technically a sequel/tie-in to Colours of a Stone, but you don't have to read that first. this is just an answer to the question "what was Feliks doing while he was off Not Showing Up In That AU?"

title from Eliot's The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock because I'm complete trash.

tw: suicidal thoughts, self-harm, vaguely implied gender stuff.

Lizzy calls him one evening with her voice sounding thick and tired.

"I saw someone hit by a car today," she tells him. "He died. There was blood all over."

Feliks thinks, maybe a car crash would work.

.

He doesn't do it. Even if the driver lived, killing someone would be too traumatic for them; same objection to stepping in front of a train. And it's not fair, for someone else to be hurt because Feliks is too worthless to live any longer. He inconveniences too many people already.

Instead he drops a rock on his foot. It leaves a long throbbing gash on his instep and rips off the nail of his big toe. He's limping for the next few days, but no one notices.

.

Sometimes the dresses help. Other times he looks in the mirror and thinks how disgusting and perverted he is. Wipes away the makeup and lets blood from his bitten-through lip smear on the bodice as he rips the dress off.

The pain makes him feel better, just a little.

When Feliks was really little, he went to a funeral. It was some great-aunt, he thinks, one he'd never met and whose name he'd only vaguely been aware of. He remembers tall people dressed in dark clothes and a big box up front of the church, covered in flowers. They talked about Great-Aunt Rose and how she was going on a Journey and they would all miss her. One of the uncles gave a speech about fireflies. About Rose's kindness and patience and how she'd never missed a day of church and volunteered at homeless shelters and saved puppies from burning buildings and…

Apparently, Great-Aunt Rose had never done anything wrong in her life.

So, thought Feliks, pulling bored at his black suit-pant legs, all you have to do to be perfect is die?

He remembers that now, lying on his bed, picking at his scabs and watching the dislodged tissue smear brown all over his biology textbook.

His gaze drifts to the cord of the window blinds.

He can see it, vivid bright colours, his own face going blue and purple, his neck imprinted with vermillion streaks as the cord rubs across it, and he swings his legs off the bed and goes to the window, looking out across the street. The university is two blocks up, close enough to walk. The sun's setting behind the Life Sciences building, casting bloody prints across the glass walls of the greenhouses.

He hasn't imagined anything that vividly in a long time.

He picks at his scabs and tastes copper on his tongue.

Gilbert blows in his ear and Feliks elbows him in the nose and soon they're rolling around on the ground flailing and spitting, until Lizzy scolds them apart shaking her head.

The bruise on his stomach takes weeks to fade. Sometimes he punches it again, feeling the give of his ribs. It would be so easy to snap them. The bone would tear through his lungs like a gunshot through paper.

.

"Your grades have been slipping," says his father. "Are you doing alright? What don't you understand? Have you talked to the professor? We can get you a tutor if you need one."

Feliks stares at the carelessly-inked red 89. The sunlight from the window's glaring off the paper so it looks like ice crystals.

"There's no excuse for not getting an A," his mother reminds him.

.

"I'll give you my phone number," says his bio partner, curly red hair bouncing happily. His Italian accent makes him sound like he's singing. "I'll need to ask you some stuff for the writeup."

Feliks nods and slits the frog's belly open, gagging at the reek of formaldehyde.

That night he stands in front of the bathroom mirror, closing and opening his fingers around the pile of painkillers in his hand.

Better this way, says the little voice in his head that sounds like his own.

His phone's buzzing on his nightstand. He doesn't want to answer it, but he does. Flushes the pills down the toilet and grips the phone like it's all that's holding him to the earth.

The stable doesn't smell good anymore—it's just hay now, tickling his nose and making him squint and sneeze. He steps up into the saddle and lets his weight settle. Leans forward to pat the horse's neck, because it's not Molly's fault her affectionate whinnies don't make him feel okay about himself anymore. He doesn't really feel much of anything anymore.

They canter around the pasture and sweat soaks through his shirt under the hot sun. He's got hair in his mouth. His teeth taste like dust.

.

Lizzy asks him if he's given any thought to switching his major.

"You like math a lot better than business," she says confidently.

He could tell her the numbers seem to fall out of his head like Sisyphus standing at the top of a hill.

Her face is tight with tiredness.

"I know, but business is a heck of a lot more useful."

.

At Mass with his family, the incense makes his throat close up.

He steps into the confession booth and talks about pride, about anger. He pulled his sister's hair, fighting over the radio. He cheated on a homework assignment.

He says nothing about the gnawing emptiness or the skirts hidden at the back of his closet or the knife under his mattress or the pills. His mother is waiting for him outside.

.

His grandmother is visiting from Poland. She pats his shoulder and says he's her best grandchild. Perfect boy.

"But your hair needs a trim," she says casually, in her crackly voice, and he feels his spine cold like he doesn't fit in his own body.

.

If he lived on his own, he thinks, he could skip lectures without his parents knowing.

He gets as far as typing "apartments for re" into google and then sits and stares blankly at his laptop.

.

"They're cat scratches," he tells Feliciano.

He's leaning over the side of the bridge, looking down at the water, working out trajectories and velocities because he thinks he remembers that he used to be good at math, and wondering what it will feel like when he hits the concrete edging of the canal, slides down leaving a trail of bright sticky red. Will he still be conscious when he enters the water? Maybe he'll feel the cool dark pressure in his lungs before he blacks out completely.

He becomes aware of someone standing next to him.

"You should be careful," the man says. He's almost a foot taller than Feliks, broad-built but his skin is stretched tight over his cheekbones like he maybe hasn't been eating a lot. "You could fall."

"Why should it matter to you?" He's surprised by how rough his voice comes out. Scratchy like he hasn't used it in a while.

How long has he been standing here? (Coward, says the little voice inside him.)

"I don't like to see anyone being so careless of their life. There are people who will miss you."

He wants to laugh, but it dies on his lips as he looks at the huge, gaunt body. Feliks knows despair and it's in this man's eyes, shadowed by floppy blond hair, drooping in the limp ends of a scarf wound tightly around his thick neck.

"Are you… missing someone?" he ventures.

"My—my partner died last month," says the man. Then, after a pause, he offers, "He…. liked to come here."

"It's a nice place," says Feliks stupidly. "Pretty."

They stand in silence for a while.

Eventually the man leaves. Feliks doesn't throw himself off the bridge that day.