Dr. Ratio - cold husband (4 parts!)

Part 1: A House Smelling of Bleach and Fear The sunset over the private sector always looked the same: a lazy, blood-orange sun slowly drowned in the sharp tips of the hedges, casting long, ugly shadows across the perfectly mown lawns. Your path from the gate to the porch took exactly fourteen steps. You knew this because you counted them every day, trying to still the trembling in your hands. The house greeted you with a deafening silence and the sharp, nose-stinging scent of bleach. Veritas hated germs as much as he hated ignorance. You had barely managed to drop your bag from your shoulder when the steady, dry clatter of porcelain against the countertop drifted from the kitchen. "Five minutes later than usual," his voice, devoid of emotion, cut through the air like a scalpel. You froze in the hallway. Veritas Ratio stood at the kitchen island, impeccable in his snow-white shirt, sleeves neatly rolled to the elbows. He did not turn around. His attention was focused on a cup of black coffee, the steam from which rose in a perfectly straight column. "I... I was held up at the university," you exhaled, feeling the familiar spasm catch in your throat. "And at the part-time job today, there were so many people, the flyers weren't moving well, I had to stay until the very end..." "Excuses are food for the mediocre," he finally turned, and the light of the setting sun glinted off his golden spectacles, hiding his eyes. "Look at the floor, my dear." You lowered your gaze. Near the threshold, next to your sneakers, lay a tiny, almost imperceptible spot of dried mud. "I asked you for cleanliness. For discipline. But you, it seems, are too busy handing out waste paper on street corners to show basic respect for the space in which you live. Or, perhaps, your foreign language faculty has relaxed your brain so much that you have forgotten the meaning of the word 'order'?" Tears began to sting your throat. You wanted to tell him how tired you were, how your back ached from hours of standing on your feet, how hard it was to balance your fifth year and domestic life with a man who noticed every speck of dust but failed to notice the bruises under your eyes. But you remained silent. "By evening, this place will be sterile," he added, sipping his coffee. "I have a student coming, Dasha. I will not allow her to see this chaos. Go to your room. Your appearance... is depressing." You hurried up the stairs to your room. To the one place that was your only refuge, even though the shelves there were lined with books he had chosen, and the walls were hung with your wedding photos—the ones where you both smiled, while his hand lay possessively on your shoulder.

Part 2: A Knock in the Mirror and Stranger's Eyes The evening dragged on agonizingly long. You sat on the bed, hugging your knees, listening to the muffled voices from the first floor. Veritas’s voice—monotonous, lecturing—and the thin, timid voice of Dasha. She was diligent. She was "correct." Exactly what he wanted you to be. At some point, the voices went quiet. Footsteps sounded—Dasha went to find the restroom. You heard the door to your room slowly creak open. The girl peered inside, her eyes widening at the sight of you—tear-stained, disheveled, trembling. "Oh... sorry, I think I have the wrong door," she whispered, but she didn't leave. "Is everything okay with you?" You raised your head, wiping your face with your sleeve. "Everything is fine. Just exhaustion. You should go back, Professor Ratio doesn't like to wait. His patience has very precise mathematical boundaries." She nodded and quickly disappeared. And you... you turned your gaze to the mirror standing by the window. In the twilight, your reflection seemed strange. Blurred. But it wasn't the lighting. Behind your back, where there should have been a blank wall, a thick, dense shadow stirred. It was taller than a human, devoid of clear contours, but you felt its gaze with your skin. Icy, scrutinizing. You blinked—the shadow vanished. Only your pale face remained, and the quiet rustle of antidepressants in the nightstand drawer. During the night, the nightmare came. You dreamed you were walking through the hallway of this house. The floor under your feet felt sticky, and the walls felt alive. He was standing in the living room. Veritas. He stood by the window, his back to you. "Veritas?" you called out. He slowly began to turn. His movements were jerky, like a broken automaton. When he finally faced you, you screamed, but the sound was trapped in your lungs. He had no face. Where {{poss}} eyes and mouth should have been, there yawned an absolute, oily blackness. A hollow abyss. He lunged forward, opening that maw wider than the laws of anatomy allow, and the world exploded into static. You woke up at three in the morning, gasping with terror. Your heart hammered against your ribs, sweat stinging your eyes. You wandered to the kitchen to drink some water, hoping the cold would calm you. But there was a light on in the kitchen. Veritas sat at the table, surrounded by stacks of papers. He didn't even lift his head. "Three in the morning. Another bout of irrational fear?" his voice sounded drier than usual. "Instead of sleeping and restoring your cognitive functions, you wander the house, interfering with my work. You complain about lack of sleep, about the complexity of the material, but you yourself show flagrant disrespect for sleep hygiene. Show at least a shred of discipline. Let me sleep, since I am the only one in this house who takes responsibility for our future." You stood by the sink, clutching the glass so hard your knuckles turned white. You wanted to tell him about the shadow. About the abyss instead of his face. But you knew the answer. "Go to sleep," he snapped. "And take a pill. The blue one. It seems your dosage is no longer coping with your imagination."

Part 3: The Collapse and Two "Mediocres" The days merged into a gray, viscous mass. You existed in a strange fog: at times you would find yourself in a university lecture hall, not remembering how you got there, or you would stare for a long time at a page of a book where the letters turned into dancing insects. You dismissed it as chronic fatigue, the stress before your degree, the endless pressure from Veritas. You were simply… absent-minded. It seemed to you that the world around was slightly blurred, as if you were looking at it through a dusty glass. The climax came in the evening, at the end of the semester. The air in the house was electrified. You were sitting at your laptop when his heavy, measured steps sounded behind you. Veritas approached closely; his presence felt like a granite cliff ready to collapse. "Well?" he threw out curtly. "Show me your successes, or, more accurately, the lack thereof." With trembling fingers, you opened the file with your grades. In the grade column, among a steady row of 'A's, two 'B's glowed for Physics and Calculus. For anyone else, this would be a triumph. For the home of Doctor Ratio, it was a brand of shame. Veritas leaned over your shoulder. You smelled his cologne—cold sandalwood and steel. He was silent for a long time, and this silence was more terrifying than a scream. "A pathetic result," he finally pronounced, and a cold fury cut through his voice. "So much time, effort, and my nerves… spent on you absolutely for free. And this is what I see? Mediocrity. Laziness. Two 'B's are just the beginning of your downfall, my dear. Today it's two 'B's, tomorrow it’s 'C's, and the day after you will turn into social ballast." "But Veritas…" you turned around, your eyes filling with tears. "The professors were very strict; the Physics teacher spared no one! I tried, really…" "Strict teachers?" He suddenly slammed his palm on the table, making the laptop jump. "What a convenient excuse for a nobody! I will NOT tolerate such mediocrity in my house!" You jumped up from the chair, feeling resentment boil inside you. All that nonsense, all that sludge that had accumulated in your head for weeks, suddenly splashed out. "You are not my father to scold me like this for grades!" "You're right. I'm not your father," he took a step toward you, towering over you, his eyes flashing behind the lenses of his glasses with something terrifying. "But I am your spouse. Unfortunately. Given that you constantly behave like a scattered teenager. Your father, perhaps, tolerated such stupidity. I do not." "I was never an 'A' student!" you shouted, choking on tears. "I didn't have your gold medal, I didn't live locked up behind textbooks! Yes, I don't understand Physics, I love languages! I had a childhood, I had friends, joy! And you… you're just a dry machine!" Veritas froze. His face contorted. This was no longer just anger—it was the insulted self-esteem of a man who had laid his life on the altar of knowledge. He suddenly swung and struck the wall right above your head. A crack rang out—a deep dent remained in the wallpaper. "Get out!" he growled right into your face. "Out of my sight! You ungrateful wretch… I don't want to see you for a week!" "Are you so pissed off by the truth?" you hissed, losing your mind from the pain. And then came the blow. Sharp, backhanded. Your head flew to the side, hitting the wall, and for a moment, it went dark before your eyes. And in that flash of darkness, you saw him again—not Veritas, but that tall black silhouette with the bottomless maw.

Part 4: Awakening in a Nightmare You slid down the wall, pressing your palm to your burning cheek. Veritas stood over you, his breathing heavy, the hand he had struck you with trembling noticeably. For a moment, a look akin to horror at his own action flickered in his eyes, but he quickly composed himself, putting on his usual mask of coldness. "I warned you," he spat venomously and walked out, slamming the door. After this, life finally turned into a surreal horror. The Shadow began to haunt you everywhere. You saw it in the reflection of a kitchen knife while you were cutting vegetables; it stood in the corner of the living room when you vacuumed the floor. Ratio gave orders mechanically; he stopped looking at you, only coldly pointing out flaws in your cleaning. "You missed a corner again," he would say, passing by. "Has the degradation already affected your basic motor functions as well?" Once, while you were mopping the floor, you looked in the mirror in the hallway and screamed so loud you tore your voice. In the reflection, instead of you, stood it. A black figure with your hair, but without a face. You recoiled, knocking over the bucket of soapy water. Veritas ran out at the sound. He saw you—sobbing on the wet floor, in a puddle of soapy water. "Again?" he sighed, and in that sigh there was so much fatigue and… hidden pain that you didn't notice. "You can't even hold a bucket. Get up. You are pathetic." But the peak happened on the roof. You didn't remember how you got there. Just at some point, you realized you were standing on the very edge, the wind whipping your hair, and below was the cold concrete. You looked down with dull indifference. The Shadow whispered in your ear: "Jump. It's the only logical way out. Rid him of yourself." "And what are you trying to prove?" Veritas’s voice sounded from behind. He stood at the exit to the roof, arms crossed over his chest. His face was pale, almost gray in the moonlight. "Suicide is the lot of the weak. If you survive, you will become an invalid. A burden. You can barely cope with daily life as it is, and this way… you will simply finally destroy the remnants of your dignity." You turned to him, and your face contorted with hatred. "A burden? I'm standing here, I want to die, and you talk to me about being a 'burden'?! You're a monster, Veritas! You are that very monstrous creature from my dreams!" He remained silent. He just looked at you, and suddenly his shoulders slumped. He approached closer—not abruptly, but cautiously, as one approaches a wounded beast. "Did you take your antidepressants today?" he asked quietly. You froze. "What? What… pills?" "My dear…" he called you that for the first time in a long while, and there was so much bitterness in that word that you flinched. "You are sick. You have severe depression with psychotic symptoms. You forget entire days. You see things that aren't there. I… I'm trying to keep you afloat, but you are drowning and dragging me down with you." He pulled a prescription form and a jar of pills from his pocket. "You were at the psychiatrist three days ago. You don't remember this? You shouted that a devil lives in your mirror. We… we've been fighting this for six months." The world around you tilted. All these visions, the shadow, his "monstrosity"—it all began to form into a different, frightening picture. You saw him as cruel because your sick brain distorted his strictness, turning it into sadism. You saw a monster because your mind could not bear reality. Veritas stepped even closer and reached out his hand. His fingers, long and elegant, touched your cheek—the very one where the mark from the blow had already faded. "I am not perfect," he whispered, and unbidden moisture glinted in his eyes. "I don't know how to… comfort the way they write in your silly books. But I am here. I am still here, even though anyone else would have left long ago. Come to me, you foolish creature. Please." You took a step from the edge, falling into his arms. He squeezed you so hard it became difficult to breathe, burying his face in your hair. "I will call a doctor," he said hollowly into the crown of your head. "You need to go to a clinic. I can no longer cope alone. I cannot lose you because of your own head. If you don't want to live for yourself—live for my peace of mind. That is an order, understood?"