22. comes and goes

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

COMES AND GOES

—

Dmitri was spiralling.

He knew that he was, because while he could get out of bed and brush his teeth, he couldn't find it in himself to shower or comb his hair before work. And when he was driving to work, he had missed three green lights, which resulted in a group of very angry drivers honking at him, and cursing him out until he moved.

To top everything off, he had snapped at Trinh and Eden who were singing along to the song playing from his phone, told them to "shut the fuck up for a minute", and that their singing was "fucking irritating", something that he would never have said if his mind was in the right place.

Unfortunately, it wasn't in the right place. And he wasn't so sure if it ever would be anymore.

"Dmitri?" Trinh asked all of a sudden, a lilt to their tone as they did. "The light's green. You can drive. Preferably before we get yelled at by the people behind us."

Four green lights, now.

Continuing to drive, he let his mind wander to God knows what, he just needed something to think about, something that wasn't the past two days, the next two days.

After his whole spiel with Tariq, the one that involved him passing out at seven in the evening, Tariq staying the night, not moving from his bed for the entire night, only leaving after he had woken up, he had gotten his shit together, and had thought that maybe, maybe his mild disconnect from reality at Eden's gathering was just a one time thing.

However, he was proven wrong by spiralling again.

"Sorry," he muttered after they had reached The Blackbird, parking his car and stepping out, nearly fucking falling over in the process. I need to eat. Fuck, I need to call Claire. I need to go back to therapy.

Trinh frowned, bumping their head against his shoulder, blue hair contrasting the black of his t-shirt. Nudging him with their elbow, they said, "Tariq told us that you felt sick the other day. At Eden's thing. Was that a lie?"

Maybe Tariq hadn't spent the entire night with him.

Was there any point in lying again? Was there any point in telling the truth when his entire life was just him lying to himself and everyone else around him? Was there any point at all.

Fuck. Claire. Call Claire. "Yeah," he muttered, choosing to tell the truth for once. "It was a lie. I was just really tired. Needed to rest," he said, not the entire truth, but not a lie either.

Of course, Trinh didn't believe that, they had every right not to. After all, he had never told Trinh anything about anything, assuming that Eden told them everything.

Admittedly, he would be a little pissed if Eden told them everything about his personal life.

"I find that very hard to believe, but I'll let it slide," Trinh mused, shrugging as they made their way into the coffee shop, holding the door open for Dmitri. He was lucky that they did, because to be honest, he didn't have the energy to open it for himself.

I can do it. It's one day. One day. Get through the day, go home, sleep.

The longer he thought about it, the harder those three tasks were starting to sound.

"You're spacing out so bad right now, I have no idea where you are," Trinh pointed out. From the moment he had met them, they had developed the habit of calling him out on his shit, and clearly, that habit didn't leave. "Work, Dmitri. You're at work. Did you take your meds today?"

Then, he snapped.

Sighing, he spat out a harsh, "Trinh, can you please fuck off? Please?"

Fuck.

Closing his eyes, he let the regret from that single statement wash over him, his teeth sinking into his bottom lip as he tried get his thoughts organised, just fucking inhale for a second.

"I should take offense to that," Trinh began from beside him, their eyes flitting from him to the mostly empty shop, it being too early for people to start coming in. "But I won't. Because I know that you're struggling right now, I don't know why exactly you're struggling, but—"

"My grandfather's death anniversary is in exactly two days," Dmitri said, the words escaping his mouth before he could even think. "And this— this other thing is coming up, the literal worst day of my life, and I don't know how to function."

Then, he stopped, glancing at Trinh, whose eyes were wide, pupils blown out. "I'm sorry," he said, and then, again, "Fuck, Trinh, I'm sorry, I just trauma-dumped on you. Fuck, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to do that." Fuck. Oh my fuck, I need to call Claire, I need to call Claire. I need to go back to therapy.

"It's okay," was all Trinh said in response to that, eyes slightly calmer now. "If you think that that's trauma-dumping, you'd be shocked at the shit people say to Tariq. It's fine."

"I'm—"

"No apologising. Okay, okay, a lot of things make sense now," Trinh rambled, their eyes filled with concern rather than the confusion that they were filled with a moment ago. "You can take the day off, if you want. I'm sure no one will mind, I certainly don't, and I'm assistant manager. You can—"

"Trinh. I don't want pity," he muttered, quickly making a coffee with shaky hands, mumbling out an even shakier, "Have a good day," to the teenager he was making the drink for. God, I need a good day. Please.

Of course, God didn't listen, and before Dmitri knew it, the crushing weight, the sinking feeling in his chest was back, along with the pressure in his head, the headache that never left him hammering at his head with a vengeance.

"I'll need the day off on the tenth," he murmured, closing his eyes as if that would get rid of the crushing pain in his chest, his head, his entire body. "That's in two days. I'll need the day off. And uh, I might spiral into a depressive episode after that, so... This month might not be the best."

Trinh nodded instantly, their eyes brightening up as they plastered on a fake smile to a customer, handing them their slice of pie and a cup of coffee, the smile dropping off their face as soon as the customer turned around.

Turning to face Dmitri, they nodded, humming softly. "You can take the day off. And the week after that, if you want. It's okay to take a break, sometimes. I promise, the world won't leave you behind."

"The world's already left me behind." Shooting them a tiny smile, a somewhat real one, Dmitri shrugged, the thirty pound weight on his shoulders reducing slightly, two pounds lifting off them just from telling another person.

Admitting that he was behind the rest of the world in practically everything wasn't easy, but it was true. He was moving slower than the rest of the world, the world speeding by in 1.25x, while he was stuck on 0.75x, maybe even 0.5x on a bad day.

It wasn't entirely his fault. The fact that he spent a good sixty days of the year in bed, unable to move, wasn't his fault. It is. Is it? God, I don't fucking—

Unfortunately, or fortunately, his thoughts were interrupted by a buzz coming from his phone, the vibration against the pocket of his jeans coming once, then twice.

Quickly scanning the place to see if anyone was going to come and order, Dmitri hummed, pulling his phone out of his pocket and typing in his password, squinting as he stared at his screen. God, my vision fucking sucks.

Once his eyes had adjusted to his screen, he stared at it, reading the three messages, and then re-reading them.

There was no way his fucking nutjob of a mother was texting him again.

xxx-xxx-xx76 -

Dmitri, this is your mother. I hope you're well.

Holy fucking shit, his mom was unbelievable.

xxx-xxx-xx76 -

If you can come home in two days, I can help you. I have something for you.

His grandfather's death anniversary was in two days. Is she out of her fucking mind?

Dmitri -

no thank you.

Then, he blocked her number, shoving his phone back into his pocket, burying her messages under the mess in his pockets. He knew that he would cave and unblock her number in less than an hour, he always did, because the one time he was supposed to have her number unblocked, he didn't, and his grandfather died.

His fingers were already itching to unblock her, but before he could, someone was sitting in front of the counter. And immediately, Dmitri knew that it was Tariq.

This was routine for them. Tariq would come downstairs and sit at the counter. He always claimed that he was doing it because the tattoo parlour never got busy until later in the day, but Dmitri didn't believe him.

He would just talk about the most random shit, whether it was how pretty the sky had looked that morning, or how hard the bagel that he had eaten that morning smacked.

It was nice— listening to Tariq talk while he worked. If it were anyone else, Dmitri would have told them to shut up. But this was Tariq, and Tariq's voice was so soothing to listen to, despite the fact that it was grating and probably annoying to a ton of people. To Dmitri, it was nice.

"— So I had this one dude come in today, and he was so excited to get a tattoo and everything, but then, he took one look at me and just... called me a bunch of slurs and left," Tariq blabbed, he was always talkative in the mornings. "Always fun to weed out the racists and homophobes. Man probably wanted to get the fucking American flag tattoed on him or something. Disgusting."

Dmitri nodded, his energy getting zapped from simply doing that. Fuck, he was exhausted.

"White people are fucking annoying," he muttered in response to that, handing Tariq his black coffee and sighing, rolling out his shoulders.

"What's up?" Tariq asked, raising a quizzical eyebrow. "Everything okay?"

Tariq didn't know. He didn't know when anything was, that his grandfather's fucking death anniversary was coming up soon, and even though he was okay on most days, that was the one day where he would just shut down every year, because the pain was just too much for him to handle.

"Can you do me a favour?" Pulling his phone out of his pocket, Dmitri handed it to Tariq, the confusion evident on his face as he accepted it.

Shrugging, Tariq frowned, his frown soon turning into a small smile when he saw Dmitri's wallpaper, a picture of a sleeping Juno when he had first taken her in, her limbs splayed out like a starfish on the couch, black fur contrasting the beige of the couch.

"Depends. Is it illegal?"

"No idea."

"I'm in," Tariq laughed out, grinning as he switched Dmitri's phone from his right hand to his left hand, only stopping Dmitri said—

"Can you call my therapist?"

Tariq paused, his eyes widening slightly as he coughed, either from a sore throat or from the fact that he was choking on his coffee, before managing a weak, "Huh?"

So, Dmitri repeated the question. "Can you call my therapist?"

The initial shock behind Tariq's eyes cleared up, and he cleared his throat, nodding slowly. "O-Okay," he stuttered out, opening up the Contacts app and scrolling down to the letter C. "Why can't you—"

"Please don't ask me why I can't do it."

I don't have an answer other than, I fucking hate myself for skipping so many sessions, when I'm privileged enough to have access to therapy, a good therapist.

Nodding, Tariq just pressed the contact, hopefully the right one, and brought Dmitri's phone to his ear, the ringing so soft yet so loud, so rhythmic yet so anxiety-inducing.

Finally, Tariq spoke into the phone, a professional, "Hello?" leaving his mouth, and a more casual, "Hi, I'm calling on behalf of Dmitri. Yeah, Dmitri West. Oh, this is Tariq. Riaz. Tariq Riaz, his— uh, his friend."

Of course, Dmitri zoned out of the conversation, his mind too tired to focus on Tariq's conversation, and focused his attention on the coffee in front of him, trying his very best to ignore the aching in his head, the phantom pains in his chest, everywhere.

"Okay, so," Tariq started, cutting the call and handing the phone back to Dmitri, shooting him a tiny smile and continuing, "You have an appointment on the fourteenth. I don't know how many days that's in, but—"

"Six days," Dmitri informed, all the days in April already ingrained in his mind from how often he spent his time staring at the calender that hung on his bedroom wall. "That's in six days."

Tariq hummed, and with a bob of his head, he continued, "You have an appointment in six days," he affirmed, glancing at Dmitri, probably waiting from a nod of confirmation. "Is that date okay?"

"Four days after, and four days before," Dmitri muttered, even though Tariq definitely didn't understand what the fuck he meant by that. "Maybe therapy can fix my shit before I have a breakdown." I should stop speaking.

"Maybe," Tariq agreed with a small laugh and a shake of his head. "I don't even know if I'm supposed to agree with that, because you don't need anything to be fixed, Dmitri. I wish you would stop seeing it like that."

Unfortunately for Dmitri, this wasn't new. Tariq always hated it when he self-deprecated, talked about himself in a negative way, did anything that made it seem like he was "fucked up".

So, muttering out a soft, "Sorry", Dmitri handed another person her coffee, adding a quick, "Have a good day, Tiara."

The fact that he knew the names of every regular who came to the shop was a little concerning, if he was being honest.

And apparently, Tariq had the same thought.

"You've been working here for too long if you know everyone's names," he pointed out, rolling his shoulders back and groaning. Then he added a weak, "Jesus fuck, my head hurts."

Dmitri frowned, glancing at him. "What's wrong?"

"I went to my massage therapist yesterday, and oh my fuck, did she fuck me up," he continued, a wince appearing on his face as he did.

"How?" Dmitri asked, instantly cursing himself in his head for giving him a one-word reply.

Tariq shrugged, his hand going up to massage his shoulders as he said, "Man, I don't even fucking know. My back stopped aching after she massaged it out, but I got a massive migraine instead. All I know is that I got so nauseated after it, managed to call Zoya and tell her to pick up some meds, passed the fuck out as soon as I got home. Shit's exhausting to deal with."

Frowning, Dmitri just handed him a slice of cake, because that was the best he could do. "Cake," he muttered. "For you."

Tariq laughed, accepting the cake and placing the money on the table for Dmitri to take. "Use your words."

"Okay. Bitch."

Again, Tariq just laughed, opening his mouth to say something, when a thought sparked in Dmitri's mind. Would he be willing to do this?

"Uh— Tariq," he began, his voice involuntarily sounding way more hesitant than it usually did. "Can you do me another favour?"

"Of course," Tariq said, of course he did. "What is it?"

Thank fuck. "Can you come with me to therapy? It's in a few days, not for a bit, but I just— not even for the session or anything. Can you just come with me? Like, just wait for my session to end or something? I don't know if I can—"

Tariq just interrupted him with a soft laugh and an even softer, "Dmitri. Of course I'll come with you. You don't have to beg, I'm more than willing. If my health co-operates, that is."

"It's not for a while, so—"

"Shush," Tariq instructed. "I'll come with you and that's that. Now come, share this cake with me."

—

+2745

AN: hello to all my when hands touch readers 😼 there will be a bonus chapter coming on the 1st of january for me, 31st of december for some of y'all :,) i'm excited hehe

so yeah😋 thank u all for reading!! i hope everyone has/had a good day today💓 lmk how your day's been in the comments if u want hehe😌 thank u for reading!!💖