Chapter Text
At this time of year, the smell of dead leaves became unbearable for Tim. They were wet, rotting, earthy in smell, and he couldn't stop his mind from drifting down, down to the bottom of the forest floor. Down to what feasted on the leaves underneath his weight. Hundreds of bugs ate, fucked, slept, under that canopy of leaves, some--he was sure--writhed under his shoes as he trudged up that hill. It made his stomach flip.
Once he reached the halfway mark, his calves began burning, and the leaves and mud caked under his worn-out sneakers began to make him stumble and slip. He reached over to grasp onto a growing sapling to regain his footing, clasping desperately at one of the few branches. After he regained his breath, he continued the trudge upwards.
Finally out of the woods, Tim let out an exasperated sigh and looked at the damage. He peered down at his jeans, which this time were not torn but instead rather muddy--like slathered in mud. His sneakers were disgusting too; they were so coated in whatever filthy sludge he's been tumbling through all night that they hardly kept him upright on his way back to civilization. He looked at his hands; the underside of his nails were black, but there appeared to be no new scratches.
As he walked to his car, his footprints dotted his path. Whatever moisture was left over on his shoes seeped into the concrete, and he was sure, now looking back at the trail he's made, that he would be here again next week. Rinse and repeat.
SLAM! The car wobbled ever so slightly at the violent shut of the door. Tim stomped to his place, furiously checking his pockets again and again. The keys in his pockets jingled innocently as he scrambled to unlock the door.
"Are you fucking serious?" He exclaimed, pushing the front door open and shuffling his sneakers on the entrance mat.
"Where is it?" He checked the counters in the kitchen, the table, maybe it could be on the couch? No, not there either. Tim needed his phone; he needed to check the time. He couldn't be late for another appointment. The same mistake can't happen again.
He scrambled and tore through every room of that house until he landed in his bedroom, and it was there, placed onto his bed. The covers were halfway off the bed, a pillow was missing (probably on the other side, on the floor), but the phone itself was set down on the mattress. Its placement felt so neat compared to the rest of the scene.
Tim gritted his teeth gently.
'He must've done that on purpose like some sort of taunt,' he thought. He picked it up gingerly, sliding his thumb on the screen.
'This cost a fortune,' his shoulders lost some of the tension and the angry look in his eyes subsided, giving way to intense fatigue. Driving home was probably a mistake, but it's not like he had the option to call a cab. Tim sat down on the bed and messed with his phone a little longer before putting it down. Alarm set for 1 hour and 23 minutes from now. The world went dark for a little longer.
By the time the alarm rang, Tim was already in his car. The drive to the doctor's office wasn't too long. Twenty minutes, thirty if the traffic is bad. It was peak car crash hour, 5 pm on a Friday. Everyone is trying to get home, and he made the mental note to count how many assholes overtook him cause the legal limit was somehow always too slow for them. He hated the drivers in 'this fucking town,' the way they barely hit their blinkers made him white-knuckle his steering wheel in anxiety. He took a drag from his cigarette before ashing it in the cigarette lighter compartment. To his left, another driver overtook him, some lady with obnoxiously obvious box dyed blonde hair. The way she gripped her steering wheel as she looked at the angles around her. He couldn't figure out if she did or didn't care about road safety.
SLAM! It rang out in the mostly empty parking lot as Tim slid his keys into his sweatpants pocket along with his phone. This building was propped up 5 months ago, on the side of the interstate. It was butt-ugly, but after the nearest psychiatric hospital closed over 11 years ago, the nearest clinic that would take him was almost an hour away. He remembers his mom wasting so much of her money on gas. At the time, he just hated it cause it took so long to get there.
The objects in his pockets clinked together as he strutted up to the clinic door. He swung it open and made his way to the front desk, where the full-time receptionist greeted him. As usual, her demeanour was Very Professional.
"Mr Wright," she nods towards him, "here for your appointment-" she angles her arm to look at her watch, "in five minutes?"
"It's still early."
"Barely."
"Here," he slides his insurance card on the desk towards her as an attempt to shift the conversation. She picks it up to enter it into her system and promptly hands it back to him.
"You can take a seat." She pushes a stray loc out from her face and dismisses him as he offers her an awkward smile.
The waiting room had only a handful of other patients: an older couple, a mother and her very sick-looking daughter, and a teen. He thought about how this would make a convincing insurance ad. He sank into the chair; they were old, and they smelled, but he couldn't help but close his eyes and drift a little longer. 'The minutes in the day add up,' Tim allowed himself to accept the falsehood that this is just catching up on sleep he missed. The minutes in the day add up.
"Tim," a cold hand set itself on his shoulders and shook him gently. A quick and fearful response came from him; his body jumped up from the slumped position it naturally fell into. His eyes were open with shock as he looked around until they finally settled on the figure standing over him. Everyone was looking, except for the sick child who curled up in the chair, chin to her knees. The mother, with one hand around her child, looked at him in a disgusted fashion.
"Doctor Miller," he nods and pushes himself up with his hands on the armrests. They walk wordlessly together out of the waiting room and head to Miller's office.
James Miller, his doctor for over a decade and a half, more precisely, ever since his symptoms started emerging as a kid. He's followed him nearly all his life; they were comfortable around each other, and Tim was grateful for it.
"Did I snore?"
Dr Miller laughed a little as he inspected his clipboard, "No, though if you're worried about sleep apnea, we could look at that together." The office door was already open, and he waited for Tim to walk in before he closed the door behind them.
"No, no. Well, it's not my biggest priority right now," he slumped into the chair. This one was of much higher quality; it was leather and squeaked as he adjusted himself.
"So, what brings you back so early?" Dr Miller seated himself in a quaint office chair, tapping the end of his pen on the same spot of the file he was viewing.
"You should still have enough to last you a handful more weeks."
"Yes, I should."
The doctor raised an eyebrow. "But you don't?" Tim very audibly shuffled in the seat slightly, and a shy redness crept its way up to his ears. He hated it as much as his doctor did.
"I don't know where they go, really. I take them, but by the end of the day they've disappeared. I always try to keep them in the same place-"
"Yes," the doctor nods, noting something down quickly on Tim's file.
"In my kitchen, on the counter- its always there." There was desperation in his voice, pleading to be heard by the only authority that could fix his problem.
"I believe you, Tim. If what I've given you isn't strong enough for you, then we can try changing medications again." Tim deflated upon hearing those words come out of his mouth. Changing medications was probably one of the last things he wanted to do; it meant new side effects, a shitty testing period.
"They are strong enough. I just need a refill."
"If you're losing them so often it's probably due to some sort of disassociation, maybe some fogginess. There are more effective ones on the market now."
"I really don't-
"Its normal," he smiled and clicked his pen.
Tim couldn't believe himself for not fighting him a little longer on the topic. He can't get a refill on these new ones, "they can be addictive, but that's probably good in your case," remembering clearly the way his doctor mouthed every letter of that statement made him uneasy. He was in a different parking lot, now much closer to his place. Exhaustion finally started to rear its ugly head. He felt sick now, and trudging to the pharmacy doors proved more difficult the closer he got.
With a heavy hand, he slid his insurance card with the prescription to the lady at the pharmaceutical counter.
"Thank you," she extended that last vowel, seemingly in a chipper mood. Tim mouthed a cross between 'no problem' and 'yeah', but the pharmacist didn't seem to hear him. He thanked god.
"Aaand here you go, you should be all set, Mr..." as she's about to hand Tim his information, she squints at his papers, "Mr Wright. It'll be just a moment."
"Great," he smiles weakly, and she hands him his things before going to gather his new medication.
The lights inside were stronger than he would expect from a retail pharmacy. They felt oppressive, almost like a hospital or an operating table. It made him feel small and watched, naked and defenceless. Tim looked around and drifted to the nearest aisle, his eyes glazed over the writing on the tablets. Places of healing always had that power to make him feel on edge, which is maybe what distracted him, and before he knew it, he was shoved pretty hard into whatever item he was looking at.
"Shit--" Tim managed to stop himself from falling completely onto the tablet of cough medicine in front of him. His arms managed to push against it at the right time. Only a few fell from the shelf.
"Oh my god, sorry," a genuine voice rang out from behind him. The stranger bent down and bumped his ass on Tim as he reached over to pick up the fallen products for him.
"Can't you look where you're going?" Tim pushed himself up, hissed at the other man and turned to face him with a sour expression.
"Oh, Tim."
"Brian," the look on his face softened slightly, and he found his anger dissipating. He brushed the hair out of his face while Brian got up and placed what fell back on the shelf. "I thought you were at school in Columbus."
"I am," his eyebrows knit into an unreadable expression as he aligned the bottles, and he readjusts the bandages he's holding, "or was, yeah- I don't know I'm taking a gap year right now."
"That's good, you look good." Tim didn't know where to look, so he looked at Brian's coat and tried to think of a way to get out of this, 'well, this is really fucking awkward'. He thought to himself. "It's nice seeing you, but have to get my stuff."
He nods his head to the pharmacist, who was now typing away at the computer. His prescription is in a white bag hunched on the counter beside the payment machine.
"Yeah, take care, Tim," Brian's smile looked genuine as he watched Tim leave as quickly as he came--without even looking back.
The sun started going down by the time he left the store. There's only a certain amount of exhaustion a body can take before it starts fighting you, and it started fighting Tim now in the parking lot. He was by his car now, shielding the ugly view from others with the car door. It reminded him of how certain animals go to hide when they start to die. He wasn't dying, but the thought of an old acquaintance seeing him like that sure made him want to.
The body threw up whatever it ate last night, dangerously close to his shoes.
'He didn't even ask how I was,' Tim wished his body hadn't eaten anything last night. He gripped the door with a rough hand, and he could feel the cold sweat on his temple crawl down his face. A mixture of spit and bile dripped from his chin, and he's quick to wipe it off with his shirt. He hated the powerlessness of throwing up, how he just had to surrender to his own bodily needs.
Even worse, he hated the way his own mouth tasted for hours afterwards.
As he finally started to compose himself and stand up straight, he was caught off guard by the colour of the car beside him. It struck him out of nowhere. It's a red truck. His weary eyes drifted a little past the passenger door to a spot where the characteristic red of the car showed the true colour of steel underneath. He's ridden in that truck drunk before. The scrape he caused when scrambling out of the back seat that night of filming is still in the same spot. He spits on the ground and gets into his own ride.
It's Brian's car, and it looks worse than he remembered. He didn't even try to paint over the damage.