ERROR // CALM AU

Psycho

Warning: self-inflicted violence and smut.

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To be numb was the most excruciating pain imaginable. It was worse than being burned with fire, or sliced with a knife, or ripped to pieces by a pack of vicious dogs. Michael Clifford would rather feel completely out of control than to not feel anything at all.

The doctors, the therapists, the pills, pills, pills– they had told him that it would help, but it was nothing more than prolonged torture. None of it was working anyway, all it was doing was making him depressed, so why insist on doing it? Why not just let the boy be the maniac that everyone knew he was meant to be?

Life used to be exciting. It used to be interesting. Michael had hobbies, aspirations; he had electricity. But now, because of the medication, everything was just fuzzy, like television static. Grey, boring television static. He was sick of it. Why did everything in this goddamn world have to be so bland? 

Michael knew why. It was because of them. The doctors, the therapists, the pills, pills, pills. They were taking his neon, electric world and turning it into a muddled mess of grey slop. They gave him a daily routine, like a prisoner. He wasn't living in an inpatient care facility. He was living in a prison. 

It was all a trap. He was special, he was different, and they knew that. They were afraid of him. That's why they kept him sedated. He was onto them, though. That's why he stopped taking the pills.

Ever since the day he decided to defy their wishes, he felt so much more free. He had energy again; he could think on his own. His sex drive was back and more powerful than ever. Michael had earned himself a bit of a reputation around the building as the local slut, trading blowjobs for razor blades and information. He'd learned when the nurses (A.K.A. prison guards) started and ended their hallway patrol shifts, and which nurses did their rounds on which nights. 

He had also accumulated quite a pretty little collection of sharp objects, which he kept in a slit that he'd cut in the underside of his mattress. It was one of the few places that the nurses never checked. They weren't smart like Michael. They couldn't figure things out like he could.

It was eleven o'clock– an hour after lights out– and he decided that it would be safe to play with his toys for a little while before bed. This was his own nightly routine, not the one that they tried to force on him. He wasn't going to let them control his life.

Sliding the mattress a few inches over the side of the bed, Michael reached his hand down and pulled out his favourite toy: a pretty black switchblade. He wasn't a cutter– not in the way most of his fellow residents were. He didn't hurt himself because he was depressed. He wasn't depressed. In fact, he considered himself to be the sanest person in the world. He just had a fetish. A bloodlust.

The blade punctured his soft, pale forearm, forming a dripping red trail. Michael giggled to himself quietly, careful not to wake anyone up by making too much noise. If anyone were to come in or alert the nurses, they'd take away his toys. That would make him very, very sad, and he had a tendency to get a bit volatile when he was sad.

Michael brought his arm up to his face, staring gleefully at his fresh wound. It was so pretty, glistening under the moonlight that shone through his open window. He couldn't help but to swipe his tongue across the vertical slice, lapping up the blood. Delicious.

He felt something stir inside him as he licked and sucked at the cut, humming softly at the flavour. It was an exhilarating feeling, the metallic tang in his mouth sending butterflies to his stomach. He set the knife back in its place before pulling off his jeans and t-shirt, leaving him in nothing but his boxers, which were growing tighter by the minute as he stared down at his body, reminiscing about the times when he gave himself all those cuts that were now light, thin scars littering his torso and arms. So many darkly erotic memories. 

"Shit," he whispered, wrapping a hand around his hard dick and pumping quickly, massaging the head with his thumb. His mind wandered to thoughts of himself being tied up and flayed, like Theon Greyjoy. God, how he wished he had a Ramsay Bolton in his life. Someone to dominate him, to make him bleed, to make him feel pain.

Though he was desperate to, Michael couldn't cum. The institute's staff would go through his garbage in the mornings, looking for razor blades and blood-soaked tissues, and if they were to find a tissue full of jizz, he'd be punished. It was okay, though. He liked to edge himself.

Pain was something that he treasured. For him, the line between pain and pleasure was non-existent; the feelings went hand in hand. He couldn't have one without the other. He didn't care if people thought he was crazy. He liked it that way. What he didn't like was being locked up for it. He didn't like being forced onto a regimen of doctors, therapists, and pills, pills, pills. He wanted his freedom.

Michael was happy when he was unhinged.