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Dan couldn’t breathe.
The air itself seemed to be alive, vibrating with the din coming from the crowd, there were people milling all around him, shouting, laughing, chattering. And Dan, in the middle of the backstage chaos, frozen like a child playing musical statues. He wanted to crawl behind the boxes of equipment and hide. Tried to take deeper breathes but his lungs seemed to have vanished and he couldn’t get enough air. Skin too tight, choking off his circulation and numb hands that didn’t feel like they belonged to him.
He wasn’t aware of falling, of his legs suddenly giving out under him until he was suddenly much closer to the floor and there was a warm hand on his shoulder that hadn’t been there before but all Dan was aware of was that it felt as though he was trapped in a glass bubble, everything around him simultaneously muffled and overwhelmingly too loud. Dan raised his numb hands and buried them in his hair, covering his ears and digging his nails into his scalp to feel something real. He couldn’t swallow, couldn’t stop the white-tinted light-headedness flooding through his consciousness. This was how it felt to drown, he was certain.
Someone was talking to him, but Dan couldn’t identify who it was. Then his hands were being gently pulled from his head and encased in a warm pair of hands. Dan numbly noted that his traitorous fingers were trembling. His own breathing sounded like chainsaws in his ears.
The person holding his hands was rubbing slow, gentle circles on his thumbs and Dan tried to focus on that.
And slowly his surroundings drifted back into focus.
He looked up and was greeted by the familiar sight of a worried looking Kyle, sitting cross-legged in front of him. Discarded beside him lay his sunglasses and cap, clearly having been thrown down in a hurry when Dan had gone down like a puppet that had had it’s strings chopped.
‘Dan? Dan? Can you hear me?’ he asked, and it sounded muffled and far away, but Dan could identify who was speaking so he nodded.
‘Dan, look at me,’ Kyle said, and Dan did his best, eyes catching on the crease between Kyle’s eyebrows and hating himself for worrying his friends as much as he did. At the periphery of his vision he could see people moving around, and felt a pained flush of embarrassment across his face.
‘Just look at me,’ Kyle repeated, voice calm and even. ‘Now take a deep breath, alright?’
‘Can’t,’ Dan managed to choke out. The admission caused a new spark of panic to rush through him and he looked around wildly, eyes catching on a red cap, yellow trainers, a phone on the side, tense expressions.
‘That’s ok,’ Kyle said calmly. ‘We’re going to try something else, ok?’
Dan managed to nod again.
‘Right, tell me five things you can see.’
Dan looked around again and tried to focus on the familiar routine. They’d done this countless times before, because Kyle had the patience of a saint and because Dan had a unfortunate proclivity for pre-show panic attacks.
‘Dick,’ he choked out, eyes landing on their stressed looking tour manager who was watching him with a considerable level of concern etched on his face.
‘Perfect,’ Kyle said. ‘Now something else.’
‘Woody.’
‘You’re doing really well.’
‘Stage.’
‘Ben.’
‘You.’
‘You’re doing really well,’ Kyle repeated soothingly.
Kyle let go of Dan’s shaking hands and placed them gently on his knees.
‘Now five things you can hear.’
They ran through all the senses, then repeated it with four, three, two and finally one thing. And it did work, it always did. Dan felt his breathing start to even out bit by bit. And Kyle stayed sitting with him, calmly talking to him, keeping him focused.
But they had barely finished running through all the senses when Dick was suddenly crouched beside them. He looked apologetic and Dan suddenly wondered exactly how long he and Kyle had been sitting on the floor breathing and running through all the things he could see and feel.
‘I’m really sorry guys but you have to go on stage in a few minutes.”
Dan’s breathing immediately quickened again. He had almost forgotten where they were, that they were backstage at a festival, and it was much, much too late to cancel. But Kyle was holding his hands again, rubbing soothing circles on his skin, even as he nodded to Dick. Dan tried to concentrate on his breathing, on keeping it under control.
‘You can do this, Dan,’ Kyle said, taking one hand and cupping Dan’s cheek. Dan was suddenly aware that there were tears running down his face. He roughly dashed his hands across his eyes and took a deep breath.
Kyle stood up, dusted himself off, then held out a hand to Dan. Dan took it, allowed Kyle to pull him up. The world spun in circles and for a second Dan thought he might pass out. Kyle gave him a smile, then pulled him into a tight hug. Dan was suddenly aware that he was still shaking.
‘It’s all going to be alright, yeah?’ Kyle said, and Dan nodded into his shoulder.
And then Woody was there, and Will and Dan found himself at the centre of a group hug. It was overwhelming and almost too much for his current state, but Dan knew that they meant well. Woody ruffled his hair. He could feel some warmth returning to his hands.
And then Dick was back, and they were being told to go, go, go.
Dan, still dazed, was distantly aware of turning and following the others onto the stage, of the roar that came from the crowd when they walked into view. Of the sun blinding him after the darkness of backstage.
He picked up his microphone, heard the guys starting to play behind him and turned to face the assembled crowd.
And froze.
His breath caught in his throat and his heart was beating so loudly that he was sure it must be louder than any other sound emitting from the stage. Dan suddenly realised he probably looked a state, face blotchy from crying, hair sticking up more than usual and hands shaking quite noticeably. There was a camera pointing right at him and the lens seemed to be staring right into his soul. Time seemed to stand still, trapping him in the moment.
And Dan had missed his cue, he’d missed when he was supposed to start singing and he wanted to curl up into a ball right there and block the whole thing out. He whirled around, eyes wide with panic, throat feeling like it was closing up and locked gazes with Kyle, who gave him a nod and a smile and Dan managed to start singing.
The gig went alright. Mostly. He didn’t speak with the crowd much and he was sure his nerves had been significantly more apparent than they usually were. He was very certain his late entry in Send Them Off hadn’t gone unnoticed. But it was done. It was over. And it was fine, it was fine, it was all fine.
Kyle immediately pulled him into a hug after and Dan wordlessly allowed himself to be led from backstage to the van that would take them back to the artist’s area. He was suddenly completely exhausted, any words he might have wanted to say dying in his throat and all he could do was sit numbly while around him everyone got into the van, pulled on seatbelts. There was talk about the gig, the crowd, Dick was running over the interviews they had coming up in the next few hours. Dan stayed silent, feeling worried eyes on him but unable to stop himself sinking into a hopeless and dark pit where his thoughts told him no one really cared, and he was letting everyone down.
‘Dan, do you need the afternoon off?’ Dick suddenly asked, still gazing at the sheet with their schedule on it. The van had started moving and the hum of the vehicle was grinding on Dan’s ears.
He managed to shake his head.
‘Are you sure?’ Dick asked, looking at him carefully. ‘It’s not a problem if you need some time.’
Dan shook his head again.
‘Dan, maybe it would be better,’ Woody started, and Dan could feel something ugly stirring in his chest.
‘I said it’s fine,’ he snapped, with more bite than he had intended.
There was a silence, then the conversation haltingly resumed around him. Dan looked out the window with his arms crossed tightly across his chest and tried to ignore the concerned glances being thrown his way. When they got back to their artist’s area he immediately went to one of the communal rooms and closed the door behind him, hoping everyone would take the hint and leave him alone.
But he hadn’t accounted for Kyle. Kyle, who wouldn’t take a hint if it ran up and slapped him in the face. Kyle who always worried about Dan, who was always there for him when it all got too much.
Kyle closed the door quietly behind them and the stillness of the room after the deafening volume of the last few hours felt like an impossible weight on Dan’s shoulders.
‘Can I just have a minute, please?’ Dan said, fighting to keep the irritation from his voice. It was a part of himself that he hated, the way his anxiety made him snappish and irritable. Kyle didn’t deserve it.
‘Are you sure you’re alright?’ Kyle said quietly, sitting down on the arm of the sofa. The room itself was the size of a small shed and was, honestly, one of the nicer backstage areas they’d been in, but Dan couldn’t find it in himself to appreciate it. His head was aching, and his skin wouldn’t stop crawling.
‘I’m fine, Kyle.’
‘It hasn’t been that bad for a while,’ Kyle started cautiously, eyes fixed on Dan.
‘I really don’t want to get into it now, Kyle, please’ Dan said.
Kyle kept looking at him in a concerned way and Dan hated himself more than ever.
‘Can I please just be alone?’ Dan repeated.
Kyle sighed dramatically but got up and made his way back over to the door. Just before he exited, he turned one more time.
‘You know, we’re all here for you. Any time you want to talk,’ Kyle said. Then he left, closing the door softly behind him.
Dan pulled his hand roughly through his hair and collapsed onto the sofa. He wanted to scream. He wanted to scream and scream until everything stopped feeling the way it currently did.
Instead, he watched the dust motes dance in the afternoon sunshine streaming in through the small window and concentrated on his breathing.
He had been told over and over that his anxiety around performing would improve with experience. Multiple people had said they had seen worse, that everyone was like that in the beginning. But it had been six years of the band and Dan was still as anxious as ever. He buried his face in his hands and tried not to think. Tried not to think abut the gig had been livestreamed, that there had been phones out, hundreds of lenses capturing his onstage panic.
He knew it would fade. In an hour or so they would do the interviews, he would smile and joke and play the character and tonight he wouldn’t sleep because he wouldn’t be able to turn his mind off, but it would have to be fine because they had another festival the next day. There was too much riding on them performing, there were so many expectations and Dan already lived in constant fear of not being able to meet them.
It would be fine. He would be fine.
He had to be.