Title: Triggers
Author: Claddagh Ring

Disclaimer: I do not own Glee.

WARNING: contains explicit/graphic scenes centered around and involving cutting; some content may be unsuitable for certain readers.

They discovered it a while ago, their mutual affection for the razor's edge. During the best of times, it goes unspoken between them, some dark secret ghosting through the night like ships without a sail, ever constant, ever in reach, but moving just far enough away that it requires the reach of a weak hand. When that grip does tighten and the urge takes hold, they turn to each other, seeking strength in steady fingertips. Sometimes the additional grasp is enough to level the need, and the razor goes unused for another day, and sometimes they let themselves drown together, pressing blade to flesh and letting whatever pain that burdens them bubble to the surface and leave their skin in crimson-tinged rivers.

Rachel's lines, like everything she does in her life, are meticulous; perfectly straight and evenly spaced high across her thigh. In times of dire need, he could find them in the crook of her elbow, hidden by a bright pink cardigan, the youthful color belying the old darkness she carried in her soul. Blaine's own are more haphazard, cut in bursts of emotions he tried to keep out of sight, crisscrossing his arms in chaotic patterns that whispered of frenzied sessions when time was too short to keep his hands careful.

It was a time such as this when she'd first caught him on a normal enough afternoon, one like many others spent in her infamous Oscar room in Finn's company while he spent his in Kurt's. But under the surface of his smile, a tempest brewed. It had started simple enough, a failed exam in a subject he knew himself to be better in, an argument with his father, feelings of inadequacy thrown at him by his brother, but those things pressed against his skin in a tension he knew would only continue to rise unless cut out of him. So he excused himself to wander Rachel's house until he found her fathers' bathroom. As he suspected, they were classic enough to use loose razors and he fished one out the box, the edge biting his skin with sharp teeth as he drew it across his forearm without a second thought.

He watched the blood well up, the pressure gaining instant release; a sigh echoed on the tiled floor, but it was not his own. It startled him, the razor slipping from his gasp, as he turned and found himself held under Rachel's unrepentant gaze. "I-" he started, but what could he say? She saw the cut, the blood, the blade in his hand. She had already put the pieces together, no matter what he had to say in defense. She saved him the trouble, merely taking his hand and leading her to her bedroom, perching him on the corner of her duvet while she ducked under her bed. She pulled out a box, wholly innocuous on it's own, but inside filled with bandages and disinfectant, gauze pads and healing ointments. Underneath lay a package of precision tip blades, thin and cruel things, tiny like her and he then recognized her box for what it was. He had one of his own on the top shelf of his closest, simply called "the kit" in the corners of his mind.

"You too, then," he whispered as she cleaned him up, spreading a layer of ointment over his wound before picking the appropriate sized bandage.

"Since freshman year," she admitted, her eyes so even she might as well have been discussing the weather, "and you?"

"My first week at Dalton," he confessed. "After the Sadie Hawkins dance, really, but I gave up pretending it was an accident once I got to Dalton. I'd already given up on everything else."

"Nobody liked me," she elaborated, he assumed because he had, "and they made that very clear. I didn't like myself much either."

"Still, I would have never guessed," Blaine said with a wry and twisted grin, eyes quietly scanning her exposed skin for the faint marks. She must have known he was looking as she hiked her skirt up just past her thigh and he could see one white scar trace the outside curve of her leg before disappearing inward. Instinct told him there would be more, that this one had just been longer than the others, made in a time when her normal stroke hadn't been quite enough. He imagined that it bled more than she was used to, knowing the shock the first time it happened that way, the brief uncertainty before it was clouded over with the usual macabre relief.

"I wouldn't have suspected you either," Rachel replied gently, dropping her skirt so that she could put away her kit once more. She rolled his sleeve down carefully, pausing only once at his slight wince before they headed back down the stairs, fingers laced together in solidarity and the silent promise of secrets to be kept. It was a strange thing to bring them even closer, but the friendship and affection he'd held for her before only multiplied, such as tightly harbored darkness did tend to do.

Still, it did give him some pause for thought every time he reached for an edge to know that she might very well be across town doing the same. He somehow felt like he had to answer to her now for each new scar he created, worried if the reasons for which he felt the need to cut would be reason enough for her to understand or if she would think him weak instead. In some twisted way, her disapproving glare that he could conjure in his mind was occasionally enough to force him to put down his razor until a moment of greater worth came to him. It was often not too long afterward, as that was the nature of their curse; the longer it remained unreleased, the easier it was to persuade a blade through flesh.

It had been a relatively good day for him, the day she cornered him in the hallway at school, her voice barely more than a breath asking if he had something on him that she could use. He did, tucked away discreetly in the lining of his bag for safe keeping. He led her this time, around a corner and through to the gymnasium, guiding her under the bleachers until they were well hidden in the shadows. She practically shook as she took the instrument from him, sitting down on the floor and rolling her tights down past her knee before pressing the tip against her inner thigh. "Damn it," she whispered, her cut going off at an ugly angle completely out of sync with her usual precision; whatever it was she needed to drain out, it was bad and her frustration at the imperfect cuts was only making the tremor in her hands worse.

He wasn't sure what possessed him to take the razor from her, to sit down across from her and hook her leg around his waist. He did it all without a single word, using his sleeve to stem the blood trickling from her wound, clearing her skin until he could see the miniscule white scars decorating her body. Carefully, he lined the blade up with her old cuts, keeping her immaculate spacing, and pressed until her skin gave way under the razor's bite. It was a different experience and he second-guessed his own hand as he pulled it across her skin – was it too deep? too shallow? enough? - but she gasped quietly, a mixture of surprise and relief. It filled him with a perverse sense of pride and he sized up another cut, tugging her leg closer to him as he carved another fine line into her thigh.

He glanced up at her after that second one and her eyes shone with astonishment and an odd portrayal of comfort. "Do you," he began, his voice shaking as much as her hands had been earlier, "need another one?" She shook her head, eyes never leaving his own. "Let's get you cleaned up then."

They walked to the nearest bathroom, deserted as the class bell had already rung, and she hoisted herself up on one of the sinks with practiced ease. He handed her a paper towel which she wet before carefully dabbing away the dried blood on her skin, hissing in a pain he knew she relished, until the only evidence left was the actual cut itself. Her fingers lingered over the half-formed scabs, tracing them with a kind of reverence. "You did these well," she said with a soft smile turned in his direction. "I feel like I should say thank you."

He chuckled with dark humor. "You're welcome," he responded and she started giggling as she climbed down from her perch, a contagious thing that devolved to the both of them in hear hysterics. He eventually calmed himself, leaning against the wall opposite of her. "Do you want to talk about it?"

She didn't even have to ask what he meant, just cocked her head to the right pensively, biting her lip before she finally responded. "I've had one goal my entire life: Broadway, New York, but right now it feel like everything in my life wants to take me away from that. Finn wants to go to California after graduation and I just can't, Blaine. I don't belong there."

They spent the next forty minutes in that bathroom as he listened to her plans for the city, watching her eyes light up as she detailed her exact rise to fame and position in the theater world. She sang her future audition pieces while he provided accompaniment where appropriate, each of them whispering hushed warnings if their voice grew to loud. As the period bell rang and she enveloped him in a tight hug, he pressed his lips to her temple in a quiet farewell. Just as she turned to leave, he caught her by the arm, passing his razor into her palm. She looked at it curiously before tucking it into her English book, whispering another dark thank you. He didn't see her again until glee when she gave it back to him, a note attached to say she hadn't needed it again.

He was a little dumbfounded at how much he thought about it, that string of moments he and Rachel had shared under the bleacher where his hands had found her warm skin, her trust in him as he sliced her open, the feel of the blood coaxing under his fingertips and the inexplicable release he felt her give under his touch. It had almost been like one of his own, he mused late at night. Not as significant, but it held a certain novel rush all the same; he dreamed of it once or twice, though he stopped short of actually do it again. The opportunity never seemed to present itself and it wasn't something he could so easily put into request. Thankfully, Rachel didn't seem to have the same qualms.

"Can I try it?" Rachel asked him a few weeks later while curled into his chest as they watched Casablanca on the classic movie channel in his room, stunning him into silence as he let the question and it's meaning seep into him. She seemed to mistake his silence, retreating from him hastily. "I'm sorry, that was inappropriate of me."

"No, wait," Blaine said quickly, scrambling off the bed after her as she headed towards the door. "Don't leave." Her hand paused on the knob, and though she refused to look at him, he could see the blush of embarrassment creep across her cheeks. "It's just that I'm not- I don't really- I don't need it right now," he struggled to explain, the words not coming to him despite all the times he imagined what he would say if she ever asked. "But the next time, you can. If you still want to."

A smile fluttered across her lips, though her blush stayed. "This is so fucked up," she whispered, her voice light despite her sentiments. He nodded in agreement, pulling her into a deep embrace before they settled back down on his bed to finish the movie. Her fingertips idly traced the scars on his arm, so faint that one would miss them if they didn't know them to be there. But she did, seemed to instinctively know where they all lay hidden, a mess in comparison to her own. As she trailed up the curves and crosses, it was like she was following a path he had created for her without knowing that was the intention.

It was only two days after that the need hit him again, faster and harder than anything had in a long while, and while he had known Kurt's acceptance letter to NYADA was on it's way, he was still blindsided by the feelings of abandonment that choked like a vice around his throat. Rachel's could only be so far behind, and Mike's soon after. Even Puck had solid plans for his pool cleaning business in California, helped along by Quinn as she readied for her own departure for Yale; everyone he had ties to and considered a friend, no matter how tenuous their connection, would be leaving him behind. A fear gripped him, kept away only by digging his nails into his arm, the pain not nearly up to purpose. Still he tried to smile until he could break down in private; alone, like he always seemed to end up as.

Rachel's hand on his, prying his vice like fingers from his own skin reminded him of the promise he'd made her. She seemed to understand that this was her moment, her shoulders squared in determination though her eyes beheld a deep sadness as she looked at him. She met him after glee and they drove to her house after one minor detour, a fresh box of newly purchased razors clutched in his hand.

"We can talk about it first," she offered as the locked themselves into her bathroom. She spread a towel across the floor, which he promptly sat on, his back against her tub for support. "We don't even have to do this at all. You don't owe it to me."

Blaine merely shook his head, sliding the box across the floor. She stared at it for a moment, as if it were something entirely foreign to her before she sighed and sat down, tearing into the package. He pulled his sweater over his head, followed by his polo until he was left in just his under shirt and his arms completely bare. A shiver of anticipation snaked down his spine as she finally settled on a blade, withdrawing it and holding it between her fingers as if to test it's weight. She sucked in a deep breath, her eyes wavering with doubt until he extended his arm towards her, granting permission.

She placed it high on the inside of his bicep and the cut was tenuous at first, barely a scratch. He groaned in frustration, flexing his arm to press the blade in further on his own accord. The blood swelled, splashing against her fingers and her mouth fell into a soft oh as she momentarily lost herself in the sight. He resisted the urge to steal the razor from her grasp, to do the job himself. "Rachel," he pleaded. "Please." Her eyes strengthened in resolve, reaching for his arm and pulling him towards her until he had to hunch over her, their foreheads a hair's breadth away from touching.

He felt the edge bite deeper than it ever had before, the pain in such sharp clarity that it drove away the demons currently plaguing him until the only thing left was the blade in his arm and the rushing towards release guided by Rachel's hands. He swallowed the cry in his chest, keeping his arm steady until she finished, knowing that jerking it away could ruin them both. But it hurt, god it hurt and while that was always the point, this was something he hadn't been prepared for. "Fuck, Rach," he said through gritted teeth as she pulled away. "That's really deep."

Her eyes were wide in horror, fixated on the wound she had caused, on the blood she had spilled. She threw the blade away, grabbing a hand towel from where it hung on her vanity and pressed it with all her might against his cut. "I'm so sorry," she repeated over and over again, crawling into his lap until her legs straddled his. She seemed unaware of her position, her concentration instead on staunching the flow of blood from his arm. The towel soaked through, but eventually stopped spreading and she was brave enough to pull it away to look at the damage. She blotted at it with the clean corners that remained on her cloth, seemingly satisfied when it came back with only the smallest specks of left over blood. His entire arms was painted red, it seemed, but nothing new came forth.

He released a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding, only to have it taken from him once again as she bent down, her lips pressed to a kiss against his cut. Her mouth seemed unnaturally cool against his inflamed skin, but it was as soothing as anything he'd ever felt and he couldn't find the will to stop her even as her lips fell slightly more open and her tongue raked across his skin. A kind of wonder seized him as he watched her, the sight perhaps the oddest he had ever seen, but somehow incredibly satisfying all the same.

Suddenly she pulled back, every inch of her startled as her senses came back to her. She seemed panicked as she looked to him, so many emotions swirling through her dark irises that she couldn't seem to decide on one, though wild apologies seemed to be the most prevalent. His eyes fell from hers to her mouth, the same one that only moments ago had cared for his pain with their gentle touch, and he found himself drawn to the dark red blood in the corner of her lips, still wet and glistening like a miniscule ruby. She started to say something just as he captured her lips, his tongue sliding out remove the blemish from her skin before meeting her own. The actual kiss in itself was languid, almost lazy even, but she invited him fully in, legs tightening around his hips as she clutched at his chest, hands wandering across his collarbone, his neck, down his shoulder and his arms.

They broke away at his moan as she strayed too close to his fresh wound, the pain knocking them out of their dark lust. A stray curl hid her gaze from him and he reached out slowly, tucking the hair behind her ear and when she looked at him through teary, widen eyes and he knew the moment had run it's course. An awkwardness settled over them. She seemed to realize how close they really where, how one of his hands had settled into the curve of her lower back, how she was pressed flush against his chest, how very intimate it all was. Carefully, she extracted herself from him and paced across the room, putting as much distance between them as the small space allowed them.

He knew he should have felt just as uncomfortable as she did. The things they did together, the cutting and the sharing and the weirdly bent support system they offered one another could all be chalked up to raging teenage angst. But when he had cut her, when she had cut him, they had crossed over into something that wasn't quite as easily understood; but that, coupled with the way she had tasted him, the way he had been drawn to taste himself on her lips, was an entirely different demon he wasn't sure how to fight. A part of him, a part not as deep down as he might have liked, wanted to do it again and it was that same corner of his conscience that begged to have Rachel back in his arms; he wasn't sure which of the two thoughts was more terrifying.

They cleaned the bathroom in silence, stopping every now and then when his cut would start to bleed again, and he didn't stay after they were done. The weekend passed with no word from her; she didn't even show at the Hudson-Hummel household as she normally did and Blaine couldn't help the seed of disappointment that buried itself in his stomach as he spent the day with Kurt sans her company. She did, however, pass with a concerned smile in the hall come Monday morning, followed by an unnecessary apology by text in homeroom. By the time they all gathered for glee practice, all seemed well and he put out any thoughts that their transgression might change their ever-evolving friendship and he was content to see the days pass as normal.

Wednesday would see that changed. He was called into Miss Pillsbury's office out of his last period and immediately he could tell by the overwhelming scent of Clorox that this wasn't a casual visit. She was nervous, possibly upset, as she invited him in, shutting the door as he sat down. She fidgeted with the top button on her cardigan before taking a deep breath and folding her hands in front of her on the desk, looking for all the world like a professional.

"How are you today Blaine?" she asked with a gentle smile, though she couldn't hide the worry in her eyes.

"I'm fine," he answered cautiously, unused to being on edge around her. It caused the back of his neck to prickle with anxiety, one of his earliest signs that he may yet meet the edge of blade by the end of the day.

"You don't feel stressed, or under a lot of pressure?" she asked in that same carefully controlled tone. "Or lonely perhaps?"

"I don't," he replied, conjuring up an easy smile though his worry seemed to explode within him. Her questions was textbook, but leading and he knew in his gut that she already had the answer she wanted to hear from him. There was no shadow of doubt in her as she leaned slowly across her desk, sliding a pamphlet in front of him. His eyes couldn't focus on the words printed in red on the cover, but he could guess what it implied, what it revealed.

"I called you in here," she whispered, her voice full of a compassion that jabbed at his heart, "because someone very close to you is concerned about you and what you may be doing."

"Who?" he asked though the word felt stuck in his throat. She seemed hesitant to continue and he snapped his head up from the desk, fixing her with a glare she didn't deserve. More demanding, he asked again. "Who? I think I have the right to know."

"Blaine, it's not about him," she tried to sidestep, "it's about you."

"Him?" That was unexpected and his churning thoughts slowed enough so that he could process it. The only person who knew, who really knew, was Rachel, but Miss Pillsbury had removed her from his doubt when she mentioned a him. He wracked his brain to think of who else might have noticed, who might have been clever enough to put the pieces together and who would think to talk to the high school guidance counselor before taking it up with Blaine himself; it clicked. "Kurt."

"He's concerned about you."

"He's jumping to conclusions," Blaine mumbled, replaying a scene in his head over the weekend in which Kurt had seen his cut – Rachel's cut – on his arm, his face dropping into a frown but appeased when Blaine explained what had happened. "I told him, I was making sushi and goofing off with the knife, tossing it around. It slipped."

"He doesn't believe that. He says you have," Miss Pillsbury seemed stricken for a moment, "scars and he came to me because he didn't know what to do. Blaine, I have to ask you: are you hurting yourself?"

"No," Blaine answered quickly, taking care to look her straight in the eye as he spoke. "I'm not hurting myself."

"Are you cutting yourself?" she replied just as swiftly, and he was taken aback at her sudden rewording before he realized how cunning it really was. He felt he could honestly answer that he wasn't hurting but it would be a blatant lie to say he wasn't cutting. There was really no way around that, and she seemed to understand the meaning behind his hesitance. A sorrow passed through her as she stepped out from around her desk, settling herself in the chair next to him. She retrieved the pamphlet from it's resting spot, pressing it into his hands.

"Can I go?" he whispered, unwilling to meet her gaze again. They sat in the quiet for a moment before she reluctantly nodded; he stood up immediately and rushed towards the door, crumpling the paper in his hands and shoving it deep into his book bag, only halfway listening as she insisted that her door was always open to him and he could talk to her at any time.

"And Blaine?" she said before he could leave, a note of regret hanging heavily in the air. "I'm required by law to contact your parents. You should expect them to have their own questions."

He nodded and left the room, resisting the urge to run down the hall as far and as fast as he could. Last period would be over soon and no one would question why he hadn't returned to class. He could feel a piece of his life slipping away from him, completely out of his control. He just needed to leave, he needed one last moment to himself before everything around him changed, before his parents came crashing down on him, before the only eyes cast his way would be laden with worry. Anger boiled in him at the betrayal Kurt had done towards him by bringing someone else into this, by bringing himself into this, whether he deemed it so or not. As Blaine made his way one of the school's many exits, he stopped only long enough to shove the offending pamphlet through the bars of Kurt's locker, praying the sight of it might cause even a fraction of the pain he felt.

In retrospect, cutting was probably the worst decision he could have made before his talk with his parents. When his father insisted he take off his jacket and roll up his sleeves, there was nowhere for Blaine to hide the furious red lines that marred his skin. They stood out against his fair skin in what might as well have been a neon sign. His mother cried, no matter how much he begged her not to and told her that of course it wasn't her fault. His father was oddly silent and merely handed him is clothing before marching to Blaine's room as he searched for and removed anything with a pointed edge. Blaine held his tongue against the desire to tell him it wouldn't make a difference, that if he really wanted to do it again, there wasn't much of anything that would stop him. Still, there was a certain kind of panic that enveloped him as his father managed to unearth every hiding spot, some that Blaine had never even considered, before moving on to the rest of the house.

His life became a series of restrictions, which only served to increase his frustration even while his parents thought they were doing right by him. He was to come straight home every day, no excuses. He was to attended professional counseling on his own and in a family setting and submit to having his arms poked and prodded every afternoon by his mother in search of new cuts. He couldn't even shave on his own; his father had to be present just in case Blaine might try to slip the razor from the cheap plastic casings they had given him. They just couldn't see it, how everything they thought was helping him was making him worse. He had no outlet anymore, no way to get rid of everything inside of him short of screaming. He feared if he did that, they might actually lock him up somewhere.

He avoided Miss Pillsbury until he couldn't anymore, once more being summoned to her office. His temper had grown considerably shorter than he realized when he walked into her office and found himself face to face with Kurt, whom he hadn't spoken with once since this nightmare started. "Fuck," he'd said, quite loudly, startling them both. The single word had ignited a fiery argument that try as she might, Miss Pillsbury couldn't control. Kurt eventually started screaming at him that he was just trying to look out for him, that he couldn't bear to see him hurt and Blaine had snapped out a series of curses before kicking his chair into the desk and storming off. As far as he was concerned, they were done; as for how Kurt saw it, he couldn't even begin care less.

Rachel tried to talk to him about it, to guide him through the storm with her words and friendship instead of a razor, but all he could see in his mind's eye was how she would get to go home and give herself the release he so desperately needed. Her pretty pretense was for him alone; she placed no real stock in them and he resented her for it. She had what he needed and had no way of getting and somehow over the course of a week without any kind of recourse, the thought became so twisted and malformed that somehow he got it in his head that this was all her fault.

Come Saturday, a full ten days since his biggest secret had been forced and manhandled out into the open, he found himself crawling through his window onto his roof in the soft morning light of dawn. He jumped the one story down, hitting the ground with a dull thud and he took a moment to appreciate the sensation before rolling to his feet and he started to run and run and run until his knees faltered underneath his weight and he slowed to a walk. For hours he walked until the sun was high overhead and he followed the path up Rachel's driveway, practically pounding on the door until she answered. She didn't say a word, just took a tiny step back to let him in and he immediately made to her room without her invitation.

He started pacing as she shut the door. "This happened because of you," he muttered, shaking his head in disgust even as the words left his mouth. "I'm a fucking wreck and it's just- you just had to- you cut me and you fucked it up and my life is falling apart around me because of what you did."

"I didn't mean to," she said evenly, though she chewed on her lip in the process and he could tell how much effort she was putting into appear calm. He shook his head again, waving her off as he bent down under her bed and pulled out her kit. Dumping it all over the bed, he rifled through the bandages and creams, searching for that glint of silver he knew lay at the bottom of the plastic case. Except it wasn't there this time and he growled in further aggravation, cut off only by Rachel's voice. "What are you doing?"

"I just need it okay?" he snipped, striding towards her bathroom only to find her blocking his way.

"You can't Blaine," she reminded him sternly. "It'll be worse if you do. They check your arms remember."

"I don't care!" he shouted, and she flinched away from him as he shoved past her through the doorway. He opened her medicine cabinet, moving her carefully organized makeup out of the way until he found the little flat box that housed her razors. He grabbed at it, knocking several vials of eyeshadow to the floor and ripped at the packaging as if his own fingers were tipped with claws. "You should understand this more than anyone Rachel."

"I do," Rachel breathed as he removed a fresh blade from his paper wrapping. "Believe me I do but I won't let you do this."

"You can't stop me," he snarled without looking at her, already steadying the blade in his hand for the release he so desperately needed. She took advantage of his distraction and with a deftness he hadn't known her capable of, she reached out and knocked the razor from his hand. They both froze as he turned his ire towards her, but she stood strong against him, her eyes steeled with resolve. He reached for the box again and she twisted her body in front of him, snagging it off the counter and throwing it across her room where it broke against the wall, scattering little blades across her floor.

His body moved before he could tell it to stop, grabbing her by the shoulders and forcing her roughly against the open door. "What are you doing?" he shouted, digging his fingers into her collar and she gasped in surprise. "Why are you doing this to me?"

"I'm trying to help you!" she screamed back, shoving against his chest until she found enough purchase to push him away, though not enough that he lost his grip and they stumbled back into her room. "You think I like seeing you like this, seeing you in pain? I don't. It's horrible but I can't give you what you want and I'm sorry, okay? I'm so sorry."

Her back hit another wall, the impact enough to cut off her words momentarily. She paused to catch her breath and as her mouth fell open once more to continue whatever she had come up with to say, he realized he didn't want to hear anymore of her words. Talking solved nothing and she should have known better than to try to convince him it did, especially when she didn't' believe it herself. She believed in what he did: flesh and blood, control and release, in whatever form it might take.

His lips collided with hers with bruising force, all teeth and tongue, and he gathered her into his arms. Frantic limbs fumbled to touch as her hands burrowed into his hair, tugging him closer. Her back arched off the wall, pressing her chest to his, his hands moving hitch her legs around his waist, hands around the undersides of her thighs in support. He pitched forward at the shift in position, her head hitting the wall with a hard crack before she pushed back, propelling him backwards until the corner of her dresser dug sharply into his spine. Her hands snaked between their bodies, traveling underneath his shirt as she nipped at his lip until their mouths filled with a coppery taste.

Where others might have given pause, the blood only further spurred them on as he knelt to the floor. She pressed against the carpet, legs still wrapped about his hips. His hands tore at the fabric of her dress, pushing it high above her waist so that he could bite down on the tight skin of her stomach. She squirmed under the touch, a kind of whimpering escaping her lips when his tongue swept across the newly forming bruise. Her nails raked down his back, stinging and keen and he groaned in appreciation, lifting her off the floor to pull her dress over her head as she did the same to his own shirt.

They crashed into each other, pushing and pulling as they kept the line between pleasure and pain forever blurred. He would have bruises, the kind he wouldn't be able to explain away, but to have her hands on him in this way, to be able to touch her in the same, was more than worth it. He could feel that familiar tension trapped underneath his skin, though the build up to it was a delicious kind of torture in itself and he could tell she could feel it just as acutely clamped tight around his hand as he worked his fingers into a frenzy inside of her. Her hand grasped him in a grip as relentless as his own, climbing, higher and higher, until he could barely stand it.

"Wait," she whispered as she flipped them over, grinding her hips into his. He let out an agonized groan, letting his head fall back onto the floor. She leaned over him, stretching to her very fingertips until she found whatever she had been looking for. She sat up, a silver razor in her hand and a sly smile on her face. "Can I?"

"They check," he echoed her words back to her.

"They only check your arms, right?" she questioned, her eyes boring into his with an absolute certainty he hadn't quite caught up to yet.

"Yes," he said slowly, begrudgingly allowing her to lift him from the floor. She shoved him down onto her bad, and perched herself on top of him, resuming their earlier position. She stroked him lazily with the hand that didn't hold the blade, keeping his senses at bay she drew the tip of the razor down his sternum and across his stomach, before coming to a stop just under his ribcage. "Rachel?"

"They won't check here," she whispered, digging the edge into his flesh, not enough to break the skin, but enough to tease him with the thought. "I won't mess it up this time, I promise."

He could only nod and with a slight twitch of her wrist, the razor split his skin with practiced ease. It stung, perhaps more than any cut ever had, but it was a welcome feeling and a twisted sigh escaped his lips. The blood dribbled down his torso, falling to the sheets on her bed and passing between them as she sunk down on him, taking all he had with one swift move of her hips. She moaned as she filled herself with him, pressing flat against him, controlling their movements as she bucked against him, driving him past what he had always thought was his limit. Her fingers played near his wound, his blood coating her hand, her wrist, all the skin between until it felt as slick as silk.

He couldn't be sure what caused him to finally tumble over the edge, whether his body just couldn't keep up anymore, or if it had been the press of her nails against his still bleeding cut, or his name falling from her lips as she found herself over the same cliff, but the release he felt surpassed anything else he had ever been able to come to himself. It was all encompassing, every nerve in his body quaked and shuddered and he felt, for once, at peace. For a blissful second that seemed to last longer than all the years he'd lived, there was nothing to get rid of or cut out and see it bled dry. As Rachel kissed him, his blood still on her fingers trailing down his cheek, the ever-present urge had found itself gone.

He wasn't naïve enough to think it would last, but perhaps it might stay away just a bit longer this time.

I am an insecure, neurotic control freak on crack... so reviews are incredibly appreciated.