[ It's a relief when Nathan peels his eyes away. It gives Ian the chance to, too — but it isn't immediate. He tracks over Nathan's form, the shape of his expression, his hand circling his own wrist. It takes a little too long for the details to sink in, but they do. There are things, flashes of images and speech and sound, that stand out vividly the next day when the alcohol fades out and you're left with blurry snatches and a hangover. This part, he thinks, will stay.

The silence settles in, and he doesn't look at that spot on the wall anymore. It's somewhere lower, or really it's at nothing.

Talking about what happened isn't a magic cure. He doesn't feel better, something's still hanging from his heart and swinging on it like a fucking chandelier. Maybe he feels a little better about admitting it, though. Talking about it to this guy, now that he has a little context.

His eyes have gone a little red, a little bloodshot, a little too dry in some parts and too wet in others, so he brings his thumb and his forefinger up to press into his eyelids. ]

It's, ah.

[ There's a slightly too long pause. A little harder to really pull that together within himself, let alone deliver it out loud. ]

It's how slow it all goes. Things falling apart.

[ He peels up a couple seconds later with an absent, audible and too-sharp inhale through his nose. ]

It doesn't happen overnight. There's no... ripping the bandaid off. Every day something gets a little worse. You lose power, you lose water, you run out of food. You get some new way to almost die, and you don't know when that's coming or what it is, it just hits you out of fucking nowhere every time. And it just... happens over and over again for months, like cancer.

[ So you just get to dread it, a semi-permanent state. A second later, a little thickly, hoarsely, absurdly: ]

And I was really fucking stoked about these showers.