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You really should get off the bathroom floor and turn off the sink.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
The faucet had been dripping when you came in, likely from Bonnie not turning it off all the way when they’d last used it. They were a tad too small to reach quite that far.
Drip… Drip.
All it would take is for you to get to your feet, and reach your hand out to turn the handle. Absolutely shouldn’t be a problem for you.
Drip. Drip... Drip.
And yet, no matter how hard you mentally scream at yourself to get up, turn the faucet off, do literally anything else besides sit on the soft bathmat, you stay frozen in place, tremors rocking through you sporadically as you stare at the wall.
Your heartbeat rabbits in your chest, your mind races as the same thought chants in your mind over and over: is any of this even real?
Drip. Drip.
It was a thought that had plagued you during your time in the House, sometime after the thirtieth loop you think.
If nobody remembers anything from the previous loops, did your actions even matter? What if you’re still trapped and are going to be pulled back to that dreaded field any moment now? How can you know that everything that had happened on that last day in the House wasn’t for nothing?
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Even a month later, the thought of that being a possibility squeezes something in your already tight chest. You don’t think you’d survive if you had to go back.
Drip.
You manage to move just enough to fix your gaze on the dagger clutched in your hand. Your knuckles are pale from how tightly you’re holding onto the handle.
Whenever this crushing feeling came over you in the House, whenever your mind wouldn’t shut up, you would always go and find that shard of glass in the second floor’s storage room.
It used to only take a small slice on your finger to calm you down, the sharp pain lighting up your nerves in a way that always managed to ground you.
Drip. Drip... Drip.
The fading marks all over your arms remind you of how that habit had escalated by the time you made that final journey through the House.
And sometimes all you can think about is how much you want to do it again. To feel that sharp confirmation that what you’re experiencing is real. That you’re real.
Drip. Drip.
And that’s why you’ve been sitting alone in this bathroom with a dagger for way too long, why your hand is shaking, why that blinding faucet is still dripping—
…
You shouldn’t be here. Alone in this bathroom, you mean. Sudden guilt breaks you out of your mental spiral for a moment.
You promised there would be no more hiding. You promised you’d let your family help you. But here you are, hiding again. Shaking to pieces alone on the bathroom floor, your Defender sleeping on the other side of the locked door, on the edge of putting the knife in your grip to use.
You still want to. It’s a little dizzying how much you do. To bring the blade to your skin, release some of the pressure, to make this feeling stop, just for a little while.
You always wear long sleeves. No one would ever think to check, and it makes the temptation all the more alluring, knowing you would never have to tell a soul.
But the thought of facing everyone in the morning after breaking your promise to them, seeing them smile at you as if you really are getting better, it makes your stomach squirm.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
With effort, you unclench the hand desperately grasping your dagger, any sound the blade might’ve made muffled by the plush mat.
You roll down the sleeve of your dark nightshirt, previously lifted to grant easier access, and hug your legs to your chest. Face buried in your knees, you let out a breath that shudders with the rest of your body.
Drip. Drip.
You let yourself sit like that for a few minutes, hoping the feeling would pass on its own. It doesn’t.
You should go back to bed. Lying close to Isa will probably help you calm down. And in the morning you’ll talk about it, because they made you promise you would. (Loop made you promise you would.)
You’re being better, and being better means letting them in, you know that now.
And with that decision, you’re finally able to spur yourself into motion. With a shudder, you push yourself to your feet.
Last second, you remember to pick your dagger up as well. You wouldn’t want Isabeau to step on it by accident in the morning.
You pointedly angle yourself opposite from the bathroom mirror as you stand. You don’t want to know what you look like right now.
You take another shaky breath in and out before quietly exiting the bathroom, opening the door to the quiet inn bedroom.
You take care to close the door as quietly as you can as to not wake Isabeau up, but it doesn’t matter as you hear a voice rough with sleep ask from within the dim room:
“Sif? Is that you?”
You stiffen, turning around slowly, the hand holding your dagger compulsively moving behind your back.
“Y-yeah. Sorry if I woke you up, needed the bathroom.”
Your voice was almost steady, but the still present anxiety made you momentarily slip. It’s something Isabeau definitely notices, and you see him sit up straighter in bed to your dismay, the moonlight filtering in through the nearby window highlighting the soft concern written on his otherwise sleepy looking face.
“Everything okay? You were gone for a while.”
You don’t move closer in fear of him seeing the dagger. In fear of Isa seeing and putting the pieces together. You know you should tell him, you had just told yourself that you would.
But being suddenly faced with confrontation… something about admitting just how much the loops had broken you is terrifying. Because despite it all, despite finally being free, you’re still in danger of yourself. And how blinding weak is that?
You realize you’ve been silent for too long.
“Yeah, I was j-just…um…” You scramble for an excuse, but your chest is still so tight, you’re still shaking, you can’t handle this right now.
“Sif?”
Isabeau’s getting out of bed, and you really should say something to stop him before he gets too close, before he sees what you’re hiding, but it’s as if you’re paralyzed.
He stops a few paces away, his broad figure lit by the light streaming in from the window.
“Hey, Sif. You want to tell me what’s up? You don’t…look right.”
You realize that there’s no way to smooth this over. No way to wave away whatever is going on with you as nothing, now that Isa’s sniffed out your bullshit. No way to hide the damning fact that you had exited a locked room holding a blade.
And, a little voice in the back of your mind chides, you promised.
Shame rises up your throat, your next breath hitching. You slowly pull your hand from behind your back, your failure in full view.
“I’m sorry,” is all you can choke out as you watch Isa react; concernedly mystified at first before his face seemed to grow a shade paler in the moonlight, eyes widening in alarmed understanding.
“H-hey, you’re…well, you’re definitely not okay right now, but we can fix that. I can fix that,” he assures, voice soft yet resolute.
“But first, let’s…l-let’s put the dagger down, yeah?”
So patient and ready to handle you and your crisis, even in the dead of night. You don’t deserve him.
Shakily, you bend over and put your dagger down to the side of you, just enough self-control left to keep quiet so as to not disturb anyone in the neighboring rooms.
“Thank you,” Isabeau sighs earnestly, a degree of tension leaving his shoulders. He reaches a hand forward.
“Can I touch you?” he asks, because you’ve told him you prefer a warning first.
You still have a complicated relationship with touch, but in this moment you want a hug more than anything in the Universe.
You reach out shakily, take his hand, and then pull yourself in closer to wrap your arms around his torso, burying your face into his sleep shirt. Isabeau makes a choked noise of surprise. You squeeze him tight as a stifled whimper escapes your throat.
“Aw, Sif…” he says, voice cracking down the middle, before hugging you back and giving you a soft squeeze in his arms. The pressure eases some of the tension in your body, and you melt into the embrace.
A warbled sob shakes your chest, and you swallow down any more that try to surface.
This wasn’t the plan. This isn’t how you wanted this conversation to go. You should know by now that the Universe doesn’t care what you want.
“Not pulling away, just moving somewhere more comfy,” Isa clarifies as he steps backward towards your shared bed, and practically carries you into it, holding you closely all the while. He shifts up so that you’re both sitting up against the bed’s headboard. You scoot as close to him as you can, legs tucked close to your body, still hiding your face miserably.
“I’m here for you. Take your time,” Isa assured, holding you tight.
You both sit in the loaded silence for a little while. You’re not hyperventilating, but the speed of your heart rate makes you think you should be. You’re no longer crying, but you’re still shaking so incredibly hard.
You hate this. You hate losing control, you hate feeling like your body and brain are betraying you. You want this…episode or whatever this is to stop, but there’s nothing you can do but ride out the waves of emotion.
Stars, this sucks. It sucks even more knowing you dragged someone else into it.
But as these horrible moments always go, the feeling finally starts to pass, the ease of tension in your body leaving it achy and tired.
You shift yourself to not be quite as buried in Isabeau’s chest, (you’ll probably find it in yourself to be embarrassed about that in the morning,) but you still lean up against him, head resting on his side as he keeps an arm wrapped around your shoulder. Here you don’t have to meet his eyes, but you know his gaze hasn’t left you.
“I don’t…” Isabeau finally says, before pausing to swallow. His voice still sounds rough and choked. “I don’t want to push you to talk about anything you’re not comfortable with. But it’s important that I ask…are you hurt anywhere?”
Your mind buffers for a moment before realizing he’s asking if you had hurt yourself. In the tidal wave of emotion, you had almost forgotten why this impromptu cuddle session was happening.
“No. I didn’t end up…I’m not hurt. I’m okay.”
“Mm, not sure about that last part, buddy. But I’ll take your word on the rest of it. I’m glad you’re safe.” The concerned tension in the defender’s voice dissipates in relief.
Before Isabeau can ask the much harder question, you decide to answer it for him.
“I wanted to though.”
You feel him tense up again.
“I wanted…I wanted it to stop. I want it to stop.”
“Want what to stop?” he asked gently.
“This…this feeling. Everything’s so much. I’m so afraid all the time, and…and it’s one of the only things that made my brain stop. When I was in the loops,” you choke out, swallowing against the lump in your throat.
“So…this is a loop thing? You weren’t doing it before?”
“I…I don’t…”
You really think about it. Through the haze of faded memories, you vaguely remember the impressions of lonely nights under the stars, bursts of pain creating the patterns of the constellations above you.
“It might’ve been from before,” you admit. “But…but it’s never been like this, I’ve never had to fight this hard to…to not…”
The tears are back, and you sniff miserably.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry Isa, I didn’t want you to find out like this, I…” you sob, muffling it with your hand.
It’s really not fair to you or poor Isabeau that you’re already having another breakdown. No rest for the weary, huh Siffrin?
“It’s so much, it’s so much, and now I’m dumping it all on you, I’m so sorry.”
“No, Sif,” Isabeau ached. “It’s okay, thank you so much for telling me. I’m here. Just focus on calming down however you need to.”
After a few pitiful hiccups, you try to reel yourself in a little, worried about waking any of the others up in the room next door.
Your group had separated for the night, a single room in the inn not large enough for everyone to sleep in, and you’re suddenly so glad that there’s no one else around to witness your breakdown.
You know you’re going to have to talk to Mirabelle and Odile about it, but you refuse to rope Bonnie into this any more than they need to be. They’ve had to worry about you way too much already.
Isabeau’s softly rubbing your arm as you compose yourself again, hugging you close, and the silence makes you wonder if, despite his reassurances, you’ve said too much. If you’ve thoroughly overwhelmed him with all this. You know you’re overwhelmed by it all, so you can’t blame him.
“I used to hurt myself as a kid,” the man suddenly says, and you feel your brain stutter.
“W-what?” you breathe out through sniffles.
“Before I Changed…I used to self harm,” Isabeau stated again. His voice was subdued, hesitant.
“That’s—maybe that’s the wrong thing to say, I’m not trying to compare my struggles to yours or anything,” he rushes out, as if he needs to clarify.
“I just mean…I get it. I know what it’s like, and you shouldn’t have to carry that alone.”
Your brow furrows with concern as you wipe away the tears on your face.
“I didn’t know the time before your Change was that bad.”
You feel your defender shrug his shoulders.
“No one does, except for my sister. I didn’t mean for her to find out, but I don’t think I would have gotten through it without her.”
“…How did you get through it?” you ask quietly, voice rough from the tears.
“Well…I needed to choose to accept the help my sister offered me, and then I had to keep choosing to accept that help every day. And the longer I went without it, the longer I made different choices, the easier it got.”
Just the idea of that was so tiring. It had been such a mental fistfight just to get to this point, to deny the urges and come clean about them, and you’d have to do it again?
“…I think you’re stronger than I am,” you say, exhaustion pulling at the words. Isabeau lets out a quiet huff of disbelieving laughter.
“Says the guy who survived looping in time for as long as he did? C’mon, Sif,” he quietly enthused, giving you another comforting squeeze.
“You’ve gotten through so much already, and this time you’ve got your family to help you. You’re not alone.”
You choke up a bit at the use of ‘family.’
A few days or so after the loops, while you were still recovering from your second bout of Craft Sickness in Dormont’s House infirmary (Thanks, Loop,) Bonnie had hijacked the kitchen to make you some soup. They had proudly explained how they’d ‘defended’ their soup from well-meaning housemaidens who had offered their help.
“The housemaidens asked if I needed their ah-sis-stance,” Bonnie had enunciated, the word tricky for their kid tongue, “and I told ‘em that I was the best cooker in the world, and that my soup’s for family only!”
The casual use of the word had caught you off guard, and you’d choked mid-spoonful, soup spraying onto the sheets despite your efforts to contain your spluttering. And then you had to explain to your concernedly mystified friends why your coughs had transformed into sobs, that you weren’t sad, quite the opposite actually.
Your friends (your family!) had found the situation endearing, and they’d all affirmed their positive feelings towards that descriptor. It would’ve been triggering how similar it all was to the conversation you’d had with them in the loops, if you weren’t so happy. After all that, they still wanted to be your family. You hadn’t forced them this time, and maybe you never really had.
Isabeau’s casual use of the word reminded you that, yeah, you really aren’t alone. They want you around just as much as you want them.
You take a deep breath in, then out.
“I’ll… try. To do better.”
“And that’s all that really matters. That you try,” Isa assures.
“…I have one last hard question,” he adds after a moment of audible trepidation, and you tense up against your will. You hum affirmatively though.
“Can I put your dagger somewhere safer for now? It’s not that I don’t trust you, but I know how…tempting it can be. I just want you to be safe.”
You chew on the inside of your cheek, before nodding. Your dagger is usually an element of security for you, sleeping with it close by so you can defend yourself and your family at a moment’s notice. It’s a little crabbed up that you’re the biggest threat to your own wellbeing at the current moment.
Isabeau pat your shoulder before getting up. The sudden absence of his warmth makes you shiver involuntarily, and you wrap your arms around yourself.
You watch as your defender picks up the dagger before meeting your eyes again awkwardly. “I, uh, didn’t think this through.”
You realize the problem after a moment.
“I won’t look,” you say, covering your eyes with tightly closed fingers. You don’t allow even the tiniest crack, no opportunities for temptation to slip in and make you break the promise you just made.
You listen to Isabeau’s footsteps fading away to somewhere else in the room, staunchly ignoring the urge to guess where he was going. Soon enough, Isabeau’s weight settles back down on the mattress, and you put your hands down.
You get a good look at Isa for the first time in a little while, now that you’re not leaning against his side. His brow is still furrowed, his eyes look wet, but he still gives you a soft reassuring smile. Your heart pangs. You really upset him, didn’t you?
“I’m sorry,” you apologize for the thousandth time tonight.
“Don’t be,” Isa asserts, wiping at his eyes with a sniff as he realizes what you were looking at. “Like I said, I’m proud of you for talking to me.”
“No, it’s not…I don’t like making any of you upset,” you explain, scratching self-consciously at your arms as you break eye contact. “If I hadn’t said anything…”
“Sif. If you hadn’t said anything, it would’ve gotten worse. And that’s the last thing I want for you.”
You look back at him as he shuffles his way into the bed properly.
“Why don’t we get some rest, yeah? We can figure everything else out in the morning.”
“…Yeah,” you agree easily, the exhaustion back in full swing at the mention of sleep, along with the guilt. You rub at your eyes. “Stars, I almost forgot how late it was, I didn’t mean to keep you up.”
“Couldn’t have been helped,” Isabeau reassured easily, lying down and opening the covers for you to get under. As you do, eyelids fluttering the moment you lie your head on the pillow, Isa reaches out for your hand, and you readily take his.
“You’re going to be okay.” Isa sounds so…certain. It was comforting. You think it’s comforting him too.
And…yeah, you really will be won’t you? With a clearer head, you know that this is a bump that you won’t have to get over all by yourself.
In the morning, there are more tough conversations to be had, as well as concerns and fears to be expressed. It won’t be easy, but you’ll make it through.
“‘m going to be okay,” you mumble in agreement, squeezing Isabeau’s hand gently. And it’s the last thing you’re conscious enough to do as you slip into the gentle embrace of sleep, rest finding you at last.