If You Miss It

12. catalyst

warning: depressive episode.
please skip if it could trigger you, i will give you a recap if you want it. <3

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CHAPTER TWELVE

CATALYST

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The shower was starting to sting.

Typically, Dmitri wouldn't have minded the tiny sting that always accompanied the boiling hot showers that he took every morning; those were comforting. The warmth outweighed the sting with his daily hot showers.

Now, there was no warmth.

Every drop was pure fucking ice dripping down his back, soaking his t-shirt, the colour changing from red to maroon, pale grey sweatpants morphing into charcoal.

And still, he felt nothing. Absolutely nothing.

After wasting over three hours trying to convince himself to shower, he hoped that he could at least feel something when he did.

Numbly removing his soaking wet t-shirt, Dmitri sighed, that action, itself, feeling like a chore. And before he knew it, he was seated on the closed lid of the toilet, his sweatpants still heavy with ice cold water, a common result of taking a shower at two in the morning.

Body weighed down by the water, by his thoughts, Dmitri just sat there.

He sat there for a whole twenty minutes, alone with the whirring fan in the bathroom, the fluorescent white light, the cold tiles that were wet from his spontaneous shower, the pile of fresh clothes that were laying in a heap in front of him, the crushing thoughts that always, always made him want to disappear.

There was no way he could make it to work.

Or maybe he could. He always— well, almost always— did it when he was still teaching, albeit with immense difficulty. So, why couldn't he do it now, too? Why did his body hurt so much?

Just get up. Stand up. You can stand up.

Another ten minutes passed, and Dmitri still hadn't stood up. Or maybe it was less, more, he couldn't really tell.

Exactly eleven minutes later, he stood up.

Exhaling deeply, he changed out of his sweatpants, tugged on the fresh pair on the ground, not bothering to deal with his t-shirt or the wet clothes he had tossed on the ground, as he stumbled back into bed, the ache in his bones only increasing with each step.

Then, he pulled his blanket over his head, blocking out the rest of the world, because he couldn't deal with anymore noise.

There was enough of that in his brain.

—

When Dmitri woke up, it was bright outside.

The light hurt his eyes, intensifying his headache, and his nausea, and his stomach ache— stomach ache?— but he physically couldn't bring himself to move to close the curtains.

So, he just buried himself further under his blankets, deciding to just sleep the day away, hopefully sleep the episode away, too.

But someone ruined those plans, by pounding heavily on the door, yelling out a sharp, "D, it's so fuckin' late, the fuck are you still doin' in there? Get the fuck out!"

Too loud.

Since his mouth refused to co-operate with his mind which was telling him to open his mouth and yell out an equally sharp, Fuck off, Eden, he didn't say anything at all, just drifting in and out of consciousness.