Invalid

A/n at the bottom

Trigger Warning: Depression, Self-harm, Self-harm Scars, Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks,

Implied Child Neglect, Abuse, Slight Gore

Also my biggest thanks to OperaEagle IcelynLacelett for helping me with grammar and making the story just better overall.

As a child Skull had been a loner. He was disagreeable and no one really liked him. The older generations called him a changeling(1), and the younger ones called him a freak. This lead to him with drawing further. It wasn't until he found acting that he became more sociable.

Acting to Skull was what a shiny new gun was to Reborn, a tangible, twisting illusion was to Mammon. He didn't have to think about it, he just became the character he was playing. Acting was the one thing Skull was confident in. After all his skill could fool even Reborn, and that was something that not many others could say.

Skull listened to these people introduce themselves. These dangerous, amazingly skilled people and he… he was just some nineteen year old stuntman. Why was he even here.

He wasn't skilled in martial arts like this Fon person. He knew basic stage combat. He wasn't a powerful leader like Luce. He always needed stage directions. Illusions, what did that even mean? Skull didn't know anything like that. A genius scientist was also present. Skull knew about cars, and… that was about it. Lal Mirch was an C.O.M.S.U.B.I.N. trainer. Skull stayed in shape, but only as much as he needed to for work. Skull and certainly never killed someone and didn't want to imagine how many people you would have to kill to be the number one hitman.

Skull wasn't anything like these people. If they got even a glimpse of the real him, they'd know. So he acted, like he always did. Skull should have known that these stunning people would know he was nothing like they were.

So when they saw through it all, Skull wasn't surprised. They called him lackey. They ordered him around like he was a servant. He acted as though he wasn't relieved for an excuse to be out of that room with those brilliant people. Their auras were suffocating, compared to the false flamboyance of his own. And they brought out many insecurities he would have preferred to stay buried.

Skull was horrified to be turned into a baby. The mafia called them the Arcobaleno. They were supposed to be the strongest and the best at what they did. So why was Skull chosen? It didn't make sense! Reborn, Verde, Fon, Viper, Luce, Lal Mirch, and now Colonello-well, they were the best of the best. Skull was just a second-rate stuntman, compared to these amazing people.

Skull wasn't bothered when became a punching bag for Colonello and Reborn. On some level he felt he deserved it. If felt normal to be in pain, like it was right, like it was just a fact of Skull's life. Besides, he always healed quickly.

Luce died and Skull mourned the only person who would stop Reborn and Colonello. Aria came and went without much consideration for him or any but herself. Then Yuni came and everything changed.

Skull's head hurt the entire day after he absorbed the memories of The Ten Years that would Hopefully Never Happen. He looked back onto his memories and decided that he would shed this person he'd become. The problem was how?

Skull had been playing this character for so long that he wasn't sure how not to anymore.

Skull couldn't let Enma get hurt because of him. Yes, the Varia were a bunch of insane people and under normal circumstances he would have run. This was different. It was his fault Enma was stuck doing this, fighting for him. So Skull asked for his present and it didn't matter because the battle was over.

Having someone's fist crash through his cranium wasn't as painful as Skull had thought it would be. Skull was genuinely shocked when the other Arcobalenos went to see him in the hospital. Even more so when they didn't hit him or yell at him. Although being attacked by the The Arcobaleno of the Vindice could be considered special circumstances.

Skull was disappointed when he didn't get his body back. (At the same time he couldn't help but think that it would be weird walking around in a nineteen year old's body when he was forty).

Skull hadn't thought he would be here again. Locked in his bathroom, bleeding from cuts on his thighs. It had been a common occurrence when he was mentally at his body's age. Skull supposed that his hormones were out of balance.

Everyone's were, honestly. Reborn and Colonello were being horndogs, Fon was a lot less calm, and Verde and Mammon were locking themselves in their rooms, which wasn't actually that strange for them, in all honesty. They were all stressed and dealing with it in different ways. This happened to be Skull's way.

Skull had been a cutter when he was in his teens. Although it had stopped when he was cursed and he didn't feel the need(2). There were other manners of self-harm, namely Reborn and Colonello. Skull knew it wasn't healthy, but it was a compulsion to be in pain. It was the only constant in his life, when otherwise so many things kept changing. He felt like couldn't keep up and like he was drowning in "normal" everyday life—

Skull wasn't really one for self-diagnosis (he didn't know a whole lot about that kind of thing) but he could honestly say he had a problem. Only, he couldn't exactly book a psychiatrist appointment and spill his heart out to them. Skull knew there weren't Mafia Psychiatrists. Mafia people dealt with their crazy by themselves or with help from their Famiglia.

When Skull had been in school, a counselor had tried to confront him about his none-too-subtle self-harm. He had started hyperventilating. Nothing that the counselor had said had helped, and he ended up passing out from oxygen had been a call home about the incident and after that his teachers started to act like he was made of glass.

It hadn't surprised Skull. His parents weren't the most doting, not to say they were abusive; they were apathetic to Skull, no matter what he did. They didn't care and that really hurt, but Skull got used to it. The Arcobalenos remained Skull of his parents far too much for his taste sometimes.

There was a knock on his bedroom door. It must be Yuni, everyone else either wouldn't have bothered or would have busted both the bedroom and bathroom doors down.

"I'll be out in a minute," Skull turned on the water faucet on cold and soaked a washcloth. He began to wipe the blood from his legs.

"Okay. I'll be waiting!" He heard light footsteps as she walked away.

After he applied slightly bubbling hydrogen peroxide on his thighs and ace bandages wrapped tight enough to slow and eventually stop the bleeding, Skull was ready to leave his bathroom. He put on clean blue skinny jeans, a band shirt of some kind, not bothering with makeup, and headed downstairs to where Yuni and the others most likely were, taking a deep breath and focusing on the pain to steady himself.

Reborn wasn't an idiot. He could smell the blood on the lackey. Whether it was his or not remained to been seen. It wasn't really worth investigating. It wasn't a large amount of blood, but if the lackey had been attacked then Yuni would be upset. If he hadn't that left two options. Either the lackey was biologically female and menstruating, or the wounds had been self-inflicted.

The final solution didn't seem in character for the lackey and his wrists weren't covered up(3). Although being biologically female could be true, it didn't sit right with the hitman.

"Oi, Lackey, why do you smell like blood?" Colonello asked.

So that idiot had gotten to it first. At least Reborn had saved face, but that meant it wasn't as little blood as he had thought.

Skull wasn't prepared for the question (since when did they care? He'd self-harmed more than this before and they hadn't noticed, off in their own little worlds) and so he spat out the first thing that came to mind.

"I'm surprised you can smell anything when your nose is so clogged with women's perfume."

Whelp I'm dead. Skull fidgeted with his fork waiting the inevitable. It never came. Skull glanced up to see the other ex-arcobalenos staring at him with a variety of emotions.

Yuni: resigned; she knew something was going to happen soon.

Mammon: surprised; Skull had never really stood up for himself.

Fon: amused; he wouldn't normally show it, but this was entertaining for him.

Verde: disinterest; if it didn't have to with something he was working on, why bother?

Reborn: who knows, perhaps annoyed. Wasn't he always Well, at least with Skull he was.

Lal Mirch: annoyed; when wasn't she, especially at Skull.

Colonello: offended; how dare the lackey talk back to him?

Yuni sighed, and it sounded far too old to come out of someone so young. "Skull, just tell them what you were doing and they'll stop bothering you."

To Skull it sounded an awful lot like "This is your problem. I am not on your side. You are not entitled to privacy." Maybe she hadn't intended it that way, or maybe she had. In the end it didn't matter, because once those word were said Skull's thoughts ran rampant.

You aren't the same as them, his thoughts whispered to him, full of thinly-veiled venom and barbs. They actually have skills. They have a right to be here. They have a valid reason to not treat you like you matter, like you're a person, because you aren't. You are insignificant. You are worthless and they know it and they treat you as such. Skull wished he could stop this train of thought, but it was out of control. Things of similar nature piled on top of each other until Skull couldn't think properly, couldn't breathe under the weight of his mind, was drowning in the darkness of his thoughts and screaming out for help silently, but it was all he could do, it took so much effort to stay upright—

He couldn't breathe. Skull gasped for air, but the deeper the gulp he tried to take, the less air there seemed to be. His wheezes became shorter sharper and still he couldn't breathe. Please help me.

Skull couldn't hear or sense anything but his own short breaths and blood pounding in his ears. He thought he might be crying, but Skull still couldn't breathe and why isn't anyone helping me? Do they think I'm so useless that it doesn't matter if I die here - that I don't matter?

Skull squeezed his eyes shut so he couldn't see the others not do anything, and he didn't care enough to try to fight it any longer anymore.

Yuni could only stare in horror at what her words had caused. She wanted to help, but Lal Mirch and Colonello both said to "let it run its course"(4) and Yuni didn't know what that meant exactly, but they were her Elements and friends and she trusted them. They had more experience than her with this.

Skull didn't stop heaving and shaking. His breaths were getting sharper and he had begun to cry. It wasn't the wails that the Arcobaleno were used to, but silent tears of the kind that ran when you had bottled issues up and bottled them up and suddenly you couldn't hold it back, couldn't fit any more into the bottle, all your emotions were overflowing.

Then Skull started to scratch his arms with his nails that had never seemed quite so long until this moment. His nails were make angry red lines and layers of skin were starting to peel off to show raw pink skin underneath. And Yuni couldn't watch anymore.

"Skull, please stop!" Yuni shouted, rising to her feet so fast the chair she'd been sitting in tilted and fell, and Skull's breathing was so, so, fast now, his face an unhealthy shade, (and what would she do if he died-?!)

Skull passed out and slumped against his chair, his breathing starting to even out.

Reborn isn't sure exactly what just happened, but it's a weakness that needs to be beaten out(5) of the lackey.

Verde hadn't payed attention to any of the conversation, if it could be called that. He began watching when Skull started to hyperventilate, making no move to help. Verde wasn't a doctor; he was a scientist. He didn't see why he had to help Skull when Skull got himself into this mess.

Mammon mostly spent their time either with the other ex-arcobalenos or with the Varia. They hadn't ever seen anything like what just happened to Skull, and so had no way to help.

Fon wasn't sure what to do, so he watched. It wasn't until Skull started clawing at his wrist that Fon realized that Skull's breathing wasn't going to even out, and he wasn't going to get better naturally any time soon.

Lal Mirch had seen people with PTSD, and she had thought that that's what she saw, but now she wasn't so sure. One thing she knew for certain is that she needed to know what triggered it so they could avoid a rehash.

Yuni was scared for Skull and she was confused. The thing she was most worried about was how Skull would react when he wakes up (Verde said he would wake up, and she trusted him—!).

Colonello knew PTSD. What just happened to Skull wasn't that. Why he had even thought someone like that civilian lackey had even been exposed to something to give him PTSD baffled him(6).

Skull woke up and he wasn't sure what to do. He was laying on a bed that was not his own. The clothes he was wear were sticking to him with sweat. He had a headache and he felt exhausted even though he just woke up.

They were all watching him. Skull knew it. It was kind of obvious, as they were gathered around his bedside and had likely been sitting until he woke up. They were going ask questions Skull didn't have answers to and frankly, if he did, he wouldn't answer them.

"Lackey, what was that."

Skull understood that Reborn didn't actually care when he demanded an answer because he wasn't asking. So Skull told him what he did know.

"I don't know."

It was the truth, Skull didn't know. However, Skull did know that that wasn't what any of them wanted to hear. They wanted a dictionary definition complete with synonyms, cited sources, pictures, graphs, and eyewitness accounts, so needless to say his answer set them off.

"You don't know-"

"How can you not-"

"Of course a mind as simple as yours-"

"It will cost you for-"

"Are you sure you don't-"

"How can we help if-"

"How utterly useless-"

They all spoke at the same time and it made the pounding in Skulls head increase to almost unbearable levels. Why was everyone so loud? More than anything, Skull wanted to flop back down on the bed and sleep, but that wasn't going to happen anytime soon. They were still talking (shouting) at him and Skull was so very tired.

"At first it looked similar to a flashback, like PTSD," Lal Mirch's voice proclaimed loud over everyone else's mutterings.

Skull didn't think that it was PTSD. He didn't have flashbacks; it was just his thoughts piling on top of each other and Skull didn't really remember anything other than not be able to breathe.

Skull was hesitant to voice what he thinks it was. Would they even listen to what he has to say? Skull was used to that. Used to his opinion having no sway or meaning. If he said something would it make a difference?

Skull paused for a moment. The last time he wasted time on thinking he had used his five minutes of adulthood for nothing. If he didn't speak up what would he lose this time? So Skull mustered what little courage that hadn't been beaten out of him and answered.

"I think it was an anxiety attack."

His words make all of them pause. Did any of the ex-Arcobalenos even know what that was? Was he going to get scorned for his input? To Skull's surprise, it was Fon that spoke up.

"Can you explain why you think that?" Fon queried with a burning in the back of his eyes. He was as calm as always, but there's a hint of something there that Skull didn't recognize.

"Ah." Skull fidgeted with the sheet that covered him. "Yeah, um… I guess it would be best for me to start at the beginning." Skull knew that to even begin to try and make them understand he'd have to disclose everything.

"When I was a child I had stereotypical cloud mentality. My territory was the town library," Skull said, and he heard Colonello snorting.

He continued anyway. "I didn't set rules. I just enforced them." Skull shifted uncomfortably on the bed. "The way I acted made people not like me. I guess not much has changed. The townsfolk called me a wide array of different names. It was mostly freak and changeling. Which, for clarification, refers to the myth that ill tempered children were actually fairy children that had replaced human children when they were born or very young.

Skull felt knots in his throat and his stomach tumbled around. He'd never confessed this much before, never mind all of it, and he knew they wouldn't take it well. He started to ramble. He blurted the previous speech out all in one breath.

"I didn't dislike being around people. It was that people disliked be around me. I started cutting. I never really stopped. I mean, I was nineteen when I was cursed. I never learned how to cope with-" Skull stopped, worked around a lump in his throat, took a gulp of air and continued as he pushed the negative part of his mind that whispered discouraging thoughts to him back. Now that he'd started, the story came rushing out of him like a waterfall, unstoppable, and he had to get this all out-

"Due to the name calling I always had a low self-esteem. Then I found acting and Damien Mortimer(7) didn't have to be outgoing. As long as I could play the character they needed, they didn't really care if I was antisocial. 'The Great and Amazing Skull-sama', that was all an act… I'm not like that at all." Skull waited a couple seconds before continuing, resisting the insistent depressing thoughts.

"I went to that god-forsaken meeting and I saw all of you. You were so talented and I was... I was some second-rate stuntman. I just so happened to have a strong cloud flame. I knew that I didn't belong with you, but I acted like I could and even though you figured it out, that I was so much less. In an instant too, the damage was already done. You knew I was the weakest, that I was better off being a Lackey, that I was worthless." Skull couldn't help but smile sadly, averting his eyes from what he knew would be judging gazes.

"Self-harm. Really, lackey?" Colonello's tone was barbed. "Self-harm over some names. I knew you were pathetic, but this reaches a new level. Couldn't you have found another outlet? To honestly think that someone so useless was standing-"

Skull wasn't paying attention anymore. Everything else went in one ear and out the other, even the degrading comments in his mind that haunted him every waking moment. My emotions are valid. How dare this… This... pathetic, insensitive, ignorant asswipe. Skull couldn't take it anymore. He was so done with everyone here judging him, no matter how much less skilled he was than them. Nobody compared with them, they were the best in the world! Skull had never had a chance, and neither had any other pathetic person in this forsaken world, but they all had feelings! He was allowed them, like anyone else, and it was a miracle he'd made it this far, with these amazing, overqualified people. He'd done his best for all this time, years, decades, and they discarded him and his completely valid concerns and emotions and fears for all of it! And okay, maybe he could do less, but berating him for it was absolutely unnecessary—he had a voice in his head to do that. He was done. He sat up and look Colonello dead in the eyes, going into a state of mind that he hadn't for many years. He was not going to pull any punches with this tongue-lashing. He was done, and these were his last words for them if this was how they were going to react. (Of course it was, they had never reacted otherwise, but he'd always held that hope...)

"I am truly humbled at your words, Colonello. Unfortunately for you, your ignorant mind is incapable of comprehending the fact that what you say has no relevance to what I told you. I merely explained to the seven of you why I thought what happened might have been an anxiety attack. I am not done explaining, but seeing as your opinion of me is far more important, go ahead. Let's hear it. I'm sure you were going to say something like 'I've seen men that have been through worse than you that didn't fall to such lowly coping methods.' Well, I'm sure it wouldn't have been worded so eloquently. I am here to tell you something that will blown microscopic mind."

Skull turned his entire body to face Colonello, emotions and repressed rage coming to the surface and boiling. "Just because someone else has been through more does not make another person's suffering any less valid. So what if there are people who have had worse?! It does not make what I feel invalid!" He trembled and shook with sincerity and desperation. If he got the point through to them, then it was true, right—?

Skull stood up and walk toward Colonello with all the grace of a lynx. " You cretin, you know nothing." The Cloud hissed, whipping around to face the other six in the room, eyes on fire.

"Does anyone else have something they'd like to say about my mental health? And yes I do in fact know that self-harm is not a 'healthy' way to cope. And no I can't exactly schedule an appointment with a psychiatrist and say 'I was turned into a baby along with nine(8) other people. I self-harm and sometimes purposely annoy others into beating me up because the only thing that is constant in my life is people's dislike of me and pain.' So if you have anything to say to me, please consult my personal secretary Oodako!" Skull's address ends on a mocking note and he storms out of the room, having said all he had to and definitely not crying. Dang it, why did he still want the acceptance of these people?! It had never happened, it would never! He thought he had realized that the very first time they met!.

"Well, Colonello, you fucked up big time," Yuni smiled self-deprecatingly, bitterly, wishing with all her heart that she had confronted Skull before and tried to help him. She glanced at everyone else's shocked faces and left the room as well, despite much slower and more elegantly than the Cloud.

END

1 Changeling was once apon a time used to decide children that were "difficult" i.e. were developmentally disabled or were mentally ill.

2 For Skull cutting isn't addictive so much as being in pain in general also being beaten up by Reborn and Colonello

3 Reborn is not familiar with self-harm. He knows it's common for wrists to be a prime spot for cutters. He also isn't aware that self-harm can take different forms than just cutting.

4 Both Lal and Colonello think at first that Skull has PTSD and was triggered into a flashback by something

5 On the Reborn! Wiki it say that Reborn and Colonello both beat up Skull for being weak and cowardly. Something like an anxiety attack to Reborn would be scene as a liability.

6 Colonello is not familiar with PTSD being caused by anything other than battle. So things like PTSD from traumatic everyday things doesn't really compute with him.

7 Damien means the one who tames fitting for this fic and Mortimer means dead sea which I thought was perfect Oodako being an inhabitant of the ocean and mort like de morte as in Skull De Morte.

8 The nine being Luce, Aria, Yuni, Reborn, Colonello, Verde, Mammon, Bermuda, and Lal Mirch

And sorry to any Colonello lovers that say this bashing it isn't, to me at least. I chose Colonello to be the "bad guy" because it was either him or Reborn as they are Skull's main physical abusers. And to me Reborn has shown more character development then Colonello. Granted we don't see Colonello as much as Reborn, but with Reborn being around Tsuna so much I think he's be slightly more aware than Colonello.

Sorry if everyone seemed OoC, but I really wanted to write a fic where Skull is some poor schmuck that gets roped into the mafia without a choice. I see BAMF!Skull fics and Harry-Potter-is-Skull fics. They're amazing, but I relate to a Skull who has the fake it 'till ya make it attitude the problem is that Skull never "makes it"

So the premise is Skull has always had low self-esteem. He acts like he doesn't, but never denies the lackey comments because to an extent he thinks they're true. The problem is that Skull is affected by the comments all the same and thirty three years of verbal, mental, physical, and emotional abuse can get to you. Skull is clinically depressed and has anxiety in his fic.

I have anxiety and used one of my attacks as a base for Skulls. I have been depressed. I was on birth control for certain health reasons and side effects started to show. I have never cut however one of my closest friends as a child was a cutter. I don't know how it feels and I am sorry I did not do an accurate representation please feel free to PM about any inaccuracies in my writing.