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Days have been spent in their bed. Wez has tried again and again to urge the Golden Youth out from under the furs. The Golden Youth has no interest in anything, and hasn’t for some time.
This happens every so often. The Golden Youth will be fine one day, and then spend weeks completely apathetic. Getting him out of bed is one thing, but getting him on the bike is another. When the Youth falls into this pit, he barely eats and doesn’t even have the energy to wash himself.
Wez placates him when this happens. He hand-feeds him until the Youth rejects anymore attempts, and he bathes the Youth himself like a man washing a dog. The Youth rarely speaks, even less so when he gets like this.
The Toadie, who offers his advice without any request, whether it’s welcomed or not, refers to the Youth’s state as “a funk”. He will be over it in no time, he’s just soft, the Toadie implores. Wez responds by snapping the bridge of his glasses.
The Lord Humungus, who fancies himself a poet or a respected orator in some new-world definition, stares wistfully towards where the sun sets and sighs behind his mask, calling the Youth’s condition by a morbid name: melancholy.
The Civil Fig, who has read many books and met many people in her short life, refers to the Youth’s state in a much more clinical term: depression.
Wez lays beside the Golden Youth, running a hand through cornstalk-blonde hair. The Youth shifts slightly, and Wez hears sniffling. He pulls the younger man towards him, turning him over so that they face each other, and wraps an arm around his shoulders.
The Youth sniffles again, which quickly becomes full-body sobs that shake tears out of him and force hoarse whimpers from his throat. Wez is used to this by now. There’s no real sadness in the bitter tears, just pain. The pain doesn’t come from a lost fight or anything tangible. It comes from the Youth’s mind.
As much as Wez would like to fight the pain away, there is nothing to fight. His Golden Youth thinks so much, thinks about everything, hurts himself thinking so much. He wishes he wouldn’t think so much. But he can’t control what his Youth thinks. If he could, he would pull the pain from his Youth’s mind and fight it to the death, but he can’t. He would. But he can’t. Shit.
The tears finally subside, and the Youth buries his face in Wez’s chest. Wez’s hand finds the back of the Golden Youth’s head, and he massages the scalp, hoping to soothe him in some capacity.
They lay like that for half an eternity, and the Golden Youth pulls away. His eyes are ringed in copper red, and his cheeks are swollen and puffy. He breathes through his mouth for a few minutes, his nose runny and wet. The Youth wipes his nose on a fur, and a strand of drool connects from his tongue to the roof of his mouth as he mouth-breathes himself to calmness. Wez props himself up on an arm as the Youth comes back around, sitting cross-legged.
The Youth suddenly looks so calm, so much calmer than he did laying in bed. The stress and apathy is no longer plastered across his face. Now he just looks around the tent, semi-wide-eyed and audibly swallowing the last of his tears. If Wez didn’t know any better, he’d think the lad looked confused, lost even. But Wez knows that look by heart now. He looks almost ashamed, and tired, and Wez reaches out to nudge his arm. The Youth turns to look at him, red-eyed and disheveled.
“Y’Wanna eat?”
The Youth reads his lips and smiles. For the first time in days, a smile splits his face into something positive. And Wez sits up, pressing a kiss to the still-damp lips. He knows it will probably be a few more days or even a week of apathy until his Youth brightens back up. And the cycle will continue, as it has since Wez has known him. The funk, the melancholy, the depression, is always there in the Golden Youth.
Wez swore to his Youth that he would protect him from anything that ever tried to harm him, even if he must defend him from himself.