a/n: real self indulgent as i’m getting hit hard with seasonal depression mixed with my regular depression. getting out of bed most days is a struggle and then facing the work day is even harder. stay safe, hydrated, and beautiful friends. as always, quickly written and not proofread. i’ll come back later and fix her up. xoxo 💋
CW: Depression
—————————————————————————
Simon notices the quiet at first. His bird is never quiet. You’re always singing to yourself, have some kind of music or show on, tapping your fingers on flat surfaces, clicking your pens. So when Simon hears silence so loud it’s deafening, he knows something must be wrong.
He toes off his shoes and hangs up his jacket before checking the living room. Lights off and no sign of any life. Same in the kitchen. And the bathroom. He opens the door to your bedroom and sees a lump under the many blankets piled on the bed. The only light in the room is from your ipad playing random youtube videos and the lava lamp on the dresser. He stares at you bewildered. He looks down at his watch, 19:34. He knows you didn’t eat anything since the same 2 dishes are in the sink from yesterday. He stares at you unsure of how to approach you. Is it women problems? It can’t be. He keeps a calendar in his phone. Shark week, as he refers to it, isn’t for 2 weeks. He steps into the room and thinks about turning on the bedside lamp, but decides not when he sees your sleeping. He presses his hand to the back of your head and you don’t have a fever.
Fear strikes through him. If you aren’t sick and it’s not your period, why would you be in bed at 19:30. He shakes you lightly. “Lovie.” No answer and no movement. He shakes you harder. “This isn’t funny.” He plants a knee on the bed to get a better angle of your face, to see if you are faking it. Your eyes remain closed and panic swells in him. He grabs you and shakes you awake forcefully. You open your eyes wearily and blink up at him in confusion. “Why?” is all you say while looking around the room for the threat that required you to be shaken awake like that. “What’s wrong?” He inquired while sitting down on the bed next to the cocoon you’ve created. “Bad brain day.” Is all you say before dropping your head back on the pillows and closing your eyes, hoping the sleep will take your far away from your current reality.
Simon just stares at you. He knew you suffered from mental illness. Anyone who associates themselves with him willingly definitely has a little something wrong. But you’ve never let him see you like this. Like a husk of yourself withering away waiting to do the next task required of you and nothing more. So he does the only thing he knows how to do, act.
He kisses you on the forehead and starts his mission. He does your laundry, scrubs the kitchen down, cleans up the living room, restocks the bathroom and shower, mops the hardwood floors, and makes you a pot of soup. He assumes you won’t want anything heavy, so soup it is.
You haven’t moved since he left almost 2 hours ago. He sets the soup, a freshly rolled joint and a small ashtray, a few bottle of water, crackers, and some licorice on the bedside table before staring down at you. He lightly shakes you awake and you wake up much easier this time. He gets you sitting up and hands you the soup without a word. You eat slowly. Your mind and body screams that it’s not interested, but you know you haven’t eaten in almost 24 hours.
After a bowl of soup, some crackers, and ‘yes love you need to drink both. you haven’t drank anything at all today’, simon cradles you into his side. He props your ipad up to continue playing whatever you wanted and lights the joint. He lets you hit as much as you want before taking small hits himself. This wasn’t for him, it’s for you.
As you lay there in his arms, you can feel something bubbling deep in you that signals you’re gonna be okay. You always struggled on your own, but now you have someone who genuinely loves you here taking care of you. Someone who sees you and says ‘this is just a quirk of yours i’m willing to work with’. You promised yourself you would call your therapist after the weekend was over to get a sooner appointment. It’s the least you can do to show Simon his care means something and is deeply appreciated.
I was tagged by @starlit-hopes-and-dreams to find an excerpt matching the vibe: 'What's the point?' Thanks. :)
This is actually from a WIP, for once. Well, sort of. It's from the interlude which comes after the next chapter in my ongoing story; I've finished writing it, but haven't finished the chapter before it, so it won't be posted for a while.
CWs: Past deaths, grief, depression.
The field hadn’t changed. People came and went, bright spots of colour against the grey, hard-packed dust, but the pieces of the broken city remained. Pallid dawn light sent long shadows stretching from chunks of stone and early-rising citizens walking across the open space.
Radomil’s mind drifted away from the distant scene before him, overlaying it with the ghostly screen of the past. As he did every morning, he remembered the battle. That pile of rubble marked where Xiu and Mbali had fallen, when it had still been a solid block of masonry. There, by the splintered remains of a bridge, was where Bjorni had been killed, the first of the company to go down.
He didn’t know where Catha had died. There had been no landmark, nothing to distinguish the place from any other patch of colourless earth outside the keep.
Letting the curtains fall closed, Radomil shut his eyes. It wasn’t as if there was anything new worth seeing. Every morning was the same. He felt almost like he was already dead, trapped in an endless, empty cycle of days in which nothing ever changed.
Tagging @whumping-in-the-wings , @whump-in-the-closet , and @crash-bump-bring-the-whump to find an excerpt which matches the vibe: 'That was a bad idea.' Only if you want to and have something which works, of course!
This idea has been running around my brain for awhile but like, imagine therapy dates with your f/o!
Imagine sitting in the waiting room together, watching silly videos on your phone to keep you both distracted, and lighten the mood. When one of you is called in the back you give each other good luck kisses. (or hugs if that's more your speed) After your session, you comfort each other if needed, if not you walk out together hand in hand. Afterwards you go for ice cream, or frozen yogurt. If it's wanted, you'll both talk about your appointments, if not you just continue your day with them.
Just the idea of loving someone, even the parts they might not like themselves, but reassuring them "hey I see you, and I'm still here with you."
Don’t mind Switch—they’re just going to nudge a bottle of Nightmare Fuel and some pilfered energon goodies in front of the blanket pile.
He won’t take the nightmare fuel, or the pilfered goodies- but they are looked at for a moment. A gentle brush of his field in thanks to the other is given, but he doesn’t look inclined to move. He’s just a listless lump of metal, exhaling slowly as he burrows back under his blankets and pretends he doesn’t exist for a while.
Part of him wishes he hadn’t crawled up from the ocean, or been put back together. He’s so tired today.
He appreciates you though, Switch. Thank you. His blankets are nice and heavy, it’s nice and dark- and he can cease to exist for a little while.
I am at the stage of mental stability that the slightest inconvenience sends me into either a state of pure blankness or a tear-filled breakdown. So... that’s fun
Ouch, I feel you so hard my friend. I always get so depressed when I’m on my period. With the pain and the hormones drop, I just wanna die too. I also want to consume content that might not be very well for me in my depressed state. I’ve answered your request ( cause I love ansgt too and I have nothing to do in my life right now XD) but may I advice you to read it another time? When you are feeling better? You can drop a message in my inbox and talk together if it helps. I was going for a few headcanons but it turned out as fic, oh well *shrugs*.
Please proceed with caution:
Jotaro reacting to his s/o death: Cw: Death, Cw: Depression.
Jotaro was probably at his work when he heard about his s/o’s death. The news hit him hard, everything felling fuzzy around him. He thought he was going to be sad but he didn’t. He felt... nothing. He was more concerned about trying to comfort his s/o’s parents talking to him on the phone (even though comforting people has never been his forte) then about his lover’s death. He took a break from his work and traveled his s/o’s hometown. During the trip, he is left with his thoughts, and with his feelings, or should I say, his lack of feelings. Why wasn’t he sad? He wondered. He knew it wasn’t the first time he lost suddenly people he cared deeply about, but he never thought it would numb him to other deaths. After a few minutes by himself, he gave up thinking at once and turned on the radio.
He continued to not think at all, taking care of things as they come up. He said mechanically words of condelances to his s/o’s family and thanked others when they presented their sympathies for his loss. He answered to questions he was asked on the beat, without too much pondering. When he saw his s/o corpse, his mind just stopped working: it was as if it were full of static. Just like that, he spent an infinite amount of time in front of what had been his lover, the joy of his life. If you saw him, you wouldn’t be able to say if he were actually breathing or not. Then one of his s/o’s relative came to take him, it was time for the burial.
Jotaro left as soon as the ceremony was over. Every inch of his body was repulsed by the idea of lingering in that place. Even as his s/o was lowered in their grave and covered by dirt, he still didn’t feel anything. Even as weeks passed by, he still didn’t feel anything. There was only an emptiness that was threatening to swallow him whole. In order distract his mind, to fill the hollowness, Jotaro submerged himself in work. He had never been a joyous fellow, prefering work to everything else. However, the amount of work he was doing was too much, even for him.
Then one day, or one night, he couldn’t tell, time became a homogeonous line for Jotaro, as he is rummaging through his papers, he found a token from the past: stickers of various sea animals, a gift from his s/o. They gave it to him as a joke, knowing how much he loved those creatures but despised childish things. Jotaro was not fond stickers, he was way past these kind of frivolity . But he did love what the sea had to offer and he appreciated the gesture so he never threw away the stickers, prefering to leave them in his own belongings even without the intention of ever using them.
At that moment, many memories flooded back into Jotaro’s mind: their first meeting, their confession, their first date, their first fight, their first anniversary... Their last kiss, their last words, their last meeting. Suddenly, Jotaro lifted his head, wondering how long has it been since...? And as he looked around him, searching for clues, their presence made itself aware. He could see their bored face as they were opening the fridge for no purpose, their back swaying to the sound of their humming while cooking breakfast, them looking at the window before happily shouting “Jotaro, look! The weather is so nice today!”, their silhouette multiplying and propragating through the rooms, with their voice calling out to him. They were everywhere at once and nowhere.
Their presence became overwhelming and Jotaro felt himself choke on his tears. Jotaro clutched the stickers tightly, pressing them against his chest. His s/o were gone and they took something with them that can never be replaced, that he would always miss.
Hey Wrex, hope you‘re doing good! I have a writing problem. I’m not able to come up with any ideas UNLESS I’m in a bad place? A few months ago a family member died and suddenly I was able to write again- for the first time in months. I WANT to write but I don’t have any ideas, I don’t click with any prompts or starters and just don’t find something to write about.
I think strong emotions focus the mind somehow. It’s like they cut through the bullshit - suddenly you have greater access to the real stuff and you’re less distracted by unimportant stuff. A few years ago when I was in a really dark place, I suddenly started writing all this poetry, and it kinda dried up once I got better.
Here’s an idea - maybe you could tap into those memories and call up what it felt like during those intense periods. I mean, it doesn’t sound fun, but it might clear your sight a bit. Sometimes if I sit down and write about memories that are very close to the bone, it opens up my other writing as well. Just a thought!
In this section, Radomil and Mures have a talk and get briefly harassed at the bar.
CWs: Depression, references to past and future death, minor violence and references to violence, past injury, alcohol. This one is fairly light, and is SFW. Chapter summaries here.
Words: About 2.5K
‘I like that idea,’ Radomil said. ‘There aren’t half as many opportunities here as I’d have thought.’
He and Rhedyn were leaning against the wall of a large tavern. Having delivered the codex and received payment for their mission, the mercenary company had sought out the nearest place to stay the night and hopefully pick up new contracts. Unfortunately, they had come up short in regards to the latter, and Rhedyn had suggested the company travel to another city nearby to find better prospects.
They had originally planned to complete their mission and then go their separate ways, but the city where they’d delivered the codex was very uptight, and mercenaries were not especially welcome. In addition, Radomil thought not all of them were ready to bid the company farewell. Taking the tunnel through the mountains had cut a great deal of time off their journey, and they’d arrived at the city the day after passing the shrine.
Radomil didn’t feel entirely ready to leave the group himself, though he knew he should probably do so. He was still mulling over the consequences of someone else experiencing his dream. Mures had said it hadn’t bothered him the morning after the shrine ordeal, and Radomil didn’t think he was lying, but he still wanted to talk to the sorcerer about it. It had been so long since he’d discussed the dream with anyone, and even Catha had never seen it.
Of course, he’d regret discussing it. Doing so would satisfy his curiosity, but it would also make him feel closer to Mures. He’d spend subsequent nights trying and failing not to dwell on the sorcerer’s - on everyone’s - impending death. And if they grew really close, it would bring on memories of Catha’s death, and the two would blend together in his exhausted mind until he imagined Catha burning in the light of the red sun, and Mures bleeding out on the field -
He shook himself. No need to worry about that now. He and Mures weren’t that close, anyway, and they’d be leaving each other’s company in a few days at the latest. The same was true with the other mercenaries.
‘Did you ask the others yet?’ he enquired of Rhedyn.
‘Iesto and I talked about it on the way here, and he’s happy to continue together, but I haven’t asked the warriors - they were speaking to someone else earlier. Actually, it looks like they’re done. I’ll check with them now.’
‘Good. I’ll ask Mures too, when he shows up again.’ The sorcerer had taken a few medical supplies and disappeared somewhere when they’d reached the tavern, probably to re-bandage his heels. Radomil had noticed he was limping a bit.
Rhedyn made a face, but nodded. ‘I guess we might as well.’
Radomil went up to the bar as the herbalist headed off. The innkeep was busy, so he took a seat, leaned his elbows on the weathered wood, and closed his eyes. It was nice to sit still indoors after so many days on the road.
A scraping sound made him open his eyes again. Two tankards of ale slid from his right onto the bar in front of him. He turned; Mures had come up beside him and now stood close to the bar, looking at him with a slightly wary expression.
Radomil pushed one of the tankards back to him. ‘Cheers,’ he said, taking a drink from the other. Despite the tavern’s shortcomings as a source for mercenary work, it had pretty good ale.
‘I owe you both of these,’ Mures said.
‘And now they’re mine, I’d like to give one away,’ said Radomil. ‘Here, sit down - wanted to talk to you, anyway.’
‘Ah. I wanted to talk to you, too.’ The sorcerer relaxed slightly and slid onto a barstool.
‘Oh? Go ahead.’
‘How long ago did you start having that dream?’
Radomil hesitated. This was precisely what he shouldn’t be talking about. Still, surely answering a couple of questions wouldn’t be too much, and anyway Mures deserved to know more about the dream, since he’d had to experience it.
‘Two decades, or a little less. It started when I was twelve.’
‘Like most prophetic dreams, then.’
‘Yes.’
The sorcerer nodded and took a drink of ale, staring at the kegs and bottles behind the bar. He looked vaguely uncomfortable again.
‘That was - I suppose that has been difficult. To live with,’ he said.
‘Sometimes, yes.’
‘Is that why you didn’t talk to the rest of the company much?’
‘...yes, it is.’
‘Why do you do this at all, then? Wouldn't you be happier travelling by yourself or only with people you don’t like?’
Stars above, Mures really did think tact was for other people to worry about. Not that his questions were rude, they were just much blunter than Radomil expected from someone he’d barely spoken to before other than for purely practical reasons.
‘I can do a lot more good working with a group than on my own,’ the spellsword explained, ‘and while it’s easier if I’m not close to anyone, actually disliking each other’s not ideal either. When we’re on decent terms, I can help my companions with little things too. If I know the world’s ending, I’d rather make people happy while I can.’
‘But you’re not making yourself happy.’ To Radomil’s surprise, Mures seemed almost offended. ‘What, you don’t take your own feelings into account?’
‘No, I do,’ the spellsword assured him. ‘It’s just that I have limited time. Playing a song for Rhedyn - something like that takes a minute or two. Driving bandits away from a village is straightforward and helps a lot of people, and relatively speaking it doesn’t take that long either. You’ll notice I don’t spend time trying to make the bandits happy.’
‘Well, you try not to kill them, but what does that have to do with this?’
‘It’s about efficiency, is what I’m saying. Brokering a lasting peace between a village and a bunch of bandits is possible, sometimes, but it takes effort and a long time. And the village isn’t that much better off than if we just drove the bandits away. Sure, I’d like to help the bandits too, but in the grand scheme of things it’s better to keep moving. It’d be different if the effects of the truce could grow over time, but - again, time’s limited.’
Mures turned sideways on the barstool, looking less offended than before but more troubled. Radomil met his eyes, both the greyish one and the one clouded with translucent white; he’d initially thought that might’ve resulted from dark magic, but was now fairly certain it was just a cataract. There was a yellowish bruise around it from yesterday’s altercation with Herve.
‘I take it your dream takes place in the near future, then.’ The sorcerer didn’t sound surprised. Radomil had thought he might have guessed this back at the shrine; it hadn’t seemed to bother him then and didn’t particularly seem to now.
The spellsword nodded. ‘I don’t know exactly when, but I’ve wandered around that wasteland you saw. There are ruins.’ He let out a long breath. ‘I doubt it’s more than a decade or two from now.’
They both sat in silence for a while. Radomil stared into his half-empty tankard.
‘Are you alright?’ he asked after a few minutes.
‘Hm? Fine.’ Mures shrugged. ‘Just… You’re saying you don’t do things for yourself because it’s too difficult to be happy?’
‘I do some things for myself,’ said Radomil. He smiled faintly in an attempt at reassurance, but the sorcerer wasn’t looking at him. ‘It’s - I can’t forget, when I see it every night. I’ve tried to let it go and just enjoy the moment, but it doesn’t work. There used to be - ah. Look, I do try to avoid being really miserable, with the... maintaining distance and not travelling with people I can’t stand.’
The sorcerer made a noncommittal sound in response.
‘It is what it is,’ Radomil finished resignedly. ‘There’s only so much I can do. Anyway - did you want to ask me anything else?’
‘Yes,’ Mures said. He drained the rest of his tankard and set it down on the bar. Radomil saw his shoulders rise and fall as he took a sharp breath. ‘Do you want to go outside the tavern, possibly, and knock me around a little?’
‘...pardon?’
‘Would you like to hit me?’ The sorcerer looked less and less comfortable as Radomil stared blankly at him.
‘Why would I want to do that? Why would you want me to do that?’
‘I thought - well, you said you don’t like travelling with people you can’t stand, so I thought you might… Since we’ve delivered the codex and there won’t be another chance. Maybe it would make you less unhappy.’
In the many years he’d been a mercenary, Radomil had encountered a wide variety of people, with all sorts of opinions, problems, and worldviews. He couldn’t recall running into anything quite like this before, however, and wasn’t sure how to approach it.
‘I don’t want to hurt you,’ he said after a moment. ‘I didn’t know you thought that I did. Travelling with you hasn’t made me unhappy at all.’
‘Oh.’ Mures took another short breath.
Radomil had never found the sorcerer hard to read, exactly. He was actually rather expressive, but it could sometimes be difficult to tell what he was expressing. Often he appeared to be feeling two diametrically opposing emotions at the same time, as was the case now.
‘Well,’ he went on after a moment, ‘so you don’t - right. Er, you don’t -’
‘Oy.’
The loud voice startled both mercenaries, and they turned simultaneously to face the room. A trio of tavern patrons, probably artisans by their garb, were clustered at the bar not far from Mures. They all looked the worse for drink, and were all holding full tankards despite this.
‘You look like some kind of evil wizard,’ said one of them, a large young man whose shirt bore scorch marks outlining the shape of a blacksmith’s apron. He laughed, too loudly, and his companions followed suit a second later.
Mures gazed at him with half-lidded eyes, all internal conflict gone from his expression. ‘I’m having a conversation,’ he said, ‘with my travelling companion. Go away.’
‘What the hell’re you doing in here?’ the young man asked in a belligerent tone, ignoring the sorcerer. He stepped closer to the mercenaries. One of his companions, a short but broad-shouldered woman, downed her ale in one gulp and dropped the empty tankard to the floor.
Quietly, Radomil braced a foot on the side of the bar, ready to kick off it in a quick turn if necessary. The three inebriated patrons were unlikely to pose a serious threat, but anyone could chance into a lucky swing; if their harassment escalated from verbal to physical, he’d prefer to take them out quickly.
‘As I said: having a conversation,’ Mures answered levelly.
‘What the hell’s wrong with your eye?’ asked the short woman, hiccupping. The young man nodded.
‘This is our spot at the bar,’ he said, leaning towards Mures in what was clearly meant to be an intimidating manner.
Mures grabbed his shirt and pulled. Though clearly much heavier than the sorcerer, the young man was already off-balance, and staggered forward until they were face to face. He looked bewildered for a moment, then angry, and then his face went pale. His knees buckled and he braced a hand on a barstool, barely keeping himself from slumping to the floor.
‘When you next feel like bothering someone who looks like an evil wizard,’ Mures said softly, no more than a hand’s-breadth from the man’s suddenly sweaty face, ‘consider what might happen if they are one.’
He let go of the shirt, and the young man reeled back into the arms of his friends. The trio stumbled away without another word.
Radomil raised an eyebrow as the sorcerer turned back around on his barstool.
‘Energy drain?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Effective.’
Mures nodded, but he seemed distracted. ‘You don’t mind that I said we were travelling companions, do you?’ he asked after a moment. ‘I know the company was dissolved when we delivered the codex, but if we’re all staying here tonight, I thought…’
‘No, I don’t mind. Actually, that’s what I wanted to talk about; this city doesn’t have much work for mercenaries, so Rhedyn suggested we travel on to Phaenglane together. What do you say?’
‘Yes.’
Radomil grinned. The sorcerer hadn’t hesitated for a second; he looked as enthusiastic as it was possible to look without actually smiling.
‘Great. Rhedyn went to ask the warriors about it; Iesto’s already agreed. Are you getting another ale?’
‘I’d better not.’
‘Let’s just join them, then. We can figure out how many rooms we’ll need to rent.’
The spellsword finished his tankard and headed towards the table where the other mercenaries sat, Mures following a few steps behind him. Aure waved him over to an empty seat.
‘Rhedyn told me you’re going on to Phaenglane,’ she said. ‘Best of luck to you.’
‘Ah, you’re not coming?’
‘No; Herve and I found ourselves a cushy little contract right here. Some noble wants to roam around the nasty parts of the city and needs bodyguards who don’t look like bodyguards. Her guards are all polished up and official; she can’t get an “authentic experience” with them around.’
‘Damn fool,’ Herve snorted. ‘An authentic experience means getting her head kicked in down some alley after snubbing the wrong person.’
‘Well, she’s paying us enough to avoid that particular piece of realism.’ Aure shrugged, grinning. ‘You folks going to be okay without your front line?’
‘We should be fine,’ said Iesto. ‘I can fight more towards the front if it’s necessary.’
‘As can I. If Rhedyn and Mures handle the ranged combat, we’ll still be a balanced party,’ Radomil agreed.
‘You’re coming along, then, are you?’ Rhedyn asked the sorcerer in a somewhat dissatisfied tone. He nodded.
‘Aure, Herve, are you staying here tonight?’ Iesto enquired.
‘Yes. We’re meeting our new employer tomorrow morning,’ said Herve. ‘I’m getting my own room, though, if you were looking to split.’
‘I’ll share a room,’ Aure offered. ‘Tavern’s got singles and doubles, and then the big group rooms.’
No one wanted to settle for a group room after so long without rooms at all, so they rented two doubles and two singles; Herve and Mures took the latter. They ate and then headed to the tavern’s upper floor to retire.
Radomil stopped Mures at the door to his room. The spellsword remembered that down at the bar, they’d been interrupted just before finishing a conversation, and hadn’t returned to it afterward. He thought he’d gotten to make his point, but it couldn’t hurt to be sure.
‘I just wanted to confirm,’ he said. ‘Like I already said, I’m not going to - hit you, or anything, because I dislike you. But to be clear: I don’t dislike you in the first place.’
Judging from the sorcerer’s expression, it was a good thing he’d chosen to clarify this.
