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If Nathan has a penchant for one thing, it’s losing his shit in public, and no amount of medication or therapy is going to change that.
Sometimes he can feel it coming, can feel the uptick of stress throughout the day. Those are the days where he can plan accordingly and use one of his doctor’s notes to get out of class for the rest of the day. Victoria will even bring him dinner, just to make sure he eats something. His medication can really fuck with him if he takes it on an empty stomach.
Then there are days that it just hits him all at once. He can be standing in the hallway, perfectly fine, but suddenly it’s like a switch is flipped and everything is too loud and too there and he’s right on the verge of regressing except he’s right in the middle of the school day and there are people fucking everywhere, all lining up to watch his gigantic mental fucking breakdown.
He tries to remember what his therapist always tells him. Calm down, deep breaths, dumb shit like that. It feels miles away from helping right now. When he pulls in a breath, it’s shallow, beating against the inside of his chest like it’s fighting to get out. He pulls in another breath on instinct, because his head is starting to swim, to the same effect.
“Nathan.”
He looks up to see Victoria’s hand on his wrist. It takes a moment for him to become aware of the pressure, but once he does, he marvels at how he hadn’t felt it before.
She pulls, just hard enough to get his attention. She’d never be needlessly forceful with him. At least, that’s what he hopes. “Come on.” Her voice is low and laced with tenderness. “We’re going back to your room.”
One good thing about Victoria is that her glare is enough to melt ice, and anyone that might have been in their path immediately makes way.
Nathan wonders what it looks like to them. What do they see? From the frown on her face and the way she’s grabbing his wrist, it looks quite a bit like a fight. No wonder they’re steering clear.
In the emptiness of the dorm hallway, the overload of touch comes in full force. His first instinct is to push, but he substitutes it for just yanking his wrist away. “Get out of my space!”
Victoria scoffs. “Asshole.” Even then, she follows him into his room. “Did you take your medication today?”
“Of course I fucking did.” Nathan hisses. Still, his eyes stray over to his pill bottle. Did he? It’s become so routine he can’t remember. Not that he’d let her know that. Knowing Victoria, she’d probably buy one of those stupid pill sorters they make for old people. “I’m just tired.”
Victor gives him the side-eye, trying to give him space by looking half-preoccupied with her phone. “How late did you stay up last night?”
“I didn’t. I just…woke up weird.” Which is about half-true. Sure, he was awake well until one in the morning, but that’s nothing his body isn’t used to. In fact, he can’t pin any specific thing that could set him so on-edge, especially so suddenly. He just knows that a nap would do him good. It’s really the only thing he and his therapist can agree on.
Victoria hums. “I’ll wake you up around dinner. You want Chinese food?”
“Whatever.” He kicks off his shoes and peels off his jacket, fully intending to sleep in his jeans. While the quiet is helping, he still doesn’t feel any better. His head is still fuzzy. But as he peels back his covers and sits down, he realizes his mistake.
Thing is still on his pillow.
He left the ugly son of a bitch on his pillow.
Not only has he broken his only rule but he can’t stop himself from scooping it up and holding it close. That’s the real problem, isn’t it? Not that he’s overtired or didn’t take his medication. No, worse, he’s regressing.
“Don’t look,” he says. A mistake, really, because there’s a tone in his voice. That dumb fucking note where his voice gets a little higher, a little more needy, and that has her whirling.
And that’s how he gets caught red-handed, clutching the world’s ugliest stuffed toy like a five-year-old.
With a sigh, she shakes her head. “I’d be lying if I said that wasn’t the cutest fucking thing I’ve seen in my life. Why do you even still have that thing? I thought you’d set it on fire or some shit.”
Nathan doesn’t answer. He can’t bring himself to. What is he supposed to say? “It’s fucked up like me and that’s why I like it”? Yeah, he’s not quite in the mood to start a pity party with him as the guest of honor.
“It’s okay.” Suddenly her hand is in his hair, brushing the stray hairs laid over his forehead. “I’m right here. No one’s getting in this door while I’m here. You can rest.”
She brings the blankets at his ankles up and over his shoulders, tucking the corners in and around his neck. It feels so much warmer than it normally does.
“I know. Shh.” She drags her fingernails up and down his back, just like he likes.
He knows his face has to be red, with how fast his breath is coming.
Tori shushes him. “Take big breaths, Nathan. Big breaths.” After a few beats of silence, she shifts. Nathan rolls onto his other side, just so he doesn’t have to look her in the eyes anymore. “You really like that ugly thing, huh?”
“Yeah,” he murmurs. Fuck this hideous thing with its uneven stitching and wonky button eyes. He’d have chucked it into the bay months ago if he didn’t love it so much. He can already feel things starting to click back into place. His eyes are already so heavy.
Victoria laughs softly. Her fingers ghost over his forehead, gently nudging him to sleep.
He doesn’t see her for an entire week.
It’s not like she’s ignoring him, because they’ll still chat in between classes, but whenever he texts her asking to hang out, she has some sort of excuse for why she can’t. Frankly, it’s starting to piss him off. Well, mainly it’s making him anxious, which is making him anxious in response, because he can pinpoint the exact moment when Victoria decided she didn’t wanna be around him anymore as when she found out he regressed.
Not that they’ve talked about it, but he can imagine she’s done a fair amount of googling and came to the right conclusions. At least he hopes she did. He doesn’t even want to consider the alternative.
By the time his last class of the week is done, he’s got himself well worked up. Taking Victoria’s current flakiness into account, he’s most likely going to spend the weekend cooped up in his room watching movies by himself.
He’s admittedly pouting when she barges in. Nathan starts, only to remember that he gave her his spare key. It’s so easy to forget when he isn’t reminded about it every day.
“Here.” She shoves a gift-wrapped package into his hands. When he looks at her in surprise, she only looks annoyed. “You’re supposed to open it.”
He pulls back the wrapping paper, and his fingers come in contact with something unspeakably soft.
A blanket?
The pattern is straight from Wal-Mart, with prints of Hawt Dawg Man scattered over it. She opted not to go for any actual sewing, instead doing that dumb kitschy style where you fray two pieces of fabric and knot the ends together to make a blanket. Maybe it’s for the best. As much as Nathan loves Thing, he doubts a blanket of similar make would be as lovable.
“I’m still bad at sewing but I love you and you looked cold.” She averts her eyes, at least having the good grace to look bashful. “And I didn’t want to make things weird between us, so this is my way of saying you’re still safe around me.”
Tears fill his eyes. How dare she act like this is all okay, and comfort him when he’s sad and scared, and give him a fucking blanket she made herself?
“So uh…” Then she has the nerve to look unsure of herself, like this isn’t the best thing she’s ever made. “You do like it, right?”
“I love it,” he sobs. “Fuck you.”
She grins. “Fuck you.” She takes one of the frayed edges and gives it a little tug. “You wanna put this thing to the test and watch a movie tonight?”
Nathan grins, and in that moment, allows himself to slip the tiniest bit.