Joss MacArthur (officiallybeige) wrote in darker_london, @ 2015-04-09 22:46:00 |
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Entry tags: | helena doyle, joss macarthur |
Crawl till dawn on my hands and knees (Joss, Helena)
This last year felt like the longest year of his life. Each month stretched to burst, packed full of more things than felt possible. Even the long gaping weeks of emptiness felt huge, the days of the Bermuda Triangle autopilot - but huge like a chasm was huge, huge like a desert was huge. How could so much emptiness fit into such a relatively short span of time?
The terrified-glorious-manic road trip summer, the drawn out shell-shocked autumn, the winter of discontent, and now spring was starting, again, and it was April, again. Some days Joss wanted to grab time by the neck and make it stop; he wasn't ready, everything was moving too quickly, he couldn't keep up, he couldn't keep up. Some days it was the strongest thing he felt - this feeling that he was being dragged behind a horse bound by his wrists and running to keep himself upright but the horse was faster and he couldn't keep going at this speed, he'd trip soon and smash himself against the ground. Some days he'd be sitting on the bus and the feeling that he wasn't moving fast enough crushed his chest in a panic, and he couldn't make it stop, couldn't appease it, because the feeling didn't want anything he could give it. It just wanted to remind him that time was passing and he was stuck, stuck stuck stuck like he'd died, he was a ghost, he was in limbo while the world rushed on and he struggled to keep up.
The feeling wanted time to slow down but time wouldn't slow. Sometimes watching minutes pass on the clock terrified him. Spring was shaping up to be full of anxieties - nightmares plagued his new sleeping patterns ruled by pills. Nightmares of rattling frozen pipes and waking up in unfamiliar rooms, nightmares of dead eyes opening. Some part of his logical, rational mind knew it could be a bad reaction to the medication, his My-zappy, rag gun pills but but but part of him felt it was necessary, that he couldn't stop this suffering, that it had to happen and he had to bear it.
Part of his logical, rational mind knew that if he told somebody - Leon, Ismail, anyone - that maybe they could help him make it stop. Part of his stupid, twisted-by-grief mind didn't want it to stop. Sometimes he and Ismail talked about self destructive behaviour but to Joss this meant hurting himself, excessive drinking... doing way too much Ibogaine in the woods...
Letting his mind devour itself, letting nightmares eat away at him long into his waking hours, letting the clock become the scariest thing in the house - none of that registered as self destructive behaviour. That was just... behaviour. That was just... Joss.
He told himself: at least I'm sleeping. I eat. I leave the house most days. I wrote an essay last week and didn't need to ask for an extension. I'm making money. I'm trying to make things right with Carly. He bullet pointed his achievements and used the list to convince himself over and over again that he was doing okay.
Leon tried to talk him into taking Thursday off work, but that would have been a symptom of failure and Joss signed up to do a double shift instead. He was doing so good he remembered to pack lunch as well as cigarettes and a second uniform shirt to change into between shifts because the nylon reeked after one. He wasn't only coping, he was capable. People who were falling apart didn't pack lunches and spare shirts, they just didn't.
He changed between shifts and convinced himself he could make it through the next eight hours without dying of boredom, convinced himself boredom was his worst problem. He had a little time to eat and - more importantly had a little time to smoke. Leaning against the fire escape out the back of Tescoes, imitating a small, moody dragon, he rose his non-smoking hand to greet Helena when she came out for her break too.