small potatoes

(n.) something insignificant or unimportant

tw: depression

Today, Dick decides as he stares up at the ceiling, today will be a potato day. It’s easy for him to reach out for his phone and send a dispassionate but apologetic message to the gymnastics school calling in sick. His head is pounding behind his eyes – not painful per say but very much making its presence known. The room is dark apart from the slivers of light that sneak in through the blinds. He lets out a small groan and pulls the duvet over himself a little tighter, closing his eyes and turning on his side.

The tiredness runs bone-deep, his head hurts and he feels like his bed is going to swallow him whole. He’s meant to be going to the manor that evening for the weekend but the very thought of having to move even an inch from the bed, of having to make conversation with his family only makes his head hurt more. Just another hour, he tells himself. Then I’ll get up.

Potato days is a self-coined term Dick had come up with for the days where he simply couldn’t bring himself to do anything but stay in bed and let sleep reclaim him or simply stare into space. They’re the days where his body and mind decide they need to have a reset. The days where everything has caught up and he can’t handle it right that  moment. He tries to push it to days he won’t be missed or when he knows he might be able to skip out on plans. But those days are rare and far between and sometimes, these moments sneak up on him.

Dick’s not even entirely sure what triggered it this time. There have been no huge cases, his day and night job were going well, nothing huge in Gotham had gone down, his siblings were all alive and getting along as well as they would. The mental checklist filters through his head in a daze and he huffs out a breath. He’s still groggy, the grasp of sleep still clinging to his exhausted mind and he can’t bring himself to have another thought.  Just another hour of sleep, he repeats, then I’ll be fine.

He wakes up much too warm, eyes feeling like they were being dragged down by weights and the headache even more present than before. Prying his eyes open a fraction, he blindly searches for his phone.

1.24pm

He’d slept significantly longer than he had wanted to and the thought sends a shooting panic through his chest that goes just as quickly as it comes. Dick does the maths in his head. In total he’s had almost eleven hours of sleep now. Why is he still so exhausted? Will more sleep help?

No. No, he has to get up now or he won’t leave his bed. Shoving the covers to the side feels like he’s just run a marathon. He lies on his back for a moment with his eyes half-open staring at a mark on the ceiling he hadn’t noticed before. Squeezes his eyes shut again and takes a breath. He can do this.

I can’t do this.

And then he starts to cry.

All at once the bed feels too big, his apartment too small, his life so empty, his family too far away. and fuck, he’s lonely and tired and the work never ends and he just- he just wants a hug.

God, he just wants someone to hold him together as he falls apart.