Archive of Our Own ^beta

God, there’s never any fucking parking.

You drive down your block in search of a free space by the curb and curse quietly to yourself when you have to settle for something that’s almost at the end of the street, much farther than you would have preferred to walk. You cut the engine and sit for a moment, focusing on the stillness of your car’s interior. You sigh and rub your hands over your face before collecting your bag and your phone and climbing out into the night.

It’s the middle of another harsh Philly winter and there’s some icy remnants of the latest snowstorm still lingering on the sidewalk. The air stings as it whirls around you, but you can hardly feel it: you can hardly feel anything going on around you. You just want to get inside and shut yourself up in your room for the rest of the night.

You make your way up the flight of stairs to your apartment, your key already separated and in-hand. You unlock the door and push it open and you’re immediately met by Dan’s smile from the couch.

“Hey you, aren’t you home kind of early? I thought your sessions were usually an hour.”

You stow your keys inside your bag and lay it down on an old chair by the door. You avoid Dan’s eyes as you go about removing your coat and scarf.

“My doctor had some kind of family emergency and had to cancel on me.” Your voice is flat and only loud enough to be heard so you wouldn’t have to repeat yourself. “Would have been nice if the office had called before I made it all the way down there, though.”

“Oh man, that sucks; I’m sorry, baby.” Dan pauses whatever game he’s playing as he watches you move around.

“Yeah, and she was already going to be away for the rest of the month, so this was my last chance to see her for weeks.” You do your best to keep your tone level, to keep your voice from cracking.

Dan’s brow furrows in concern. “Are you gonna be okay until then?”

You shrug, forcing a tired smile that probably looks more like a grimace. “Who knows? Guess I’ll have to be.”

You pad your way through the living room and into the kitchen of your crappy little apartment. Your hard shell is already cracking from the few sentences you’ve exchanged with your boyfriend since you walked in the door. Truthfully, you’re really not sure how okay you’ll be until you can see your doctor again. You’ve been exceptionally overwhelmed lately and you had been looking forward to your therapy session tonight. Your head is so full and you needed to clear it somehow and an objective third-party that you trusted seemed the best bet at this point. You’ve been denied this release, though, and it had already broken you earlier.

After you found out that your appointment had been suddenly canceled, you’d gone back to your car and simply cried for a solid ten minutes before taking off and driving aimlessly around the city, burning through more gas than you could probably afford. You didn’t care, though; your head was too disorganized to figure out another way to try to bring yourself back down to Earth. You also didn’t want to come back to your apartment an emotional wreck and send Dan into an anxious frenzy. You always feel guilty whenever Dan frets over you, like you’re some kind of burden that he has to deal with. He knows how you can get from time to time, what kind of emotional baggage you brought into the relationship, but he’s still always so sweet to you, so genuine in his expressions of love and concern, and you hate feeling like you’re inconveniencing him when you have a bad mental health day. Sometimes when you’re feeling particularly low, the thought crosses your mind that it will all become too much for him one day and it terrifies you more than anything because it will be your fault. At least, that’s what the endless cacophony inside of you would have you believe. But no, Dan’s never expressed any such sentiment to you, of course, nor do you think he would, if you’re speaking honestly and not from the warped depths of your consciousness. He always looks at you with sunlight in his eyes and his smile and, more often than you’d like to admit, you look back with rain clouds and thunder. He tries his best to comfort you, but you can see the frustration in his face when there’s nothing to be done, which is so often the case. You’ve explained this all to him, letting him know that all he can do is be present and ride out your mood drops and your bad days with you, but that still doesn’t stop him from trying everything he can think of to lift your spirits, even if it’s something as simple as letting you curl into his side and lay there until you either feel like a real person again or doze off, whichever comes first. He always apologizes for not being able to do more, but simply sticking by you is more than you could ask for.

Your laps around your area of the city seem to have been nothing more than a temporary solution: a psychological band-aid. Your chest feels tight and your eyes are stinging again as your heart speeds up and your anxiety begins to peak. You just want to get some water and go lay down.

You open one of the cabinets to take out a glass and notice that it’s the last one. There’s a twitch in your brain when you think about how you need to run the dishwasher again already and you can’t remember if you used up all the dish detergent. You pull open your freezer a bit more violently than is necessary (it does have a tendency to stick) and grab a few ice cubes and drop them into your glass. One of them slips past the rim and lands on the counter and a small sigh escapes you. You toss it into the sink only to have it bounce off the edge and clatter to the floor.

You pick up the dirty ice cube and look at it already melting in your hand and proceed to hurl it back into the sink and, from the sound it makes, you’re fairly confident in saying that you’ve chipped one of the glasses that had been waiting to be washed and put away.

You’re done.

It starts out silently, tears welling up in your eyes as your face flushes with heat. Your hands shake and your legs are weak and the lights in your kitchen are too God damn bright and, before you know it, you’re stooped down and choking out sobs, your back against the counter and your hands buried in your hair as the raucous in your head overtakes you again.

“Hey hey hey, baby, what’s up, what’s wrong?”

Dan must have followed you into the kitchen at some point and now he’s knelt down beside you, a hand holding your shoulder, gentle but firm.

You don’t answer him. You can’t, not with how hard you’re crying. It’s difficult enough to breathe, let alone form any kind of distinguishable sentence.

“Please talk to me, sweetheart. Sit down, come on, tell me what’s up.”

You manage to lower yourself to the ground all the way, your knees held to your chest as you bury your face in your legs, the wetness from your eyes staining your jeans.

You don’t need to look up to know what Dan’s face looks like as he watches you crumble on the dirty linoleum floor of your apartment, any kind of strong facade you’d put up being smashed to pieces in front of him. You know that his sweet face is twisted up in unease, his lips pursed into a thin line and his forehead creased with worry.

Dan brushes your hair away from your face as he kneels beside you, waiting for you to speak, to tell him what the hell happened in the single minute you’d been alone.

“It’s so loud, Dan.”

“What is?”

You swallow hard and sniffle and the sound makes you feel like a toddler. “There’s so much noise just...in my head. I can’t focus. I can’t focus on anything. It’s never been this bad.” You pause to catch your breath and wipe your nose on your sleeve. “I needed to talk to my doctor about it and now I can’t for another fucking month and I don’t know what to do. I needed it, I needed help, Dan.”

Dan wraps an arm around your shoulders and pulls you close to him, “shhhh-ing” you quietly. He kisses the top of your head and smooths your hair.

“Can you talk to me about it? I didn’t know things were this bad.” His voice is quiet and clear and it hurts even more to hear the distress in his words.

You concentrate on your breathing and try to calm yourself enough to speak again. “It’s been building for a long time, but tonight just kind of...set it off. I would have been home even earlier, but I fucking broke down in my car and was just driving around after I left my doctor’s office because it was the only thing I could think of to do.”

You pause again to collect your thoughts. Dan stays quiet, but keeps a tight hold on you, and somehow, you swear it helps you think a little more clearly.

“Everything is just so hard right now. My job is grating on me more and more every day and I have so many God damn bills and this place is such a shithole and I just feel like I have no control over anything anymore. Everything is...it’s stagnant, it doesn’t change and I feel like I can’t do anything about it.”

You’re out of breath and another wave of tears streams down your face as you shudder. Dan squeezes you with both arms and lays his head on top of yours.

“I just don’t know what to do, Dan; I don’t know how to fix any of this.”

“Well, going to your therapist is probably a pretty good start. That’s what she’s there for, right? To help you figure this shit out.”

“Yeah, but that’s what I was supposed to do tonight and it got all fucked up and now I don’t-”

“Then you talk to me. I wanna help you, too, you know. I might not be as good as your therapist, but I can always listen.”

You rub your eyes with the back of your sleeve even though it’s already soaked and attempt to blink away any lingering signs of your sadness. “I don’t wanna bother you, though. You have your own problems-”

“Yeah, and you listen to me when shit gets stirred up in my head, don’t you? My brain isn’t too nice to me either sometimes, you know. Baby, I was medicated. For kind of a while, too.”

“You’re not anymore, though.” Your voice is tinged with embarrassment.

“I just got very lucky. That shit never goes away, though, not completely. I’m way better than I was, but I still get dragged back down into my OCD spirals once in a while. And you know that because you sit on that old ass couch and listen to me and talk to me until I’m okay again.”

“It doesn’t bother me, though, to listen…”

“So why do you think it would bother me?”

You shrug sheepishly. “I dunno…”

“Can you look at me, sweetheart?”

You raise your bloodshot eyes to meet Dan’s and his gaze is so warm and soft and full of love that it almost makes you start crying again.

“You will never bother me by talking about the shit that makes you feel bad. Please don’t feel like you can’t talk to me. I want to know what’s going on with you, good or bad.”

“I know, but...there’s so much bad and it just...it scares me, Dan.”

“Why does it scare you?” he asks, keeping his tone even.

You try to breathe deeply, your mind racing as you attempt to vocalize the mess inside of you.

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

“What do you mean? How would you hurt me?” He sounds genuinely confused and it tugs at your heart to have to lay all of this out for him. You hate this conversation already.

“Dan, I’m...I’m a mess. So much of my life feels like garbage right now and I’m afraid that those feelings are going to start seeping into our relationship. I just don’t want anything to happen to...us, I guess.” The tears have stopped for the moment, but you don’t know how long that will last. Confessing your fears like this makes you feel shaky and self-conscious and neurotic, like you’re watching the timer on a bomb that’s ready to explode, but the numbers are all jumbled up and counting down out of order.

Dan shakes his head slowly. “Nothing is gonna happen to us.”

“You don’t know that, though! What if you get tired of all this, of being with someone who can’t just fucking be happy? What if you get tired of...me?” You gesture dismissively to nothing in particular as the words tumble from your mouth.

Dan looks at you carefully, as though he’s studying you. “Do you really think that? That I’m gonna get tired of you?” He sounds hurt that you would even think such a thing, like he can’t wrap his head around the very notion of it.

You feel so silly having this discussion. It’s all nonsense, after all, just your insecurities playing tricks on you, planting ideas in your head that have no business being there. How many times has Dan told you he loves you, that he’s so happy with you, so thankful you’re with him? More times than you could possibly count. But no matter how many times he professed all this to you, you still have that minuscule itch in the back of your mind that never lets you fully accept what is so obviously right in front of you.

“I just get scared, okay? This kind of shit isn’t easy to deal with, so why wouldn’t you get burnt out?” Your voice is louder than you mean for it to be, but Dan doesn’t seem to notice. He’s still looking at you calmly and listening with full attention.

You turn away from him and press your face against your legs so your eyes are peeking out over your knees. You stare straight ahead, not really looking at anything around you. There’s more you could say, but it seems pointless and only makes you feel worse about yourself.

Dan breaks the silence. “I’m not ‘dealing’ with anything. I love you and I want you to be okay and I want to help you.” He stops and lets out a heavy sigh, finally shifting his gaze away from you and instead turning it down towards the floor. “I know that it probably feels like the end of the world, like things will never get better. But I need you to keep going. Because I know that you can, I know you have it in you. If you can take it one day at a time, then that’s totally okay! And I promise you, I’ll be right here the whole time for as long as you need me to be; please trust me on that. I know this probably sounds super corny and contrived or something, but it’s true. Just tell me what you need me to do and I’ll do it. I promise.” He gently picks up your hand in his and raises it into your eyeline. “You think I gave you this for nothing?”

You glance down at the ring adorning your middle finger. It’s a tarnished silver set with an odd gemstone you can’t quite identify, but the way the colors swirl inside the cloudy stone brings to mind images of the ocean. Dan had stumbled upon it randomly while you were out and about on South Street one day, spotting it in a display case in a witchy little shop you frequented for fun. He’d wasted no time in snatching it up as soon as he saw it, saying that the blues and greys and whites looked really calm all mixed together and that they reminded him of the way he felt whenever you were around. You’re pretty sure you’d teased him over the sappy sentiment, but it had still made your heart swell. Now, you felt naked whenever you weren’t wearing it, and those times were few and far between anyway.

Dan places a kiss to your forehead and laces his fingers with yours. You close your eyes and breathe in and let it out slowly through your nose as you nuzzle into his neck and allow another wave of sadness to wash over you. Dan hadn’t said anything you didn’t already know, but actually hearing it all out loud was much more powerful than just thinking it. It’s more real and holds more weight than before: it feels like the truth.

Your whole body shakes as you try to expel all the negativity that has been piling up inside of you for weeks and Dan holds you through it all, rocking you gently and whispering a hushed “I got you, baby, I got you”. You cling to him like your life depends on it, like he’s the only thing keeping you anchored to the real world. You find that everything around you starts to look like shapes after a while when you’re in the midst of one of your episodes: indistinguishable, abstract, without meaning, just shapes. Dan is never just shapes to you, though. No, he is always something concrete and easy to identify, something you can hold onto, both literally and figuratively. He is a cozy blanket, a cup of tea, a familiar face in a crowd full of strangers. He is the sound of laughter and the taste of honey. He is every star peeking out from behind the clouds at night. Most importantly, though, he is himself: your love, your teammate, your best friend. Dan is Dan and he helps you remember that you are you by doing nothing more than being there when you need him the most.

You eventually run out of tears, but you’re still attached to Dan’s side, your face buried in his shoulder. You glance down at the ring on your finger and take a moment to study Dan’s and your hands locked together. His hands are always warm and are just big enough compared to your own to make you feel safe whenever he touched you. You’re honestly not sure what state you’d be in at the moment if he weren’t sitting here with you. He’d seen you upset in the past, seen your demons rise to the surface from time to time, but never like this. A situation like this is never comfortable for anyone involved, yet here you are and here he is and he’s cradling you in his arms and kissing you tenderly and offering you every reassurance he can. You don’t know what you could have done to deserve someone like him, but it must have been pretty good.

You try speaking and the words come out quiet and strained. You’re exhausted, both mentally and physically.

“I’m sorry…”

“For what?”

“I got brain problems.”

Dan huffs a laugh and presses his lips to your head yet again. “Don’t we all.”

“I’m glad you’re here, though,” you say feebly against his t-shirt.

“I’m glad to be here, even if it is kind of a shithole. At least it’s our shithole.”

A quick, tired laugh escapes you, the first of the night, and it already makes your entire body feel that much lighter and more at ease.

“It is, isn’t it?”

“It sure is.”

You smile. It’s tiny and weak, but it’s there. You give Dan’s hand a brief squeeze and you realize that your heartrate is actually returning to normal. You’re not out of the woods quite yet, but you’re getting there. Having Dan so close helps you stabilize, helps you focus, keeps all the noise from getting too loud again. As long as he’s here, you think you can fight your way through the thick of your breakdown and come out on the other side with only a few mental bruises to show for it, signs that you survived yet again and could keep trying to move forward.

Dan continues to sit with you, humming a slow, somber song that you love. You can feel the vibrations in his chest as well as the steady beat of his heart. You close your eyes again, your body rested against him, and simply listen and feel and hope that maybe doing so will help synchronize the beating of your hearts, so, wherever you are, you can be there together.

“You’ll be alright, babygirl. I know you will.”

And somehow, you believe him.