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This day was going to be awful. Not that other days were any better, but the moment Jean's eyes opened he already wished it became all dark outside again.
He couldn't get up. Just, simply, couldn't. He needed to, otherwise he wouldn't be able to button up his uniform, put on his shoes, open the door and lock it behind him.
Instead, he just stared at the ceiling and blinked.
The silence lingered, has been lingering, will linger for a long, long time. Jean knows it, and he needs to get up.
His fists clench under the blanket weakly. He breathes out, then breathes in, then out again. It feels like he's not getting enough air. It's musty. It's suffocating.
Jean feels his heart beat rapidly, one hand flying up to grab onto the shirt, as if it could stop his chest from seizing in quiet panic.
Nothing is happening. Nothing. He's in his bed.
The electricity buzzes somewhere behind the wall. Stray droplets hit the window glass, now ajar: the wind opened it, probably.
Jean should get up and close it. His papers, scattered on the table in front of the window, are going to get wet.
He can't. He clicks his teeth together, almost chattering, body wracking with stifled trembles.
Is he scared? Scared of what, exactly?
It's never going to end, he realises. The window in his room rattling when it hits the windowsill harshly. The droplets. His own, stuttering breathing.
It's going to get worse. Some police officer he is, unable to even take care of himself, like *normal* people should.
Pale eyes stare blankly, unfocused gaze shifting to the scenery behind the window.
The rain has just stopped. It's bleak outside. If he were to go out, his shoes were going to get dirty really quickly.
Good thing he won't go anywhere. He'll just rot, pinned down to his mattress.
People like him are meant to rot anyways.
Jean's head swims in perplexed panic as he still tries to get a hold of his choking breaths, to no avail.
Rooks caw and fuss on the moldy birch branches not so far away. The neighbours are arguing about something again, thin walls doing nothing to prevent Jean from hearing the violent conversations he wishes to never be aware of.
A lonely motorcarriage sputters and chokes on its own exhaust fumes, somewhere two streets away from here.
The city lives on without him. Everyone is doing something, and he shouldn't even interfere.
If Jean stays still, the mind will forget. At least he hopes so. And yet, he claws at his shirt uselessly, heart beating out of his chest.
He can't go on like this, he knows that. Then again, where is there to go? He can only rot. He can become one with the murky sewers and dirty alleys and just disintegrate, as if he never existed in the first place.
It terrifies him, the realisation of vast emptiness. And he hates the way it still makes him feel something, even after his emotions wringed and thrashed around the useless skull still bubbled to the surface.
Jean is unsafe. Jean shouldn't be here. He's just lying on his back, and nothing matters anymore. He hasn't taken his meds yet, or brushed his teeth, or poured coffee into the cracked cup.
He's still there. He's dying. He's sure he'll die this way.
Dimly, his ears pick up the shrill ringing from the hallway – must be someone from the station calling in, – but he knows he can't stand up. He won't stand up.
So instead, he feels himself shake and tries to convince himself not to panic. It's nothing. He's doing *nothing*, that's the thing. The ringing will stop eventually, it always does. Someone on the other end of the line knows when to give it up.
Jean knows when he should give up. He chooses not to react, he chooses to continue listening to the birds chirping outside, and his neighbours yelling, and the static eating at his insides as the dull sound marches on, echoes in his eardrums.
If he lays still enough, all of this will end. He won't even notice once he completely slips away into delirium, be it from sheer exhaustion of being awake and afraid, or anything, literally anything else in the world.
The ringing stops as abruptly as it has started. Suddenly, Jean can hear his own panicky breaths, evolving into half-coughs from the lack of oxygen.
He should, no, he *must* calm down. This is just mortifying, even if no one's looking.
No one is going to look for him anyway. Is it possible to just wither away from being unable to get up?
Jean wonders if he wants to know that.
He will know that, because nobody's coming.
If it's any better, he can quicken his suffering just with a couple of blisters or a click of his gun. But, but – it wouldn't be fair. It would mean he *wants* this, all the while he does not.
He was supposed to be the one who stands unshaken, yet here's where his tired mind brought him. Stiff. Unmoving. Just a body at this point.
Nonetheless, maybe, just maybe Jean is okay with it. Maybe it's all he deserves.
He closes his eyes – and exhales slowly, for the first time in a long long while after his streak of irritable gasping breaths.
It's just something he will have to accept. He is going to disappear, and he's okay with it.
Jean doesn't hear the hushed footsteps, or the gentle knocking, or his name being called out in quiet confusion, all behind his apartment door. He won't open up. He won't even be able to make it to the door.
So he just lies there, waits, waits some more, until it's quiet again.
Maybe he's tricked them into thinking he's not home. Either way, it's nice.
Nobody's coming.
And Jean wishes it could stay that way.