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“Sam! I’m afraid to use the toaster! Sam! I can’t live like this!”
Jay’s almost joking when he says that, testing whether he can be open and lighthearted about this.
The answer is no.
The moment the words leave his lips, he can’t think about anything other than the fact that this isn’t a fucking joke.
“Oh, God, I can’t live like this,” he whispers, his whole body going cold and then hot and then cold again, because everything feels very, very real.
“I can’t live like this,” he chants to himself like a revelation, slowly reaching up to fist his hands in his hair. “I can’t, I can’t, I can’t…”
Sam kept saying she and the ghosts were going to find a way to fix this, but Jay wasn’t really listening, Jay hasn’t been listening to anything since he realized what he’d done to himself and now all he can hear is his heart beating in his throat, taking the place of the oxygen that’s supposed to be there. His own existence has become a solid thing, and he’s choking on it.
Somewhere deep down, he knows he’s having a panic attack, but deep down knowledge doesn’t matter right now because he’s got more immediate, threatening knowledge taking over his mind, and is it really a panic attack if he’s having it about something incredibly panic-worthy? Is it really a panic attack if he hasn’t had one in at least two months and he doesn’t remember if his last one felt this bad, do they usually feel this bad? Maybe this isn’t a panic attack after all. Maybe he is dying.
Maybe he should call 911, but would they try to take him to the hospital in an ambulance? He can think of so many ways to die in an ambulance.
Usually he has panic attacks in the car for privacy, but for one, he definitely can’t move right now beyond the ineffectual heaving and twisting of his body fighting for air, and for two, he bets Elias could make a car explode.
Right? That seems like a miserable possibility. He doesn’t know. Could Elias make a car explode? He made the chandelier fall. Right? He has to have been the one who made it fall, it was fine before, everything was fine before and now Jay is going to die and when he dies he’s going to go and be tortured literally forever, he’s going to go to Hell and he’ll never see anyone he loves ever again.
He’s going to go to a place he didn’t even believe in before his life became insane.
Sam did say something about fixing this and maybe she could’ve, she’s kind of a superhero, but it’s too late now because Jay’s dying right now, it’s already over, Elias is getting him on the second try.
Jay’s chest hurts. His whole body burns so bad. What are they going to do to him down there? He’s so scared and now he’s here dying alone, he has no idea if there are any ghosts in here but he likes to think he knows there aren’t any even though there’s no reason he would know either way and he doesn’t remember where this thought was going, what he was even—there are these sounds tearing from his aching throat, mixing with thin gasping breaths that do nothing to make him feel less lightheaded—
“Jay!” Sam says, and it’s nice that Sam’s voice can at least get through the cacophony filling his entire body. It’s such a relief to hear her—to know that at least he’ll die with her there—that the silent tears of pain that have been slipping from his eyes become full-on, wracking sobs.
He’s slumped in front of some cabinets (because his legs gave out between being scared to use the toaster and choking to death on whatever it is that’s shoving itself into his throat instead of oxygen), and he can feel his spine grinding against them as his whole body tries to break out of the mind-numbing agony—
“I’m dying, I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die,” he’s babbling brokenly, the words incomprehensible to him but, apparently, not to Sam.
“Oh, Jay, you’re not dying, you’re having a panic attack, baby, okay?”
Right. Right, yeah, he knew that, he knows that, deep down, but—“No, no, Sam, I think, I think I’m really dying this time, I, I, I, I think it’s gonna kill me for real, I’m gonna die this time, I, couldn’t he make me die from a panic attack? He’ll just scare me to death, Sam!” Jay doesn’t even know why he’s talking at this point; his voice keeps pitching all over the place and he can only breathe enough to force out mangled words that probably sound like gibberish at best.
“No, he’s not dying! I’ve seen this before, we can’t just assume everything’s going to kill him now, and…we need to focus on this, okay?! First, let’s focus on this. Jay?” Sam’s voice turns gentle and soothing as she turns her attention back to him, using one hand to remove his fingers from his hair, capturing his spasming extremities with hers, and using the other hand to cup his cheek. “Hey, it’s okay. It’s me, it’s Sam. You’re safe.”
Jay lets out a harsh laugh. The only time he’s ever felt less safe was a few minutes ago before Sam was here.
“You are, you’re safe right now, here, with me. We’re going to just worry about right now, okay?” Sam guides his hand to her chest, placing it against her heart. “I’m going to breathe. Breathe with me.”
“I can’t,” Jay sobs unintelligibly, trying to pull at his hair again, but Sam presses his hand more insistently against her chest, though still loose enough that he could pull away if he wanted to. He doesn’t really want to.
(The hair pulling was a bad habit.
He had some bad habits before Sam.)
“Yes, you can,” Sam says. Jay’s breathing hard and loud and ineffectually, and that along with his wildly beating heart makes him miss the waver threading Sam’s voice. He only hears comfort. He hears exactly what he needs, even if he can’t feel it as completely as he wants to.
Sam’s chest moves up and down slowly, slower than he can currently imagine breathing, but she’s so gentle with her encouragement, like she’s been since the first time he did this in front of her, though back then he did clock the anxiety in her voice.
He’s exhausted.
He takes a deep breath, coughing and drooling and still crying. It’s gross, but Sam just says, “You’re doing great, baby.”
“Okay,” he manages to choke out after a while, when his chest has loosened enough that he thinks he might not be dying after all. “I think I’m…” He trails off, and then he sighs, completely spent. “I’m not okay.”
Sam’s lip wobbles. “I know,” she whispers. “I get it. I’m sorry.”
After a long, slumped-over moment, Sam jumps back into action and encourages him to get to his feet, letting him sling an arm over her shoulders because he really is exhausted. Not being able to breathe for like an hour will do that.
“I’m sorry,” Sam says again, helplessly.
“It’s not your fault,” he responds as he’s half-dragged to their room.
Sam only hums noncommittally, and he’d insist, but he can’t right now. His throat hurts and his chest hurts and his heart hurts and he’s still going to Hell.
Sam hands him his pajamas, yanking off his shoes while he struggles into his shirt and, once the shoes are abandoned on the floor, pants.
He crawls under the covers and he can feel fear crashing over him as his eyes get heavy immediately.
“Will you wake me up if I start to die?” he asks hoarsely, words slurring.
Sam makes a tiny wounded sound he might’ve imagined before she presses her lips to his forehead. “I promise we will,” she whispers. “I promise. Everything’s going to be okay.”
Jay can’t bring himself to respond to any of that. He’s too tired.
He’s so tired that he sleeps through the night.
Even the part where Sam starts to cry.