𝗖𝗹𝗮𝗶𝗿𝘃𝗼𝘆𝗮𝗻𝘁

Mirror My Breathing

TW: Panic attack

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While making my way out of Economics class, I feel someone take a hold of my arm.

"Hey, come here." Stiles says, practically manhandling me.

"Seems like I have no choice."

Stiles ignores my comment and pulls me to the bottom of the staircase, before pointing to Mr. Stilinski. "What are they saying?"

"What's in it for me?" I ask, smirking.

"I will literally lick a toilet seat, okay? You know how nosey I am." he throws his head back and pouts, "I've gotta know!" He practically whines like a little kid.

"I was kidding, Stiles."

"Oh." He purses his lips and smiles.

I focus my hearing on only the officer and principle standing in the hallway.

"Can you hear them?" Stiles nearly gives me a heart attack, with his mouth so close to my ear that he could give me a wet willy with his tongue if he pleased.

"Shh!" I grab his face with my palm and push it away.

"I want everyone under the age of eighteen to be in their home by 9:30pm. We'd like to institute that curfew, effective immediately."

I turn my head away from the conversation and back at Stiles. "Curfew, because of the body."

"Unbelievable. My dad's out looking for a rabid animal, while the jerk-off who actually killed the girl is just hanging out, doing whatever he wants!" he slaps his hand across my arm while trying to make a point.

"Ow!" I slightly rub my upper arm before turning back to the conversation, "you can't exactly tell your dad about Derek. What are you gonna say? 'Oh, hey dad, Derek is a wolf and so is my friend Scott and my other friend Maeve, who is super hot by the way and-"

"Okay, now you're just talking good about yourself while pretend to be me!" He cuts me off.

"Are you actually offended by a fake conversation I just had?" I tilt my head and stare upwards at him.

"Uhm, for your information, yes! because I do not talk like that I would say this: 'Hey dad, Derek is a werewolf and so is my best friend Scott and my other best friend Maeve who is pretty-ISH" he shoots a glare at me, "and we know that Derek is the killer. Voila!"

"I think that's even worse." I run my hand through my hair and scratch the back of my head, trying to think of a solution.

"I can do something." Stiles says, ignoring the skepticism on my face. "I can find the other half of the body."

I stand there for a moment as I watch Stiles walk away, before running behind him to catch up. "Are you serious?!"

"Yes! It'll work, I promise you. We will go with Scott and-"

Stiles' fast words start fading away as I feel a familiar sensation in my body. My heart rate begins to rise, and I suddenly feel like I could spew the toast I ate this morning all over Stiles' shoes. oh god, I whisper under my breath. I don't know when Stiles stopped talking and started paying attention, but before I knew it, I was being quickly dragged out of the doors of the school. No please don't touch me, You know I don't like being touched when this happens, I continue whispering. I need to sit down.

"I know you don't want to be touched but we need to get some air before you get all murderous." Stiles responds, while snapping his fingers in my face. "Oh goddd we need Scott. Where's Scott?" he asks me.

"Derek's. I overheard him with Allison." I shortly answer his question before going back to ignoring every word he says.

"WHAT!?" I faintly hear.

I must've been unknowingly hyperventilating because my fingers are losing their feeling and my head feels as if it's having a hard time staying up.

"Mirror my breathing, Maeve." he takes a deep inhale before following it with an exhale.

"I cant." my vision is tunneled and my knees start buckling. "I need to sit down." I repeat to Stiles. I try to blink away the tunnel vision.

"Maeve, you need to wake up and learn how to deal with this!"

"Wake up?!" I say, trying to piece together how Stiles could be so ignorant.

"Yes Maeve, Wake. Up."

My eyes fly open and i try to sit my body up. oh come on.

"What a way to end a panic attack, huh? You may have to pay for an ambulance ride, but hey! No murderous rampage!" Stiles is chipper as usual, acting as if I didn't just stiffly faint in front of the school.

"I fainted, huh?"

"Yep! I knew you were going to, too." He laughs.

"And you didn't try to catch me?!" I nearly scream, trying once again before he pushes me back down.

"Lay down." he says quietly before answering my question, "And it was payback!"

"For?!"

"You were the one to get the last bags of spicy sweet chili doritos. I finally figured it out, yeah! That one day you came to our middle school for a walkthrough before you went there, and then you went to the vending machine, and when you came into my class to view it, your breath smelled amazing! Just. like. sweet. chili." He over-annunciates the last word, while hold his hands up in triumph.

I sigh and sit my body up. I honestly never thought he would find out because, what he doesn't know doesn't hurt him, right? Well, he really did go apeshit over those chips. And to think I thought I was gonna get away with it...shame on me, really. You can never hide anything from Stiles. He pry's it out of you. "caught me."

He doesn't say anything, and instead scoffs, happy enough with the fact that he got something right.

"How did you know I was panicking, by the way? you know - when we were inside?" I ask, holding onto his arms and making my way back up onto my feet. My body still felt weak, and my hands were still shaking.

"Your fingers." He looks down at my hands and mimics my movements with his - tapping. "You start tapping on your water bottle like crazy....You do know I used to get these too, right? I can tell."

In all honesty, I did forget about it. With Stiles the way he is, you forget that someone so upbeat and happy could suffer from something as terrifying as panic attacks. "no, I know." I lie.

"Now we need to figure out how to get you to faint every time you panic. Tadaaa! No more mauling." He throws his hands outwards and does jazz hands while smiling.

"Yeah that sounds really fun. Now let's go to Scott's house and figure out other ways to deal with this that don't include passing out."

"Okay! Let me just..." His hand reaches into his bag and frantically starts to search. I pull my backpack in front of my stomach and unzip the small pocket, pulling out a bottle of prescription pills. I drop them in his hand and smile. "You know, losing adderall on a school campus is only gonna end with someone here developing a severe dependency on them, and it won't be you."

"Yeahh..." He responds, while grabbing two and tossing them into his mouth. "So are you coming with us to investigate Derek's tonight?"

"I don't know," I respond, "I don't really want to see a dead body again."

"How do you know there's a dead body though, we're just going to investigate?"

"I guess I just have a feeling."

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A/N: Sorry this part was pretty boring! I've been really busy with school work and still wanted to get something published. I've also been having some really horrible panic attacks lately so I felt like writing one out would be therapeutic maybe? Idk. Anyways I hope you guys enjoyed it.

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