This is really triggering. Descriptions of self harm and PTSD. I don't wanna spoil it but it's not an easy read.

(I researched for this chapter and am very aware of the sensitivity of the subjects talked about. Please know you can always ask me to take something out if it upsets you.)

...

Remington doesn't know where to go after barging out of his own home and declaring him and his husband over. He figures he can't go to Sebastian because he'd just make Remington go home and sort things out with Andy.

Instead, he gets a cab from downtown and tells the driver to take him to the very same hotel that he ran away to all those years ago. He deserves to be punished for everything he's put Andy through, and staying in that hotel has got bring him some sort of awful pain.

Awful pain. That's what he needs.

In the hotel reception, the singer asks for a room for three nights, pays, and is given a room key. When he unlocks the door, he realised how every room in here must have the same layout. Everything looks the same. The bed. The television.

The bathroom and the bathtub.

It's all the same.

Remington takes his coat off, leaves in on the bed where he sits, elbows on knees, head in hands. His chest hurts but he shrugs it off as anxiety.

His phone is ringing. He ignores it, instead standing up and picking up the kettle to fill up. That means going into the bathroom. Tiled and white and, when he looks for a second too long, marked with blood that dripped from his own tattooed body. Such a scarred and scared body.

The sound of the water filling the kettle makes him shiver. The way it seems to shout at him until he turns it off, reminding him of what happened in this very building.

Remington boils the water, sitting back on the bed while he waits, agitated and unsettled. The pain in his chest won't go away. The kettle clicks and Remington gets up, pours it into the white mug and dips a tea bag. A moment of stillness passes and then the boy carries the mug into the bathroom, the hot water steaming, drawing grey patterns into the air. He puts it on the side, by the sink, and pulls his shirt over his head, looking down at his imperfect body and touching a hand to where it happened. The knife.

Hi, this is really really graphic and upsetting. If u wanna skip, I'll give a summary of what happens at the bottom. Be safe x

With cold water, Remington fills the mug to the top, so it's almost scalding, but not quite, and sits in the bathtub with it. Call Abigail, his brain is screaming, but it's too loud and he doesn't care to pay attention.

At first, he doesn't feel it, but then it kicks in suddenly and he muffles a scream by biting his hand as he pours the hot water onto his own skin, watching it run down towards the plug and down the drain, burning him as it goes.

It's so hot that it feels freezing and he can't keep still.

It isn't until the mug is empty that Remington sees what he's done, that he's burned himself really quite badly, the redness of it covering almost the entire left side of his stomach. He drops the mug and it smashes on the tiles by the bathtub, pieces of it sliding over the floor like people on an ice rink.

Remington holds a hand to his chest, sure there's something stopping him from breathing properly. He can't feel his own body but he stands up anyway.

Her hand is touching his face now. Trailing over his eyes and down his cheeks, grazing his lips. He can't stay on his feet so he crawls. She's pushing him down. He shakes his head, tries to get her off him. Her hands are on his torso now. Remington screams because she touches the burn and then he can't crawl anymore, so he lies on his front and cries into the carpet because he can feel the fabric touching the burns and it's unbearable and his chest doesn't feel right. Like someone inside is chopping his heart up.

She's on top of him. She's pulling his hair now. All the boy can do is scream and cry and wish he was dead because this is too much. He should have let her kill him.

She's laughing. Telling him all his faults, everything that's wrong with him.

"Oh my God!" Remington cries, grabbing his chest with both hands, curled up on the ground in so much self-inflicted pain that he isn't sure what's even real anymore. He gasps for poisonous air, sobbing so hard that he can't hear anything else. Not the people outside who heard him scream. Not the door being kicked down by another guest. No. None of that.

Because it hurts and he can't breathe and he wants to go home and stop all this suffering.

...

For anyone who skipped - Remington poured hot water over himself, hallucinated Holly, and had a heart attack.

(I researched for this chapter and am very aware of the sensitivity of the subjects talked about. Please know you can always ask me to take something out if it upsets you.)