Chapter Text
“Joel?”
Joel jerked himself awake, as he took in his surroundings. He was sat down in an office chair, one of the ones that spun round, as a computer screen was in front of him. It was loaded on an excel sheet.
It was an empty excel sheet. He remembered opening it at about 9:12, after he settled in for his shift.
It was now 11:57. Nearly in time for his lunch break.
Around him, was the awkward silence as it was in the office, with only the incredibly loud keyboards sounding across the room, with the typing of all of his colleagues.
His desk was messy, some dried coffee stains, sitting perfectly next to a cold coffee mug, sitting on the layers upon layers of rim marks that he couldn’t be bothered to clean up. Piles of paper were set aside on the edge of his desk, which looked smaller than it did this morning. That was because some of the pile had fell off thanks to the fan that Joel had on the other side of the desk, because it was the beginning of June, and Joel found it too hot all the time. So he insisted on having that fan wherever he went. Scott stood over his shoulder, peering over at his desk.
Scott was Joel’s boss and manager, and wasn’t the biggest fan of him. He wasn’t exactly lenient when it came to keeping on track and deadlines, and Joel found himself falling behind more times than not. He was always sleeping or spacing out when he shouldn’t be, sometimes for longer than he wished. Joel had tried everything to keep his focus, but nothing ever worked. He worked in a data analysis office, which simply ordered and analysed any data given to them for a profit. Joel found Scott weird because he liked sorting data, and ordering people around. Joel couldn’t argue there.
But he had not always liked his boss, because of his own lack of work. Even more so recently, after Jimmy, one of his best mates, announced that he’d be marrying the blue hair nerd soon. Which meant Joel would have to see him outside of work hours, or in other words, more than he needed to.
The manager stood over Joel, with the same knowing look, whilst looking at a blank excel page and pages strewn across the floor. Joel slowly spun round as if he was the villain in a spy movie but instead of saying ‘well, well, well’, Joel started to sweat as he pulled his smiling face of guilt, knowing he’d been caught red-handed. All he had done for the 3 hours he had been at his shift, was open an excel sheet. He hadn’t even clicked on a box to start typing yet. Or done any sort of work on any other tabs. It was the only tab open on his browser, the only app open on the computer.
“Look, Joel. It’s clear you’re not taking this job seriously.” Joel looked down at his own worn shoes and Scott’s polished ones. He prepared himself for the ‘You’re fired’ speech.
“I understand if it’s an issue to do with mental health, just please either get it flagged up on my system if you haven’t already, or get a prescription to help you. I want to help you Joel. I know you have the potential to work hard here, even if it’s a bit boring. You just have to give yourself that opportunity.” And with that Scott patted Joel on the shoulder twice before walking away. He disappeared within a couple seconds, so he was either crouched at another desk so he wasn’t visible to anyone outside the cubicle, or he had left the room. Joel leaned back in his chair, slouching as he dragged his hands down his face, as if that was going to solve his problems. He noticed the clock in the corner of his screen.
11:58.
Before he went for his lunch break, he’d look into doctor’s appointments, to see if someone could help him, or if he was simply a lost cause.
He noticed everyone else getting up out of sync with one another as soon as the clock turned 12, as if it was a Mexican wave. After the first people got up, some typed faster to finish what they were doing before getting up, as others dropped what they were doing halfway through a sentence, or even a word. Before the minute had passed, everyone in the room had flocked out.
Except for Joel.
In a room of nearly 100 people, all working on their computers, Joel heard eery silence as he still scrolled on his phone for doctor’s appointments. He had noticed everyone leaving, but didn’t follow, as a dim light ascended across the room, from the monitors left on, as the last person to leave turned the lights off.
So Joel sat, his face illuminated by his monitor and phone screen. He scrolled past professionals, fully booked, before stumbling across a guy called Dr Doc.
Joel was confused. Was his name going to be Doctor Doctor? What was the deal with that?
He was the only guy with availability for the rest of the week at the GP closest to Joel, because the next nearest was miles away and Joel wasn’t up for that drive. He scheduled an appointment for 5:45 the next day, so it was after his work finished, and it wasn’t so late that he was missing out on dinner. He didn’t know how long the appointment would be, but hoped it wouldn’t be hours long, because Joel wouldn’t have food or drink to nurse him back to health.
After booking the appointment, he looked up from his screen and hurried out of the room, shoving his phone in his trouser pocket. Joel nearly ran through the corridors, as he was well aware of the first-come-first-serve situation when it came to food, and didn’t quite feel like missing out on a good meal because Scott decided to poke at his mental health. Joel passed through the corridor quickly, slowing himself down as he entered the canteen.
“Joel? Didn’t think you were going to be last out of the office.” A figure called from their post by the entrance to the canteen.
Speak of the Devil.
Scott.
Joel decided to walk right past him, as he was too busy thinking about food. Scott must of not taken it personally, as he resumed eating his sandwich in the corner.
Joel quietly lined up for his food, noticing he was last in a long line, so he was most likely to get the worst food. As he got to the food finally, he picked out one of the last sandwiches, a tuna and mayo one, which he was thankful for, with a side of cheese and onion crisps, as there was no chips and no salt and vinegar crisps left, and chose a bottle of water for his drink, as it was better than a soft drink.
He wasn’t the biggest fan of sparking and soft drinks, mainly because of the bubbles.
He saw the tables in the lunch room full of men his age, above and below it, so moved over to a small spot on the edge of a table, where there were a few guys talking the other end, but weren’t sat near him. He calmly ate his sandwich, as he knew this routine well.
Joel didn’t need distractions or music to take him away from the moment, because he could always rely on everyone’s conversations. He’d always here the odd bit of someone making fun of that one friend, reminiscing in old school times, and the gossip over who's together and who’s broken up.
He felt a pair of eyes on him however, which was weird, because nobody would really look at him, as he hadn’t made the effort to make friends with anyone since he got the job three years back.
He looked around the canteen to find the culprit of staring. All he saw was the long rows of benches in the middle of the hall, with circular tables and chairs filled either side of the hall, full of people on them, chatting more than eating.
Joel finished his food before the clock hit quarter past.
Usually, Joel would use any excuse he could to stay inside the canteen. But today, he couldn’t find that excuse, so he simply got up, put his tray on the pile of dirty ones to clean up, and left the hall, making his way down the long corridor of empty offices and office space as everyone collectively went on lunch break at the same time.
He didn’t make a disturbance in the hall, as nobody even noticed he was there, let alone gone.
He didn’t even notice the questionable looks Scott gave him on his way out, but didn’t care for it anyway.
He had done nothing for three hours of his shift. The least he could do was try and do some more work as catch up. Especially since Scott chose not to fire him.
So not even 20 minutes after he had left, Joel was back at his desk, in a dim office, because he didn’t want to waste the power on just him. He put his half drunken water bottle next to the half drunken coffee and picked up his papers, organising them and getting to work trying to do some work today, to prove to Scott that he didn’t want to be fired.
Mainly because he needed to money to pay rent for his apartment. His landlord wouldn’t be too happy if he didn’t pay up on time.
----
By the end of his shift, Joel managed to finish copying the data and analysing 10 pages of the pile.
The pile which had way more than 10 pages.
He tried though, and Scott even came round multiple times during the afternoon to check up on him. He couldn’t help but feel that Scott was being too nice to him. He was the employee who did barely any work today, and Scott was the boss who was supposed to get mad at that.
Except he didn’t.
He never did.
Was Scott pitying Joel because he was such a good friend of Jimmy’s? That better not be the reason why Scott was so soft. If it was, he was going to kill Scott. And then maybe Jimmy too.
On the way out of the office, after finishing his page off, he saw Scott standing just outside the building, looking over at the few cars left in the car park. Joel planned to go straight to his car to go home, but Scott stopped him.
“Joel!” Joel turned around, now standing in the middle of the car park, but there weren’t any cars to run him over anyway. “I just wanted to catch up with you. Why’d you leave lunch early? Usually, you’re the first ones in the canteen and the last out. Now it was the opposite. What’s going on?”
Joel sighed, shoving his hands into his pockets. His jacket was tied around his waist, with his car keys and phone inside those pockets, just because Joel liked to shove his hands inside his trouser pockets.
“I felt bad about not doing any work. I was looking for appointments, like you suggested, which made me late out, and then I had eaten, I found no purpose staying in the canteen for an extra 40 minutes, so I thought I’d try and make it up to you by doing some extra work.”
Scott smirked, as if he was slowly changing Joel for the better. Scott was a bad influence on Joel these days. But Scott’s smirk turned to confusion as he must have replayed the conversation in his head. “What do you mean no purpose? I saw you eat alone, but I tried not to think much of it.”
Oh so Scott was the one who was staring at Joel in the canteen.
“Are you okay, Joel?” Scott took a step closer, placing a hand on Joel’s shoulder, to try and comfort him.
Joel stiffened. He probably hadn’t of been okay in the first place, but now he was certainly not ok. Joel looked down to where Scott placed his hand. Joel could feel that he was shaking.
He didn’t like people touching him.
He knew that.
Yet he could never tell anyone that.
Because Joel knew that Scott was trying to comfort him. So Joel stood there, without saying a word, letting Scott try to 'comfort him', even if it did the exact opposite. His hands balled into fists, nails piercing into his skin. Sweat formed on his forehead as he bit his lip as hard as he could, trying to stop himself from shaking. But he continued to stiffen up, unable to move as he shook violently, waiting patiently for Scott to remove his hand from his shoulder.
Joel didn’t want to find out what Scott would do if he admitted to not liking physical contact. Jimmy knew. Jimmy could’ve told him. But Joel couldn’t bring himself to. Scott would have to find his information another way. Scott let go after realising that Joel was shaking, and took that as his cue to leave immediately, but was stopped when Scott managed to encase him in a hug.
That made things worse.
Instead of just his shoulder feeling weird, his whole body felt weird, being that close to a person.
Joel wanted to cry.
He didn’t know what to do and felt too weak to push away from this gesture.
Joel just wanted to go home.
“It’s ok. It’s ok, Joel. I’ve got you.”
Joel waited for a solid minute before Scott let go, and looked as if he was about to say something, but Joel made a break for his car, he didn’t want to talk to Scott anymore. Scott didn’t fight him, letting him go, and watching as Joel left the car park.
Why did Scott let him go?
Why didn’t he hold on tighter?
Why did Scott stand there and let him go.
That’s not what should’ve happened.
----
Scott walked into the kitchen confused as he sat down at the breakfast bar he and Jimmy used more than the dining room table. Jimmy had his back turned as he was cooking dinner.
“Hey Scott!” Jimmy said with his back turned, using the same energy he always had. That was one thing Scott loved about Jimmy. One out of many, many reasons why he proposed.
“How was work?” He asked, pouring what looked to be Bolognese sauce into the pan. Jimmy always cooked the best Bolognese.
Scott didn’t know how to answer that question. Especially since Jimmy knew that Joel worked for him and that Joel was Scott’s main focus of the day.
"Uhm... Good for the most part. I’m just concerned about Joel, that’s all.” Scott trailed off, looking down at the intricate pattern of the natural marble, running his fingers through his blue hair.
Jimmy put the wooden spatula he was stirring with on the side, completely disregarding how the sauce was still on it, and walked over to Scott. He leant over the counter, covering up his bikini apron, which Scott had originally bought for him because it was funny. Scott knew the mention of Joel would capture Jimmy’s attention. Joel was one of his closest friends, and was planned to even be the best man at the wedding.
“What’s up with Joel?” Jimmy’s voice softened to just above a whisper, concerned for both his friend and fiancé. Jimmy placed his hands gently over Scott’s, slowly taking them out of his hair, and holding them on the counter. Scott looked up to see Jimmy’s face for the first time that day, as he usually slept in on mornings, so missed Scott on his way out to work.
“Something was different with him today. He did no work for the entire morning, was that last one to the canteen by a good few minutes, left after 20 minutes without saying a word to any of his colleagues and was one of the last ones to go home too.”
Scott avoided his ‘talk’ with Joel after work, if he could even call it that.
Jimmy looked away, calculating all the new found information in his head. “Doing no work because he got distracted sounds exactly like Joel. I think he was only trying to make it up to you afterwards, don’t worry.” Jimmy smiled, comforting Scott. But Scott knew that Joel wasn’t ok.
“I tried talking to him after his shift, but he simply broke down and ran to his car.” Jimmy tried processing this information, having less success than last time.
“Right...” He started.
He knew Joel the best out of everyone, except maybe Lizzie. If anyone would know what was going on with him. It would be either him or his sister. Nothing had seemed off with Joel recently. He’d have to visit him soon. He’d ask Joel when he would be able to come over in the near future. If Joel wasn’t quite acting as normal as he normally would be, the last thing he’d want is an unexpected guest over at his head. Jimmy knows perfectly well what happened the last time he did that. And that was on one of Joel’s good days.
“I’ll talk to him.” Jimmy said in a quiet voice, but the softness had disappeared from his voice, as he let go of Scott’s hands to continue the cooking. Scott didn’t care if it was beginning to become summer, his hands were now cold from missing holding Jimmy’s.
----
The next day, Scott tried to stay away from Joel, considering it was Friday, and Jimmy said he’d talk to him. So he watched him from afar, before getting on with his own work.
----
The next day, Joel noticed how Scott didn’t approach him or try to talk to him once. Joel wanted to guess that Jimmy told him about how Joel was with physical contact and was just giving him some space. That was good.
Joel even got quite a bit of data done and even finished the excel sheet from the day before, so that was a plus. Joel kept a constant eye on the time, well aware that 5PM was looming around, and so was his appointment. Joel wasn’t quite looking forward to it, but knew that this would be for the better, and to help him at work, so Scott would stop nagging him all the time.
The clocked ticked 5, and Joel hurried to turn his computer off, he didn’t care if he had shutdown mid sentence or even halfway through a word, but that wasn’t Joel current problem to deal with.
All he wanted to do was leave.
Joel managed to get in his car and drive away before Scott could even try and talk to him, which was a good thing. All Joel had to do now, was to get home, get himself cleaned up and to go to his appointment. Joel managed to change out of his uniform, to a simple loose flannel shirt over a t-shirt and a pair of trousers to go with it.
----
As Joel walked into the building, he was greeted by a nice woman, who was just there to log people onto the system and check them in. After everything was sorted, Joel was told to go wait in the waiting area, where a few people were already. There was a range of people, parents with young children all the way up to retired people for their monthly check ups.
There wasn’t much noise, which brought a change, as Joel was used to hearing the background noise of typing and pages flying everywhere. Now the only noise he could hear was the odd movement from one of the ladies in reception, and one of the kids, who was playing with the wooden board that was there specifically for kids waiting. Joel had luckily chosen a seat in which he could see both of those, so would look over at the receptionists every once in a while, while the child entertained herself and Joel in one go, as he watched her move the beads back and forth between the ends of the board, while her mother was on her phone. Joel briefly went on his phone, but didn’t find much interest on it, which was unusual for him. He made sure to look at the board by the door to the corridor, where people occasionally went in and out via, as it displayed whenever people were allowed through and to what room they were going to.
While watching the child, the board pinged, as Joel turned his head to see who it was. ‘Joel Smallishbeans, Dr Doc, Room H9’ was displayed on the board. Joel stood up, making sure he didn’t leave anything behind, his phone or keys, before making his way to his room.
He entered the corridor, and was greeted with a bunch of signs, leading different ways. Joel found it easiest to search for section ‘H’ and then the room ‘H9’.
He took a deep breath in as he stood before the hard wooden door, before knocking. He heard a deep voice from inside call “Come in!” Before Joel reluctantly opened the door.
Inside was a normal office, similar to Scott’s at work, but was more medical and professional. At the desk, sat a tall man with a goatee, with his medium black hair tied up into a small ponytail behind his head. He wore clothes that resembled more of a scientist than a doctor, but Joel shrugged it off, knowing that this man simply wanted to help him.
Joel slowly sat in one of the seats opposite the man, carefully choosing the seat furthest away from him and closest to the door again. The man seemed nice, and looked as if he had probably dealt with a hundred cases like Joel before, and had successfully helped every single one of them.
Joel sat nervously in his seat, his fingers fiddling with the ends of his flannel shirt throughout the conversation.
“Good afternoon, or rather evening, I’m Dr Doc, but just Doc is fine.” Joel tried to ease himself, but couldn’t bring himself to.
“Joel.”
He only managed to say his name because of how terrified he was. He didn’t exactly have a parent next to him practically spoon feeding the questions to him, like that little girl in the waiting room would.
Doc must of noticed Joel’s nerves, so took charge of the conversation. “Nice to meet you Joel. So, I believe you booked today regarding mental problems? Specifically with concentrating and getting overwhelmed easily.”
Joel nodded.
“Right, so I’m just going to ask you a simple questionnaire, some open and some closed questions, so I can get a feel of what’s going on here. Is that ok with you?” He turned away from his monitor to look at Joel, gaining a non-verbal sign of confirmation.
The questionnaire was as simple as Doc had said, he could answer the multiple choice questions easily and when it came to open questions, he’d say anything he could think of to do with it, in hopes that it would help.
“Okay, so from my understanding Joel, you have trouble focusing on minimal tasks, and your job, leaving you behind on deadlines. You don’t socialise often and stick around the same people, so when anyone not apart of your inner circle crosses your boundaries, you get confused and overwhelmed, but cannot ask them to stop. This would contribute to your trouble focusing, as it would mean that you can easily lose yourself in your own mind.” Joel listened carefully to what Doc said, knowing he nailed the coffin on it.
Joel watched Doc get up and walk over to a large cupboard on the other side of the room, opening it up and looking inside it. Joel could see from where he was sitting that it was full of different medications, with different coloured and sized pills that littered the shelves of this cupboard. He came back with a small capsule of pills, and a sticky label. He stuck the label onto the front of the unlabelled capsule, writing down Joel’s name and his dosage.
‘Joel Smallishbeans, one pill twice a day.’
He gave Joel the capsule and placed a pill in his hands, one from the capsule, to perhaps show what it looked like. The pill was a light blue all over, the kind of shade of blue only seen on cloudless days or in comic books. Joel took the pill, safely sliding it into the capsule, sealing the lid before turning back to Doc.
“Those pills will help you focus throughout work, and even help getting a full night’s sleep, as I picked up that you always woke up multiple times in the night.”
Joel looked at the yellow translucent capsule and white lid carefully. Inside the capsule looked to be about 50 or so pills. Enough to last just under a month if Joel stuck to the advised dosage.
Doc looked back towards his computer and started typing again. The keyboard was loud, he could hear every single key being pressed even if he tried to drown it out. “How about we schedule an appointment for a month’s time? Just to see how the pills are helping?”
Doc turned and smiled at Joel, who still had been shaking this entire time, but had become numb to the feeling at that point, merely nodding as he kept staring at the capsule. “This will last me less than a month,” Joel said, deadpanning.
Doc raised an eyebrow at this. “Would it help if you took a few extra capsules, for when you run out?” Doc looked keenly at Joel, who was pulling a blank expression.
He nodded.
He watched as Doc jumped out of his chair and walked over to his cupboard, pulling out 5 extra capsules. That should last Joel a good while before having to come back again to ask for more, limiting his interactions with the GP, which comforted him.
Doc finished what he was typing onto the computer before turning to Joel, resting his arms on the table as his hands interlocked. “Well, that should be everything.” Joel breathed a sigh of relief, trying not to make it obvious. “So, as everything’s done, you are free to leave.”
Joel stood up slowly, shaking his hand before shoving the capsules in his pockets, trying to leave as quickly as he could, without making it seem like he was desperate to leave. Joel shut the door behind him, and took in a deep breath before making his way out of the building, following his footsteps from before.
He made his way back to his car, and pulled out of of the carrier bags that he kept in the pocket of the passenger seat, mainly because it was easier to reach over diagonally to that one, then to the pocket on the back of his own seat. He put all six capsules, together containing roughly 300 pills and placed it on the passenger seat, and put his keys into the ignition, turning the car on and leaving to go home.
----
Joel got to his apartment building, parking his car into his usual spot before heading upstairs to his flat. He placed the bag of the pills on the kitchen island, which doubled up as his dining table, before looking in the cupboard for any microwavable meals.
Usually, Joel would be up for cooking himself a proper dinner, with most likely leftovers for the next day, but Joel was so exhausted from the day at work and the appointment, that he just wanted something he could cook quickly before being able to watch TV and calm down.
The past couple days hadn’t been the most enjoyable for Joel. He was still shaken up from Scott’s hug and wanted to forget about his handshake with Doc immediately.
He found a microwavable curry, and figured it would do, the spices distracting him from everything he had on his mind.
He checked his phone for any emails and to scroll across social media before noticing a notification. Jimmy had texted him. He and Jimmy were friends, but Joel usually didn’t text much so Jimmy texted enough for the both of them.
[Jimmy]: ‘Heya bud, hope your doing well. Is there a time I could come over soon? I just wanna chat and hang with ya’ Sent 6:07PM.
[Joel]: ‘You’re*’ Sent 6:54PM.
[Jimmy]: ‘Ok OK. Is there a time I could come over soon though?’ Sent 6:54PM.
[Joel]: ‘Sure. Tomorrow should be good. Just sent a text when you’re on your way’ Sent 6:55PM.
[Jimmy]: ‘Cool, thanks dude!’ Sent 6:55PM.
Jimmy was coming over tomorrow. That was fine with Joel. He should be able to clean up and calm down before then.
Joel stuffed the capsules into the cabinet in the bathroom, there was barely anything in there anyways so that was no struggle, before taking one to his bedside table, so he could take the prescribed amount before and after bed.
He was exhausted from the day and just wanted to go to sleep, so he was in the right frame of mind for tomorrow, for Jimmy to come round. He’d have to clean up the entire flat, he knew that, but at least Jimmy would give he a head’s up, so he at least had time to panic before his friend came over.
Joel open the cap and stared into the yellow translucent capsule, with 50 odd sky-blue pills inside. He turned the capsule on it’s side, and shook one out, staring at it intensely as he closed the capsule and placed it back on his beside table, which looked like it was about to fall apart. Lots of things in Joel’s apartment had that look. He hesitantly popped it in his mouth, managing to swallow it before realising he should have had some water. Too late now.
He just wanted to go to bed. He changed into his pyjamas, which he liked more than he was willing to admit, especially with Harry Potter theme of them. He also was not willing to admit how much he liked Harry Potter to his friends.
Not yet.
Joel flopped onto the bed, curling up underneath the duvet and falling asleep faster then he had ever done before, even though it was the same bed he had slept in for years.