Work Text:
The blood quietly flows out their wounds, seeping onto the floor. It’s just another bad day, they needed this. His gun blew up far too many times to count today. He slices and slices, watching everything pour out their arms. It’s what is deserved after all. He could only blame himself for his mistakes.
In some sense, the reason he does these things is his fault too. They should’ve been more useful, should’ve been better at protecting others, because that’s the role he’s been given. All his life, his only knowledge on guns were revolvers, and the fact that Russian roulette is just a simple party trick. But now he’s here, with a flintlock he isn’t familiar with, his status as some rich person not putting him in the “to be protected” category, but the protector.
He could’ve just simply not added the extra gunpowder to the gun, but where’s the fun in that? He wants to die, he needs to, but his recklessness harms others in rounds, whether having heals wasted on them, their gun blowing up and adding 35 seconds to the timer, just being… a waste. Useless to the team. A burden. A parasite. There’s others out there with more useful skills, while he’s here, relying purely on luck, complaining like it isn’t his fault.
Their role is easily replaceable, and things would move on as usual if he died.
They press the blade down, continuing the swiping motion. White peeks out a bit, before the red drips out. Whoops. He slashes and slashes in an attempt to get the same result, to no avail. Frustrated, he rests the blade vertically on his arm, but hesitates.
He could just get it over with right now. Nobody would mourn for him, everyone else has their own favorite person, and they are just there as an understudy. Nobody’s first choice. No one would care long enough if he died. Sure, people would worry about the fact that there’s a rotting corpse in his cabin, but they were basically already one from the start. When will his body be found? Will it be sent into a round? It won’t matter. None of it ever did. If he did this there would be one less mouth to feed, less medical supplies wasted. Everyone would benefit with this one final act of usefulness.
He needs to do this.
He wishes for death in the sense that this “permanent solution” will fix everything.
He wishes for death in the sense that in some way, everyone will be happier.
He wishes for death in some sense that everything will be better, they wouldn’t be a burden anymore, a husk of someone who once was.
He wishes for death in the sense of freedom, of selfish freedom in the way that it would be his final act of selfishness because that’s what they are, selfish and arrogant and rotten and everything horrible with the world.
And in some sense, he wishes for death, as a release for others, not having to deal with them anymore. It’s the least he can do.
Their blood had dried up by now. Trembling, they set down the blade, and he dips a cloth in water and cleans up, erasing the evidence of their small breakdown. The cuts he made were a bit too close to the end of their wrist where his sleeve ended, but nothing a few bandages can hide. Nobody really pays that much attention to him anyways. They pick up the ointment from the medkit and
Someone is knocking on his door.
“Hey. Chance. The others want you to eat dinner with them.” 007n7 murmurs through the door. “They’re… getting worried about you.” Chance shakily inhales, hoping 7n7 didn’t hear his slight sob.
“Yeah yeah, I’ll be there in a bit, I’m almost done.” They say, applying ointment onto the cuts. He winces a bit as he does so.
“What are you doing in there?” The other asks.
“Oh, y'know.”
“Chance.”
“Don’t worry about it man, I’m just… cleaning up, so to speak. I’ll be there in a bit.” He lies, doing his regular process slowly, because really, does he deserve it? Does he deserve to eat anything? The doorknob moves a little.
“Chance, I’m going in.”
Fear strikes their heart briefly as the door opens. 7n7 takes in the mess of the room, seeing Chance’s things all over the floor, their disheveled appearance, their eyebags under his sunglasses, his tear stained face, their… arm. Chance holds their arm closer to himself.
“Wait, hey wait. This isn’t what it looks like. I swear.” Their breath hastens in panic, blood dripping down to their elbow. 7n7 stares blankly, before slowly making his way across the room, like how a person approaches a wild animal. He picks up the wet cloth, wiping the blood and presses it firmly on the harsher cuts.
“7n7, you don’t have to do this.” Chance says as they watch him do… whatever it is he’s doing. The hacker looks up only to take the ointment from the other’s hand.
“But I want to. I want to help you, Chance. Everyone here cares, you know.” He says, gently putting the ointment around the cuts. Chance chose to ignore that last statement.
“So… not gonna ask why I did it?” 7n7 reaches for the bandages, unraveling them.
“Do you want me to?”
“Nah not really.”
“Then I won’t.” He says, as he carefully wraps the bandages around the affected areas. Tying it off, 7n7 begins putting the medical supplies away, until he sees the knife.
“Hey, Chance?” He says, the gambler being distracted by how 7n7 wrapped the bandages. It was better than how they usually did it.
“Hm? Yeah?” They weren’t looking at him.
“Do you want me to take this away or…?”
Chance suddenly shot up and took the knife, putting it in his pocket. 7n7 sighed.
“I know I can’t exactly say anything about you doing this, but please, find better coping mechanisms. If you try to do this again, just go to my cabin so we can talk instead, if not, please just do this safely.”
Chance nodded, not meeting 7n7’s eyes.
“The others still want you to eat with them. If you’re not at the main cabin in 10 minutes, I’ll bring your food over here.” The hacker heads to the door.
“Hey, 7n7?” Chance finally says something. The other turns to look at them. “Thank you.” 7n7 smiles slightly.
“Take care.”