A collection of one-shots featuring various Pedro Pascal characters. Including: Din Djarin, Javier Peña, Joel Miller, Marcus Acacius, Marcus Pike, Dave York, Javi Gutierrez, Oberyn Martell, Jack "Whiskey" Daniels, and Max Phillips. Most contain expl...
summary: In the middle of the night, during a bad thunderstorm, Javier helps you through a fear-induced panic attack.
rating: T (Javier POV, age gap (about ten years), Husband Javier Peña, panic attack (physical descriptions only), emotional hurt/comfort, Javier calming you down, thunderstorm, banter, domestic fluff, suggestive mention of Javier's dick, Javier offering to help you fall back asleep by either reading you The Fellowship of the Ring or a smutty book)
word count: 1.2k+
a/n: This can be read as a standalone or part of the Learning to Live 'verse—in LTL, it takes place a few months after their wedding.
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Laredo, Texas - March, 1999
The window-shaking boom of thunder isn't what has Javier jolting awake in bed and bolting upright to turn on his bedside lamp. It's the blood-curdling scream beside him that's like a shot of adrenaline with how it wakes him from the dead of sleep with his heart pounding and has him blearily looking around the dimly lit room for any sign of danger.
Their bedroom door is still closed, and there are no intruders; rain can be heard battering against their windows, and when he focuses on his wife next to him, she's also sitting up, worry cutting through him at how her breaths are coming out too fast and shallow as she hyperventilates, and tears stain her cheeks—she's having a panic attack, triggered by the storm. Where she grew up, it rains the majority of the year, but they don't have many thunderstorms, unlike right now when it's Spring in Texas and severe weather season—it's not the storms that scare her; it's the loud noise that gets her.
He's scooting closer to her, pressing his big palm to her shirt-covered back, rubbing little circles, his voice husky and soft as he says, "We're okay, Cielito—you're okay." Javier reaches with his other hand to take her smaller one into his, putting it on his bare chest over his heart where he knows she can feel it thudding. "Focus on me, baby—look at me." Her head turns his way, and he's met with panicked eyes and glistening cheeks. "Feel my heartbeat. You feel how it's beating?" She's still breathing too fast. "Focus on the beat—you feel it?" he asks again, and she looks at their hands. "Thud, thud, thud..." he repeats at the same rhythm of his heart.
The therapist he's been seeing for a while now taught him some techniques for when he has his occasional panic attacks, and right now, he's trying to help ground her.
"See," he says. "I'm right here, baby—you're okay. I promise we're gonna get through this. What are five things you can see?"
"You," she answers between heavy breaths.
"There's one."
"Hand..." Her eyes move down. "Blanket..." Her head turns toward their bedroom door. "Door... Dresser..."
