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Neil could tell it was going to be a rough day from the moment he woke up with a whispering headache. It wasn't much, just a soft throb at the top of his head, but it was noticeably there, and headaches were often enough the harbinger of something more. Still, he got up and got ready as he normally would.
Hold it together, Neil.
Except the existence of other people made it very hard to do so. The groups of people making their way around Palmetto felt less like spread-apart cliques and more like a crush as Neil tried to navigate around them, hanging like a dark cloud at the edge of his vision and stealing his breath with every word from their mouths. He managed to get to class without much incident, sliding into his seat just as the bell rang. It jolted him enough that the people around him looked up.
Hold it the fuck together.
Lectures and assignments passed by in a monotone blur. The class dragged on. Neil tapped his fingers restlessly against his leg, trying to channel the nervous energy somewhere it wouldn't do damage. He absentmindedly began to press the lead of his mechanical pencil into the pad of his finger, feeling the way the sharp stab of pain woke him up some. He pressed harder, and the stab changed to a burn-- harder still, and he felt something snap. The lead had broken in two.
He clicked the top a few times to refresh the lead, and pressed on.
By the time the day was halfway through, he was out of lead, and he had a small puncture wound in the pad of his left index finger.
You can't fall apart here hold it together make it to your room goddamnit.
Neil ghosted through the rest of his classes, feeling detached, like he'd come untethered and was perpetually floating. Maybe he was, he couldn't tell. Faces had already begun to blur, and everyone he passed was just another body going about its day, like every other person in the world.
Except, he wasn't, because he didn't feel like he was in his body.
So when he got up and walked out right in the middle of his last class of the day, he didn't have the heart to feel like maybe it was a mistake.
He wasn't feeling much at all.
Neil made it back to Fox Tower, dragging himself up the stairs and into the common area. Belatedly, he realised he wasn't alone.
Stupid stupid you should have gone somewhere else now you have to be okay for them.
"Neil?"
Jesus fuck, he thought to himself, it was Andrew.
Somehow, Andrew could tell Neil wasn't alright. Normally, the two would have coexisted in relative silence, waiting for the others, but this time, it was different.
"May I touch you? Yes or no," Andrew said, more of a question than a statement.
Neil nodded, because touch meant grounding.
(He hoped so, at least.)
So Andrew pulled him close, held him tight tight tight and Neil let himself fall into his arms, except then he fell too far and he couldn't stop. There wasn't enough space between his fingers or his skin and Andrew's or anything really, and his bones were trying to push out from underneath the layers of skin and muscle and cartilage, scar tissue pulled taut over too-big bones under too-small skin, and he pushed back frantically, stumbling into the middle of the room.
"Neil. Are you alright?"
He had space now, he was fine, he had space enough to breathe, except he hadn't been breathing, had he? He wasn't sure, he couldn't remember, he couldn't even recall how to breathe. Every time he tried to fill his lungs he would take a gasping breath and pull in as much air as possible, and still it would get caught before it met his alveoli, and he would only succeed in breathing in skin and muscle instead of air and his chest wasn't rising or falling, it was just the skin between his collarbones and the dip in his throat pulling in, in, in, tighter still, closing his throat and making him choke on his own body. His lungs stubbornly kept refusing to fill, and the room spun, except, where was the room? He was in a dark place with no walls or floor or ceiling and all of the brightly-lit surfaces were closing in on him until there was no room for air.
"Neil!" He vaguely processed Andrew's voice get louder before it was drowned out by the rush of blood in his eardrums. Water started trickling into the space in his mind where a window should have been, and typewriter letters danced in the stream like little waterbugs, skimming around and forming messy, bleeding words, then sentences.
a
re y o
u
ok a
y
?
Except it wasn't a trickle anymore. Now there was a window and it was open and thick black ink flooded in, crashing waves onto the floor onto the walls staining staining staining everything it touched. Neil's hands dripped with it, it bled from his puncture wound and turned his nails black, everything was soaked in ink, and still it kept coming. Neil couldn't hear Andrew anymore, wasn't even sure if he had been there in the first place, was only aware of the ink as it rose and rose and kept on rising. Now it was up to his chest, then his shoulders, then his chin, and finally it covered his mouth and nose. He took great shuddering breaths, trying to breathe through it, but it flowed in through his esophagus and down his throat, into his lungs, into his body, through his eyes and ears and nose and mouth until every last inch of him was full of the thick, choking ink.
He couldn't see anymore, couldn't hear or breathe. All he could do was watch the tiny Neil in the distance lie on the carpet, choking on sobs and air and words that wouldn't come. Where had Andrew gone? Where was he? Why couldn't he fucking help?
Neil stopped trying to breathe the ink.
He couldn't hold himself together any longer, and so he let himself go.
neil
Neil
Neil! Can you hear me
Blink once if you can hear me
Can I help you?
I think I can help you
Yes
or
no
?
Neil blinked once.
He breathed. He could breathe, he realised, and he took in gulps of air like it was the most wonderful thing he'd ever tasted, like it was a twelve-course meal and he hadn't eaten in days. Someone helped him sit up-- when had he fallen?-- and raised a glass of water to his lips. Dutifully, he sipped.
"That's it. You're alright. I promise."
Oh. It was Andrew. That was alright, then.
Neil became aware of just how drained he felt. He leaned back into Andrew, letting the other support his weight, and kept on breathing. Andrew kept talking to him, little things like "you're alright, keep breathing, you are real and I've got you and you are fine".
He didn't want to admit that it helped more than anything else he could remember.
Maybe it's alright to fall apart with him then.
And so Neil let himself be as vulnerable as he could, and succumbed to the pull of sleep.
As far as he could tell, Andrew kept on holding him together.