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I currently am without you
Awsten hasn’t seen Otto in days. He hasn’t seen anyone in days, actually. Even when he looks out of his window, he can’t see any people out there. His bedroom window is at such an angle that he can’t see the street below. He can still see cars on the highway in the distance, and surely they must have people driving them. But if he can’t see them, they’re not real.
He doesn’t want to see anyone, anyway. Wallowing in his own misery is much more fun solo. There’s no one trying to drag him out of his slump, telling him it will get better or to just get over it. Instead he can lie in his bed and stare at the ceiling and hate himself for never doing anything.
Even stuff he enjoys, playing the guitar or drawing or listening to music, feels impossible. He’s almost angry at himself for not doing anything. He isn’t doing productive stuff but he isn’t doing non-productive stuff either. This isn’t fun. Why the hell is he still just lying here?
His phone buzzes on his nightstand. It’s Geoff, again, trying to check in on him. Awsten answered once this morning confirming that he’s alive and he’ll answer again before Geoff's bed time. Not his own bedtime, because he barely sleeps and when he does it’s broken, erratic, and at odd times of the day. That way Geoff won’t show up here again and try to fix this.
Awsten doesn’t want to be fixed. He wants to rot, alone. He doesn’t even miss any of his friends that much.
Well, except Otto. And maybe Geoff and Lucas and Travis too. But mostly Otto and the way his cheesy jokes always manage to make him laugh.
When was the last time Awsten laughed?
And I couldn't leave if I had to
Awsten could just get up out of bed and put on some clothes and go outside. But he can’t. Physically, it’s possible, but mentally? There’s something blocking it. Some kind of exhaustion that won’t leave, no matter how much he rests.
Not that this really counts as rest. Awsten is so tense that he can’t breathe properly. Every time he tries to relax his shoulders he can’t seem to get them all the way loose. It’s like there’s something deep in there, jamming up his muscles. His back hurts and his legs are restless. He kicked off his blankets three hours ago and he doesn’t have the energy to pick them back up even though he’s cold.
He could just get up. He could go and open his curtains for the first time in a week. Go on, get up. It’s not that hard, it’s just getting up and out of bed and walking to the window. The distance is maybe six feet. Get up. Get up. Get up.
Awsten lies there, listening to the voice in his head screaming, begging for him to move, but he doesn’t. There’s no link between the part of his brain that wants to move and the rest of his body.
His curtains stay closed.
And I just remembered it was Halloween
Geoff has given up trying to figure out what’s going on with Awsten. Maybe he already knows. Instead of texting him how are you doing every day, he’s started giving him life updates, asking him questions, things Awsten finds easier to engage with.
It doesn’t really matter if Awsten responds to Geoff or not. He keeps sending pointless texts that don’t require an answer. Awsten kind of likes that they’re pointless. They don’t require much brainpower to answer if he decides he wants to. And if he doesn’t, there’s another text a few hours later that he can answer, or not.
He doesn’t know if he’s okay, but he knows it’s sick as hell that Geoff ordered one cookie and got two at Subway.
He hasn’t heard from Otto, but that’s normal. Otto doesn’t know where his phone is 70% of the time. Most of the rest of the time it’s dead and on the rare occasion that he does check it, he only texts if Awsten texts him first. Which he hasn’t been doing. The only reason his phone still has battery is because it’s too much effort to unplug it from the charger.
Geoff: A guy just pushed in front of me at Target what the hell buddy
Geoff: how much Halloween candy do you think is reasonable? Travis says at least a basketful
Geoff: I don’t trust that Travis is giving me good information. I think he’s trying to make me go bankrupt so he can eat endless candy
Awsten: why are you buying halloween candy already? It’s October twelfth.
Geoff: It's October thirty-first?
Oh, shit. Awsten looks at the date on his phone. Jesus, how did he lose nearly three weeks?
He hasn’t even thought about what he’s going to do for Halloween. If he’s going to do anything - he hasn’t done anything else in the last month. Clearly Travis and Geoff are hanging out, maybe he’ll join them. Or he might not. They’re probably happier when he isn’t there, bringing the mood down.
So I guess I'm going as a guy who's paying parking tickets on his laptop on the living room floor
Well, actually, he did get out of bed today. He didn’t get dressed or brush his teeth but he did finally check his mail. In it, he finds parking tickets that he was meant to pay by the end of the month. Which is today. Shit.
His laptop is dead when he finally finds it under his couch, so he digs out his charger from his backpack - which has been sitting in the middle of the floor for two weeks. While he’s waiting for it to boot up, he makes himself a sandwich. God, he’s being so productive today. Where’s all of this been for the past month?
He sets about figuring out how to pay the parking tickets while dutifully ignoring every single email he has received recently. If it was that important, they’d call him. He wouldn’t answer either way, but the sentiment is there.
Once he’s done paying the tickets, he sits on his floor and tries to decide what else he can do while he’s out of bed. Laundry, maybe? Does he have enough energy for that? He can feel it slowly dwindling as he realises he wasted his time paying fucking parking tickets that he wouldn’t have got in the first place if he wasn’t an idiot.
In the same clothes I wore yesterday
His phone buzzes beside him.
Travis: hey are you coming to my halloween party tonight
Awsten thinks about all the energy it will take for him to go to a party. There’s the party itself, which he could probably manage, but there’s all the stuff before that. He has to put on a costume - well first he has to figure out what his costume is going to be on short notice - and he should probably take a shower and eat something more substantial and figure out how he’s going to get there and then actually get there and then at the party he’s going to have to talk to people-
He sighs. There’s no way he can do all that, not with his already low energy. He wants to see Travis and all his other friends but he knows if he tries it’ll exhaust him and he’ll end up spending another three weeks in bed.
Today started out good, but he did too much. Somehow three things is too much for him now. What the fuck happened to him?
I don't think that I'm gonna change
Awsten picks up his phone and holds it in his hand for a moment. He stares at pages and pages of unread messages from people he’s supposed to love. Can’t he just reply to a few of them? One, perhaps, someone other than Geoff who has always been so easy to talk to.
None of these messages need low energy responses, though. It’s all how are you, what are you up to, when can we hang out? Bad, nothing, never. Not unless they want to come over here and deal with the fact his apartment is a mess that he doesn’t have energy to fix and he can’t leave the house and do anything significant without being tired and miserable. It’s pointless. He can’t do it.
Awsten: I don’t think so. Sorry.
I hear the rain on my skylight
It’s raining. That’s normal considering it’s October but Awsten hadn’t realised the weather had turned already. He isn’t very aware of what’s going on in the world outside his house. Fall, he guesses, like every year. All the seasons blur into each other when he’s like this.
The rhythmic tapping of it slowly sends him into a trance, eyes half open as he watches the droplets hit the skylight. It’s joined by a louder, uncoordinated banging from elsewhere in his apartment. It takes him a second to realise it’s someone knocking at his door. Awsten drags himself of bed, intending to tell whoever it is to fuck off. He opens his front door, and-
“Otto?” He’s almost surprised, but who else would be here at eight o’clock on a Thursday?
“Why aren’t you going to Travis' Halloween party?” Otto asks. It doesn’t look like he’s going either, considering he isn’t wearing a costume. He has his raincoat on, keeping him mostly dry despite the bad weather. “You always go to Travis' parties.”
“I’m too tired.” Awsten says, which is an honest answer, if not an entire one. “You could have texted me this.”
Otto raises an eyebrow at him. “Would you have answered?”
Awsten shrugs, sheepish. “Maybe. I answer Geoff.”
“Coming here was easier than texting, honestly. Can I come in?” Otto asks.
“Aren’t you going to Travis' party? It starts in, like, fifteen minutes.” Awsten goes to check his watch and realises he isn’t wearing it. He isn’t even sure where he left it.
“I’m not going if you don’t. Everyone will be drunk except me and I’ll be bored.” Otto shrugs. “Seriously, it’s gross out here, can I come in?”
“It’s not much better in here.” Awsten mumbles, glancing around at the mess in his apartment. When was the last time he tidied up?
“You know I don’t care.” Otto walks past him, leaving his coat on the hook by the door and kicking off his shoes. He glances at Awsten’s pyjamas and unbrushed hair. “Are you having a bed day?”
From my bed where I spend most of my time
“I think I’m having a bed month.” Awsten leads Otto into his bedroom.
The couch is covered in laundry he never folded so there’s no point sitting there. Awsten flops back down onto his bed as Otto tries to subtly survey his room. He sits down beside Awsten, then falls on top of him. Awsten grunts as Otto’s weight hits him, but doesn’t try to push him off. It’s the closest thing to a hug he’s had in a long time.
One thing Awsten does hate about accidentally isolating himself is not getting hugs from his friends. He’s a very touchy person and not being around his friends deprives him of that. To try and savour the moment, he wraps his arms around Otto and clings to the back of his shirt.
They lie there in silence for a while, listening to the rain, until Otto suddenly pushes himself up. When Awsten tries to get up with him, to follow, Otto waves for him to stay. He starts picking up stuff from the floor, throwing clothes into the laundry basket and putting CDs back on the shelf.
“Dude, I can do that.” Awsten insists, even though it’s pretty evident that he can’t.
“I know you can. I want to help.” Otto picks up Awsten’s laptop from under a discarded jacket. “Don’t leave that on the floor, you might step on it and break it.”
“Coulda sworn I left it in the living room.” Awsten says, a little confused. He probably brought it in here when he got mad about wasting all his energy, and then forgot about it.
“Whatever. It’s on there for you.” Otto leaves it on his desk where it’s safer. “Sorry I haven’t texted you. I’m bad at that.”
“It’s okay. You were right, I probably wouldn’t have replied.” Awsten struggles to hold a coherent conversation at the best of times, let alone when he’s like this. Geoff gets responses on the virtue of not trying to make the conversation coherent.
“I thought it would be better to just come here.” Otto continues, picking up Awsten’s guitar and putting it back in its place in the corner. When was the last time he played it? “Misery likes company, or whatever.”
“I’m not miserable.” Awsten insists. Otto shoots him a look. “I’m not! I’m just… tired all the time.”
“That’s okay. We don’t have to do anything while I’m here. We can just chill.”
And I just remembered it was Halloween
“I do want to do something.” Awsten huffs, frustrated with his body's refusal to cooperate. “It’s fucking Halloween and I’m sitting in bed doing nothing. I love Halloween. I should be out doing something.”
“Sometimes you can’t. There’s always next year. Travis isn't gonna stop throwing parties just because you didn't come to one.”
“I’m running out of ‘next years’.” Awsten sighs. “Eventually everyone will give up trying.”
“I won’t.” Otto sits down beside him again and brushes Awsten’s bangs out of his face. “Geoff won’t, Travis definitely won’t. Most people like you a lot more than you realise.”
“I guess.” Awsten mutters. He sort of resents Otto for trying to calm him down - he likes throwing a bit of a tantrum sometimes.
“We can try and go if you want. No one will care if we’re late; it’s fashionable or whatever. And by the time we get there everyone will be too drunk to notice that you aren’t dressed up.”
Awsten wants to, so bad, but he really doesn’t think he can. His legs feel heavy. The thought of putting on shoes makes him nauseous. Tying laces? Forget about it. He can’t.
“Not this year.” Awsten says. “Just… not this year.”
So I guess I'm going as a guy who knows just what you'll say
Awsten can predict exactly what Otto is going to say in an attempt to make him feel better. It’s the same every time, meaningless platitudes that don’t really help. Although it helps to know that Otto is trying. Like when someone offers to pray for him, even though he doesn’t believe in God, because it's their way of offering comfort.
“I’m here for you.”
“I know that.”
“Anything you need.”
“I know.”
“You just have to ask.”
“That’s the hard part.
You don't think that I'm gonna change
“What if I’m like this forever?” Awsten asks. “What if I’m just tired for the rest of my life?”
“What if you aren’t?” Otto asks. “It’s more likely to get better than worse.”
“So there’s still a chance it’ll get worse.” Awsten butts his head against Otto’s shoulder. “I don’t like that.”
“Maybe you do get better, maybe you don’t. Sure, it sucks, but I’ll be here for you either way.” Otto promises. “Some people don’t get better. It’s not their fault. Shit happens.”
Weirdly, that makes Awsten feel… not good, but okay. The lack of pressure to fix himself feels like a sigh of relief.
All this time worth wasting
“You don’t have to stay if you have other stuff to do. Sitting here with me isn’t very productive.” Awsten says.
“I don’t enjoy being productive. I’d rather hang out with you.” Otto insists.
“Even if it’s boring and basically a waste of time?”
“Well, it’s neither.” Otto grins at him. “I always have fun when I’m with you.”
Let's get back to basics
“Let’s watch a film.” Otto suggests after a while of them lying on the bed, talking about nothing in particular. It’s nice to talk, easier than Awsten expected it to be. “It gets you out of bed, but it won’t take much energy. I think going to a party is a bit much for you to do right out of the gate.”
Awsten considers it for a moment, the steps it would take. Go to the couch. Put on a film. Make snacks. That’s not that much.
As if he can hear the cogs turning in Awsten’s head, he says. “I’ll make popcorn, you can pick the film. Unless you don't want to, in which case we will be watching There Will Be Blood.”
Awsten laughs. That gets rid of most of the steps in this process. “Any chance you can carry me to the couch too?”
“Sure.” Otto gets up and scoops Awsten up off the bed. Awsten shrieks and clings to Otto. “Calm down, I won’t drop you.”
“I don’t trust you.” Awsten lies.
Otto carries him to the couch, kicking the laundry there onto the floor. He deposits Awsten there and goes to the kitchen to make popcorn. Awsten decides that he probably does have enough energy to pick a film, landing on a random horror flick he’s pretty sure neither of them have seen before. Otto returns with a bowl of popcorn, which he hands to Awsten before sitting down next to him.
He picks up the laundry from the floor and begins folding it. Awsten stares at him as the movie starts.
“You don’t have to do that.” He says, so quietly he isn’t sure Otto will hear him.
Otto always hears him, though. “I can, so I might as well. It’ll only bother you.”
Awsten goes to argue, but he thinks better of it. “Thank you.”
“No problem, dude.”
How do we know how late is too late to still be awake
They end up watching multiple films, and Awsten manages to choose each one. He tends to get decision-fatigue with this sort of thing but he pushes through it, just for today. Everything else has been taken off of his plate by Otto, so he can do this one thing.
It gets to three in the morning and Awsten is falling asleep against Otto’s shoulder. Usually he’s still awake at this time, exhausted but unable to get to sleep. Something about being cuddled up with Otto is knocking him out, though.
“Maybe you should go to bed.” Otto whispers, wrapping his arm around Awsten’s shoulders.
“No!” Awsten whines, rubbing his eyes to try and wake himself up. “I’m not sleepy.”
“It’s late anyway, you should get to bed.”
“If I go to bed, you’ll leave.” The last thing Awsten wants is to be alone right now. After spending so much time rotting on his own, he finds himself terrified to go back to that.
“I can stay over. Maybe tomorrow we can go out somewhere.”
Don't you know I hate it?
“I don’t know about that.” Awsten laughs nervously.
“Doesn’t have to be anywhere interesting. We can just walk around the block so you get some sunlight and fresh air. Or we can literally just sit on the sidewalk outside.” Otto suggests. “Whatever you’re up for.”
Awsten sighs and burrows into Otto’s embrace. He feels safe there. “I hate this. I hate being so sad and tired all the time.”
“I know.” Otto says. “I know I said it’s okay if you don’t get better, and that’s true. But I am going to help you feel better, if it’s possible.”
You underestimated ordinary words
“You mean the world to me.” Awsten whispers, suddenly overcome with affection. “I don’t know how you do it.”
“Do what?”
“Make me feel better all the time. You don’t make me feel like a burden.”
Otto laughs. “I just sit here and talk to you.”
“It’s more than that.” Awsten takes Otto’s hand and squeezes it. “I don’t know how. It’s just different.”
“I’m glad I can help.”
Awsten yawns. “I love you.” He says sleepily. “Thank you for hanging out with me.”
“No problem. You get some sleep.” Otto kisses him on the forehead. “I love you too.”