Sebastian watched on as Remington, Codie and Emerson slept in a bunch on the opposite couch. They all looked peaceful as if nothing in the world was troubling either of them, yet each of them carried a burden. Codie had a heavy past which weighed down on her shoulders and Emerson was dealing with something cut so deep below the surface of the skin that the poison was in his blood and infecting his brain.

Emerson and Codie's heads were leant on top of each other whilst Remington lay across their laps, his legs uncomfortably off the edge of the couch. The peaceful expression on Remington's face was foreign, as for the last few nights the only emotions etched upon his features was worry, anger and frustration.

Remington's previous behaviour became understandable as the feeling of unknown dragged him towards malicious intent. He wasn't mad at Emerson, nor was he mad at Codie; his ill feelings that festered below the surface of the skin and rooting themselves deep were directed solely at Remington.

Remington had clearly confronted Emerson, and he had clearly gotten the answers he desired. Yet somehow Sebastian couldn't help but harbour a slight hatred for the frontman of the band. His brother should have waited to talk to Emerson with Sebastian.

Sebastian could tell that the singer had not been gentle in his means of extracting the information from the drummer. He had seen Emerson's cheeks, stained from the tears. Yet he also saw Remington's cheeks as well, the man had not cared enough to wipe away the tears that flowed freely down his cheeks.

Remington was now in the 'loop' of the inner workings and pain rooted in Emerson's brain; Sebastian was in the dark. He couldn't hate Codie, she had been through enough shit in her lifetime, it just wouldn't be fair to take out an unjustified hatred out on someone who didn't deserve it. Hell, not even Remington deserved it.

Before the guitarist could think any further into it, Emerson's body began to shake and tears began streaming down his cheeks. The eldest Kropp stood, getting ready to comfort his brother, but Remington and Codie awoke after feeling his shaking. Both of them worked together to wake him up and soothe him once he had woke, both of them chased him to the bathroom, and both of them tried to talk him out of the bathroom.

Sebastian stood there.

He didn't know what to do. It was like that time four and a half months ago when Emerson locked himself in the bathroom after seeing Maisie. Sebastian had stayed a fair distance away then, as to not crowd his brother's, but now he was standing back for a different reason. He was out of the loop.

It was like he wasn't even a part of the family anymore. He barely even knew his brothers anymore. Subconsciously he knew what he was thinking was beyond unreasonable and untrue but the hurt and raw emotion that hit him when he realised that his brother didn't need him warped his mentality, eroding any plausible thoughts.

Emerson stood in front of the mirror examining the reflection of a broken man. He was fully aware of the fact that his brother and Codie was outside the door and that they knew what was going to happen eventually during his stay in the small room.

His brain burned with horrible flashbacks to the last time a similar scenario played out. When his brother sat outside the room for hours on end whilst Emerson sat in a pool of his own blood trapped in a never-ending void of despair and torment. Sat on the floor so close to his brother yet so far.

The vivid memories of the songs of torment that echoed through his brain were forever branded into his brain. He didn't know why these particular thoughts stuck out to him in the haystack of other self-destructive thoughts, but they had.

He looked at his wrists where pink lines were now beginning to replace ugly cuts, cuts that had exposed him and put him in the situation he was in now. If Codie hadn't found out about it then Remington wouldn't have built up the frustration and started the one-sided argument about it all. He couldn't tell if he felt better after people found out. People knowing made it harder. Harder to cut, harder to put on the mask, and most importantly it was harder to pretend to be okay.

He remembered the feeling of Codie's gentle hands on his fragile skin as she did her best to fix an already broken man. He remembered every emotion that went through his head when it was just him and her in the small room. The fear and disgust that littered his thoughts. He had been so disgusted in himself at the thought of accepting the reality that had become of him.

Emerson sighed and shook his head, dropping his vision from the mirror. He watched in silence as the water droplets dripped down his face. His eyes focused on a single droplet that raced down his face, slowly making it over the features of his face to make it to his jawline only to fall down to the ground. At the moment in time he felt as if he was that water droplet, he was trying to pretend to be normal and he would momentarily achieve it, but then the day would end and then he would fall right down to the ground. Just like the water droplet.

His pale hand grasped the doorknob and he let out a heavy sigh, he stepped out and looked blankly at the vividly concerned faces of Remington and Codie. Emerson felt a pang of guilt, knowing he had been the one to cause the looks on their faces, the feelings in their hearts. The emotional cut was much more damaging than any physical one. But he just shook it off, and brushed past the duo, settling on the couch. He closed his eyes and heard slight whispers from the bathroom. He knew they were talking about him, it wasn't exactly hard to figure out. Yet no matter how Remington and Codie felt about the situation, they still settled next to him, cuddled close enough to feel their presence and warmth.

Once again Emerson was asleep, his head was resting on Remington's lap making the area on Remington's jeans wet from the droplets of water that fell from Emerson's recently showered head. Neither Codie nor Remington knew whether Emerson had made any fresh cuts, and neither one of them made a move to find out. They weren't willing to run the risk of exposing Emerson's dark secret to Sebastian who was still very much in the dark over the recent events of the bus.

"-It was okay for you to feel like this!" Emerson opened his eyes and immediately regretted doing so. He could tell from their tense stances, that Sebastian and Remington were arguing, and from the several hand gestures towards Emerson, he could tell that it was about him. Sebastian was flailing his arms, using the limbs to exaggerate a point, whilst Remington stood in front of him, in between the oldest and the youngest, almost in a protective stance.

"Sebastian I am warning you, step any closer to Emerson and you will regret it. You've been drinking and we both know you would not be doing this without any alcohol in your system" Remington stood a small step forward towards his older brother, hands out in front of him. It reminded the drummer of the time when Codie caught him, she had approached him in the same way. It was like approaching a dangerous animal that could snap at any moment.

Neither one of the men knew that Emerson was awake if they had they would have stopped arguing and pretended like nothing was happening, and they would try to make him believe that there were no troubles resting on their shoulders. Yet here they were, arguing about Emerson, in front of- who they believed to be sleeping- Emerson.

"Remington, you think you're so high and mighty, you think that you deserve to know everything going on with our brother, well I deserve that right too" Sebastian also took a step closer to Remington, only this time Sebastian wasn't trying to soothe an animal, he was the animal. Closing in on his prey, ready to eliminate all obstacles in his way. At the moment Emerson was his prey and Remington was the obstacle.

The two oldest Kropp's were worryingly close. No gap was left between them, Remington's warily extended hands now pressed against Sebastian's chest. The two men stared each other in the eyes, challenging each other to make the first move against the other. "Sebastian believes me, you will regret this" words were steady and confident as he stood off against his brother.

The older man scoffed and took another step towards the younger brother. The distance between the two men shrunk once again, Remington's elbows were tight against his sides as his forearm extended towards his brother as he tried to keep him at bay. "What will you do Remington? How will you make me regret this?" His words were dark and bitter and Remington recognised the hint of malice in his brother's words that had existed in his own a few hours ago.

Remington looked at his brother, of course, the drunk fool believed he was intending to start a fight. What good would starting a fight do? Who would it help? "You think I mean that I will make you regret doing this Sebastian, no. You will regret using confrontation to get Emerson to open up to you. Yes, I did it, and I regret it. The man is broken as it is, we all know that, and you confronting him is going to break him even more. He will shatter like glass" Remington extended his arms a bit further, creating space between the two men.

"How will I regret finding out what is wrong with my brother? Why am I the one stuck in the dark? You're just saying all of this so that you can be one of the only ones that he speaks to. Get your head out of your arse Remington, Emerson's life does not revolve around just you, it revolves around Maisie and him moping around cause she hurt him"

Emerson could feel the words stabbing his heart. Why would his brother say something like that? He could feel the warm tears flow down his cheeks and fall onto Codie's shoulder. Apparently, he had been moved when the argument had begun.

Codie felt the tears hit her shoulder and looked down to see Emerson watching the scene unfold in front of him. Her brain reeled back and her face morphed into one of horror when she recalled Sebastian's previous words. Slowly she moved Emerson so that his head was on her lap and his face was towards her and not towards the two arguing men.

Her fingers combed through his hair and she watched as his eyes closed. She knew that he was still listening to the argument that played in the background. She wiped his tears as they continued to fall down his face, in any other occasion she would have spoken to Emerson to try and lull him, but she couldn't run the risk of the others finding out he was awake.

Silence echoed in the bus as the sound of the bus door slamming shut reverberated around the small room. Any other time she would have stayed to soothe Emerson but she knew right now, Remington was a ticking time bomb ready to explode, which is why she took Emerson's head from her lap and with one last look at the drummer she followed Remington out of the door.

The two men left in the bus were trapped in their own minds. Even though throughout the argument the only thing he had tried to do was get to Emerson, now that he was left alone with the man he didn't even make any attempts. He just stumbled over to his bunk to sleep off the alcohol.

Emerson lay there, the words that had come out of his brothers' mouth in one day bounced around his brain, plaguing his conscious and subconscious. He fell into a quiet dream, this time there was no Maisie, no Remington, there was nothing. Just the sound of Sebastian's words and the entirety of Remington's speech before. Each word from the dark abyss came forward and stabbed him in the heart.

This time when Emerson woke up, he didn't shoot up and gasp in horror from the dreams, he didn't cry and shake, he didn't even wake with a start as reality hit him. He just opened his eyes and sat up slowly. He felt nothing, he was numb. There wasn't even a tingle of pain as he pressed against his recently made cuts on his arms. There was nothing.

He had fallen into the void.

The void of inexistence. The void of heartbreak. The void of emotions. His body had broken into pieces and broken off into each of the voids. He felt nothing. At first, the lack of emotions soothed him, made him feel serene. Yet as he sat there in the dark, void of any emotions, something ate at the back of his brain. An unrecognisable wave of terror flooded through him, he was never meant to become numb.

This is how he had been before Maisie when he and Remington had hit rock bottom. Before that Emerson was hiding. Always hiding. Under a mask that fooled people into thinking he was happy. The mask fooled everyone, even his 2 brothers. Emerson had worn this mask so much that he didn't know how to take it off. He didn't know how to tear down the façade and face his emotions.

Emotions were hard. They made him feel, and the mask taught him how to not feel, and so he just never took the mask off. Even so, it had now come to the point where Emerson was sure if the mask did come off, he wouldn't even feel anything; he would just be void of any emotions. It didn't seem so bad, at first thought, to be a social vampire, but the more Emerson thought about it, the more terrified he was becoming. So he kept on the mask, and now it was a permanent fixture and he wasn't sure if it would come off.

Until Maisie came along, she practically ripped off the mask and made him feel things that seemed incomprehensible to his sheltered heart. Then, she left. Taking his heart with her. It was like she preyed on those she knew she could shatter the most. After Maisie, Emerson became worse than he had ever been before. Even his fans started to notice, he couldn't pick up the mask fast enough and now everyone knew how broken he was. Everyone knew how void he was.

But now he had returned to rock bottom, the mask was back.

*Trigger Warning*

He shuffled slowly down the corridor towards the bathroom. Usually, he would feel some kind of emotion walking towards the bathroom to slice his skin, but this time there was nothing. The situation was unsettling and ate at the insides of his brain He didn't like this.

Once inside the bathroom, Emerson began numbly slicing line upon line against his already ruined skin. He felt the sting of the cut but not the remorse that came with every slice. His hands were shaking as the lines became ragged and uneven.

Emerson had been cutting for at least 20 minutes before he made the fatal cut. At first, he carried on cutting and ignored the cut as he did with all the others. It was only when he noticed that the cut had not stopped bleeding that the emotions came back. Well one emotion: Fear.

Fear filled Emerson as he stopped slicing and began to try and stop the bleeding from the one particular cut. He pressed tissue against the one cut, using all the strength he had in his body to try and stop the red flow of regret. All of his other cuts had stopped bleeding now and it was just this one cut that bled still.

Water spiralled down the drain of the shower contaminated with the red of the drummer's blood as he attempted to wash up. The cut on his arm still bled causing another emotion to ignite within him. The worry festered beneath the surface of his skin and was implanted into his brain. The cut was still bleeding profusely and didn't show any signs of stopping.

Salty tears washed down the drain as well as the bloody water as the reality hit Emerson. He had made the cut that ends him. The fear of his impending death ran his blood cold. Everyone would believe he had committed suicide, but he hadn't. This wasn't his choice, he just wanted to feel something.

As if by some dark, twisted hand of fate he had gotten his wish. The irony was remarkable. In order to feel any emotion, Emerson had to do the one thing that would take him away from everything.

The hot water washed over him as he continued to try to get the cut to stop bleeding, he watched as the water went down the drain stained red. He felt another emotion break free from the subconscious wall that had been built in his mind. Regret.

The regret filled him just as fast as the fear had, settling in his brain as the reality washed over him once again. He sat on the bathroom floor in a pile of bloody tissues, naked and wet with a towel pressed hard against his wrist.

Sebastian woke, his head hurt slightly from the alcohol he had drank before. Despite drinking all the time, it didn't make Sebastian immune from his body's vengeance. It was at times like this when he wished he could be numb to the horrors of the world; although that seemed a little extreme for a minor headache.

He lay there in his bunk, letting his eyes adjust to the lighting, thinking back over his words from before. The argument that he had with Remington was unjust and completely unnecessary and even now, a few hours later he held remorse for the words spoken. One particular sentence stuck out to him and his heart filled with regret.

'Emerson's life does not revolve around just you, it revolves around Maisie and him moping around cause she hurt him' the words stabbed him in the heart. He couldn't even imagine how Emerson would have felt had he heard it.

His eyes had finally adjusted to the dim light in the bunk when the curtain of his bunk was yanked open and the light filtered in. Usually, Sebastian would shout at the person who disturbed him but when he saw what stood on the other side of the bunk he found himself unable to form words.

What stood in front of Sebastian's bunk was that out of nightmares. Emerson stood there shirtless holding a nauseatingly bloody towel against his right forearm, cuts all over the rest of his upper body. The drummer's fingers were stained red with blood and his forehead and hair were also painted red from running his hand through his hair.

As if Sebastian wasn't already distraught at this sight, the thing he heard next would haunt him for the rest of his eternity. "I don't want to die" Tears were streaming down the other man's face as he stepped backwards allowing Sebastian to climb out of his bunk.

Sebastian tried to look Emerson in the eyes but the other was staring at his wrist in both horror and regret. The man stood rooted in his place and Sebastian found it hard to try to move him back in the direction of the bathroom.

The sight of the aforementioned room turned Sebastian's stomach and he found it hard to keep up the little food he had eaten that day. A pile of bloody tissues and towels piled in the centre of the room on an even bigger puddle of blood. The walls of the shower held bloody handprints and the door of the shower also had smeared blood stains on the glass.

It seemed that everywhere Emerson had stood or touched now was stained red under the touch of his blood. The sheer amount of blood all over the bathroom horrified and terrified Sebastian and he found himself looking at his brother who wasn't even looking at the bloody mess of a bathroom.

In fact, Sebastian found his younger brother staring at the mirror. More specifically he was staring at his own reflection. Horror painted across his features.

Despite Sebastian's focus being entirely on Emerson, it didn't help him prevent what happened next. At first it was something small, Emerson's left hand fell from his right wrist and the towel fell from his grasp. It was at this moment when Sebastian found himself able to fully assess the damage. However, Sebastian found himself unable to as in the next second, Emerson fell to the floor.

"Emerson?" Sebastian looked in horror at his brother. His eyes were closed and his face was pale. His lips were parted as scarce breathes escaped his mouth. "Emerson!" he tried to get his brother to wake but the younger was locked in the darkness.

Sebastian cradled Emerson's head into his chest and tried to wake his brother. He tried screaming the younger's name, but the attempt was to no avail. The youngest Kropp was slipping into the void. Once again the oldest brother found himself useless.

He heard the bus door slam shut and he knew straight away who it was. The door to the bathroom was wide open and so it wasn't hard to see something was wrong when Sebastian caught Remington's line of sight.

With no second thought Remington found himself running to the bathroom. The sight of the room caused him to stumble back. Sure he knew of his brother's activities, but he had never seem the bathroom like this. It looked like a crime scene.

Sebastian watched as his younger brother took in the scene, and watched as his heart broke upon seeing his brother lay limp in the oldest kropp's arms. A second later Sebastian watched the switch flip behind his brother's eyes.

Everything was blur for the two men as they watch the ambulance take away their younger brother. The sirens were drowned out by the loud thumping of their hearts as they watched the flashing lights of the ambulance drive away.

**
published later than the others because I had a few changes to make

***

I would like people to realise that, yes Emerson did pass out from blood loss. If anyone is sceptical about it being unreasonable that the one cut did that, remember that I was the second time that day that Emerson cut, he lost a lot of blood the first time as well as the second time. Emerson cut a vein, thats why the cut wouldn't stop bleeding.

Also thank you ProbUnstableTBH for that paragraph that you wrote for me.