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Yosuke had always been rather… anxious. Prone to bad thinking. His thoughts ran a mile a minute, he over-thought everything, he questioned what words to say over and over because ‘I need them to like me, I can’t be alone, I can’t’ .
But he hadn’t ever expected to end up here.
He’d been doing great before. Work was good, his relationship with Yu was amazing , their home together filled him with joy.
But something had been looming and he couldn’t push it back and he hates that. He hates that he wasn’t strong enough to just make it stop . The anxiety pushed in, turned and twisted into something worse until he was sobbing into Yu’s lap when he had enough time to sit and think and think and spiral and fall.
Yu had did his best to help, had been supportive like you wouldn’t believe. Pushed him to see a therapist, which Yosuke did despite his dislike of the idea initially, who later pushed him to a doctor as well, but it just wasn’t fast enough. These things took time and Yosuke’s brain wasn’t giving him that.
He’d asked for it, in the end. He knew Yu was worried and every time he went to express how he was feeling it got caught up in his throat and choked him until the sobbing came back.
So a few weeks after the fall began, he told Yu he needed a hospital. Yu had rushed the process and gotten him admitted. Told him it would be okay even as Yosuke was scared to death, and he could see in Yu’s eyes the same fear, but ignored it in favor of listening to his boyfriend’s words. That’s what Yu would want, for Yosuke to take comfort in his words.
Yu had visited every day. Watched the light return to Yosuke’s face and the shine reappear in his eyes. Every visit Yosuke laughed more again, was more himself in a way that made Yu fall in love with him all over again. He’d never stopped, not even at the worst of this, but his heart swelled by seeing the real love of his life return. It was clear he wasn’t 100% by the time he was released, but he was safe . And that’s what mattered. It’d only been a few days, but it had made a world of difference.
But Yosuke still wasn’t ready to return to work yet. His medication (god he hated that, hated that he needed medication to get his brain to stop beating him up) wasn’t perfect, his coping skills flawed and needing undoing by his therapist so he could build them up properly.
And he hated every single second of it. He hated feeling so useless and pointless and he didn’t want to die, not anymore, but he couldn’t handle having Yu take care of everything when it shouldn’t be Yu’s problem, it shouldn’t be his job. He was supposed to be dependable, he was supposed to be the cheerful one, and without that he was just here, existing and taking up space and time and money, and he hated it .
He broke down. He screamed as he cried because he had bottled it in for too long (ha, another bad thing his therapist was telling him to stop) to speak rationally anymore. And Yu had listened to every word, clearly getting worked up by being yelled at but holding it back because of the tears he saw streaming down Yosuke’s face.
And then he grabbed that face and forced Yosuke to listen.
“I can’t fight this battle for you, Yosuke. I want to so badly but I can’t and that’s why I’m here fighting it with you anyway I can. Do not feel bad for having to rely on me. Do not feel useless for needing recovery time after this. This is all I can do, and it kills me. I want to fix this, I want to make it all better but there is nothing I can do. Don’t take this away from me and push yourself too far, because I need me looking after you just as much as you do.”
Yosuke nodded frantically even as he continued crying, noting his boyfriend’s tears as well. They could do this, they could. Yosuke was the one fighting but Yu was gonna be there for him, he wanted to be there.
Yu couldn’t fix him, but he was going to be the best fucking backup anyone had ever seen for Yosuke’s fight.