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Willie had been pretty sure that something was off with Alex the second he’d shown up - it would have been impossible not to notice how little Alex spoke, how he refused to eat anything but a little freezer bag of sugar snap peas he’d brought with him, how he flinched away if Willie brushed against him suddenly - but past experience had taught him that Alex would share when he was ready, and that pushing him before he was ready to talk would end badly.
It was kind of paralysing, really, watching Alex drumming patterns on any available surface, and pinch at the skin on the insides of his wrists, and shove shaking hands firmly into his pockets, knowing there wasn’t a damn thing he could do to make it all go away, but Reggie had firmly told him before his and Alex’s first date months ago that he had to remember that Alex’s anxiety wasn’t about him.
So, they’d kind of just done their best not to overwhelm Alex. They’d taken him to their favourite coffee shop in downtown LA, first, hoping that something warm to hold would keep Alex from digging his nails into the palms of his hands, but when the bustle and chatter had only served to push Alex a little closer to the edge, they’d had to try something else.
Currently, he was guiding Alex through a live exhibition in Palisades Park, doing his best to maintain a steady, but quiet, stream of conversation, something that Alex wouldn’t really have to contribute to or tune into, but that would hopefully give him something to focus on, if he needed it.
Honestly, it didn’t seem to be working, and Willie was just doing his best not to end up panicking himself.
As soon as he’d met Alex, or soon enough after, anyways, he’d started researching how to help friends with anxiety whenever he could get a minute at a library computer or with someone’s unattended phone, but he hadn’t really been able to start looking until after Caleb disappeared and he could finally get a phone of his own. Even so, they’d found that the internet was prepared enough for anxiety of the regular variety, but when triggers included facing one’s own mortality retrospectively and dealing with the evil magician/musician/‘20s stage performer who’d tried to cast your soul into the ether, it was a little less helpful.
As the day went on, Alex only seemed to get worse, going from withdrawn and jumpy to having to actively control his breathing, hands shaking when Willie went to hold one. By the time the sun started setting and they reached their final destination for the day - a closed arcade - Willie had sent no less than five SOS texts to Julie in the hopes that she’d see them before Alex got too bad.
“Wil-Willie?” Alex asked, eyes darting around the room frantically, hands fluttering near his throat like he couldn’t breathe.
Willie fought the impulse to move closer. “Yeah, man? You okay? Do you need to go outside? Do you want me to call someone?”
“I need to..” he inhaled shakily. “I don’t - I can’t…”
“Hey, hey, it’s okay.” Willie offered his hand so Alex could grab it if he needed to, walking backwards towards the entrance. “Let’s get you outside, hmm?”
Alex nodded a little, stumbling after Willie, but even Willie, with what little experience he had with panic attacks and anxiety, could see that things weren’t getting better. One time, when he’d stopped by after a gig to see Alex, he’d seen Luke talking Alex down, and he’d watched the blotchy red slowly recede from Alex’s cheeks and see how the sharp, shallow breaths of panic had turned into slow and shaky sighs of relief. Right now, Alex kept looking from his feet to the door, like he was trying to measure the distance, like he wasn’t sure if he could make it, and he was tapping out a beat on his collarbone that was increasing in tempo with every step that didn’t get them out the door.
“Hey, uh, i think i’m gonna call Julie, if that’s okay?” Willie asked, waiting for the jerk of Alex’s head before they rooted around in their pocket for the phone, cursing under their breath when they almost rang the wrong number.
“Willie?” Julie asked when they finally managed to call her, voice tinny and barely recognisable with how shitty their service was. “What’s going on? Are you okay? Is Alex okay?”
Willie laughed nervously, keeping an eye on Alex as he pressed his back against the wall of the arcade and sank to the floor. “Um, i think Alex is having a panic attack, but i don’t know why, or what caused it or how to fix it? And now I’m kinda panicking because I have no idea what to do or how to help.”
Julie cursed under her breath. “I’ll go find one of the boys, i think Reg is out with dad and Carlos but i don’t think Luke had any plans.”
“Okay, just please be quick; i don't want him to get hurt or go too far or - well, i don’t know i just...”
“You’re worried about him,” Julie filled in, and Willie could hear crashes in the background as she presumably started looking for Luke. “Me too, but Luke will sort you out. I’ve seen him talk ‘Lex through a hundred of these.”
After an awful minute of just watching Alex with his head between his knees and his hands clasped on the back of his neck, Luke’s voice came through. “Hey, man. How’s Lexi doing?”
“He’s sat on the floor, all curled up, against the arcade?” Willie said, looking around to see if there was anything else he might need to pass on. “He kinda yanked his hoodie off, earlier, after tugging at the neck for a while, i don’t know if that’s a bad thing?”
Luke whistled lowly. “Shit, right, okay. um , that’s... not good. First thing, though, do not touch him, no matter how much you think he looks like he needs a hug, okay? He took his hoodie off because it felt suffocating, and since that’s one of his go-to comfort items, it means no matter how un-invasive you try to be, you will make him feel claustrophobic, and make it worse. Okay?”
Willie nodded quickly before he remembered that Luke couldn’t see him. “No, no, of course, I-I won’t get too close, i just wanna help him.”
“Okay, good. So, me and Reg deal with this differently, so i’ll try and explain what both of us do and you can see which works okay?” Luke asked, tone suddenly much more relaxed.
“Yeah-yeah... I think so.”
Luke exhaled loudly. “So, i think my way will work a bit better for you, but we’ll see. So i try to give him as much space as possible, and i just try to run through some grounding exercises with him until something breaks through. He can hear you, but he might not be up to speaking at first, so start with stuff that doesn’t need a verbal response - parasympathetic breathing and stuff.”
“Oh, like the stuff on the internet?” Willie asked, voice cracking with worry when Alex looked uo long enough for Willie to see the tear tracks on his face and how his lip was chewed almost bloody. “In-in for four, hold for seven, out for eight?”
“Yeah, that kind of thing.” Luke agreed, tension creeping back into his voice as he obviously picked up on Willie’s concern. “Eight might not be achievable yet, though, so don’t stress out if it takes a while. He’ll give you some kind of indication when he hits verbal again, and then he can guide himself mainly, but if it gets a little difficult, simple questions that require more than a yes/no - where does he live, what does he enjoy doing, what’s his favourite memory - should work.”
“O-Okay…”
Luke continued, “Reg rambles at him about everything and everything, and usually tries to throw in as many scientific inaccuracies and impossibilities as he physically can, because for some reason Al’s brain has a Reg-Is-Being-A-Dumbass override, but i don't know anyone else that’s gotten it to work, so i’d stick with my method.”
Willie inhaled shakily. “Yeah.. i’ll do that… i’m gonna hang up now, but thanks, Luke, really. I’ll call you back when things are sorted… or worse.”
“They’re not gonna get worse, bro,” Luke promised then. “You’re gonna be fine. When he’s feeling better, tell Lexi that we have chocolate waiting for him.”
“I-Okay… I will do,” Willie promised, then hung up. He walked over to Alex and sat down cross legged a meter away. “Hey, Al. Can you hear me?”
Alex didn’t respond, but his eyes flickered up briefly to meet Willie’s, so they took that as a sign to continue.
“Um, so… I’m not really sure what I’m doing here, but I called Luke, and he said that the best thing to do would be to try and talk you through some breathing exercises… so, um. I’m gonna try my best?” They offered, wincing at how awkward they probably sounded. “So, this one I saw on the internet says to breathe in for four counts, then hold four seven counts, then breathe out for eight, so we can try that?”
Alex made a choked sobbing sound, and Willie continued on quickly.
“I’m gonna pull up a metronome on my phone, okay? Just try your best to breathe in time with it, yeah?” He suggested, doing his best to ignore how his fingers shook as he found the app he’d downloaded when he’d started learning the violin at Julie’s behest two weeks ago.
----
Eventually, Alex brought himself down until Willie could run him through answering random questions - everything from finally telling him about Reggie and Luke’s latest shenanigans to explaining basic music theory - which seemed to help a lot. The only remaining thing Willie was really concerned about was how rough Alex still looked.
For some reason, he’d had it in his head that Alex would stop crying and hyperventilating and suddenly he’d be back to his normal gorgeous, snarky self. Instead - and it made a lot more sense, realistically - Alex looked like he’d been through the ringer, eyes puffy and swollen, lip chewed raw and bloody, cheeks blotchy and tear stained. Every question was answered in the same shaky, monotone voice, like he was only just holding it together, and as much as Willie wanted to be glad that their boyfriend was no longer in the throes of a panic attack, they were too busy worrying over what the hell they could do to make it all better.
When Alex finished explaining how syncopation worked, he thudded his head back against the wall, shoulders shaking. “C-Can you give.. Can you give me a minute?” He asked tentatively, reaching up to tug at his own hair.
Willie nodded immediately. “Yeah, of course. Whatever you need.”
After a couple minutes of Willie doing his level best not to do something (hug Alex, empathy cry, throw something out of frustration at his own helplessness, call Julie), Alex seemed to come back out of it, looking back down. His face was streaked with fresh tears, but his shoulders were ever so slightly less tense, so Willie took it as a good thing.
“So-Sorry…” Alex said quietly, pinching the inside of his wrist. “I don’t… I don’t know what happened, I just, everything was too - was too much.” His voice sounded awful, broken and raspy like he’d been screaming for hours. “I’m really sorry for, sorry for fucking up our date, and probably scaring you.”
“No, no it’s okay, don’t even worry about it,” Willie responded immediately, taking both Alex’s hands in theirs gently before Alex bruised his wrist. “You can’t control it, and it’s absolutely not your fault.”
Alex shrugged weakly. “I knew.. I knew it was coming on all day, I was just stupid and I thought being around you would calm me down because you’re you, but, like, it didn’t - it didn’t, I just got more stressed because I didn’t wanna bother you and, and -” he cut himself off, squeezing his eyes shut.
Willie swayed his arms slowly. “You never bother me, Alex. If you need to cancel, or stay home, or have a couch-date instead of a museum date, for whatever reason, then that’s so okay. I don’t care about touring the city, I care about you.”
“O-Oh…” Alex blinked up at him. “I guess… I just. I can’t always think about it like that.”
“I know, ‘Lex. It’s okay.” Willie squeezed his hands. “Can you. Um. Can you maybe talk me through what it’s like, so I have a better idea of what to do next time?”
Alex nodded slowly, inching closer. “I guess… um. So, for me it always starts with feeling like my skin doesn’t fit right, like I have too much energy to contain.”
“Is that why you start, like, jogging your leg, or spinning your drumsticks?” He asked, wrapping his flannel around Alex’s shoulders.
“Yeah, exactly. And then everything outside gets too much, too. Y’know, everything is so loud and so bright, and things seem so much more sudden. A door closing goes from being this distant thud halfway across the room to something that happens right next to you out of nowhere, so you jump, which gets your heart rate going, but… but…”
“But your heart rate is already going, because you’re getting anxious,” Willie finished.
Alex nodded. “Right. And - and, then everything starts pressing in and it’s like, it’s like there’s this weight on my throat and I can’t breathe and my chest burns and it feels like I need to get out even when I’m outside and anything that touches my neck is too much and I’m too hot but the cold hurts and it’s like I’m feeling a million different things at once but I can’t focus on any of them.”
Willie gently tucked Alex into their side, nodding to signal him to keep going.
“It’s like, y’know, when someone offers you a whole bunch of choices, and there’s too many and you can’t think it through properly, but all of me is offering my brain a bunch of choices each,” Alex continued. “Do I run or do I hide under something? Do I want to be hot or cold? Do I want to scream or cry or say nothing or sing? Do I need water or coffee or something that burns? Is crunchy food gonna make me wanna die or is it gonna be the only thing I can eat?”
“Is there anything that you need me to do when it gets bad?” Willie asked when Alex sagged into his side, seemingly finished. “Luke said he and Reg have different methods, so if there’s something else you can think of that you think will work I’m happy to try it.”
Alex shrugged, playing with the zip on Willie’s hoodie. “The metronome helped a lot. I liked the sound - it wasn’t as sharp as I thought it would be - and because you weren’t saying numbers it didn’t feel like I had to be at a certain place? Sometimes it’s stressful when someone is counting numbers and i know I’m meant to still be holding my breath at seven, but my chest is gonna burst.”
“I’ll get Julie to get the app on her phone?” They offered, carding their fingers through his hair.
“Yes, please.” Alex leaned into him, eyes fluttering closed with a pleased sigh. “And, and, maybe if you could tell me facts? I like it when you tell me things you find interesting, but not about the twenty first century, I think that would stress me out more, but like when you told me everything you’d learned when you haunted an aquarium? Stuff like that.”
“I can do that, sunshine,” Willie promised, rubbing slow circles on Alex’s back with his other hand. “You ready to go home, yet? Sleep for a bit?”
“In a minute.” Alex nodded. “I’m comfy, though.”
“As long as you need.”