Gloom & sunshine

Chapter 16: Anxiety

Geoff sat in the office waiting room, wringing his hands, looking at Jack every minute to make sure his friend hadn't disappeared.

"It'll be okay, Sunshine, I promise." Jack smiled, taking one of Geoff's hands to keep him from breaking his fingers. "You're just talking, talking to someone with an objective point of view. It'll be good, nothing bad will happen. I'll be right out here the whole time, I swear."

A few minutes later a tall man, tan skin in a dark suit and glasses with salt speckled black hair, a well groomed beard accented his chiseled jaw and cheekbones. Geoff's eyebrows quirked, he glanced to Jack who looked a little confused.

Dr. Slav was basically just an older Jack who had his life more together.

Geoff sighed and stood, shaking the doctor's hand and going into his office, glancing back at Jack. Now Geoff knew why Alex trusted Dr. Slav so much; the older man had to have reminded Alex of his best friend.

"Have a seat Geoff." Dr. Slav said gently, gesturing to the plush navy blue couch in his office. Geoff sat, and watched the man in the suit grab a notepad and sit across from Geoff in a red high back chair. "Alright, Geoff, where would you like to begin?" Geoff took a deep breath, shakily removed his jacket, revealing his bandaged arms to the doctor.

"Well..."

Awsten was so close to banging his head against the tempered glass window of the airplane, they were delayed due to some dumbass storm somewhere in their flight path, Alex, now back on great terms with Awsten, was mother-henning him about their flight, about Geoff, about what to do when they landed. Annoyed, stressed, and anxious to get to LA, Awsten lied and told Alex they were taking off so he'd have to call him later, and turned off his phone.

Otto was chill.

Too chill, in Awsten's opinion.

The drummer was just sitting there reading a book while Awsten slowly started to lose his shit. It didn't help that they had boarded the plane, then announced the delay, but didn't allow anyone to deboard. The plane was starting to get humid, people were getting irritated, and Awsten was horrendously aware that Otto was too fucking chill.

"Calm down, getting pissy won't make the plane take off faster. Starting a riot will only delay us more." Otto mumbled to Awsten, not even looking at the bleach-blond boy next to him. Awsten had died his hair stark white in a fit of manic anxiety right before their flight. Otto could almost still smell the hair bleach on him.

"How the fuck do you do that?" Awsten hissed, his leg starting to bounce from irritation, anxiety, impatience, and... oh, great. Now he had to fucking pee.

"Do what? Stay calm or know when you're about Hulk out on me?"

Awsten couldn't decide which he wanted the answer for.

"Fuck you, Otto."

Otto chuckled and continued to read his book, ignoring steadily loud growing complaints from other passengers.

Alex sat stony faced in his seat. Or... at least he thought he was.

"Lex, you're starting to scare the other passengers and flight attendants. The face you're making is psychotic."

"What? I'm not making any face." He huffed, crossing his arms.

"You are, it's like a cross between smelling a pile of shit stuck under your nose and homicidal rage." Rian said, taking the plastic cup of rosé from the flight attendant and handing it to Alex before taking his own cup of coke and rum.