dichotomy ; gawsten

forty five

this is so long and so heavy and so triggering. please be careful.

trigger warnings - anxiety, panic attacks, mentions of self-harm, mentions of suicide, abuse, and sexual abuse

take care of yourselves.

"And now he's a mess, and clinging to Otto, and he's barely said two words to me in over a week, and I just- I don't know what to do anymore."

He lets his head fall back against the couch cushion, closes his eyes and inhales a deep breath through his nose. "I'm losing him and there's nothing I can do about it."

"I don't think that's entirely true," Lucas replies. He softens his voice. Geoff can see him tilting his head, rolling his eyes and beckoning him upward with his fingers. "C'mon. Sit up. Let's talk about this."

"I can't do it," Geoff mumbles. He straightens his spine against the back of the couch, glances down at his lap and digs his fingernails into his palm. "I-I haven't slept in almost a week. Food makes me wanna puke. I'm just goin' through the motions and it is exactly how life was before I met him and it's fuckin' scarin' me so bad 'cause I can't go back there, I can't go back to that, I can't be that, again. I can't do it. It hurt too much that time and now that I know, what it's like to be out of that and for everything not to suck and to be warm, again..." He shakes his head. "Everything feels cold now and I can't do it."

"Take a breath," Lucas says. "There's water by your feet if you need it." He pauses, twirls his pencil around in his hand. "I don't think this is about you, Geoff. From what you've said, what Awsten's doing right now isn't about you hurting him or offending him or anything of the sort. It has everything to do with him and nothing to do with you. He's reacting to what happened to Otto in the worst possible way, but..." He sighs. "I'm gonna be real with you, Geoff. I've known Awsten for years. The kid's been relying on Otto for too long. This was bound to happen at some point. It's nothing you did."

"What if he just asked me out because he felt bad?" He replies. "What if I'm just so fuckin' pathetic that he didn't wanna make me sad or whatever, so he asked me out just so I wouldn't freak out again? What if-" The sob tears itself out of his throat before he can stop it, rips at his vocal chords in all its parched glory. "What if he never wanted any of this- any of me?"

He's never done this before.

He's never sat down and ripped his heart open in a controlled environment, decided then and there that he was going to cut into the muscle, tear open his chest, let things out for once. He lives a life of repression, packaging and compressing and fold it up for later, deal with it when you have time, it's not important you're not important there are other things to worry about right now.

Therapists he's had in the past have been glasses perched on noses, clipboards and pens scrawling for the entire hour, heels and pencil skirts and how does that make you feel, hun? Just try and think some happy thoughts. It'll all be fine, I'm sure of it. They were sure and he was being pulled down under. The redredred was a daily – multiple times every day, looking back on it – occurrence. His chest was so small and everything was so big. The world was constantly on fire and all he had was gasoline.

It was consuming, all encompassing, surrounding him and trapping his body in the cloud. He remembers the walls, feeling like they were coming closer and closer they wouldn't stop it wouldn't stop closerclosercloser. It was every day, pressing a hand into his chest and trying to force it away you're okay you're fine shut the fuck up stop panicking you can't let anyone see you like this you can't let anyone see you can't-

It was every part of his existence and he existed alone.

"Geoff? Hey, you with me?"

He shakes his head and refocuses his vision. "Yeah. Sorry. Just- just thinking..."