Work Text:
You bite the cuticles of your thumb, tearing a thread of skin into blood. You did not think about the appearance of the thumb, it was not important, as long as the varnish did not come off drastically. Here and there the tightening was missing, and the varnish itself did not meet the buyer's requirement and came off after just dipping your hands in water. Cheap crap caught in Rossman for ridiculous money, not exceeding the amount of a dollar. Bought on short notice at lunchtime, and, since your previous job did not require concentration and you mostly sat on your ass and your only duty was to wait for a customer willing to pour some money on a funkopop figure - you could say that lunchtime lasted twelve hours without a break.
Hence, when your butt hurt from sitting, the kids screamed with contentment and your ears perked up, you had the right to close up store for a few minutes and stroll through the mall you were stuck in for a measly part-time job. Set up workshops in baking cookies and offering chocolate with fizzy fruit as a side dish, pretty much eliminated the possibility of walking into a geek store and buying a kid's crap - because candy was the priority and, either the kid would get the chocolate or be forced to give up the treat and only then would he be allowed to buy a non-fun figurine.
Most of the customers walked in and out without a good morning or kiss my ass. They would take a quick look at the merchandise and crooked their faces at the number of zeros, then run away thinking the employee wouldn't notice.
The lack of demand at the stationary store led the owner to close for December, and you were left without a job for the New Year. On the one hand, you weren't surprised. Twelve-hour shifts didn't take a good toll on your spine, and sitting in shrimp's pose messed up your bones.
On the one hand, okay, you don't have to sit in a chair in search of a position worthy of enduring five minutes. Sweeping one area every hour out of boredom and arranging the figures to your taste. The store was really small, and most of the space was taken up by mugs and other crap you don't buy without a bargain anyway. Maybe a duck funkko with an image of a wreestling player for a friend from the neighborhood would be cool, but that's not how you're going to spend thirty dollars for the sake of personal taste. Even before payday.
And in a sea of fish, you found some specimens you missed. At least the people you worked with, or wrote on slack. There were only a few, but really great ones. The laid-back boss who liked to insert emoticons at random times and sending gifs of dancing frogs upon hearing that a customer had arrived at the store.
Putting on a trade show at a city event and chatting with geeks about topics, to comics and games, to the point of descending into politics to an odd degree.
And the one customer coming in to chat.
He hadn't bought anything in his life, but came to chat as he passed the entire medical card and confessed his reason for walking into the mall. The man's nickname was well known, and every employee asked in chat if the tea customer had come, and if so, which record he had broken.
And well, all good things were finished. You lamented all the finished books at work time and thanked them at the same time for allowing you to bring your private laptop to work. The boss himself suggested the idea and thought it would be a good way to kill time.
In reality, he knew that a store wasn't the best idea and a simple online sale that hustled like crazy would have sufficed.
When asked why he put the store in a gallery, he said he won a competition put up by the galleries and thus got a ridiculous amount of space to fill. But hey, maybe a silly place, in a silly gallery, where half of the capital's residents didn't know it existed, so it's profile on Instagram was calling cosplay entourage and they were coming in asking if they could do a little fitting room session.
A cool idea was to plaster the fitting room with yellow tape, on which you could write whatever your soul wanted and paint pictures. Lots of graffiti, plenty of quotes and a place to leave things were among the few positives of the place. A wheel of fortune where you could win free Harry Potter socks, or a discount on T-shirts.
And erasers for free in the shape of Hermione.
So yes, you will miss something.
After the New Year, you got a job that you honestly disliked for many reasons and ended up saying goodbye to the place through stupidity.
Your life partner urged you to look for a job in an office, because you would get a normal employment contract, not a contract crap, where people forget that you exist and don't count the years worked towards your pension. And there was a point in that. The sports card top-up, lunch card and eyeglasses subsidy were attracting, and the possibility of a raise with a good scope of work was pulling poor ass to submit a cv.
A palpable but appeared with the presentation of arguments from which your despised partner was wringing his hands.
You didn't want to be a corporate rat. Being reprimanded and doped up for anything was not in your scope and you really didn't want to make a fool of yourself. You worked in an office a few years ago and just getting to the floor and bouncing your card with every entry and exit at random doors, strangely enough, fueled a bug in your head crying out to get your feet out of there.
Luckily for you, you jumped into a project that didn't make the slightest sense, because your country's market wasn't ready to accept a platform imitating Allegro and other Amazons, and the whole thing reeked of the Chinese market. Training was not in your language and you laughed at the mention of a recruitment interview, whether your knowledge of a foreign language was at an advanced or communicative level, and now you knew why.
The project collapsed faster than you thought.
Your partner was warming his ass in front of the monitor, typing a random line of code and listening to you complain, he suggested looking for a job elsewhere. Maybe not in the heart of the capital, but a little closer to home so you wouldn't have to take the hour bus back.
And you found a job in the sales department of a travel service.
Your partner laughed at the worded contract and still nicknamed trash.
A contract written on the knee, just to give for signature and put the employee in a chair and tell him to make money.
There was a bitter truth in it. Your boss, being cool to talk to but to manage a team no longer, was indeed a misogynist and used bullying at every turn. Even if you knew you were right about something and presented clear evidence of what you had done right and explained why it didn't work to guide the conversation to his liking, you were treated with laughter and the face of a parent not believing any of the nonsense he preached to his child.
You were given the equipment after another employee, and every time you reported a malfunction you ended up explaining that your complaints were not entirely different from those of other employees.
So he assumed in advance that you were making things up. This was evident in the way he looked and spoke mockingly. So what if you lost some customers because of this, because the equipment had a defect. To begin with, you blamed the jack on the headphones, but later knowing that the previous owner of the equipment had made an identical complaint, you realized that the equipment itself was broken and you had to operate on uncomfortable headphones with a USB C input. Your earlobes hurt, but you bravely sat in them for eight hours a day and took criticism at every turn.
It started with drawing attention to the low volume of phone calls, where your boss assumed in advance a minimum of 45 calls per day. These were answered with a sales deal nailed down. The problem was that people don't answer numbers displaying as spam and that number of 45 went down to 25. And that was ok, it was manageable.
The period after Christmas took a beating and few people were willing to listen to what you have to say, so more often they disconnected in the middle of the conversation and the poverty of the soul. And funnily enough, because your boss didn't resent the male colleagues in your department, and had more of a grudge against you and your female colleague, who was forced to care for her father after surgery, it followed that she only worked seven days in one month.
The boss fired your coworker.
Then it began to epidemic on you with double the force, starting by complaining that you were taking advantage of a legal break to eat, and sent emails with a question phrased like in a children's program.
So what if he sat in front of you and wasn't tempted to ask with words, but checked to see if you were paying attention to the monitor during your meal. Occasionally he would cast glances and ask why you weren't ringing the bell, and you would lift your cup up in retaliation and show evidence of eating pudding.
You could have gone to the kitchen to eat your meal in peace, but your boss would glance up every now and then with his watch in hand and timed it.
What is worth mentioning, you were not convinced about the office. The office was not yours, and you only rented a ridiculous room in the office of another service, and the people may have been fine, but they had their suspicions about your department.
You got new equipment after sending an email to your boss asking why you hadn't called customers the previous day. The answer was simple, because they couldn't hear you. You didn't get a company phone, and your work relied on company equipment, and you often said you called from your computer. The customers didn't hear you, and you didn't hear them.
A few days later you get the information that a piece of equipment was ordered for you with new headphones and a speaker, with the speaker was for the whole department to turn on music while working.
And a funny story with no sense of humor. Someone had stolen this equipment.
It started by asking the staff if they saw anything suspicious, and then questioned the staff of the company where you rented the room about exactly the same thing.
No one saw anything.
Your boss, said something there about reviewing the CCTV and calling the police, but nothing like that ever happened. He sent an extensive email to everyone, both your department and the company, informing them of the missing equipment and asking the thief to give back the value.
Your partner didn't believe it when you shared the story and laughed out loud in disbelief at the situation.
Going to bed, you refused to have intercourse making up an excuse about a headache. He took this surprisingly well and reached to open the window to air out the bedroom. He went to prepare tea while you chewed the crusts. Tomorrow you will start the tour again after listening to your boss's crap about incompetence. What about the fact that you were not properly trained and your colleagues did everything for him. They weren't wonderful and you mostly repeated the pattern of the guys, hoping for a thumbs up.
Remember when you made your first sale, and your boss bought Chardonnary wine the next day. He put the bottle down and applauded with other employees, while you soiled your cheeks with red. You accepted the bottle with a giggle and texted your partner about the unusual situation. He Googled the name and laughed at the cheapness of the wine, but you quickly defended your boss. You don't know why.
He was nice at certain points in his life.
Maybe those memories kept you in the chair?
The climax went after your first panic attack.
You were riding the subway with your partner, leaning against his side. It so happened that he had to go downtown that day and suggested company on his way to work. You accepted the offer eagerly, putting your headphones in your pocket.
This was the only point of contact, you flew like a moth to the light, and your partner curved his lips at the crowded traffic. His job required as much commitment as pushing a cat while shitting, and they paid for time off. More than once he offered to work in his own company, but you declined, in favor of normalcy. Unions in the company were something you ran away from, and you didn't want employees to think you got a job for your union status. You were exaggerating, because more than once you worked with couples and everything was ok, you admit, sometimes funny.
The farther the train moved, station after station flashed by in a rush with the impression of an accelerating engineer, it became harder and harder for you to breathe. And rest assured, you've had breathing problems since your school days, but this time you had a feeling that something was different. You blamed the strange pressure in your diaphragm on your inability to swallow breakfast in the morning. Later came breathing through your mouth because your nose was clogged.
You repeated excuses in your head.
And here on the subway, the burning heat in the center of your chest let you know twice when you genuinely failed to take a full breath. And okay, maybe you were exaggerating, you often heard as a kid that you exaggerate some things, and this time it had to be. It was stuffy in the subway, people were climbing on top of each other and pressing their knees, and some were clearly wearing clothes that were too thick and sweating.
You foolishly told yourself that this was it.
You didn't hear your partner's monologue, commenting on the roll of the community.
You focused your attention on intrusive thoughts; What will the boss attach today, and felt the stinging tears. It was strange, you didn't know what it was about until the train stopped at your station and your partner shook your hand. He made a face and pulled his hand away, wiping it on his tailored coat. He sent a questioning glance, and you didn't respond with your own, automatically heading for the escalator. On the way up, you realized how sticky your hands were.
You rode upstairs in silence, exited the subway and walked a few steps to the streetcar station. There your heart threatened to jump out of your chest. Heat spread throughout your chest pinching every internal organ, melting your bones into liquid and taking away your precious breath. It prevented you from breathing through your mouth, which you had been accustomed to by your body all the way on the subway. Tears dripped down your cheeks. You lowered your head so no one could see.
Your partner snapped and personally asked if you were okay. At the sight of your red eyes and difficulty breathing, he put a clear ban on turning into the office and instead led you to a secluded spot behind the food stalls. He helped you sit down and asked if you needed anything. Your tongue swirled in circles, and your partner knelt down on one knee, taking your hands in his. He massaged your skin with his thumbs, helping you go through breathing exercises and counted the breath holds and argued, be exhaled more slowly.
After long minutes, you said what happened, and your partner did not allow you to go to work that day. You sent a careless text message to your boss about your stomach problems, and told your partner you couldn't stand it there that day.
He understood that.
The job market is shit, there was nothing you could do with your experience. You were stuck with the company for amen, you thought, shaking hands.
They announced a team-building trip to the other end of the country and you entered the table, knowing it was mandatory.
Three days before the trip you get a call from an employee asking what happened, why you threw the paper. Confused, you ask what's going on, and your colleague explained that everyone in your department and plugged-in customer service got an email about the termination.
You thought it was a joke and went to the living room where your partner was arriving and put on the loudspeaker to listen to the nonsense as well. He sat quietly and listened to the email being read, and your jaw dropped. You say you don't know anything about anything and log on to your employee email after hours to find the termination information in your mailbox with two weeks to go.
When asked what time he got the information, your department colleague said recently.
Your boss informed everyone that you were leaving the ranks, and you were put on notice without being properly informed.
And informing you first.
The next day you get a phone call from your boss, who says you're not meeting your sales plan - and reacts to every explanation with laughter - announces that you're excluded from the business trip and can take a remote job for two weeks. Desperate for a layoff, you work to catch up on sales, losing customers and operating on dying equipment, until someone shouts into the handset that they will report you for downloading data.
The climax hit when, two weeks later, you found a new employee with fresh equipment, and you are told that your equipment is going to be discarded.
The entire period of work you were assured that the equipment was good and you were the one making it up.
The boss asked at the end if the calls you made, a couple of phone calls for eight hours, would you count as work. One word is enough for you to throw your fists at him. You say yes, you worked as much as the equipment allowed, and your boss reluctantly nods and says ok.
He wishes you good luck, opens the door and returns to his desk, hurling jokes at the new employee.
You leave the office crying.
Consciousness strikes when you talk to a colleague in customer service.
A colleague from another department of your company put forward the theory of hiring you to act as a training bag.
And looking at behavior. Initially driving home after team-building meetings, praising him for his nice approach to customers and buying wine, was a false image.
Remarks about women in leggings and debating sex raised red flags more than once.
You told your partner everything, and he begged you to report the matter to the labor inspectorate.
You, fearing failure, pushed the topic away.
Tiring your ass off for almost a month, you got a job offer from a company where essentially women work, and thanked the heavens for a simple position. The interview went through like butter and after a week you get a hiring response.
You stress about the new job, but that's normal.
Walking to your destination, you thought about the prepared lunch in your bag and held back your stomach driving. Stress stomach pains were acting up terribly and you could hear your stomach giving out through your headphones. The bloating wasn't pleasant either, but you didn't think about withdrawing. No, not on the first day. It wasn't an illness either, you knew they were just stress pains and would pass once you planted your butt and learned the system.
Riding the elevator to the floor, you feel a burning pain, like bladder inflammation. You repeat in your head that everything is fine and there is nothing to be afraid of. The body says, fuck you, and before the characteristic dinging reaches your ears, you feel water in your panties.
You are begging for your period, or an excess of pathological mucus. Looking down your leg, you realize with a pounding heart that it's urine. Fortunately, you have put on dark pants and from a distance you can't see the stain.
Humiliated you walk forward, because you have to.
You want to turn around, go home, take a bath and forget about the world, but the awareness of your partner at home hit you with a truck. What would you say about going home? Admitting to urinating from stress didn't work, and a quick change of pants in the lie of turning over didn't go over well. You could have lied that you smelled cat urine on your leg, but that too stank of a lie a mile away. You went ahead and rang the doorbell and introduced yourself to the receptionist.
The first day, you meet the people you work with, lots of women and a few men. You get new equipment that goes like a glove and get to know the work system. The atmosphere is top five, the people are smug and you get a bunch of funny pictures taken with the owners' cameras. You laugh while learning and exchange recipes for cakes.
The stress remained, but the stomach calmed down and did not make battle voices. Going to the bathroom to cry briefly disappeared after the sixth rally and you accepted sweet tea with truffle-flavored candy.
You return home exultant.
In the evening you analyze the teachings, take a bath, accept a delicious dinner from your partner's hand and thank him with a kiss.
You don't admit to peeing your pants.
The second day starts really strangely. You couldn't swallow your breakfast, and your hands were sweating like silly. The constant feeling of holding water in your hands was annoying and you had to cream your hands every now and then. The smell of strawberry lotion mixed with sweat and you could smell the imaginary stench of sweaty skin with sweet lotion. You mourned the loss and left before your partner set foot out of bed.
Taking a similar route to your previous job with your misogynist boss, you get off a few stops early and stand in front of the subway exit, pretending to rummage through your purse. You walk a few steps to the side, giving space to passersby, and rummage aimlessly for something to occupy your hands.
You panic and cry again, with tears dripping down your purse.
You bite the cuticles of your thumb, tearing a thread of skin into your blood. You are at the point of beginning. You get hit again with a panic attack and don't understand why this is happening.
You pull out your phone and make a simple message to a friend telling him that you are going through a panic attack. He tells you that everything will be fine and logs you out of the app.
You feel ignored and breathe worse. You don't want to write to your partner, he himself said yesterday that everything will be ok and you have no reason to stress. You think you have, but well, he doesn't understand what it feels like to be discriminated against because of your gender.
A painful thought with the truth inside, but you end up texting your partner about the panic attack.
He calls, you decline the call with an inability to say a word.
He asks you to, simply, answer the phone.
You do so reluctantly and pull your nose for air with an audible smirk.
Murmurs on the other end, indicative of disentangling yourself from the bedclothes. “Y/N?” you hear in the receiver the rough tone of an unawakened man from sleep. He was knitting to get rid of the morning hoarseness in vain. “Can you hear me?” he knew you were closed to words, but he tried. Getting a single answer to determine what position you were in. He didn't want you to faint. You look at the receiver and see that you have fifteen minutes to start your day.
You give a quiet acknowledgement, barely audible even to you.
It makes a sound and you hear the springs bend under the weight.
“Okay, guess you're on the subway?” you don't give a verbal answer, but grunt with a hiccup. “Hey, breathe easy.” You get up from the bed and apologize to the hissing cat. You imagine how he inadvertently stepped on the pet's tail. You think about hugging the ball, which at any moment can respond with a paw strike and will go elsewhere.
Donnie continues talking quietly dressing in the background. You hear the zipper and the rustling of keys, then the opening and closing of the door. He continues to speak calmly and asks questions to which you answer yes or no. He resorts to phrases not used on a daily basis and lifts a peal of laughter from you.
“I found the podcast you were talking about, against all odds, it's great.” you hum in agreement and take breaths taught by your partner. “Is that what you listen to while playing the sims?” he asks. You hum in agreement.
That much is enough in satisfaction, momentarily, and he goes on asking about simple things. He passed the stage of satisfying you at a distance and asked you to inhale and exhale, being quiet and asking you after time to drop the pin. You did it with a delayed ignition, Donnie thanked.
You look at the time and know that you have to notify the manager that you are temporarily late. You don't want to take the day off on the second day of work already, it would look bad.
You text and get a reply back that everything is ok and you would just make up the hours. You will stay longer today.
Your partner shows up with the last cast of sardines in suits and finds a familiar silhouette near the subway exit. He hangs up the phone and touches your shoulder, massaging the spot that feels good on you.
You cling to your partner's shoulders, letting your emotions vent, and he accepts the ballast with a pout in his chest. He reassures you by saying that things will be better here. He points out your value and offers to return home. You refuse and present concerns about taking time off on the second day at your new job. You didn't want them to think of you as an incompetent person, avoiding work and quietly withdrawing from your career.
Your first steps in your first, first job, you were treated with words about whether a doctor's release should be treated as a notice.
Since then you have been forewarned about such situations.
He offers to walk you to work, and you agree after regaining better speech. Donnie makes dinner suggestions, but you ask to leave the kitchen alone and go out for fast food. Despite your reluctance to spoil your stomach with junk food, your partner accedes to the idea, mumbling about ordering a shed salad.
You laugh quietly and step over the cube with a pounding heart in your chest and sticky hands. You can feel your feet slipping in your shoes, and so today you won't take them off until you've gone to the bathroom.
Donnie says goodbye with a kiss and suggests the idea of confessing to the manager about the panic attack.
Think about it a moment as your partner gives one last squeeze and slips a rustling object into your coat. Walking away to the subway, you wave back at your partner and enter the building, waiting for the elevator. You recall the object in your coat, put your hand in curiosity , and a smile resounds across your lips at the feel of the rectangular treat. Pulling the visitor out, you spot a chocolate candy from your favorite candy company. You hide the treat in your coat and jot a note to treat your partner to a jar of jelly beans from candy pop.
You apologized to the manager for being late and asked for a one-on-one conversation. You admitted to having panic attacks and an inability to cope with a seizure, until your manager offered to share a contact for a recommended psychiatrist.
You already knew that the manager understood your situation and upon hearing about your treatment at your former job, she was sad. She promised to give you remote work on worse days, as long as you let her know in advance.
Were grateful and promised to bake a cake for your department yourself.
Finishing your shift, you ate an unhealthy meal at a fast food place and made up your mind.
Back home, you and Donnie sought out a psychotherapist.