After The Meltdown...
"He's cutting himself in there again! Get him to a hospital or a mental institute!"
—
Richard didn't as much as flinch when he was called out on having a razor blade with him again in his detainment cell, still running horizontal lines across his arms and legs, ripping his jeans to get to his thighs and looking so relaxed about it, deriving pleasure, even, from the cuts.
Like the cutting process was calming to him, but that was after the first incident.
He'd been in the cell for around a few days, going on to a week now while the police ran around to carry out investigations and whatnot before fully addressing the case in court and Richard had spent the first two days pacing around, well, walking around the small confinement slowly, dragging his feet with a dazed look on his face, a tray of food forgotten in the corner.
These holding cells were different from regular prison, as it was for those who had yet to be convicted, which means, there hadn't been a formal trial in court for them yet so they had to wait out the process before that.
This was where Richard was moved to while his case was being investigated.
The guard in front of the cell couldn't care less since it was just a kid that would probably be out of there as soon as possible, but that was the first day.
By the second day, the guard outside was genuinely interested, more like confused by the fact that a teenager had slept inside the cell, spent a night in a cell and no one was saying anything about it. He couldn't get any information since his rank didn't give clearance to access certain details.
"Eat up kid", the officer raps on the cell bars with his baton, getting the attention of the boy who only looks at him once then goes back to staring off into space.
The officer is disturbed by this but decides to let it slide, concluding that the boy would eat when he felt like it.
It was the second day in the cell and the food ended up being discarded.
By the third day, the boy wasn't pacing around the room but was seated in a corner of the cell, facing the wall, and shuddering at strange intervals and letting out groans and the officer was somewhat disgusted, assuming Richard was jerking off or something and he shook his head disapprovingly as he made his round, checking on the boy and heading back to his position behind a desk.
It's a few minutes later that the woman in charge of meals came with a light meal for Richard arrived and greeted the guard.
After the routine check, the woman is granted access and allowed to make her rounds, sliding trays into delivery shoots for the few people in the cells and it's barely twenty minutes when a terrified shriek is heard and the guard is running over, batton and taser in hand just to be safe but the sight he sees nearly causes him to throw up.
Richard is crying and cutting into his skin, the slippery blade hurting his fingers and barely doing any damage to the parts of his body he wanted to cut and it was frustrating him.
He didn't have an appetite and couldn't even cut anymore now since the blade was now completely soaked in blood.
He was sitting in a sticky pool of his own blood inside the cell and sobbing as he struggled to make horizontal slashes across his arms and chest, shirt and jacket long since discarded and gradually soaking up the blood on the floor.
The woman's shriek had gotten his attention and he was sitting on his hunches, facing the cell door, facing the woman, as he cried.
"I can't cut anymore. I can't hold the blade anymore. But I can't relax. It helps me relax, ma'am", Richard is babbling and still struggling to make a cut, smearing blood all over himself in the process.
It's only a matter of time before he passes out from blood loss.
But strangely enough, this didn't look like a suicide attempt to avoid a sentencing. More like a frightened, lonely, child doing what he 'thought' could calm him down.
Now the detective's suspicion of a mental disorder of some sort was starting to make more sense in the officer's head but now he had to act fast, so he's turning towards the spooked woman who is visibly shaking in the spot she had crouched in, a little ways from the front of the cell with the sobbing boy.
Crouching down to be at eye level with her before speaking, calmly so as not to startle the woman even more, his voice is soft but firm as he speaks.
"Madam, I think it would be better for you if you left here. Go wait for me at my desk, I'll come to you after I'm done with the kid", he's extending a hand to place on her shaking ones, grabbing her attention and making sure she had understood what he'd said. Once he's sure, after she'd given him a mod, he's turning back to the boy again, opening the door to the cell and approaching the boy carefully but that just causes problems for him and the boy turns hysteric, screaming at the top of his lungs.
"Get away from me!", he's scrambling to put distance between himself and the approaching officer but he's failing considerably as his fingers keep slipping on his blood but he keeps struggling, kicking his legs out.
"I'm not gay you sick bastard! You know it too! Stay the fuck away from me!", he's kicking harder, his eyes screwed tightly shut as he screams and kicks.
It was obvious he was seeing something else, his brain was interpreting something else to him at this moment.
"Sorry, kiddo", the officer mumbles and tackles the boy, getting the boy's arms trapped to his sides by wrapping his own arms around the boy and in a show of core strength, he's picking the flailing boy up and turning him to lay face-down on the floor so he could cuff him and use the taser if need be.
"Wait! Please! Sorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorry-!", he's crying harder but not struggling as much, like the fact that he was now face-down on the floor had sapped all that energy out of him but the officer couldn't do much about it, no point in feeling that compassion that was gradually creeping up his chest at the sight before him, since the boy's struggle had made him lose blood faster, from the cuts that looked small but were definitely deep enough to cause more damage than their size spoke for.
He's quiet as soon as the cuffs are slapped on him, his hands now bound behind his back, and he's just shaking at the point, muttering gibberish with a few disjointed 'sorrys' thrown in there from time to time.
The officer was glad that he didn't have to use the taser, relieved actually and he lets out a sigh as he gets off the boy's back.
"Just stay still okay? I'll get some medics in here to take care of you", he mumbles softly against the boys ear and the boy stiffens then goes lax again, taking in deep, ragged, harsh breaths with his mouth as struggled to stay still despite his body damn near convulsing.
He heard and he obeyed, a little too quickly but the officer thought too little of it, grimacing at his bloodied uniform as he left the cell for his desk, closing the door and bolting it but not locking it this time, the boy was handcuffed and was too shaken to do much, only sobbing quietly as the officer left.