oneshots ; gawsten

"shouldn't you be with her?"

this was supposed to be a quick oneshot but somehow 3.1k later i ended up with this pain 

i don't have anything to say for myself except i'm sorry lmao

trigger warnings - anxiety, depression, mentions of suicidal thoughts, and self-harm

15. "shouldn't you be with him/her?"

"Hey, I know it's my turn to do laundry, but Ci got off early and asked if we could go get food..."

He bites into his lip as Awsten says the words, doesn't move his gaze from the TV and keeps pressing buttons on the controller in his hands. He tilts it to the side to make the little Mario on the screen veer left to avoid a falling boulder. "Can't you put the clothes in now? I'll get them later."

"I said I'd leave right now." He doesn't have to look up to know the smile on Awsten's face. The sheepish, half guilty but not really, 'I wanna hang out with my girlfriend and don't give a shit anything else' smile. "Sorry, Gee. I promise I'll do it the next two times to make up for it!"

There's a lot of rustling and he hears Awsten swear as something crashes to the floor. A door opens and shuts, and then the front door creaks open. Awsten leaves with a hurried 'love you!'. The door swings shut loudly behind him.

Geoff blinks up at the screen, feels liquid drip off his lashes and settle on his cheeks. He forces down a swallow and looks at the little map off to the right, his blinking icon with all the other characters eons ahead. As if that weren't enough, the little 12 in the corner says it all. He takes a heavy breath in, squeezes his eyes shut and keeps them closed for a few seconds, focuses on just inhaling and exhaling.

This isn't a new development. This has been happening for days, weeks, even. Awsten cancels plans or slacks on his chores or even forgets to pick him up from work because he's off spending more and more time with her.

He remembers that day.

His car was in the shop because it'd broken down the day before. He asked Awsten to be there at 5:30, texted him twice during the day to remind him about it. And Awsten texted back with eye-roll emojis, wondering why he had so much little faith in him.

And then the clock on his phone flipped to 6:00 and he was still standing outside the building, rain pouring down on his shoulders and his fringe plastered to his face, listening to Awsten's answering machine for probably the tenth time in twenty minutes.

This isn't a new development.

This isn't a new development.

This isn't new.

The ache has been splattered behind his eyes since he woke up this morning. It's felt heavy, all day. There's this sort of weightedness that's pressing down on his shoulders, pressing the sky further into them. No matter how much he protests and cries and screams at the pain receptors in his nerves going haywire, it only gets worse.

This day is always hard. It hasn't gotten easier. It feels like he's moving through the process in molasses, like he's fighting and pushing and struggling against the thick wave of mush that just keeps trying to swallow him. It's trying to engulf him whole. It's molasses and it's quicksand. It's lethal and he's defenseless.

It's too powerful and he is tired of fighting.

He goes through this every year, has this fight with himself almost exactly, remembers the conversation in his head almost verbatim. One side is ready to move on but the other doesn't want to forget. One side is bounding toward the future but the other keeps getting pulled down by the past. One side is trying to wade through the molasses but the other keeps getting sucked back into the quicksand.