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You could barely breathe. The more you tried the more aware you were of just how much a task it was; why anyone had ever coined the phrase ‘easy as breathing’, you had no idea.
The panic was so strong, so striking, that it had settled somewhere in your stomach like a hard, heavy lead, and it felt just like lead should, you thought—poisoning. As if anything could truly stain your insides any more than your past had, though. You were already rotten inside.
You imagined that the inside lining of your stomach must have been grey, or some kind of blotchy, charcoal thing, from all of the times you’d panicked to this extent.
And yet, the panic had abated, for a while. Depression had been no stranger, but panic had taken a leave of absence. Now she was back, heavy and back-aching and familiar, yet as agonizing as something foreign. So, so debilitating.
Bed was the only place for you. Everything was overstimulating, every sense too much. The sound of voices and footsteps in the hall outside your door were, you conceded, and near-understood, probably a figment of your now-imagined non-fiction of a past. You only wished it could have been fiction in reality, that all the suffocating, longing, loneliness could’ve been anything other than your everyday.
You turned over again, shedding your shirt and shuffling off your pants, fed up with how red and hot your face felt underneath the pile of blankets you’d shrugged atop yourself—and yet somehow it was winter. You curled your back into a painful position in an effort to negate the stomach pains anxiety had riled up. You were bent around your phone reading fanfiction—because, of course you were. Self-care and all, right?
Everything was still too much, though. You were too hot, now too cold, the silk of one blanket was too soft and made your hair feel extra coarse, but the plush of another blanket was making you feel sweaty. The small sounds you’d hear every so often from outside your room made your head feel like it was housing the avalanche of a miniature migraine, every time. You almost longed for a genuine, coherent headache instead, because at least then painkillers might be feasible. But painkillers didn’t help anxiety.
Painkillers didn’t help trauma.
You let out a soft whine, trying for another deep breath and recoiling when it amplified the stomachache. You really, really wanted to cry, but it was like you’d somehow reached a point in recovery where crying was no longer as second-nature to you. Now it felt as though you were too blank, empty, removed, or too something to cry as a relief-mechanism. Part of you missed it, and another part of you was glad to be rid of the constant exhaustion and dehydration headaches that came with that sort of crying.
Now you were reduced to hiding away in slight but unbearable pain, unable to function properly, but unable to withstand the horrors of sitting still. Your mind was far too overactive for that, and God forbid you open those floodgates.
You didn’t know how to feel when Aziraphale knocked on your door with three gentle, perfectly-timed taps, so you just didn’t. You sniffled loud enough for him to hopefully hear you as an answer, and a soft but stifling light filtered into your room as he slowly opened the door.
He looked down at you and cocked his head slowly, his lips taut and eyes glazed in worry. You blinked as you felt your lip quiver.
‘Oh, my dear,’ he said, soft and slow and in just the right tone he knew wouldn’t offend you with an excess of pity—just enough for you to feel wanted; seen. Still, he didn’t approach, a practiced distance, and instead took a moment to gauge what you wanted (versus what he determined you needed, of course).
You sniffed again, trying for another deep breath that resulted in you only wanting to hide your face but being unable to stomach it in front of Aziraphale.
‘Tea?’ he asked, angling his head a little more.
You inhaled and imagined how tea might feel. You shook your head minutely.
He smiled softly—really, it was more of a grimace on your behalf. You knew he’d probably just realised the extent of this episode, with the sensory overload leaving you feeling so rotten and discarded by the experiential world.
‘Crowley?’
This time you felt your eyes water as your sniffled again, and you curled into yourself harder and hid your face in the plush of the topmost blanket. It wasn’t a second later that you heard two sets of footsteps returning to your door.
‘Oh, sweets,’ you heard Crowley say. Shortly after, you felt his hand gently pat your head and you sighed, the first tiny relief of the day. The first almost-breath that felt anything like a success.
Your bed shifted slightly as Aziraphale sat down, and you looked up and met his eyes, fighting another lip quiver and losing. You eyes watered but you knew you wouldn’t be crying any time soon.
Aziraphale gave you a pitying smile before he shuffled around until he was resting upright against the wall, a pillow cushioning his back. He patted his thigh and you shifted until your head was resting in his lap, his hand stroking your hair.
You looked back at Crowley, now, and raised a hand to tap your shoulder gently. His smile was more a grin than Aziraphale’s. Crowley’s boundless energy, regardless of his emotions, was such a home to you. How he always had such an energy about everything he did, said and felt. And how somehow, it was never out of place. A bit much, sometimes, sure, but never in sincere excess.
In the time it took you to blink, he was on the bed in snake form. You felt the blanket shift behind you before, finally, his head was resting on your shoulder, nose gently touching your face. He shuffled in so that you could feel the rest of his body resting in various spots against your back and Aziraphale’s leg. You were sure Aziraphale was stroking Crowley, now, as well.
As his tongue flicked out for the first time and the most vivid sensations you felt were Aziraphale’s hand on your head and Crowley’s soft scales brushing against your face, you let out a deep, shaky breath. You pulled your legs in tighter until you were almost in a ball, and after a few more exhales and shifts, you felt your body relax.
A few tears tracked sideways down your face, but they were mostly from what you’d been holding back, as opposed to any sort of release or actual crying. When Crowley’s tongue flicked out to taste, touching your cheek, you huffed an almost-laugh and nuzzled against him slightly. His response was to give you a gentle but firm nudge back.
You sighed again, letting your arms come up to wrap around yourself as you sank further into Aziraphale’s lap. You blinked a few times as the tired hit you and weighted your entire body until you were almost certain you couldn’t move even if you tried.
Finally, your shoulders relaxed as you closed your eyes.
The beauty of having two beautiful eternal beings as loved ones was that they could sit with you for as long as you needed—and you knew that these two would.