Genie is pacing around his house. He feels like he’s filled with a million shards of glass digging into him, tearing his flesh. He tugs on his hair as it gets worse, as the glass is jostled around. He speeds up, still tearing his hair out.

By the time he slows down from pacing, many minutes have passed and there’s a rather alarming amount of hair in his hands when he looks at them. The sight just makes him more agitated and he feels the need to scream. He doesn’t bother to fight the urge, nor the urge to throw the hair as far as he can.

Every dark thought he’s ever had seems to be bubbling over inside of him, like a pot of boiling water left on the stove for too long. The boiling water splashing his skin, leaving blisters and burns behind. It burrows through him like acid, curling around his bones.

He can’t see anything behind the veil of blood and water, beyond his own pain. He knows he’s in his house, but beyond that, he’s not present. His body isn’t his own anymore, it’s foreign, wrong. He needs it gone. It’s wrong, wrong, wrong.

Get off, get off, get off-

The blood is no longer in his head. It’s dripping down his skin in small drops, his nails have pierced the skin but not badly. Every time Lith comes over they cut his nails. He’s glad for that now, even if he doesn’t feel it strongly. He doesn’t feel strongly about anything right now, he’s just looking at the blood dripping down with a sort of disconnectedness.

He knows he should wash the blood off and clean the wounds. It’s bad if he leaves them, they get infected that way. But why does he care, might as well just go put some dirt on it, he hopes they get infected. But that’s wrong and he needs to wash them. Infection is a very bad thing.

The scratches are on his face and arms, he can’t fit into the kitchen sink. Might as well just take a dip in the pool, it’s not like it’s chlorinated.

He tries to get his body to move to the backyard and it takes a while, but eventually, he gets it. The pool is right in front of him, the water clear and clean. Should he take his clothes off? He supposes it doesn’t matter if they get wet, and he’s going to get out almost immediately anyway. Unless he doesn’t.

He could just stay in there and drown. The clothes would help drag him down so they should stay on. He’s never drowned before, this will be a new experience. How does it feel to not have air? It would be nice to have his last moments be new.

He steps towards the pool.

And immediately throws himself backwards. He can’t. He doesn’t want to die, and if he does that’s bad, very bad. He’s supposed to do something but can’t think over the ringing in his ears. What is it he’s supposed to do?!

Call, call, call somebody. Somebody obvious, who is important enough to him that he should call?

Litha.

Phone, phone, phone, where is his phone!

Inside. No. In his pocket. He grabs the phone and drops it as soon as his fingers grasp it. But that's fine, he doesn’t need to hold it, just call. He has them on speed dial, he can call from the lock screen.

Is he breathing? Well, now he is. He finally gets the phone to call.

It’s picked up almost immediately.

“Genie? What’s up?” He can’t even respond, he’s not entirely breathing.

“Hey, hey, hey, are you okay?” Silence once again, although it’s not completely silent with his gasping.

“I’m coming over, stay on the call.” With this, they start rambling about something, he can’t entirely focus. But it is helping.

Litha is here, he is safe. Shh shhh shh…

He doesn’t know how many minutes have passed until they’re suddenly next to him on their knees.

They try asking what’s wrong but he still can’t answer. They simply hug him instead, which is exactly what he needed. He can’t do anything if he’s being held, especially not if he's being held by Litha.

…

…

…

After a while, he calms down enough to be breathing normally. Lith asks him what happened again. He doesn’t quite keep track of the words he’s saying, he’s not that calm yet, but he knows he’s explaining himself. He knows because Lith hugs him tighter.

“Come on, let’s get you cleaned up.” It’s said softly like he’s fragile. And he is. A piece of glass ready to shatter. Don’t think about glass. There’s no need to.

They stand up, he’s leaning most of his weight on them and they don’t even falter. They hobble inside to the kitchen. It’s soft and quiet for the next few minutes as Lith cleans his scratches and wraps them. Apparently, he did quite a number on himself the second time he panicked. He hadn’t even realized he was scratching himself again.

After that’s finished he’s picked up and walked to his bed. They put him down gently before crawling in with him. It’s cosy. He feels okay for a moment. What happened earlier was horrible, but he thinks he’ll be okay if he can just stay like this.

The night is passed in whispers and hugs.