Work Text:
It’s a late August night.
There’s a house in the middle of a Los Angeles neighborhood, surrounded by grass that hasn’t been cut and weeds that show no sign that they’ll stop spreading. Inside, there’s a man sitting on his couch, barely blinking, much less moving. His position is not unlike that of a ragdoll that’s been hurriedly seated on a chair after playtime.
His name is Abed. He’s spent a lot of nights in this house. This is the 648th one.
He can hear the sound of children playing a couple of houses down, screeching with glee, probably eager to enjoy their last days of freedom before they’re back to desks and pencils. He can see the light of some passing cars shining through his window, and a garage opening right next door, the screech of the metal gnawing on his ears. Abed can feel the combination of noise and light starting to press against him, pinching him, and he makes his way to both windows in the room, shutting them and closing the blinds.
He goes back to the couch and sits down, the pressing and scratching he had felt slowly disappearing, replaced only with something lethargic and numb. Abed swallows, and starts to pensively rub his hand with his thumb.
He’s been like this for much too long.
It really should have stopped by now, the feelings of sinking, not to mention the ability to bounce back from meltdowns like he used to. It used to feel strange for him to not have someone to whisper gentle, loving things when these feelings became so burning and ruinous.
He remembers, can so vividly picture that face and that jacket, oh, how he remembers.
However, coming undone in his own house with only his TV for company had slowly become expected, so slowly he barely noticed the change. It doesn’t make it better. It doesn’t seem logical, does it? He made the choice to move here, and yet, he never wanted any of this. There wasn’t even a hint that this kind of scene would be laid out in the end.
Except, somewhere in some hidden part of his core, somewhere he and any other Abed could never truly acknowledge, he had always seen this coming. Maybe.
Still, there’s no use dwelling. The die has been cast. He hears his phone vibrate, and picks it up, unceremoniously shifting from his wilted position. He figures he might as well check his texts after not taking a look for a whole week. Or two. He sees a notification overlaying his phone’s Star Wars wallpaper.
Annie: Abed, are you alright? We haven't talked in four months, I’m worried about you. Try to reply soon, okay?
Underneath is a host of other messages, all from Abed’s friends (Annie, Britta, Jeff, and Shirley respectively). He can’t recall replying to any of them. It’s not that he doesn’t want to talk, it’s just that he knows they wouldn’t like what he has to say. Even if he lied, made up some story about being happier than he had ever been, he knows they’d never believe him.
It’s getting close to his bedtime anyway, and he’s realizing that he really should have taken a bath by now. He’s starting to smell, and really, it’s quite pathetic that he hasn’t washed himself at all for the past few days, wasn’t he supposed to be an adult?
Abed pinches his arm through the sleeve of his flannel. He looks to the side, and sighs as he gets up from the couch. All he needs to do is get in and out of the tub, surely he can manage that?
Keep a hold on the basics.
Once he’s stepped over and around the soon-to-be washed cardigans and discarded comics scattered upon the floor, he steps into the bathroom and begins to undress. He makes sure to face away from the mirror.
He doesn’t like seeing what he’s done to his body.
As usual, his tactic doesn’t work. He still catches glimpses of the cuts, arranged like scrambled tally marks, that litter his arms and wrists. Some have partially faded, some are still red and fresh, and Abed can’t stand to look at any of it.
It really is a shame that he’s done this, that he’s been through so much, and hasn’t learned a better way to fix himself. All it takes is one meltdown, and surprise! Another mark, right above the last one.
Once he’s filled it up sufficiently, he lowers himself into the bath, making sure to rest his arms on the side of the tub, away from any water that could seep into and sting his wounds. He settles the rest of his spindly body into the water (not too hot, not too cold), and focuses on the overflow drain a few centimeters from his feet. He can see a small crack on the drain’s metal, and he decides to try and focus on that instead of what’s become of his skin.
If he was here, everything might be okay, he thinks. He can picture it, the warm embrace, the sparks of hope. It hurts to know it’s just a fantasy, no more real than one of his old dreamatorium simulations.
Abed closes his eyes, pressing his fingertips into his palms, and remembers what he came to do in the first place.
After he finishes slathering his hair with the standard amount of shampoo and washing up, he stumbles out of the tub, throws on a towel, and makes his way to his bedroom, a thin trail of bathwater droplets forming behind him. He puts on his pajamas, which he remembers used to be light green with pictures of UFO’s and rocketships, but now just consists of a grey Batman sweatshirt and a pair of sweatpants. He turns off the light, gets under the covers, and starts to scroll through the internet on his phone.
How sad is it that this is all he does when he’s not working? Lying on his back, doing whatever he can to distract himself from whatever neurosis he had just encountered? He remembers being a college student, making film after film to see himself improve. He remembers being a small child, wondering if he’d be like the big directors he saw being interviewed on TV when he grew up. All that character motivation, for what?
After scrolling through articles about the upcoming blockbusters for a few minutes, his phone abruptly vibrates, a message from Annie once again appearing on the screen.
From Annie:
Abed, please tell me if you’re okay! I keep worrying about you, and I know you don’t want me to coddle you, but I just need to make sure you’re safe <3
Abed’s eyes start to sting. Here’s Annie, who’s been his friend for years, trying her best to reach out to him, and he hasn’t even bothered to reply to any of her texts.
He’s a shitty friend, always has been. Always so wrapped up in his little fantasy worlds, too crazy to realize what’s actually going on around him. Too unable to decode what people mean to truly help them.
He has to call Annie. He usually hates voice calls, but he has to make up for not talking to her for so long with something that feels personal. He taps Annie’s contact, presses the call button, and waits to hear her voice as the screen shines on his face in the otherwise pitch-black room.
“Abed?” The slightly shaky voice on the other end asks.
“...Hi Annie.”
“Oh, Abed, thank you so much!“ Annie chirps, a small but solid fragileness to her voice. ”Sorry for being so adamant, it’s just that I’ve been...really anxious about you, I just feel like I hear from you less and less each month…” Abed feels a lump in his throat. He already knows he’s a wreck, he doesn’t need Annie to remind him-
Stop it.
Stop it stop it stop it.
This is his fault. He can’t pin the blame on someone else.
“So, um...what made you want to call me? Wouldn’t you prefer to text?” Abed’s attention snaps back to the conversation, even as his energy dwindles. “I wanted to talk to you in a way that feels personal. I know I’ve let you down with how infrequently I’ve been talking to you.”
He can say that again. He’s been through so much with Annie, and now he can’t even be bothered to call her on a semi-regular basis. So much for the “eternal friendship” trope.
“Oh, Abed, it’s okay! I promise I don’t feel let down, I just worry about you, y’know?”
Abed doesn’t say anything.
Look how useless he’s become. Come and gawk, it’s not like he can fight back anyway.
“...Well, um, how have you been doing?” Annie asks after some hesitation. Abed feels his eyes start to sting. He can’t tell her anything. He can’t tell her the things he’s done to his skin, can’t tell her about his bad thoughts.
She’d finally see what’s become of him after all these years, how easily he unraveled despite any and all character progression. Then she’d cry, and that’d be the worst thing, wouldn’t it?
“Um, Annie?” Abed whispers, his voice suddenly timid.
“Yes?” Annie asks, clearly unsettled by his change in tone. “Can I get off the call now?” Abed says, the words almost shaking as they leave his mouth. Abed hears a confused sort of sigh come through the speaker. “Abed...what’s going on? Please…”
She takes a deep breath.
“Okay, sorry, you don’t have to tell me exactly what’s going on right now. I just...need to hear if you’re okay. Please.” Annie says, clearly trying to seem calm even as she sounds like she’s beginning to crack.
She’s starting to fret. At this rate, she’ll burst into tears in two minutes tops. This is what he does to everyone, spreading worry and panic. Might as well be a human fire alarm.
“Annie, I’m alright. I promise you, no harm has come to me.” Even by his standards, his words are straightforward, too straightforward to possibly be honest, and he feels the words fall dead on arrival.
“Abed…”
A solid ten seconds pass, and Annie says nothing, but Abed can hear some faint sniffling and a couple of coughs disguised as breathing.
Good job. Roaring success. You made her cry. You made Annie cry. Gold star.
Abed opens his mouth to try and comfort his friend, but he’s scarcely gotten two syllables out before she asks him a question. “Um...okay...just...Abed? Can I ask you something, and can you promise to tell the truth?” Annie asks, her voice thinly coated with a meek cautiousness.
Say yes. You don’t want to push her over the cliff, she’s already on the edge.
“Okay.” he replies, somewhat hoarsely. He soon wishes he hadn’t. “Have you been...oh...it's just that you seem to...not be in a good place right now…” She works up a sharp exhale.
“Have you been...hurting yourself in any way?”
Abed’s eyes go wide.
No.
Anything but this. He’s been taken to the stand, because his secret isn’t as unobvious as he thought it was, and he can’t even be mad at the girl questioning him. She doesn’t know.
She doesn’t know that he’s had this burning, festering inside him for the longest time, till he had no choice but to let it out. She doesn’t know that once he’d let it out, it’d swallowed him, gnashing him with its teeth till there was almost nothing left.
He knows he should be glad she’s asked, because nobody at work ever thinks twice about his long sleeves in the middle of summer or the days he shows up two hours late, gently rubbing his arm.
It still doesn’t make him feel rescued. He knows he can’t bring himself to tell Annie any of this.
“Abed?”
He’s too breakable now as it is.
“Abed? Please, I just need to know if you’re okay…” Annie pleads. Her voice is quivering. “Am I doing this right? Please, I don’t want to hurt you more, and-“
Abed squeezes his eyes shut, so tight it feels like a clench. “Annie, I can’t stay on. You won’t like where this goes if we continue the scene.”
Still trapped in his head, even now.
“Abed, what’s going on?” Annie chokes out. “I can’t go about knowing that you might be harming yourself...please, just give me an answer, and we can work from there.” She says, her earnest gentleness rippling with panic. “Please…” Annie coughs out. “Just give me an answer.”
Abed’s trapped. He knows it would be so easy to tell her he’s fine, and yet…
He thinks back to a day, a special day, from long before it all came crashing down.
He thinks about the agreement he’d formed with the man who later became his whole world, who is still so clear in his mind even after all this time.
“Friends don’t lie to eachother.”
Abed takes a deep breath, and starts to sink into shame. He knows what he has to do. “I’m sorry, Annie. I can’t tell you anything. The only sounds coming through the phone are trembling whimpers. “This isn’t your fault. I’m just not strong enough now.“
Was he ever?
“I wish I was.”
Annie starts to plead something, but Abed doesn’t know what she’s getting at because he’s already hung up on her before she’s gotten two words out. For a while, he’s completely still.
Well?
He didn’t have to lie, isn’t that right?
Abed snaps out of his statue-state, shoves his phone into his bedside table’s open drawer, and shuts it like it holds a curse inside. He sprawls himself on the bed, grips his blanket so hard it hurts, and starts to weep.
Weep is what Abed‘s calling it in his head, but he still knows that's probably too simplistic of a word right now. He’s screeching, howling, choking, and he can barely even comprehend it as it happens. It’s taken a hold of him, more than it ever has before.
How pathetic.
Abed starts to tug his hair, pulling a couple of strands out in the process.
Shut up shut up go away why won’t you stop I wish you'd stop you never ever stop.
Abed’s too frenzied to take note of it, but the whole situation’s like nothing that ever happened at his old school. There’s no lighting, no colorful scenery, nothing signifying that there might be a happy ending. It’s just him, a man who doesn’t even know if he’s the same person anymore, screaming like he’s been stabbed, in a room that feels more like a cave.
Where are those cameras now?
He used to have someone holding onto him at times like this, someone to smooth out his fears until they didn’t seem so tyrannical. He used to have a safety line.
He’s gotten used to the feeling of not having that anymore. The familiarity doesn’t help. It just shows how long it’s been.
Abed continues to shake and screech, and prays, prays that this isn’t his character’s resolution. He realizes that won’t be the case. He’ll be up the next morning, ready to go through the motions once more.
In more ways than one, it might as well be worse than coming to an end.