Chapter Text
Pugsley missed the torture, he didn’t have the time for it now that school had started back up and Wednesday was too busy catching her latest serial killer. He missed the iron maiden, the pear of anguish and most of all the excitement that came with almost getting his head chopped off by Wednesday’s guillotine. Though every time she was about to drop the blade, Thing had already alarmed their parents. Their parents allowed torture, heck, they even encouraged it, but after years of infertility they weren’t going to allow their first son to be murdered.
Two weeks into his time at nevermore, he was walking into the woods after Eugene had begged him for some space. It was there he saw an empty vodka bottle and had an idea. He had tried drinking to create pain in the past but all it did, really, was numb the already existing pain. He knelt down beside the bottle, inspecting it. He stood up, holding the bottle in his hands and threw it hard against a tree.
He watched as shards of glass scattered around the forest, one, large shard, laid directly at his feet. He grasped it, as if it was a lifeline. Rolling up his sleeve, he dug the shard deep into his skin and drew it across the pale canvas.
He felt the burn in his skin, and watched as the scarlet blood dripped down and landed on his white shirt. The pain paled in comparison to the torture he usually endured. but it would have to make do whilst he had no other means of hurting himself. He drug the shard across his skin a few more times, savouring the sharp ache in his arm.
Since that day, the pain has become almost routine. He’ll do it whenever he feels the need, which is, if he’s being honest, very often. More often than not, he’ll reach down the side of his mattress and pull out the small, black box hidden there. What follows is nothing short of misery.
First comes the idea, then the reluctance, then the giving in, which is shortly followed by scrambling to find a bandage in his drawers.
Just as he was in the middle of dragging the glass down his leg, he heard the loud creak of their door. He groped around his bed covers, fumbling to find the box that he had pulled the glass out of. Realising that it had fallen somewhere, he shoved the glass underneath his pillow and hastily applied the bandage.
His heart skipped a beat once he saw Eugene standing in the doorway, a goofy smile spread across his face. Pugsley stared at Eugene, as he often did. Eugene was the single best thing for anyone to stare at, at least according to Pugsley.
“Guess what!” Eugene threw his bag down beside his desk before pulling some pyjamas out of his drawer. “My caterpillars- well- butterflies now hatched out of their chrysalis!” He was practically jumping for joy, completely blocking out little black box lying on his bed.
He rambled on about the special type of butterfly, the way the colour of the wings changed according to the time of day and how each one had a special symbol on the right wing, he continued before noticing a small box on his bed.
“Hey, what’s this?” Eugene questioned, picking up the box and shaking it slightly.
“Shit- uh sorry! That’s mine it must’ve fallen down.” Pugsley explained, reaching out to grab the box from Eugene’s hand. The glass wasn’t the only thing he used to inflict pain upon himself, and pugsley would rather not explain the blade stained with blood that lie in there.
Eugene just handed him the box and walked to the bathroom. Pugsley hadn’t been almost caught like that in a while, each time it happened it was just as nerve wracking as the last. The most memorable one, though, was when Agnes was relaying a message from Wednesday and caught him, blood dripping down his arm. Somehow, he managed to play it off as a bug bite.
Around half an hour later, Eugene emerged from the bathroom, drying his dripping hair off with a towel. He was wearing his honeycomb pyjamas and pugsley’s heart jumped at the sight of him. Eugene collapsed onto his bed under pugsley’s.
“I’m so tired, my hairs gonna look shit in the morning if I got to sleep without doing it though.” Eugene groaned into the pillow, reaching for the multiple creams and gels sitting on his nightstand.
“I could…do it for you? If you’re too tired?” Pugsley suggested, his voice barely above a whisper. Eugene heard him though, and threw the bottles up to pugsley’s bed before climbing up the ladder himself and sitting in front of pugsley, back to pugsley’s face.
Pugsley had seen Eugene doing his hair many times, it was impossible to ignore, as Eugene often was. He worked the routine through the boys wet hair, trying to be as soft as possible as to not hurt Eugene.
“There you go, it’s probably not as good as you do it but-“ he was interrupted by the soft snoring of Eugene, who had fallen asleep whilst sitting up. Pugsley slipped Eugene’s yellow bonnet on and laid him down on his bed. His arms were too tired to carry Eugene down to his own bed. Even if his arms weren’t tired, he would’ve chosen to sleep in the same bed with Eugene.
He felt rather selfish, knowing that Eugene hadn’t exactly wanted to fall asleep with pugsley, and pugsley had made no effort to stop it from happening. However, Eugene fit perfectly in his arms, almost like he was made to cuddle pugsley. And who was pugsley to deny Eugene that right?
Eugene’s head nuzzled into pugsley’s neck and puglsey swore for a second he saw Eugene’s eyes open slightly. It was probably just the light playing tricks on him, or, Eugene was awake. But why would Eugene stay awake all through this?
He decided to ignore it, and for a while, with Eugene in his arms, the constant buzzing in pugsley’s mind seemed not so loud.