Work Text:
Yellow is the first color to go.
You don’t even notice it at first. You were never really one for bright colors - yellow, especially, has always been too harsh for you - so nothing in your life seems all that different. But eventually, you’re forced to admit that all of the yellow in the world has washed out into a uniform, featureless white.
——
You’ve been stagnating for years now. It’s the price of adulthood, you figure. A boring job with dull, reliable coworkers doesn’t carry any of the thrill or camaraderie of college, but it pays the bills. You could probably work here forever if you wanted. Not as a manager - god, that would be awful - but you’re very comfortable at your desk and you have no intention of moving.
This is the rest of your life, you realize. You’re going to keep doing what you’re doing right now until you get old and can’t do it anymore.
It’s a strange thought. You don’t like it.
There’s a guitar rotting away somewhere in one of your closets. Every once in a while, you remember that it exists. You always forget again before you get home.
——
Your wife thinks you’re unnaturally calm. That’s not a compliment. She doesn’t miss the fights, exactly, but she says you’ve swung too far in the opposite direction. She knows she still pisses you off sometimes. She doesn’t want you to yell, but she wishes you’d say something.
You don’t see it that way. Anger is pointless, you tell her. Whatever’s bothering you will go away soon enough on its own. There’s no sense getting both of you upset about it.
You hate the version of yourself that yelled, you don’t say. You despise him. You’re ashamed of him. You’ll do whatever you have to do to never see him again.
She’s still upset. She doesn’t believe you, but you know this is best for both of you.
Where there used to be red, now you just see a muddy brown.
——
You don’t love her, you realize. Maybe you never did.
Sure, you go through all the motions and say all the words. You want what’s best for her in a general, abstract sense. You certainly don’t want to hurt her.
You just can’t make yourself actually care.
Caring about her taps into… something. Something that you can’t touch, any more than you could touch a spinning table saw or an open flame. Your mind could give the command, but your body wouldn’t obey you. And so you’ve stopped trying.
She’s noticed, obviously. She doesn’t know what’s wrong, but she knows you’re not really there anymore. You feel awful about it - a big, gaping void of emotion - but you know that telling her would make it worse.
Telling her would make it real.
No, this - whatever this is - is definitely better. You’ll figure something out, eventually.
——
Green used to be your favorite color. But now it’s like that fucking song. Everything you see is blue.
You haven’t cooked for her in forever. You’ll have whatever she wants, you tell her. It’s fine, really. If she likes it, it’s good enough for you.
She doesn’t know that you’ve been skipping lunch.
You don’t mean to do it. Really - you don’t. You just forget about it until it’s so late that it doesn’t make sense anymore. Half the time, when you do remember, it just sits in front of you for hours anyway.
You’re not hungry. You’re not anything.
She goes to bed most nights without you. It’s the only way you can ever be alone - well, alone in the physical sense, at least. The games aren’t good company, they certainly aren’t fulfilling, but they’re better than letting your mind run loose.
They would be a lot easier, though, if your vision hadn’t faded into a pure grayscale.
——
She catches you watching lesbian porn.
(It doesn’t make you feel anything. That’s an improvement over straight porn, though, which just fills you with an inexplicable disgust.)
You figure this is probably the end. You knew it was going to happen sooner or later. You just wish the details didn’t have to be so humiliating. Hopefully she won’t tell anyone.
Instead, she asks: are you jealous of them?
That’s… not something you know how to process. You don’t think so? Like, they’re cute, and they look happy - or at least they’re acting the part - and they don’t seem to hate what they’re doing, and all of those things would be nice. But jealous? No. It doesn’t make sense to want that.
She tells you: think about it.
Ok. You can do that. Why not.
You think about trading in your meat suit for a different model. About being gay (but, like, not for men). About the way you’d talk to people if you were a woman. About how you’d relate to them differently. About who you’d want to become. About.
Oh god. Oh fuck. Oh god. Oh fuck.
She could be slightly less smug about it. But at least she’s smiling at you. You can’t remember the last time that happened.
——
It’s not that she isn’t hurting anymore. It’s not that you aren’t hurting anymore either.
But ever since you started the pills, the cracks have been opening up. And sometimes, when you squint, you can see the first colors starting to seep through.