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dysthymia pt. 12

another chapter to my series of drabbles of kakashi having depression. this one is kakashi self harming.

tw: dead dove, self harm, burning

wc: 586

ao3

pt. 11 / pt. 13

He wanted to scream, to let the steam coming from whatever inside his body was currently being brought to a boil erupt like it would from a kettle. A hissing, screeching, horrid sound that could only be born of pain.

He couldn’t scream. And he couldn’t continue to let these feelings scald his core.

The pain couldn’t end. But it could be transferred.

With gritted teeth, something in the back of his mind screaming that he should not do this, he entered the kitchen and lit the stove. The coiled burner smoked faintly for a moment, whisking away the oil that had popped onto its surface the last time he cooked, and then continued to build in heat. He slid open the dining ware drawer, plucking out a single metal chopstick.

He shouldn’t. He knew he shouldn’t. It’s not going to help anything. He’ll regret it later. It’ll reset his streak. Anyone he told would be disappointed, or worse, worried about him.

And yet, he brought the tip of the chopstick down to the burner.

He knew it would only take a few seconds to heat enough to hurt. A few more to make sure it left a mark. Once the time had elapsed, he flipped his grip around the utensil to tilt it toward his opposite wrist, took a deep breath, and brought the metal to his skin.

Instinctively, he jerked back,

That always happened the first time he made contact. As often as he did this, the preservation impulse hadn’t gone away. With another deep breath, he pressed the end of the tool just below the pulse point with intention and exhaled as the pain set in.

The initial feeling that came over him was relief. Then shame, guilt, anger, disgust, and a litany of other emotions adding to the psychological agony before he needed the relief and–

He started the process again.

It only took seconds, preparation and execution. The heat source was immediately available and the chopstick would be disposed of immediately after every session. He could stand in the kitchen and repeat the process of torching himself as many times as he needed until the world got a little more still and quiet and possible to endure. Each round got a little easier than the last and it got easier to breathe.

A few dots later, the burner was turned off and the chopstick tossed. Now, in seemingly direct opposition to his actions over the last few minutes, he shifted into a medic space. He held the burns under cool running water from the sink, continuing to take deep breaths and focusing on not spiraling into anything worse than the state he was already in.

Once he was done with the water, he hissed as the stinging started taking over. The next step was a change in scenery, the medkit in the bathroom, the one stocked with more burn gel than the average kit. Bandaging up was the most time-consuming part of the process, but it allowed him to take stock of what he had just done and ground himself in reality. The stinging subsided once the wounds weren’t exposed to the air.

Now was the final step: the battle between regret and justification. Knowing he shouldn’t have burned himself didn’t mean that he didn’t have reasons to do it. It was an intense battle he almost never had the emotional capacity to finish and instead would let the exhaustion overwhelm him, finding a comfortable place in the apartment to rest.