Unwell

[konishi-zen.livejournal.com]

Okay. So this is the 2nd part of the "Experimental Arc". I don't know exactly how many other parts this will have, but It's starting to get sorta heavy, so bear with me.

Disclaimers: Lies in this reality, Truth from my alternative reality. Songs belong to their respective artists.

Warnings: Uhm. Angst. Depression. People being insensitive. Sorta Auish?

Pairings: Dom/Billeh (Sorta)

Archiving/Feedback: Sure on both counts. Let me know about the archiving, mmkay?

Posted: To monaboyd and x-posted to fellow_shippers

 

“But I'm not crazy, I'm just a little unwell
I know right now you can't tell
But stay awhile and maybe then you'll see
A different side of me” Matchbox 20

Dom’s walking into the spartan living room, his hands around a mug of hot tea; his mind semi-blank, but all too-aware. Even though he just made the tea and knows the water is near-boiling, the warmth doesn’t penetrate the ceramic.

His hands feel so cold. Colder than he can ever imagine and he can’t warm them up.

It’s almost as if all the coldness he’s been feeling inside his soul is seeping out through the palms of his hands, his fingertips. Every available surface.

He thinks about that only briefly, lest he encourages the monologue in his head.

He thinks he hears a faint whisper of it just starting. Like the rustle of the dry leaves as they are swept off the trees in the last months of autumn, signalling the beginning of winter.

Afraid, he takes a drink from his mug, concentrating on the scalding liquid, lightly scented with bergamot as it flows down his throat and into his stomach. The way that the warmth pools there and quickly dissipates.

He lowers the cup and listens. It’s semi-quiet. The whispers are a dull roar.

He sighs deeply and wills his shaking hands to be still.

He shuffles a bit as he walks over to the wide-open windows. The scenery may be beautiful, but it’s not registering in his mind. He just sees blurry shapes and colours, as if he was standing too close to a Van Gogh painting.

He doesn’t care. Everything is quiet and that is all he cares about.

He can begin to ignore the crying fits and the need to cling onto something or someone until everything atrophies and he can stop breathing and not think.

Dom closes his eyes and smiles slightly at that thought.

Although it is a terrible thing to want, it also feels like it’s the right thing to want at that point.

He opens his eyes and looks up at the sky, noting with remoteness that it is a deep, brilliant blue.

Shrugging, he takes another sip of his tea and stands there, as close to being content as he can be at that point.

“Dommie?” he turns around and finds himself face to face with Elijah and Billy, both of them looking at him with wary expressions on their faces.

He feels the stirrings of forgotten anger, which are quickly smothered when Elijah goes over and embraces him after taking his mug away.

Dom endures the embrace with as much calmness as he can muster, but already the whispers, so dry and brittle, are starting up again.

But he doesn’t let either of them know.

Instead, he pretends that he’s happy to see them, even though he’s exhausted and wanting to crawl back into the warm nest of blankets waiting for him in his room.

He thinks he can handle it if he lets himself really sink into it and not talk about anything pertaining to his mental and emotional state.

Elijah, well-meaning, affable, but ever so dense Elijah, ruins everything though.

Even though Billy tries to steer the conversation away to meaningless topics, Elijah presses Dom. Softly, gently, but it’s still pressing.

Dom starts to feel his heart beating too fast. His breathing is coming out in quick spurts and the room’s starting to spin and wobble, as if its moving away from him.

He takes several deep breaths and only spills the bare minimum to him:

“Just been kinda feeling low. I don’t know what it is. But it’ll pass. So don’t worry about me.”

He had to inhale sharply after he spoke. Had to hold it in before he gives into the urge to tell Elijah everything. Because he knows that if Elijah presses the right combination of buttons, he’s going to spill everything and he’s not sure whether Elijah will be strong enough to withstand the deluge of emotions he was *thisclose* to unleashing.

What happens next though, is probably worse than having to metaphorically strip himself naked for his friend.

Elijah takes him to his word and begins to talk about everything else under the sun.

Dominic doesn’t know whether Elijah is seriously taking him at his word, or simply being that flaky and unknowingly callous.

He tries to think that maybe Elijah *is* sensitive enough to understand what’s happening to him, but once he looks into those guileless blue eyes, he realizes that Elijah simply *doesn’t * know any better.

He thinks he’s doing the right thing by not worrying about him.

And seeing that hurts Dom more than the overwhelming pressure of the monologue and the hollow ache in his chest.

He doesn’t know how long he sits there, trying to act as normal as he can, until Elijah gets reminded of a dinner date by Billy that he simply can’t miss.

He leaves and Dominic barely acknowledges him.

Once Elijah has left, Dominic lets the walls collapse. His entire body’s shaking and he falls off the couch like a broken doll.

The tears come and he hides his face in his hands, while his mind unravels from the tightly woven, barely controlled thoughts to loose, snapping threads that are waving in the howling wind of his barely controlled hopelessness and despair.

He’s close to completely falling apart, but slender, somewhat cool hands grasp his shoulders and pull him into a warm chest and lap that promises security and warmth.

Although his tears still keep on running down in rivulets down his face, his mind calms down enough to appreciate the security that the wiry arms around his shoulders and waist present.

Snuffling a bit, he sighs and lets everything go.

~*~*~*~*~

Once he heard Dom sniffle, sigh and finally go lax in his arms, Billy buried his face in his friend’s hair and tried not to cry at the realization although they were all pretending otherwise, Dominic wasn’t okay.

Wouldn’t be okay until he got some kind of help.

Or else he was going to permanently break.

And Billy wasn’t sure if he was strong enough to help glue all the pieces back together again.

END.