If people can't deal with their problems, they numb themselves a little bit.
~Kevin Nealon
Spencer awoke when his alarm rang, the sounds of numerous bells. He reached over and shut it off enjoying the silence for a moment. He had a smile and let his arm slip onto the other side of the bed. For one blissful moment he wondered why it was cold. Maybe Derek went for a run?
But reality is a bitch and came back to him. He remembered yesterday, he remembers lowering a coffin into the ground. He turned away from the side of the bed that should have a warm body.
Spencer snapped his eyes shut. He felt numb. He felt like the dead wood that made up his headboard. He was feeling no emotion. Not anything. It was wrong. The whole situation was wrong, Derek shouldn't be dead, he should be lying in bed next to him.
There was no way that he could actually be dead. Derek had to be alive, maybe like what they did with Emily. Spencer constructed the whole scenario in his head because Derek couldn't be dead.
Spencer pulled himself out of bed and towards the kitchen. He pulled out two mugs before he even realized it a filled them with coffee. Looking at the second one he laughed at himself. Not because it was funny but because he needed to hear something.
He picked up the extra mug and placed it on the breakfast nook. There, just in case Derek came strolling in he would have something nice to drink.
After finishing his own mug Spencer went back to their bedroom and got his clothes ready for the day. Sure he didn't have plans but hey it was always good to look nice.
He took a long shower, half expecting his love to bang on the door and tell him to stop using all the hot water. He got out and dried himself slowly.
Back in their bedroom Spencer pulled on his clothes. He smiled as he pulled on the shirt he knew Derek like best.
Derek's gone. It was like a whisper in his own thoughts. It sounded so final, so sure. Spencer sat on the edge of the bed. Maybe he would just sit here and wait a moment. He stood only to fix the bed covers.
After an hour of sitting on the bed and staring at the wall waiting for Derek he got bored and walked back to the kitchen. Sitting on the breakfast nook was a cold, untouched cup of coffee. That's when it hit him, he's gone.
With a blank look he took the cup and washed it slowly. There was nothing worse than watching coffee go wasted down the drain.
Spencer looked around, the world around him was different, or at least it seemed different. It seemed as though everything had a haze over it, as if someone applied the blur effect and there was no way to get around it.
He takes in the neglected housekeeping. By no means it their apartment filthy, it's just not as clean as it could be. Spencer takes it upon himself and walks towards the kitchen sink. He pulls out the proper cleaning supplies rather slowly, taking the time to read and re-read the entire label of each one.
He cleans and cleans. The sinks are shining and the walls have never looked whiter. The floorboards are polished and there isn't a speck of dust anywhere to be seen. After four and a half hours the place looks great to Spencer and he decides on another shower.
He steps in the water and feels the water beating down on him. Yet he doesn't feel the temperature, the usual warm comfort of a shower is now just beating on his back. Spencer washing the sweat and cleaning supplies off of himself in a hurry before rushing out. Pulling a towel around himself he walks towards their bed and snuggles up on his side.
He still sleeps as though someone will be crawling into the space left over, the place fit Derek perfectly. The place where the love of his life is supposed to be sleeping.
Spencer gets up and grabs boxers, they aren't his and he realizes that the moment they are around his hips, but they give him a closeness he needs to have.
Spencer flops back into bed; the whole world is still hazy. Everything he knows he knows is forgotten in the strange cloud that is grief. He pulls the blankets up to his chin; he knows that if he wanted to cocoon them around himself he could. Yet, he can't bring himself to claim the whole bed; this was their bed, it wasn't right for him to sleep in it alone.
It was something that was important to both of them, something both of them spent time in.
Spencer curled up with his pillow, he knew he should be feeling more but he didn't, he didn't feel anything and for that moment, it was glorious oblivion.