To Be a Caregiver | an agere story

chapter 1. work is hard

warning :: panic attack / being triggered

Stanley's POV

The alarm clock starts ringing and I force my body to get up and shut it off. Danny moved it across the room so that I would have to get up to turn it off. It was smart, don't get me wrong, but it's also 6am in the morning. So I'm gonna be cranky about it. I whine and unplug the alarm. I can hear Danny in the kitchen already, most likely making coffee as usual. We both have jobs that start extremely early, so we get to see each other before we go. I grin as I walked up to him. "Hello love." I said as I pulled out a chair and sat down.

"Good morning babe." Danny says in his gruffy morning voice. Yep, he made coffee. I never understood how he could drink that crap. It taste disgusting. But he says it wakes him up in the morning. "Im gonna be having a late shift tonight. So I probably won't see you for bed." He sounded extremely dissapointed while telling me that. Its sort of strange but it made me happy when he sounded dissapointed he couldn't see me. He's never been one to show that he cares so the little things made me melt.

"I'm gonna miss you.." I say in my pouty tone as I look up at him. "I'm gonna miss you too babe. But you know we have to pay rent for this apartment yeah? This is how we do that hun." I nodded and stood up to give him a kiss. "Ah ah ah. Wait up cowboy. Go brush your teeth first. Stinky." He smirked as he took a sip of his coffee. "You're so mean!" I say back as I walked over to our bathroom and pulled out my toothbrush from the little cup we had on the sink. Mines was a light baby blue brush and his was a pastel green one. We wanted to match.

I'm just about to step out the door when my boss gives me a call. I take a glance ay Danny and he shrugs. My boss always calls randomly at random times to tell me stupid things so we aren't surprised. I work at a local Dunkin donuts, not that fancy I know. But it's all I can really do right now especially because I have sensory issues and being around too much noise and such are bad for me. I pick up and sigh. "Hello Mandy." I say in my 'professional' voice, or so Danny likes to call it. "Hello Stanley. Glad you picked up. I wanted to call in and let you know that you don't have to come in today if you don't want to. I noticed you were due for a day off, so if you'd like, go ahead and take it." The phone buzzed to show that Mandy had hung up.

"Danny!" I called out excitedly. "What's up Stan my man?" He joked as he looked up at me from his seat. "Mandy said I don't have to go into work today if I don't want to. We can spend the day together until you go to work." I said practically jumping out of my seat. "That's awesome. Mandy is usually so uptight about days off. She must be feeling nice today." Danny's never liked Mandy, and he had a reason to not like her. She's stubborn and rude.. but let's not get into details about her right now. I wanna focus on spending time with my lover until he has to go. "Should we watch a movie and cuddle?" He suggest as he opens his arms and sits on the couch.

"I'd love to." I chuckle out as I walk over and sit down on the couch next to him. Time flies very fast when you're with someone you want to stay with forever. By the time we watched 2 movies it was already 8am and Danny had to head to work now. "I don't want you to go dannnyyy." I say childishly. "I know I know. It's gonna be okay. I'll be home as soon as I can okay? While I'm gone enjoy your day and try not to stay cooped up in here. Go see your friends." He kisses me goodbye and left. Today was going to be boring I could just feel it. I called up my friend Riley and asked him if he wanted to hang out. "Danny is at work until 9. So if you want, you can come over and we can do something or whatever."

"Gonna have to stop you right there Stan. I've got schoolwork to do remember? You might've left college a year ago but I'm still here dude. I'll try and see when my schedule is clear though and we can set a date there to hang." I grumbled and flopped back onto the couch. Damn. If Riley isn't available then I don't have anyone else to hang out with. Riley is my only friend besides Danny. My other friends are just boring and only talk about dumb things. Riley really understands what I like and what to talk about. I guess I'll just have to wait for Danny to get home then.

I decided that since there's really nothing else to do I'll just watch that new scary movie that came out. I got up and made some popcorn for the movie before sitting criss crossed on the couch and pressing play on the movie. I saw that there was a gore warning but I thought that I'd be able to handle it. I was wrong though. I watched and thought it was actually quite boring until the room got quiet I knew that there was going to be a jump scare. I mentally prepared myself but I still jumped anyways. The popcorn fell on the couch and I huffed.

"Shit." I said out loud as I started to pick it up. I placed the bowl on the coffee table after I was done cleaning up and looked back up at the movie only to see a horrible gruesome scene. I had turned the volume down so the movie didn't distract me while cleaning up the popcorn so I didn't see that the gore had started. I should of listened to the warning. Tears started to fall down my cheeks and I tried to rub them off but new ones kept replaced the last. I turned off the movie and sat on the couch with my knees held up to my face. I shakily grabbed my phone and pressed on Danny's contact. I was so hesitant to call him but I knew that I couldn't just sit there and let myself panic.

"Hey babe what's u--" Danny stopped and paused mid sentence when he heard what sounded like crying and sniffling. "Stanley? Are you crying baby?" He asked confused as he lowered his voice so his other coworkers wouldn't hear him. "I'm sorry Danny. I watched a scary movie and..I didn't listen to the gore warning and now I'm.. triggered and I can't.. I don't.. I don't know." I said shakily through the phone as I clenched my sweater. "Okay okay, I get out in just one more hour babe. Hang on okay? For now go get your weighted blanket and wait for me. I'll be there soon. Don't forget to breathe." I took his advice and grabbed my blanket.

My weighted blanket usually made things better but this time it didn't. I was just sobbing under it. God I really need Danny to come home now. My attack I'd only getting worse and I'm getting even more stressed out because I'm so hopeless against it. Me being stressed and anxious only worsens the attack until I can barely breathe. Usually Danny is there to help me though, but today, he's not here. And I'm not sure how to deal with it alone. He's always been there to help me with my attacks.

Danny's POV

I drop my bags on the floor as I open the door and rush inside to find Stanley. "Stanley? Where are you babe?" I call out. I didn't need a response because I saw him on the couch, bundled up in his blanket. Staring at me with his eyes full of tears. "Oh gosh. Hey there. It's okay." I say In a comforting manner as I sit down next to him. "How about you come here and I'll stroke your hair like you like it, and I'll make you a sandwich with tomatoes like you like. Would that help?" I offered because I knew that having options helps Stanley. "Yes please." He mumbled out as he crawled over to me and laid his head in my lap. "You're a pretty boy you know that? I love you babe." I scratched his scalp with my fingers and ran my hands through his soft hair to make him feel safe.

"The gore wasn't real, it's okay. Movies make fake gore sometimes it looks to real it's scary. You have a right to be scared baby. It's okay." I placed a kiss to Stanley's head and continued to soothe him. I gently got up and went to make his sandwich. "Do you want me to take the crust off of it?' I called out to him. I was just trying to see if he was verbal or not at the moment. "Uh-huh." He seemed semi-verbal. I nodded and cut off the crust as I handed him the plate with the sandwich on it. "I'll go run you a bath so you can wash all the bad emotions off of you love." Stanley looked at me with a smile and nodded. God I love how he smiles when he looks at someone, he looks so cute.

"Stanley the bath is done!" I yell out as I finish adjusting the water. "Thank you for always taking care of me honey.." Stanley says, almost in an embarrassed tone. "It's no problem babe. But, we really do need to look into some coping mechanisms for when these things happen. Because I'm not always gonna be available to help , and we both know that hun. So tomorrow I say that we search online for ways to relieve stress or how to ground yourself during these attacks." Stanley agreed as he shut the door. "I think so too baby. Tommorow before we go to work we can look for some coping mechanisms." I walked over to the couch and sat down , letting myself sink into it. Today was not a good day at all.