Rhapsody on a Theme (6 page)

“Yeah, right, with that gob on it?” Paul snorted. “Anyway, Lillian’s nice enough, ugly as sin. I dunno, makes me think maybe there’s something in this.”

“Well, it
would
be like Ethan to fall hard, fast, and permanent,” Darren said. “Whatever. Good luck to him, I suppose.”

“Mm. There’ll be meet-and-greet with her soon, I imagine,” Paul said, and paused. “How’re you two?”

“Disgusting as ever.”

“Darren,” Jayden scolded, putting the comb again and crawling back under the duvet. “He’s got the doctor in the morning, he’s moody,” he called at the phone, and Darren rolled his eyes.

“He’s always moody. Permanent PMS.”

“Yeah, it’s my ovaries playing up,” Darren said dryly.

“Getting doped up again?”

“I hope not,” Darren said sourly, and Jayden patted the bed beside him invitingly, flicking the TV off entirely with the remote. “I gotta go, Paul. Wife’s calling.”

“Shut your face. Bye Paul,” Jayden added, and Darren tossed the phone back onto the side table as he crawled up the mattress and let Jayden bury him in a hug. “It’ll be fine tomorrow,” Jayden murmured into that damp hair, and kissed his temple.

“Mm. You still coming?”

“Course I’m coming,” Jayden said, pinching a bare shoulder, and Darren wriggled under the duvet with him, shockingly warm. Best part of sleeping with him, in Jayden’s wholly experienced opinion. “Love you, you know.”

“Yeah, I figured.”

Jayden rolled his eyes.

“Would you love me if I looked like the back of a bus?” Darren asked after a minute.

Jayden dared. “Who says you don’t?”

He regretted it, when Darren shoved a pillow over his face, and he didn’t, when he surfaced again to that exasperated, gorgeous smile.

* * * *

The doctors’ surgery was smaller than the one near Darren’s old flat, and cosy in a kind of old-carpet-and-antique-furniture way. None of the waiting room chairs matched. The typical part of doctors’ surgeries was almost startling against the old care-home-esque décor: the electronic board that summoned the patients was almost oppressive, and the fat receptionist in her white uniform out of place.

Jayden slid his hand into Darren’s, and the board flashed.
Mr. Darren T. Peace to Dr. Zielinski, Room 3.
“Want me to come?” he asked quietly.

“Yeah.”

Darren was understandably quiet. He’d seen two different GPs at the Southampton surgery. One had pointed him in the direction of a counselling service that he would have had to pay for, and ignored him when he refused to do so; the other had immediately put him on heavy antidepressants that had done more damage than good, and into a counselling programme that had actively upset him; Jayden had been summoned in the middle of the night from Bristol by a worried Rachel after Darren had locked himself in his room for nearly thirty hours. (Thankfully, Darren had done it to
prevent
himself doing anything stupid, but the antidepressants had been binned.) It had been horrendous, and hadn’t helped at all, and Darren had been reeling for
weeks
afterwards trying to stabilise and recover a bit. He had been upset, clingy, and kind of in shock. It had been
horrible
.

So Jayden didn’t argue and simply let himself be taken into the consultation room by the hand.

“Good morning.” The doctor smiled genially. “I’m sorry for the wait; we had a bit of an incident earlier. I’m Dr. Zielinski; which one of you is Darren?”

Dr. Zielinski was a very tall, thin man of maybe fifty or fifty-five, with thin glasses on the end of a thin nose. He had a thin beard, thin, greying hair, and long, thin fingers steepled on his knee. Although he was smiling, he was also inscrutable.

“Me,” Darren said shortly.

“Well, I would say it’s nice to meet you, but it’s never nice to visit the doctor, is it? How can I help, Darren?”

Darren worked his jaw. He still hated this part, and Jayden squeezed his fingers. “He’s depressed,” he supplied gently. “And we want to, you know, do something about it but his last two doctors were…not great.”

“Crap,” Darren translated.

“And you are?”

“Jayden Phillips. I’m his boyfriend.”

“And are you a long-term partner, Jayden?”

“Yes.”

“All right.” The doctor brought up a file on his computer screen. Jayden began to feel a little less wary. The previous doctor hadn’t liked him being in the room for these talks, although Jayden had never worked out whether she’d been homophobic or whether she’d swallowed the handbook on patient confidentiality. She’d cited it often enough. “Darren, do I have your permission to discuss your medical details with Jayden?”

“Yeah.”

“All right. Now I do have your medical history here, but I prefer to hear it from the patient in most cases. How long do you think you’ve been depressed?” The doctor flipped open a notebook.

“Since I was ten or twelve. So…ten, twelve years since.”

The doctor began to scribble. “Were you treated as a teenager?”

“No.”

“Are you depressed all the time, or does it come and go?”

Darren shrugged. “I have bad days. Moods. But it’s always there underneath. Like a shadow. Doesn’t mean it’s necessarily
dark
, but there’s always a shadow.”

The doctor nodded, writing furiously. “And what treatment have you received, if any?”

“M’seeing a counsellor.” Darren
hated
the counselling, he’d been through three already. He didn’t like the latest one, Elaine, any better, and Jayden kind of knew that it was doomed in the long run. “I don’t like it, though. I don’t think it really helps.”

“And the last doctor had him on pills, but he got worse,” Jayden interjected. “Citalopram.”

“Yes,” the doctor turned back to the file, “I did have a quick read-through. Darren, do you know if either of your parents suffered from mental illness?”

“My grandparents killed themselves.”

Jayden’s hand clenched, along with his gut. He hadn’t known that, and he stared incredulously at Darren. “They what?”

“Granddad Peace,” Darren said. “He hanged himself before I was born. And Grandma Akbar took an overdose when I was about thirteen. She was bipolar, though, I know that, I remember Mother talking about it.”

Jayden squeezed his hand hard.

“And Father is on antidepressants at the moment, but Mother divorced him a couple of years ago, so I don’t know if that’s a long-term thing.”

The doctor hummed thoughtfully. “Dr. Johnson kept extensive notes on the patterns and symptoms you reported, Darren, and I have a few suspicions. Do you feel depressed about any particular aspect of your life right now?”

Darren frowned. “Not really.”

“And do the moods occur independently of a bad day? That is to say, if your day at work was terrible, do you develop a depressive mood?”

“No, he gets bitchy,” Jayden blurted out, and Darren smiled faintly.

“No,” he confirmed.

“Mm. As I thought. I think you’re suffering from a chemical imbalance rather than an environmental problem, probably inherited from one or both of your parents. The good news for you is that while counselling can teach you some excellent coping techniques, ultimately, talking therapy is quite rarely a full cure when the problem is chemical rather than environmental. Talking therapy tends to work better when there is something in the patient’s environment strongly influencing their symptoms.”

“So…you’ll medicate him?” Jayden whispered.

“Unfortunately, I also see here that you have a history of suicidal behaviour,” the doctor continued.

Darren’s jaw tightened. Jayden bit his lip and squeezed Darren’s hand.

“Many antidepressants are unsuitable for patients who have already attempted suicide and I am…reluctant to offer most types of antidepressant to you because of it, I will admit,” Dr. Zielinski explained. Jayden shifted a little closer until his shoulder bumped Darren’s. “The problem with antidepressants is that they make things worse before they make them better. If a patient is already suicidal, the risk of inducing further suicidal behaviour is very strong and that is the last thing we want here. I’m hesitant to use medication, especially given the notes about the last attempt.”

Darren stared at the floor; Jayden let go of his hand to put an arm around his shoulders and kiss his temple.

“I think we’ll begin treating this at a low level and work our way up until we start making a difference.” Dr. Zielinski decided, sitting back. “Jayden, do you live with Darren?”

“Yes.”

“So you know most of what he does on a day-to-day basis?”

“Yes.”

“Does he have a balanced diet?”

“Um, yeah, fairly balanced,” Jayden shrugged. “He’s a bit of a dustbin, actually, he’ll eat anything.”

“What about exercise?”

“I box twice a week. And I’m a crime scene examiner. Not exactly an office job.”

“Any excessive habits? Alcohol, drugs, cigarettes, caffeine, that kind of thing? Any addictions?”

“No drugs,” Jayden said immediately, almost bristling at the question. “Or smoking. And…well, I mean, he’s not tee-total, but he doesn’t drink much.”

“How many units per week, on average?”

“Only one or two,” Jayden said. “You know, like, he sometimes has a couple of lagers on Friday night.” Curry night, when Rachel made one of her insanely good curries. “He drinks a
lot
of coffee, though. Like, he gets through a big jar in a month, easy. On his own.”

“Two,” Darren corrected. “I have one at work too.”

Jayden rolled his eyes and huffed.

“And not to get too personal, but how is your sex life?”

Jayden blinked; Darren seemed unruffled. “Fine,” he replied. “Couple of times a week, usually. Sometimes more.”

“And you aren’t suffering any sexual dysfunction? Low sex drive, erectile problems, premature ejaculation, any of that?”

“No.”

“Any friction?”

“Sorry?” Jayden blurted out, going pink. He felt hot and uncomfortable, and the doctor’s inscrutable expression wasn’t helping. He could…kind of see why he wanted to know, but…really? Did he
have
to? That was private!

“Is your sex life causing any problems between you? Differing sex drives or tastes, sexual frustration for either of you?”

“No,” Jayden insisted, blinking. Darren smirked, looking amused.

The doctor hummed. “All right. I’m going to prescribe a diet sheet, and I would recommend increasing your boxing to three times a week if possible. Sex and exercise are both excellent for the production of chemicals in the brain that make us happy, and they also build self-confidence and self-respect that is often lacking in patients with depression. Keep up the exercise, cut down on the caffeine—one cup a day, maximum—and I would strongly advise against drinking alcohol. A lager a week is probably fine, but alcohol
is
a depressant and won’t be helping your brain chemistry in the slightest.”

Jayden instantly decided to ban alcohol
entirely
, not just in the house.

“Jayden, I want you in particular to keep a record of Darren’s mood and temperament. I’m uncertain at the moment whether there is an element of bipolar disorder, and the medicinal approach for bipolar disorder can be quite different. I will hold off on antidepressants until we have pinned down the exact nature of the problem more exactly.” The printer ran off a sheet, and it was handed to Jayden.

“What about counselling?” Darren asked.

“For the moment, keep attending,” the doctor said, and Darren frowned. “Even if you don’t feel it’s helping, I get the impression from Dr. Johnson’s notes that you have a tendency to bottle things up, and that won’t help.”

“Oh, just a
bit
,” Jayden said tartly; Darren pinched his arm.

“If you can get into the habit of letting your emotions out, which counselling should help with, then you will likely be reducing the stress your mind is under. It won’t stop the moods, but it may lessen their severity or their tendency towards rash action. It may also push you towards actively seeking help and company when you feel low, which of course reduces the risk of suicidal behaviour.”

Jayden squeezed Darren in a light hug, and nodded to the doctor. “Okay,” he said. “We’ll try this new…”

“Regime,” Darren said.

“It’s just coffee.”

“Yeah? You try getting me up for work tomorrow.”

The doctor smiled. “Perhaps ease him into the cutting down,” he suggested. “Lower his intake over a week or two. I imagine that approach will be better for your relationship, in any case.”

Darren huffed a laugh and nodded, rising. “Thanks,” he said, actually shaking the doctor’s hand, and Jayden wound their fingers together as they were shown out. Who cared what the rest of the waiting room thought?

“Okay?” he murmured as they reached the door, and Darren shrugged. “Darren.”

“I am, I’m just…frustrated,” he said eventually. The wind tugged at his hair, and his face was tense behind his curls and glasses. He looked almost angry. “It feels like I keep trying to sort things out, and nobody in the NHS is actually fucking interested.”

Jayden hugged him, fisting his left hand in the soft warmth of Darren’s fleece at his shoulder. His hair tickled Jayden’s face. “But you’re trying,” he murmured. “That’s the first step, and Dr. Zielinski seemed all right. Maybe he can help us.”

Darren hummed and took a sighing breath. “You’re not in until after lunch, right?”

“Mhmm.”

“…Let’s get a…”

Jayden raised his eyebrows.

“Tea,” Darren amended. “Or a shake or a hot chocolate or something.”

“Okay.” Jayden kissed the corner of his mouth. “Let’s go down to Southsea, then? Sit out on the promenade?”

Darren nodded, sliding an arm around Jayden’s waist and flicking those pale green eyes over his face. Jayden cocked his head, frowning.

“What’s going on in there?” he murmured, prodding Darren’s temple with one finger.