you're mine

recovering

Chapter Text
It seemed his sadness about the whole event came in two waves. Both distinctly different. Both horrible in their own way.

The first bout of sadness he experienced was the type everyone has at some point in their lives. Hell, he had been through it before. That didn't make dealing with it any easier.

The panic set in before he even had time to comprehend what was happening at all. He was so stressed, so angry, so sad, so anguished. His brain seemed to collapse in on itself. After the panic disappeared, all that remained was the sadness.

The good memories of what they had came flooding in. It was not sweet and gentle, it shook his core and left him aching with no cure.

It was a visceral sadness. It left him inconsolable. His captor had attempted multiple times to help him get through it, but nothing helped. He didn't want to be touched, he didn't want comfort food, he didn't want to watch movies. All that seemed to help was releasing the building pressure in his brain by emptying his tear ducts.

His abductor would run baths that never got touched. Bring in trays of food that weighed the exact same when they left. All he could do was bring in new tissue boxes and change the damp pillowcases. It was easy to see the frustration building up in the man's body.

Though Sapnap could see the man struggling, he was too busy drowning in his own grief to consider trying to please him.

Sapnap lived in this struggle over the course of a week. But by the end, a whole new variant of sadness took over him.

It wasn't sadness necessarily, simply a lack of anything at all. It was empty.

A professional may have called it anhedonia.

He called it husk disease.

Because that is what he was. A husk of who he was.

While before any physical contact repulsed him, now it just simply meant nothing. He gained no joy in warm hugs or soft kisses on the cheek. Actually, nothing really seemed to bring him joy.

At least he was able to take care of himself in the slightest. Before he had been unable to maintain composure for long enough to take a quick shower, let alone run a bath.

Now when his captor ran a bath that was baby blue and smelled like fresh chamomile tea, he got in with no qualms. However, he felt no compassion towards the affection. He would get out and wrap himself up in a fluffy towel and get changed into clothes that had been laid out in an easy to access fashion. He would then get in his bed that had a still warm cover from being in the dryer and feel nothing at all.

He would actually eat now, and though his captor urged him on with sweet words and physical affection, it meant nothing to him.

Smiling felt fake. He tried it once during this time and it felt like a poorly made mask. It wasn't as if he couldn't tell his captor was working hard. It was as obvious as it could be. And deep down inside Sapnap felt guilty about his lack of returned sentiment, but there was nothing he could do but wait it out.