Atramentous: A Solangelo AU

It'd Better Be Black

This fic is extremely angsty, but I will warn you every time there is going to be any mention of self-harm or anything like that by putting a line above and below the part that talks about it, telling you that there will be mention of it at the start of the chapter, and telling you briefly what happened at the end. No one will ever self-harm (in the present) in this fic, but there will be mentions of it, talking about other people doing it (later on-- I mention it briefly in this first chapter, though). I won't be talking about that stuff very often (like, only twice through the whole thing), but I don't want to trigger anyone, so just know that there are violent scenes, as Nico gets bullied physically. If anything like that will trigger you or make you uncomfortable, please don't read. Your well-being is so important to me. Thank you. (:

Also, please tell me if I make any errors so that I can fix them. (:

~Ashley (thanks for reading that, if you did)

I was walking home from the Hellish place that some know-it-all adult had so wrongfully deemed "a safe, happy environment for students to learn and grow," when in reality it was a mind-numbing prison whose inmates would stop at nothing to bring others down as long as it glorified their own appearance.

My limbs were aching and the metallic taste of blood rested on my tongue from my split lip. I winced, my knees, forearms, and the palms of my hands were stinging from colliding with the rough pavement and had angry, red road rash extending over them. I was certain I had more than a few bruises on my back and ribs, old and new, and the knee of my already battered black skinny jeans was tragically ripped open; the skin underneath was bleeding slightly.

I sighed, grateful that I had at least managed to cover my face, black eyes were a little hard to explain to my mom, the rest I could easily hide from view or devise a story for. Then again, I'd rather not be beaten up at all, but you take what you can get, right?

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The gravel crunched under my feet as I walked in the middle of the street, practically begging for a car to roll up behind me and put me out of my misery. I'd never do that to myself, suicide was thought of as an escape for many people, and while the idea of ceasing to exist wasn't exactly unpleasant, for me that would be giving into the stronzi who picked on me every day, and I wasn't about to do that. I would push through it, I wouldn't give them the satisfaction of knowing they got to me, I wouldn't go for help and make them believe I couldn't deal with them by myself. Because I could.

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I forced myself to dwell on the positive, not to think too much. Thinking is the worst thing someone like me can do because as soon as I recede into the dark pit I call my brain I get lost in a swirling maelstrom of torment and it only ever ends in tears and pain. So I drown out my thoughts with music and words written on paper and over my arms, the walls of my room, and sometimes just reading them from the pages of a book.

I shook my head, I was sinking again. I couldn't get too close to the edge, or I'd fall in. My brain wasn't a pleasant place to be lost in.

I turned the corner to my street--if you can call it that-- which consisted of two houses, one bright blue (which was mine) and one across the street that was a very dingy, peeling brown color, after that the street ended abruptly, replaced with an army of large trees. Hiding a ways into the forest was a small lake that no one else seemed to know about, if I wasn't at school or locked in my room, I was there.