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Grey. It’s all grey. Everything. The clouds outside, the pitiful sunshine underneath, the trees in the garden, the grass, the walls, the floors, the lights, the carpet as he stares daggers into it.
He has no reason to feel like this, he wants to tell himself. There’s been no inciting incident to cause such bone-numbing greyness it leeches the saturation from the world around him. There’s no reason to do anything but smile lately, he must be horribly ungrateful. He’s so miserable he can’t accept that his life is going well, so well he should be bursting at the seams from it.
He doesn’t need a reason, the healed half of his heart gently tells the stormy half. This just happens sometimes, it’ll always happen, nothing they can do about it. It’s part of him, as much as his sense of humour or his brown eyes. As fundamental to Dan as a rainbow to a hurricane.
As much as he still wants to hate it, he must be kind to it. It’s okay that this is how the rest of his life is going to go. It’s okay to wake up feeling grey from time to time. Happiness is as tiring to an unbalanced brain as rage or insomnia.
It’s better than it used to be, that keeps him going. Keeps the grey from turning to endless inky blackness. Keeps his mind from returning to the depths of the terror that used to keep him up at night.
He recognises the signs better now. He’s in tune with his body and mind and knows days ahead of time when it’s coming back. He can prepare. He can sleep a little longer, breathe a little deeper, move a little more slowly, more deliberately.
He can wait it out. That’s the best thing he knows he can do. He no longer tears himself apart trying to fix it or ignore it or power through the worst of it, to the detriment of his wellbeing and the sanity of those around him who used to receive his rage.
He is kind. He knows he is. Even when the worst of the storm hits and he does not want to be kind, he softens. He’s forever retained the ability to smile during these moments, and for the past few years, the upturn of his lips is no longer deceptive. He wants others to know he’ll be okay, because for the first time in his life, he knows he will be. He’s learned after so long of this song and dance, push and pull, that it does get better. This is not the end of the road.
This is not the end of the road.
He’s full of so much love. For others, for the life he leads, for the good he’s put out into the world, the difference he’s made. Most importantly, for himself. For the first time in his turbulent life, he loves himself, every part of himself. Even the parts he used to hate so much he hid them from everyone. Especially those parts. They need the most love now.
He’s been told every day for several years now that the love in his heart is so palpable it’s deserving of a title. He rolls his eyes every time, but blushes nonetheless because even he has to admit it’s true. He is full of love. He is bursting with it. For life, for himself.
For Phil. Mostly for Phil. He wakes up every day next to the love of his life, his soulmate, his best friend, his person. It’s rare anymore that he wakes up and doesn’t beam as he presses his lips to Phil’s face. Even when he is met with a smack to the chest and a grumpy demand for coffee, his heart swells with adoration. There’s no one else he’d rather spend his life with than this whiny bitch in his bed.
So even on days that the world has lost colour, Dan goes through the motions of existing as gently as possible because he knows it’s what he needs to keep that love in his heart. He must be gentle with himself so that he is gentle to the ones who need it most.
Warm arms wind around his waist and a stubbly chin hooks over his shoulder where he stands staring out the sliding glass door facing the grey garden. A low, gravelly “morning” in his ear that reminds him of thunder at midnight, the moon pulling the tide, the embers after a fire that burned all night. It’s his favourite sound in the world, he can even admit that when his brain is full of dense grey fog.
He hums low in his chest, the only sound he’s capable of making right now. It stings a bit, his throat dry from the wait on the coffee.
Phil asks if he’s alright and Dan makes the grunt noise again. He won’t lie to Phil and say yes or no or give a noncommittal shrug. He will do the only things he is capable of at this time: make one single noise and brew their morning coffee because it is his routine. He will never allow himself to wake up and not go to the kitchen first thing. The movements of brewing the lattes are so ingrained in his mind, he could do them in his sleep. (And has done, several times. That tiny circular scar on the inside of his wrist serves as a reminder every day of just how habitual making Phil his coffee is.)
Phil tightens his hold around Dan, presses his lips to his slowly thrumming pulse point, and again to just below the shell of his ear. Soft, delicate. Grounding. He knows Dan so well to wordlessly understand his need for gentle reminders of the current moment.
His rough stubble, the sharpness of his minty toothpaste on his breath, the all-encompassing warmth of his body wrapped around Dan. It’s wonderful. It’s his daily wake-up, and yet he’ll never get enough of it. He never needs it more than on days like this, and he manages a small smile at Phil’s willingness to give it to him in a way he might not even realise is extra lovely today. He’s doing nothing more than he always does, and yet it reignites a tiny spark deep in Dan’s chest, reminds him he is alive and capable of feeling and returning the love pouring out of his incredible partner.
He turns wordlessly and tucks his face into the crook of Phil’s neck, snaking his arms around his waist and breathing in his delicious scent.
“Bad day?” Phil whispers, burying one of his hands in Dan’s messy curls.
Dan shakes his head, because “bad” isn’t how he’d describe today. “Good” definitely isn’t it, but “bad” is also far from the truth. The colour of the world outside is the way he’d describe the day at large.
“Grey,” he manages through his sandpaper throat.
Phil hums a low note that’s a bit sad, a lot understanding. A lot gentle. A lot loving. His other hand slides down Dan’s back and rests at his hip and squeezes. “What do you need?”
Dan tightens his grip around Phil and hopes that’s answer enough. It is, of course it is, Phil knows him inside and out and smiles against his cheek.
“Okay.” It’s so gentle, so soft, so warm, so full of love that for a moment, the briefest glorious second in time, everything is okay. The world is grey and that’s okay. Dan is grey and that’s okay. Things aren’t good and that’s okay. Everything is okay and everything is going to be okay.
It’s beautiful and perfect and everything he’ll ever need again.
“Okay.”