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The day already hadn’t started well.
Nothing that was anyone’s fault. Grian usually didn’t sleep well alone—sometimes, he didn’t even sleep well with his wife. Sophie didn’t care. She tried to help out—offered different types of tea, suggested sleeping with a light on, anything that they could find that could potentially work. Unfortunately, none of it worked. He’d offered to sleep on the couch, she replied that she didn’t care. She slept deeper than he did.
So, yeah. The nightmares weren’t the fault of his friends, wasn’t because of anything said or done during the first day of the meetup. He’d just been stressed as of late. Work stuff, life stuff, he was barely even surprised that he ended up with a nightmare. The nightmare itself sucked—he had wings he couldn’t use, he was sacrificing himself for the others, Jimmy had been shot and there was a bullet in his stomach and no matter how much Grian pressed his hands to the wound Jimmy just kept bleeding. He woke up with an aching chest and then the quick realisation of “oh, that was just a dream, everything is okay”. He wasn’t able to settle those fears fully. Not until he saw Jimmy at their hotel’s breakfast. (Already, he was regretting not joining Martyn and Oli in their shared room. They could have fit three people in, he would have just taken the pull-out sofa or something. He hadn’t because he was worried about accidentally waking them.)
And the others noticed.
Slowing down his pace, Mumbo brushed shoulders with him. Vicky was up ahead with the others, pointing out things to Gem as Lizzie had one arm linked with Gem’s and the other with Joel’s. Grian turned to Mumbo, who tilted his head, “You good, mate? You seem…tired.”
Grian turned away to rub at his eye, trying to ignore the tightness in his chest, “I’m alright, but thank you. Just didn’t sleep too well.”
“You could have texted me.” Mumbo offered. “We could have talked. Taken a walk or something, seen if that would have tired you out enough?”
“Nah, it’s…fine.” Grian yawned again. Weirdly enough, despite the sweater and the shirt he was wearing beneath it, he was cold. It wasn’t even that cold a day. He rubbed at his chest absentmindedly. “Didn’t want to put you out.”
“You wouldn’t be putting me out.” Mumbo replied, sticking close by him. Looking ahead, Grian shrugged. He didn’t say anything. A hand landed in between his shoulders, rubbed across his spine and settled on his left shoulder. He was tugged into Mumbo’s side—it’d look normal, just like someone messing with their friend, to anyone else. “Nightmare?”
“I’m fine.” Grian replied. Mumbo’s hand started rubbing at his upper left arm. Swallowing, Grian kept walking. He didn’t need to elaborate. Mumbo saw right through him, anyways. Honestly, being realistic, he couldn’t even hide it. Mumbo was always able to do that, he didn’t know how, even when his own chest was tight and he couldn’t quite breathe and—
Oh.
Oh, no.
Frowning, he rubbed at his chest again. Slowly, he took a breath. It didn’t feel like it worked. His breath caught, he needed—he needed to breathe. He just…couldn’t. His chest had gone tight, ribs not expanding quite right. His throat had tightened, too. Blinking, wiping at his eye with his free hand again, Grian cleared his throat. When he tried to breathe, it wasn’t working.
Panic attacks were weird. When he first had them, he genuinely believed he was going to die. He had thought he was having a heart attack, or that something else was wrong and he was dying. As he had more and more, though, it started to…change, almost? He was able to recognise that his body was freaking out, able to feel the effects, but with a strange, almost disjointed feeling. He didn’t know how to describe it. He was panicking, but also not panicking at the same time. It was weird. It was part of why he had been able to still play Dodgebolt, despite hyperventilating and feeling lightheaded the entire time.
This was no different. “I’m having a panic attack.” He said. Simple as that, and he saw Mumbo reel back a bit to look down at him with furrowed brows.
“Grian—”
“I’m not joking. I’m having a panic attack.” Now that he knew about it, he could feel it. His chest was tight, the corners of his vision were a bit too sharp, and he couldn’t really feel his fingers. “I need to sit down.”
“Okay, okay, uhm.” Mumbo glanced around, holding onto his arms. He called out for the others—not too loud. Grian was more focused on his own breathing, trying his best to steady it. Swallowing, he cleared his throat again. Mumbo pulled his hand away from his chest, away from where he’d started to hammer on it and instead got Grian to hold onto his upper arm. “Okay, okay, breathe. You’re going to be okay. Let’s get you sitting over here. Come on.”
He was pulled over to a nearby bench, forced to sit down. His head was beginning to spin, he still couldn’t feel his fingers. His vision was going spotty at the edges, he could hear his breathing and it did not sound good. Blinking, he stared ahead, wrapped his arms around himself. His breathing was worsening.
He ended up being made to lie down. He didn’t even remember who by, because his vision was dark and he just knew there was someone’s fingers in his hair and someone’s hand wrapped around his own. He was on the bench, head in someone’s lap with his legs up. Gasping, he sucked in a breath. He sounded awful. Everyone else was probably a bit worried. His fingers were cold, he could feel a bit of a shake running through his arms and the cold concrete underneath him. His head was spinning, he squeezed his eyes shut.
Everything is fine, he told himself, gritting his teeth. His head hurt, his throat hurt. It was like breathing with glass in his throat, little shards of it cutting into his skin. Whoever was holding his hand started massaging his palm and fingers. Rasping for another breath, Grian tightened his grip on whoever’s hand he was holding. He didn’t know who it was, he was barely aware that they were knelt down beside him. His hands were shaking. He could barely hold onto their hand. Actually, their fingers wrapping around his were the only reason he could.
(He’d be fine. His breathing sounded awful, the shaking and everything else sucked. But he knew he would be fine, he wasn’t actually dying, it just felt that way.)
Someone was talking to him. “—‘s okay, you’re okay, G. Charlie. Breathe.” Jimmy. That was Jimmy’s voice, Jimmy was talking to him. “Keep on breathing, you’re okay.”
Whoever had his head in their lap brushed their fingers through his hair again, smoothing it back from his face. He shivered. It might have been from how cold he was, or maybe the bench underneath him. He didn’t know. It didn’t matter. Something like that. He squeezed his eyes shut tighter again.
His breathing eased too slowly for his own liking. He could barely keep his fingers wrapped around whoever’s hand he was holding, couldn’t lift his head. His eyes were sore, his throat hurt, his chest felt heavy. It was miserable. His head was beginning to ache, he just wanted to curl up in a hole somewhere and sleep.
Blinking, Grian reached up with a shaking hand to wipe at his eyes. “Sorry.” He mumbled.
Next to him, still holding his hand, Jimmy shrugged, “You’re fine, mate. You need water or anything?”
“I have an extra bottle.” Martyn offered. When Grian tilted his head back to look for him, he found Gem was looking down at him. Apparently, his head was in her lap.
“Hi, Gem.”
“Hi, G.” She replied, cracking a smile. “Like we asked. Water?”
“Sure.”
Grian ended up falling asleep on Mumbo’s shoulder on the bus ride back to their rented house.
When he woke up, face immediately flushing with embarrassment, Mumbo just laughed it off. Vicky was resting her head on his other shoulder, she winked at Grian when she had the chance, and then they were getting off their bus and walking the rest of the way. The sun had set at some point—they’d stayed out a while longer, getting dinner at Grian’s own insistence that he was fine, he would just be quiet. To be fair, he’d had a panic attack the morning of his wedding and still survived all that chaos. Sure, he’d felt like he wanted to sleep for the next week, but friends didn’t need to know that. All they needed to know was that he would be fine, he was perfectly able of surviving the rest of the day. Heck, he was probably too tired to have another panic attack, especially one of that calibre, so he was just fine eating at some random fish and chips place. They’d picked it for Gem, since she was visiting. Lizzie and Joel insisted the place had the best fish and chips in the UK. (Honestly, Grian was glad they preferred that place over Oli’s favourite. His was in a game shop slash pub that always had people screaming over their cards. Fun, yes, but only when there was the energy for it. This was not the time.)
Their rented house wasn’t any more than a five-minute walk from the main street, weaving through a couple different side roads. Grian ended up being kept close to Mumbo’s side, and if it wasn’t Mumbo then he was being kept close to Jimmy or Martyn. Joel and Lizzie were walking side-by-side, holding hands, in front of them. They weren’t the only ones. Kirsty was tucked into Jimmy’s side, Gem and Oli were sharing jokes, and this time Grian was being dragged along by Martyn. He half-stumbled up the concrete steps, hiding the yawn behind a hand.
He sort of spaced out until suddenly, he was being handed some tea in a mug that looked like a tuxedo cat’s head. He couldn’t quite explain how it worked. It looked like something Scar would have, for some reason. Jolting, he looked up at who was giving him the mug—Vicky. “Oh. Thanks.”
“Hope you like chai.” She replied, adding, “There’s sugar and milk in it. Not a lot, but still.”
Oh. Mumbo must have told her how he liked his tea. That, or she had noticed that morning. He wasn’t sure.
The chai in his hands was a light, honeyed brown colour. Raising it to his lips, he took a sip and a deep breath. The aroma was nice, wafting around him. Man, that’s good. Mumbo settled down next to him on the couch. He was holding another mug modelled after a cat, a brown tabby that kind of reminded Grian of his cat Benji. Was that the cat’s name? He was pretty sure it was. “She’s got a natural talent for this sort of thing.”
“She does.” Grian hummed, drinking more of the chai. At the coffee table, the others were setting up a boardgame. Closing his eyes, he took another breath of the chai.