Darkness

Flashback

Avi slept until four am, just two hours, before he woke up again. He felt Scott's arm rather tightly around his torso, holding him close as the baritone subconsciously got scared that Avi could wander off and unintentionally hurt himself. They always slept like this but right now the bearded man was too restless to enjoy the soft touch. He carefully moved Scott's hand and got up. It was a challenge to navigate through the big house, Avi hadn't been over often but he knew that he had to move, otherwise he'd freak out.

He moved slowly, carefully sat one foot in front of the other and kept his left hand against the wall while he held out the other to detect furniture. It had been a while since he last had been at Scott's and he couldn't remember which turns Kevin had made earlier today but he eventually managed to make it to the open living room without hurting him or damaging anything. His shins and hips hurt after running into furniture on the way and then against the small coffee table and when Avi sat down on the couch he was relieved that the dizziness slowly disappeared. He was breathing hard and rubbed his legs lightly to distract himself from the dull and pulsing pain he was left with after hitting almost everything in his way to the couch, but when it subsided he tried to focus on his surroundings to calm his racing thoughts.

It was easier said than done though cause suddenly and unexpected the memories of the night after the accident in the lake house flooded his head and panic set in. He didn't know why it happened, why it happened right now, but he suddenly started to sweat and his heart felt like it would come out of his chest in the next few seconds. Avi tried to take deep breaths, it wasn't his first panic attack and he partly knew what was coming, but then again he felt like he was suffocating as the imaginary hand on his chest pressed harder, resulting in him falling back and hitting his head against the wall. A grunt escaped him and he frowned, rubbed the area lightly. It distracted him for just a moment before his eyes went wide and felt even more hands on his body, holding him down and barking orders around.

Avi thought he was dying. Tears ran down his cheeks while he struggled to breathe and fought against the imaginary people around him, the weight on his chest and the lack of oxygen while nausea rose in his stomach. Subconsciously he still knew that he was experiencing a panic attack and that whatever was happening right now in his brain wasn't real, but his brain was too distracted by everything else to take this tiny thought serious.

He was too distracted by the headache which was way too bad to be real, his trembling limbs and his wheezing to notice Scott who was approaching him quickly.

"Avi, oh god" he mumbled, sat down his phone on the coffee table and reached out. "Avi!" Scott touched his shoulder and made him flinch. "Avriel, hey. It's okay."

No, nothing was okay. At least not for Avi. He was hurting, so bad that he wanted to throw up voluntarily just to get rid of the feeling in his stomach and the pain in his chest got worse. He was pretty sure that he was dying.

Scott was helpless. He had to touch Avi to get his attention since the man wasn't responding to his name but in the state he was in right now he would just make everything worse. So Scott did the only thing that made the most sense to him. He called Mitch while he was forced to helplessly watch Avi whimper and whine in distress. His body would soon go into overdrive.

It felt like minutes until Mitch answered his phone. Scott understood, he had been at the party as well and was probably exhausted. "Yeah?"

"Mitch, thank God. I don't know what to do. Avi is having a panic attack."  While Scott kept his eyes on his boyfriend he heard Mitch's bedsheets rustling.

"Is it bad? Try to talk to him."

"I tried but he's not responding. He's wheezing and hyperventilating and shaking, he's- I don't know, he's so far away." Then Scott paused. "It reminds me of the night in Big Bear. He was trashing and kicking as well.."

Mitch ran his hand through his hair and took a deep breath. "Is there anything you usually do when he's upset? Some gesture of comfort that calms him? I wouldn't touch whatever part the nurses there came in contact with but maybe he tolerates a soft squeeze on his knee. You need to pull him out of his thoughts so he can talk to you or at least focus on your voice. On anything, just not on whatever he is going through his head."

Scott thought for a moment while he was forced to watch Avi struggling to breathe. Then his free hand slowly approached the mess his hair was at the moment and he carefully touched first the ends and moved up to Avi's scalp. Slowly but surely, after the bearded man had flinched, he allowed the touch and seemed to be able to relax at least slightly.

"Is he responding?"

"Yes..." Scott mumbled. "Hey, Avi.." he then said, gentle and careful. "Hey, c'mon. It's me, Scott."