A Certain Sort Of Loneliness

Of course

((this update is very late oops))

It was warm today.

That was rare; little over two months ago this might have been almost expected, the norm. But the embers had long since gone cold, and though the summer sweltered and boiled above them, everything had a dull, hollowness to it.

It had all seemed so fast at the time, as if everything had collapsed in an instant - in hindsight, they should have noticed the rotting, the wear of the timber that held their home upright.

They should have noticed. All of them. At least one of them should have seen how close he was to breaking - Tino couldn't help but feel personally responsible.

And why shouldn't he? He had all reason to; he had been the first to suggest therapy - when Lukas had come to him, distraught and worried, he had been the one to suggest the doctors, suggest calling around for a professional.  Not that there was anything wrong with that, of course, but they were too quick to load Emil's problems off on someone else, and none of them could honestly say they had a proper grasp of how Emil saw the world.

It had all seemed so simple, when the therapist offered medication, when the doctors suggested controlled diets and supplements. It seemed...normal. As if sickness of the mind could be cured as easily as the common cold, as if the disease in Emil's head that seemed terminal to him could be so easily removed and healed like something as simple as single cut.

None of them had looked beyond that. Hadn't he been getting better? He left the house more and ate more healthily, exercising occasionally and seemingly suffering less.

They had been wrong. None of them had tried to understand. Hadn't looked deeper than the upper layers of his issues, hadn't questioned why and how and when and each and every thing that should have been obvious at the time but never was, what should have sent sirens screaming in their heads that something was horribly, horribly wrong.

When summer began, everything spiralled. Emil broke. He came out of his room less and less, skipping meals and refusing appointment after appointment, taking medication turned in to a game of how soon he could spit the pills out before they noticed and how long could he spend out of the house before someone realised that he was gone.

It hurt, a lot.

Of course it did.

But today it was warm, and the hum of the radio that buzzed throughout the house like a light breeze calmed his thoughts.

Of course