Work Text:
When the key turns in the lock, something flickers inside of you, the slightest urge to move, to sit up, to make it look like you haven’t been laying on the couch and staring into the distance for hours. Nothing happens, though. It’s like you’re suspended in tar, or sand, forced to simply lie there underneath the blanket. You’ve had to pee for a good twenty minutes, and you can’t quite remember if you made yourself lunch.
You hate this. You hate when you’re like this, when he comes home from a long day of teaching to find that you’ve spent your day off spiraling and rotting and doing nothing. He has never complained about it, never scolded you or looked disappointed, but there is always that small piece of you, gnarled and festering, that believes he must resent it.
“I almost got hit by a car on the way home,” he calls from the kitchen. You can hear his lanyard being set on the counter, his bag dropped on the floor by the coat rack. None of it stirs you into movement. “Also, turns out, nobody was ready for the quiz today. Go figure.” His footsteps recede into the bedroom. Probably so he can take his tie off, maybe change out his button-up and into a t-shirt. You still do not move, even as he calls out your name. “Where are you?”
The effort it takes to respond feels ridiculous. “In here.”
Ryland pads into the living room, takes in your prone form on the couch. “Hey,” he says softly. Then he’s crouching down by couch, drawing back the blanket a little so he can see your entire face. “Bad day?”
All you can do is nod slowly. Even this feels herculean. One of his hands comes up to rest on your shoulder, rubbing it gently. “Sorry,” you manage to whisper.
“Nothing to be sorry for. Anything happen?”
“No.” This is how it usually goes. Sometimes it is spurred on by something, a thought or event or a thing you’ve read, but most of the time it simply just creeps onto you, seeps into your skin and your bones, infecting your very marrow. “I’m sorry,” you repeat. A tear drops out of the corner of your eye. This is actually a good sign: it means that enough feeling is returning to you that your body is able to cry.
His brows furrow as his hand squeezes your upper arm. It makes you feel so fucking terrible, even though you know it comes from a place of love and concern. “What can I do,” he murmurs, pressing his lips against your temple, “how can I help? Do you want a shower? Hear about my day?” The questions are slightly reflexive, which almost makes you feel worse, because this happens often enough that he knows the different strategies that help draw you out of it, because he simply cannot let a problem go unconsidered, unsolved.
“I don’t know.” Another tear leaks out. “I’m sorry.” You are a broken record of apologies.
“That’s okay. How about we go lay down? I can hold you, get those endorphins going.”
It sounds nice, so nice, but—“I don’t know if I can stand,” you admit, embarrassed and self-loathing and quiet. You’re about to apologize again, but you manage to stop yourself.
His hand moves from your shoulder to your hair. “I’ll help you.”
After a few moments, you nod, and then he gently pulls you into a sitting position, waiting patiently as you try to collect enough energy to get on your feet. He keeps helping you, grasping you by the wrists—he told you, once, that this was the optimal way to pull someone up—and steadying you as you stand, guiding you to the bedroom. You’re still in your pajamas from the night before. “I need to pee,” you mutter as you pass the bathroom. He changes your course, then, and waits in the hallway while you do so. “Sorry.”
The door is still open. You’ve been living together long enough that it’s really a formality. “You know, I’m going to make a swear jar, except instead of for swearing, it’s you apologizing for things that you don’t need to be sorry for.”
The corner of your mouth almost, almost lifts into a smile. You dutifully wash your hands, if only to avoid the lecture about germs and bacteria, and then he continues guiding you to the bed, drawing back the covers and settling down beside you. Your back is against his chest, and his arm is a comforting weight on your side. He’s still in his jeans, you note vaguely. “I was supposed to make dinner tonight,” you mumble after a while.
“Oh no,” he breathes into your hair, his voice lilting with sarcasm, “we’ll just have to order pizza.” A huffed laugh comes out of your nose at that. Another good sign.
The two of you just lie there like that, his arm around you, his legs tangled into yours, and your limbs start to feel a little less numb, a little more capable of movement. You simply do not know what you did, in this life or a past one, to deserve someone like him, someone who studies all of your moods and notes what helps and what doesn’t. You can imagine what he’d say if you voiced that out loud: that you don’t have to do anything to deserve it, that you just do, naturally, inherently.
When he speaks next, the words are almost slurred. He must be tired after being on his feet all day in front of his kids. “You know, I read a study the other day.” Because Ryland is always reading new studies about everything, but especially about this, this thing that immobilizes you and weighs down on your chest. “Apparently they’re seeing a lot of success with ketamine as a treatment for depression.”
This causes another huff, more forceful this time, more alive. “So I should get on horse tranquilizers?”
You can almost feel him smile into your hair. “Not necessarily. But—they’re always making progress. More and more, every day. Some of the smartest minds on the planet are trying to help.”
Enough life has returned to you that you can handle turning onto your other side to face him. “Including you.”
“I don’t know about that, but. I’ll always do what I can.” He still has his glasses on, and they’re hovering above his nose, because the wire arm is wedged between his face and the pillow.
You finally manage to smile. Your hand slowly traces up his side until it rests on his cheek. “Aren’t you always on me about taking a compliment?”
“Touche.” And then he’s giving you a small grin, because he loves to see you smile, especially when you’ve had a day like this. He kisses your forehead and splays his hand on your back. “Pepperoni? For the pizza.”
You hum. One last tear sneaks out, because it is a little overwhelming, the feeling of being so cared for. “Yeah. With ranch.”
Ryland scoffs playfully. “So gross.”
“Hey. Don’t knock it ‘til you’ve tried it.” And then you keep going, as life continues to spread through your body as a result of being held and seen and loved. “Also, you put mustard on literally everything. I don’t want to hear it.”
“Pot, kettle,” he yawns. “Sorry. Long day.”
You press your lips into his, slow and chaste. “Tell me about it.”
He does. His students totally bombed his quiz, and you have to tell him it’s not his fault, because he gave them the study guide a week in advance, and he’s an incredible teacher, so patient and smart and kind. These things just happen sometimes. He refrains from pointing out that all of this also applies to you, but you can tell that he’s thinking it. He orders the pizza and makes an overexaggerated expression of disgust as you dunk your piece in the cup of ranch he got for you.
The next day is better. The day after that—not so much, but he helps you through it anyway, and he explains the history of depression, because apparently he read a book about it, about how they used to think it was a lack of serotonin, but now it’s more a problem of the chemical’s uptake in the brain.
You still do not know what you did to deserve this. You try to let yourself be grateful for it anyway.