The Year We Had (MCYT AU)

6: Panic

TW! Depiction of a panic attack. Please take care of yourself!

Wilbur really hoped that today would be better than the last day of school he had experienced.

Of course, the bar was pretty low. His last school day was almost four months ago now, and ended in him dragging his brother's unconscious body from the wreckage of what used to be the science pavilion, choking on smoke and his own tears. He could still taste the smoke in his lungs. It still burnt. He blinked hard, shaking himself from his thoughts and looking to the front of the room.

He wasn't there anymore. He was at Montville, and not in a science building. He didn't have to deal with that until later. The teacher at the front of the room, whose name he couldn't remember for the life of him, was talking about the erosion along the west coast of America. Wilbur wrote a paper on that once. At his old school. In his old life.

The teacher began to walk around the room, handing out worksheets for everyone to fill in, Wilbur murmured a thanks as one was handed to him, and looked down at it, trying to concentrate. Trying to focus. His chest was tight, and his breathing felt uneven and jarring. Like the smoke was still there, pushing him down, choking him and all he could do was cry.

He took a sip of water and tried to ground himself. Not today. Not fucking today.

"Um, excuse me?" A timid voice asked, snapping Wilbur out of his daze. He turned towards it and found a girl with blonde hair smiling politely. "Hi, this is a group activity."

He blinked at her. "Oh, d'you want me to move?"

She chuckled, shaking her head and sliding across so that she was sat next to him. "I don't have a partner yet, and you don't seem to either...?" She ended it in a questioning tone, and that was enough to bring Wilbur to his senses.

"No, I don't." He agreed, managing a smile. "Sorry. I'm Wilbur."

"My name's Niki." She introduced, smiling back at him.

The class around them began to talk quietly amongst themselves, filling in their worksheets. Niki turned her sheet towards him and pointed at the first question, reading it aloud and then explaining what she knew. He listened intently before adding what he could remember, and before they knew it they had an answer on the page.

Niki was nice, he decided. She was the first person to talk to him without some sort of pre-existing obligation, and he liked the way that she joked around when she worked. He smiled a lot as they filled in the worksheet, their humor bouncing perfectly off one another. He was actually disappointed when the bell sounded, signaling the end of the class, and they had to split off.

"I'll see you around?" He asked, eyebrows raised hopefully as they stepped into the corridor.

"Yeah." She said with a warm smile. "See you around, Wil."

With that, they split off and went their separate ways, with Niki walking one way and Wilbur the other. He took the stairs down to the ground floor and broke into a quick walk as he headed for the dreaded science building.

As he stepped inside, he took note of all the exits. Wiring them into his brain, whether he wanted them or not. His class was on the third floor, and he counted the fire escapes as he made his way up the stairs. There were four, including the ones on the ground floor. Good. His old school only had one.

When he finally stepped into the classroom, he was strangely calm. His eyes scanned the students already there, and he was surprised to see Technoblade sitting at one of the tables towards the back of the room beside Dream, who was already scribbling something down in his notebook.