Their shared suffering - ELU

Annoyance

"It's in the air.
Tell me, what's going on?
Winter Vibes but it's spring.
I think I'm alone."

The holidays were over.
The days of sleeping in, relaxing, and doing pretty much nothing all day were over and the annoyance of having to attend school was on the horizon.
It had also gotten colder over the days, which made leaving the bed even more difficult.

Eliott didn't have to go to Uni on Mondays, therefore he got to sleep in.
Lucas rolled over, facing his alarm clock.
If he didn't get up now, he wouldn't have time to take a shower.
A resigned sigh left his lips as he slipped into his slippers and walked to the bathroom.

After taking a shower, he brushed his teeth and put on a pair of jeans and his grey Romance hoodie.
He blew Eliott an air kiss, watching his chest rise and fall as he slept.
As much as he'd loved to lazily make out with his boyfriend, he didn't have the time.
There was no time for breakfast either, Lucas didn't feel like eating right now anyway.

While he locked his bike, Manon and Emma greeted him.
"Ça va?", Lucas asked, swinging his backpack over his shoulder.
"Ça va bien, et toi?", Manon asked back, taking a sip of her coffee.
"I'm fine as well", Lucas answered and Manon smiled.
"M'fine as well, y'know", Emma said while typing quickly on her phone.

Manon looked closer at Lucas' neck as soon as he'd taken off his grey scarf once they were inside the school.
"Oh, what's that?", she asked playfully, grinning at Lucas.
Lucas blushed. "Is it that visible?", he asked uncertainly, trying to feel where the hickey, or hickeys that Eliott had left, were.
"The one right here is quite visible, the other three are not", Manon informed his, still grinning.

Lucas' blush hadn't disappeared either.
"Geez, Eliott must've eaten you alive during the weekend", Emma noticed, she'd now looked up from her phone and had joined in on the inspection of Lucas' hickeys.
"Yeah, the sex yesterday was great and all, but damn, I knew I should've worn a turtleneck sweater", Lucas said while trying to pull up the collar of his hoodie in an attempt to cover up Eliott's love bites.
Emma laughed, playfully slapping Lucas' shoulder who playfully tried to hit her back in return.
The bell rang, signaling the beginning of the first period.
Manon groaned in annoyance.
"Come on darling, we have to get to our Spanish lesson", she said with a hint of urgency in her voice. She waved Lucas goodbye, who waved back.
"Está bien, está bien, ya voy. No need to hurry, babe", Emma replied, quickly hugging Lucas before running after her girlfriend.
Lucas watched them leave before walking to his maths class.

During the lunch break, Lucas checked his planner on his phone.
After school, he'd have to go to his doctor to start the antidepressant.
Annoyed, Lucas pinched the bridge of his nose, letting out a long, exasperated breath.
"What's wrong, Lu Lu? Stress avec Eliott?", Basile asked, scraping the remnants of his carrot salad off his plate.
"Non, putain", Lucas hissed, giving him a 'ready to cut a bitch'-look, "I have to go to my doctor today for some medication and that's annoying."
Basile stopped scraping off the carrot salad, he even stopped chewing for a second.

"What medication? What are you talking about, Lu Lu?", Arthur asked confused.
Lucas swallowed dryly. He hadn't told his friends anything about the things that had been going on behind closed doors, him having to possibly go to a clinic, and his depressive episode.
"I uhh, our math teacher called my father in to talk to him about how I allegedly am going through a depressive episode and how I possibly have to go to a clinic to 'relax and unwind' or whatever", Lucas tried to explain.
Dead silence. Nobody said a word.

"How long did you know that you have to take what I'm assuming from the context an antidepressant?", Yann asked slowly.
"Uhh, for about two weeks before the holidays started, so pretty much the entire holidays. I have to start the medication today", Lucas answered, trying to sound as relaxed about it as possible. Internally, he was freaking out.

"And during all this time it never occurred to you to maybe tell us about that? You know that we wouldn't judge you for anything, right? You know that we love you, right?", Arthur asked and Lucas nodded, twiddling his thumbs.
"I know guys, I'm sorry. I love you guys too, but everything happened so fast and I honestly was so ashamed of admitting that I'm struggling with my mental health", Lucas admitted, still twiddling his thumbs.

Basile finished eating the remnants of his carrot salad before asking Arthur if he was still eating his salad.
Arthur shook his head and Basile went straight to eating the carrot salad.
As the attention drew away from him, Lucas scrolled through his phone again.
No new messages and no new emails either.
The lunch break passed by pretty uneventful, and before Lucas knew it, he was sitting in his history class, waiting for the day to be over.

Lucas rode his bike directly to his doctor's office.
His doctor explained the side effects of Fluoxetin to him and scheduled the next appointment to check up on how Lucas's body reacts to the antidepressant.
Back at home, Lucas prepared a small snack for Eliott, who hadn't left the bed all day.

Lucas sat down on his side of the bed, placing the snack on his nightstand.
A slice of bread with a slice of cheese for each of them.
"Hey Eli, I've made you something to eat, if you want to eat something", Lucas said, taking a bite of his cheese bread.
But Eliott didn't bug.

It took a few minutes until he turned around, opening his eyes.
"Maybe later", he then said. Lucas nodded.
"Did you call in sick at work?", he asked and Eliott shook his head.
"Do you want me to do it?", Lucas continued to ask.
Eliott hesitated before nodding, tears were starting to form in his eyes.

"Baby, why are you crying? Do you want to call there yourself?", Lucas asked worriedly, pulling his boyfriend into his arms.
"Ouais, I want to call there myself but I can't, Lucas! I can't! And it's paining me", Eliott admitted, the tears kept coming and coming.

Lucas wanted to say a lot, he'd love to know the right way to perfectly to console someone to make them feel better.
But there was not 'that one, perfect way', there simply wasn't.
All he could do was hold Eliott in his arms, trying to ease his emotional pain.

And as Eliott's tears soaked his shirt and the cheese bread that Lucas had made for him continued to remain untouched, Lucas' mind went into overdrive mode.
On the one hand, he'd love to get an understanding of what was going on inside of Eliott's mind, but on the other hand, he would do everything in his power to never have to fully get what Eliott felt like.

If it made Eliott feel this bad about himself and if it made him react this way, Lucas would never want to know what it's like.

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[Word count: 1227 words]

The lyrics at the top are from the song "Frühling", "Spring", by headless_DATA feat. Cubbie.
Feeling kind of down today.