure and silently opened a drawer enough to pull some things out, a small blade, and a couple of bandages. You could take care of yourself just fine, after-all.
You made your way to the bathroom and shut the door, it was surprisingly quiet. You propped up one of your legs on top of the toilet lid and pulled up your pant leg. Sure, this wasn’t the most graceful way to go about it, but did it even matter? Who even cared? You took the small blade in hand and swiped it across your thigh a couple of times, and once on your lower leg, just for good measure. You watched as blood seeped and rushed down from the cuts, you smiled a little. This felt right, it felt deserved. The blood continued its trickling down your leg, and you sighed. You supposed you should clean up, and you did so, mindlessly. It was basically muscle memory at this point, clean up the cuts, put on bandages, and bury the trash deep enough in the trashcan so Ace would be none the wiser.
It would be best if it stayed that way, forever. You’d managed to hide scars and fresh cuts from him for this long, you just had to keep it up until he either decided he was done with you or you died. It was fine. You pulled your pant leg back down and smiled again, it was completely unnoticeable, as always. You opened the bathroom door and to your surprise, he was awake. Groggy, but awake.
“You okay…? You were ‘n there a while,” Ace asked, he sounded half-asleep and you couldn’t help but laugh. Though you would’ve preferred he didn’t notice your absence, you hoped he wasn’t suspicious.
“Ah, yeah, I’m fine. Don’t worry about it, Ace. Go back to sleep, I’ll join you,” you gave him the most believable smile you could muster and he simply gave you a tired nod. You did have to put the blade away first, you attempted to do that as inconspicuously as possible.
“What’re you doin’…” he mumbled, you were impressed he was still awake.
“I just need to put something up, okay? I’m coming,” you opened the drawer and put it back where you always kept it. Ace asked no more questions, due to the fact that by the time you turned around again, he was asleep once more. You let out a sigh of relief and laid down next to him, it went smoothly. He was once again, clueless.
By the time you woke up, Ace was already gone. You had no idea what time it was, and you wished he would’ve woken you, but it was fine. He had stuff to do early, you didn’t. You got out of bed and got ready, then you went to look for him.
You eventually found him on the deck, chatting with people whose faces you knew but whose names you didn’t. This was fairly typical for you, terrible memory and a giant crew didn’t mix well. You always felt a little guilty, but Ace would happily remind you of names if you asked. You thought about saying something to him, but he interrupted your thoughts instead.
“Hey, sleepyhead,” he teased, “It’s almost lunchtime, you’re finally up,” he made his way over to you as he spoke.
You huffed, “You’re the last person who should be calling anyone that name,” and he laughed at this. It was light, but something about him seemed a little off. You stared at him and he raised an eyebrow.
“You like me so much you can’t stop looking, huh…” his teasing continued, but something didn’t feel right with him. You couldn’t place it, but there was something. “Seriously, why are you staring so hard? Everything good?” he placed a hand on your head ruffled your hair. Usually you’d swat at him when he did this, but you didn’t this time. Something just didn’t feel right. “Not gonna-“
You cut him off, “are you okay?” you asked, your voice was a mix of concern and suspicion. He looked a bit baffled at first, but then his expression softened. He looked a bit upset, like he was trying to hide it but he was cracking a bit.
He sighed. “Can’t hide anything from you, can I? I wanna talk to you, let’s go somewhere private, kay?” Hearing that made your heart race, fifteen-hundred different possibilities of what he wanted to talk about raced through your mind. All of them terrible. Maybe him getting tired of you was sooner than you thought. You swallowed hard, and simply nodded in response.
He grabbed your hand and began leading you to your shared quarters. If he noticed your very obvious anxiety that was approaching panic attack territory, he didn’t comment on it. He just silently walked with you, hand-in-hand. He even held the door to your room open for you. He shut the door behind the both of you and before he could say or explain anything, words started pouring out of your mouth.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know what I did, but I’m sorry. I’ll fix it, whatever it is, Ace. I’m sorry,” you kept repeating messy apologies and his face was a mix of confusion and concern.
“Woah, hey, I’m not upset with you. You didn’t do anything,” he attempted to reassure you, but all you did in response was just look at him. He put his hands on your shoulders and gave them a gentle squeeze, it was some sort of attempt at trying to calm you, ground you, and it did work a little. “You’re all good, okay? Was it what I said?” you nodded and he looked apologetic, “Sorry, I should’ve worded it better. But I do wanna talk to you about something, just not whatever bad things you’re assuming, okay?” You nodded again, still anxious, but a bit more reassured. He smiled and led you to sit down on the edge of the bed.
Once you were seated, he started talking again. “You remember last night?” this was way too vague of a question for you, and he caught on and quickly elaborated. “The middle of the night, you were up doin’ somethin’. You out somethin’ away,” you vaguely remembered, not totally. You had an idea as to what he could be talking about, you saw the bandages this morning, you knew what happened, you just didn’t really remember. You were also surprised he remembered.
“Um…I vaguely remember…I’m surprised you remember something like that when you were barely awake,” you let out a pathetic excuse of a laugh to try and calm the rising panic within you.
“I thought it was weird, so I remembered it,” he said, you hadn’t ever thought Ace would care enough about you to remember something like that. You felt guilty.
“…what about it?” You questioned him, still trying to seem normal, you figured you were probably failing.
He looked apologetic.” I was going to ask first, but I figured you probably wouldn’t tell me anything,” he was right about that, at least. “I couldn’t get over it, it was buggin’ me. Something just…wasn’t sitting right with me, and I got a bit nosey.” He had a bizarre expression on his face, a mix of things you couldn’t totally place. “I wasn’t gonna say anything if it turned out to be something normal, but” he dug around in his pocket and pulled out the blade, “What’s this for?”
Your body felt like it was shutting down. Your brain wasn’t responding at all, you had no idea what expression was plastered onto your face, and you couldn’t process what expression Ace was making. All you could think was that he knew. He found it. He knew. What was he going to say? What was he going to do? Yell at you? Leave you? Realize how worthless and pathetic you are? Maybe he’d think you were manipulating him by hurting yourself? You didn’t want that. That was, to you, the worst possible outcome. At the thought of that, you opened your mouth to speak but nothing came out. Nothing was working. Nothing was doing what you wanted. At this point, Ace had set your (currently detested) object of affliction down and he was trying to calm you down. Nothing was reaching your ears though.
All you could do, all your pathetic body would let you do, was cry. All your stupid mouth would do, was apologize. “I’m sorry,” fell from your lips repeatedly. “Please don’t hate me,” came out of your mouth between broken sobs.
Ace was distraught, he never expected you to react this poorly. He felt guilty, he was just worried about you. When he dug through your drawer and found the blade, his heart sank. He easily guessed what it was for, it was too random of a thing to have. He wanted to hear it from you though, for the chance he was wrong. Though your poor reaction and currently sobbing form in his arms was enough of an answer. Nothing he said seemed to be reaching you, you properly didn’t even realize he was holding you. All he could do was keep talking though, keep trying to get you to respond to him.
“Hey, you’re okay, okay?” He gave you a light squeeze as he spoke, “I’m not gonna hate you, I’m just worried about you,” he gently stroked your back. “I’m sorry, babe.” That one seemed to get to you.
You looked up at him, your face was a mess, his heart hurt looking at your tear-stained expression. “Please don’t apologize, Ace,” your voice was so quiet, “It’s my fault, I’m sorry,” he frowned at this, but at least you were talking to him.
“Can you tell me why…? Why you would…do that?” He wouldn’t say what “that” was but you knew. You both knew. You gave him a small nod and let out a shaky breath. “Hey, take your time,” he smiled at you a little. You couldn’t return it.
You breathed in, and started the conversation you dreaded ever having with him. “It’s usually like…punishment…” you paused and he cocked his head in confusion.
“Punishment? For what?” Ace sounded puzzled, and you bit your lip as you contemplated how to explain.
“Um…for…being bad…for…being alive….” you trailed off, not looking at him. You didn’t want to know what kind of face he was making.
When you said that though, he did empathize with you. He could, at the very least, get where your head was at there. The feeling of your existence being wrong, being a sin, was something he could understand. The fact that you felt the same about yourself hurt. You hadn’t ever said anything about feeling like that. Sure, he also wasn’t as was the best about talking to you about his feelings, but he did when he could. He couldn’t even think of the last time you had shared anything like this with him. Part of him wanted to blame himself for your lack of sharing, but he could also at least ask why. “Why didn’t you ever talk to me about anything?” he sounded sad, you hated it.
“I…You’re busy! You have your own issues to deal with…! I didn’t want to add on my own! I’m fine! You don’t need to worry about me!” Your attempts at reassuring him were poor and they did little but upset him further.
“If you were ‘fine’ you probably wouldn’t be hurting yourself in secret,” you looked away from him at this. He cupped your face in his hands, “I just wish you’d have talked to me. I’m not mad at you, I just wish you’d trust me more,” he haphazardly wiped stray tears from your face as he said this.
“I…I do trust you!” you protested, moving his hands away from your face to hold them in your own. “I just didn’t want to make things worse for you! I didn’t want you to have to deal with my own instability when I can handle it myself!”
“And you handle it yourself by hurting yourself when I’m not looking?” What he said had a teasing lilt to it, but his expression said otherwise. You went silent at this, and he sighed. The sound of that made you feel guilty.
“I’m sorry, Ace…I just…I didn’t want to burden you,” your voice sounded small, you felt pathetic. “I…I really didn’t think it mattered anyways…like…it’s not a big deal…” you trailed off as you realized you said something he probably wouldn’t like.
“Why wouldn’t it matter?” He questioned, you felt awful for saying anything at all. You felt awful that he found out. You felt awful that you were having this conversation. Every bit of honesty was just going to make him upset, lying couldn’t save you anymore either. This was all pointless.
“Why would it?” you retorted, if everything was just going to feel awful, what did it matter what you said. “Why would it matter? I hurt myself, so what? Who cares? It’s just me, so there’s no problem. So what is there to care about?” you probably sounded a lot meaner than you meant to. You knew you did, actually. Ace’s expression contorted at your words, you surely sounded terrible.
“Of course it matters! Of course I care!” he was half-yelling at you now, in a desperate attempt to get you to understand him. “You’re important to me! I don’t want you getting hurt, and I don’t want you keeping things like that from me!” The guilt felt like it was burning the back of your throat. You wanted to cry again, you wanted him to go away, anything to stop this conversation.
“You’re just going to get tired of me anyways, so it’s not like any of that is permanent,” you spoke without thinking. Your real fears slipped past without you meaning for them to, likely in some attempt to get this to end. To make him storm off and leave. But he didn’t move, he just looked sad. He stared at you with a pitiful expression on his face.
“You think I’m gonna leave you?” he looked at you, that expression was making you feel godawful. You nodded in response. “Have you thought that…like this whole time? The whole time we’ve been together?” You nodded again as you tried to avoid his gaze. You didn’t mean to say any of that, truly you didn’t. Though, you also knew he felt the same way towards you, at least at one point. He still did sometimes, but he also talked to you about it. Something you didn’t do. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he, gently, grabbed your shoulders and forced you to turn towards him.
“Same as before. I didn’t want to be a bother. I…” you let out a shaky sigh, “I’m sorry. I really just didn’t want to be a burden. I didn’t…want to cause problems for you. And I didn’t want you to realize how stupid and pathetic I am. But you know now, you know how pointless it all is now. I’m sorry, you’re-“ he cut you off.
“I’m not gonna leave you, first. I wasn’t before and I’m not gonna now either,” he spoke as if this was the most obvious thing in the world. You wanted to protest, to say something about how he probably felt forced to stay by your behavior, but he didn’t let you talk. “Second, I couldn’t ever be bothered by you. I l…love you too much…to be bothered by your feelings ‘n stuff,” even now, he was still flustered saying that he loved you. If you weren’t in emotional distress, you’d probably find it endearing. “Third,” he held up three fingers for you to see, had he been doing that the whole time and you didn’t notice? Another thing you’d find extremely endearing if you didn’t feel like ripping your insides out. “I wanna help you. You didn’t talk to me before, but you have now. I can be here for you now, yeah? You take care of me, so let me do the same for you?” He gave you a small smile and before you knew it, you were crying again.
You hadn’t expected him to be so kind about it. You had just been expecting the worst, this whole time. Amidst your tears, you mumbled some variation of agreement to what he had said, and he pulled you into a tight embrace. The two of you stayed that way, with Ace making random attempts at soothing you the whole time. Once you had stopped crying again, Ace started speaking.
“The uh…” he held out the blade again, “This. Can I throw it away?” You really really didn’t want him to. You were also aware it was for the best that he did. So, begrudgingly, you nodded. Ace smiled at this and set it down again for now. He’d throw it away somewhere else, somewhere you didn’t have easy access to the trash. “Can I ask somethin’ else?” he looked a but sheepish, and you had zero ideas as to why.
“Yeah…? What is it?” you raised a brow at him.
“Your um, your cuts ‘n scars ‘n stuff…can I see ‘em sometime?” Unless you were mistaken, he looked a bit red. He seemed extremely embarrassed to be asking this. You laughed a little at his flushed features and he shot you an incredulous look.
“Yeah, you can. You probably would’ve at some point anyways,” reasonably you always knew that you could not wear jeans and pants forever, especially being with the embodiment of fire. Though you found it a bit amusing that he had still never seen any of your legs. “They’re on my legs,” you spoke.
“I…I figured. Cause they’re not anywhere I can see…” despite this, he still looked embarrassed.
You weren’t totally sure what part of this was embarrassing him, it might’ve just been that he asked to begin with, but you were amused nonetheless. “I’ll show you sometime, okay?” you told him, and he gave a shy nod. You laughed a little at this. He rolled his eyes at your amusement, but he was also glad you were calm enough to laugh now.
“You’re gettin’ a kick out of this, huh?” He teased.
“Yeah, a little. I don’t even know why you seem so flustered. It’s funny,” you smiled at him.
“I’m glad you’re smiling, even if it’s cause you’re makin’ fun of me. I learned that I really hate it when you cry,” Ace placed a hand on your head and gave you a gentle pat. You leaned into his touch, but you also felt a bit guilty still. You wanted to apologize again.
“Um…” he looked at you as you spoke, you felt bad changing the subject, “I’m sorry for how I acted today. I’m sorry I made you worry about me, and I’m sorry for not telling you, and I’m s-“ he shushed you, he had a feeling you would just keep going if he didn’t.
“It’s okay. You don’t gotta apologize, I’m not upset with you,” he pulled you close to him again, “It’s all okay. I’ll do my best to be here for you, and you’ll keep bein’ here for me, yeah?” You nodded in response to this and he mumbled out a “good” as he held you impossibly closer. The two of you stayed that way, even though it did get extremely warm being that close to Ace, it was still comforting.
While you felt bad for never telling him anything, maybe you were a little glad he found out. Maybe you were a little glad he cared so much about you. You wouldn’t tell him that, not now at least. It was hard enough to admit to yourself, let alone to him. He could know about that stuff later. For now, you simply basked in the comfort he brought.