Self-Inflicted
The mirror told no lies. Oliver was not a happy man.

He seldom looked at his own eyes in reflective surfaces anymore, wary of what he'd see if he looked for too long. Even when he shaved, he kept his gaze on his jawline or the razor in his hand rather than how his eyes looked as he moved the sharp blade over his skin. Sometimes, it was better not to know certain things.

The razor was a thing of beauty, an old-fashioned single-bladed object with an ivory-inlaid handle and his initials, O.D.J., engraved into the surface of it where it extended from his closed hand. It was an affectation and he knew it, like the silver-knobbed walking stick he'd carried around during his college years, but the razor was a memory from his childhood, where both the best and the worst of the man he became could be found.

In that first terrible period after his father's death, Oliver went to live with his paternal grandparents, who owned a house in Maine and made the decision - without consulting Corrinne - that the boy would be better off with them until the furor in the press died down. "Its really for the best," Amelia Jerzyck had explained as her husband Nathe and their driver placed luggage into the trunk of a late-model Lincoln. "He needs calm, and he can't get that here. When the reporters get bored and go home, then we'll discuss other arrangements." Furious at being cornered into agreement but unwilling to face her father-in-law's cold disapproval of her, Corrinne grudgingly allowed her not yet nine year old son to depart with the older couple. Oliver felt dwarfed by the huge car, and then later by the massive house, but he was glad to go. Anything would have been better than his own room, where he could still hear the creaking of the rope.

Nathe Jerzyck was a tall, imposing man in his late fifties when his grandson was born. He had married young, making his fortune with investments in real estate and other business interests, and Saul had been his heir and only child. He and Corrinne had neither liked one another or even pretended to get along, and as a result he and the boy were barely acquainted. At eight, Oliver thought his grandfather seemed ancient, and their combined, unspoken grief was like a blanket of ice on the drive to the airport.

In Maine, there were servants in the Jerzyck household, and Oliver discovered the casual snobbery of the wealthy. His grandparents lived well and never gave any hint that they were accustomed to anything else, and he began to mimic their habits as he had once mimicked Saul's. But mixed in with their genteel aloofness were his father's more bohemian ways, and so he became an odd combination of the two. Distant one moment, then giving his allowance money to the cook's children on a whim. He became much less charitable later in life, but since money was never a concern for him it also wasn't very interesting, and so he frittered it away at his leisure as he grew older.

Every Sunday morning, Amelia would rise just after dawn and begin preparing for church. When a light breakfast had been seen to, she would carry a tray upstairs for her husband. Nathe disliked being disturbed from sleep by the servants, but for his wife he would offer a grudging smile, then eat before attending to his morning ablutions.

This much younger version of Oliver would occasionally assist his grandfather, especially with the ritual of shaving. The old man also owned a straight razor, a gleaming thing of metal with a jet-black handle, and he would lather his face with white foam while the boy sharpened the blade on a leather strop. It was a silent, soothing process, and one Amelia was barred from. Oliver still remembered the quiet scraping sound the blade made against the rough leather.

"A gentleman always uses a straight razor," Nathe told his grandson once, adjusting his suspenders over his crisply ironed white shirt before donning a heavy black coat against the chill in the air. Oliver was always fascinated to watch the old man use the object, drawing it over his sharply defined jawline before carefully trimming his dark sideburns. He'd been shaving since he was fifteen, and had never once cut himself, or so he said. It was a meditative act, almost, one that spoke of being at peace.

So yes, it was an affectation, but those precious minutes of silence were ones that Oliver needed, and so the overly ornate razor remained a staple, an indulgence he could obviously afford.

Today, however, the ritual wasn't working.

His hand trembled as he angled the blade under his chin, and a tiny cut began to ooze blood as he nicked himself. "Fuck," he muttered, keeping his eyes on the injury as he dabbed at it with a tissue. He knew what was wrong, why his fingers shook, but he was unable to articulate it. It was simply an ice-cold knot of fear in his gut waiting to devour him.

He should not have yelled, should not have gotten so angry when Jill told him about the vampire. What was wrong with him that he could turn into such a madman at the slightest provocation? Oliver glanced at himself in the mirror, caught his own eyes, looked away in a hurry. If he couldn't control himself better, if he couldn't re-locate that calm place inside himself...

She would stop loving him. She would leave.

The razor was still open, and he looked at it. He was just out of the shower, his hair freshly washed, a towel around his waist. The blade gleamed up at him like a smile made out of metal, and he dragged his other hand through his hair. A gentleman always used a straight razor. Nathe had said so. His grandfather outlived poor unfortunate Saul by nearly a decade, dying as silently and sternly as he had lived. And to his only grandson the razor now represented the calm he was supposed to have found in that place away from home.

Oliver altered his grip on the razor's handle, and the flesh of his stomach dimpled. His arms would be too obvious, and the cigarette burns attracted enough attention anyway. The blade was very sharp, and it wouldn't take much pressure to break the skin. Would it feel better if he could make himself bleed? Maybe it was the only safe way, a way that didn't involve screaming at the top of his lungs as he'd nearly done with Jill. He must never frighten her again.

The towel was white, and several dark red drops soaked into it as Oliver continued to look down at his belly. Then several more. A crosshatch, small and neat. Not much evidence could be left. Because then Jill would know. Know how angry he always was.

Oliver rinsed the razor blade under the tap, running warm water over it, then went back to shaving. His hands had lost much of their tremble. It had been an experiment, nothing more. An experiment in being calm. But as long as his hands no longer shook, perhaps it had worked.

He still wasn't looking at his eyes, though. There was no experiment, no test, that would fix what was wrong there.