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“Get off me!”
His words are still ringing in the air, harsh and almost impossible to hear over the fading boom of some explosion; globs of dirt trickling down like rain, splattering armor and ground alike.
Scrambling to his feet, grabbing his gun, he makes sure to push the possibly dead body off and away from him. But something in him makes him stop and turn around...guy’s still alive.
With a huff, he offers a hand to pull the guy to his feet; a task harder than it looks due to their obvious size difference.
It's too easy to get mad, to start screaming and demanding why this guy wasn't paying attention, how he got the both of you knocked down and almost made easy targets of you.
But the thing is...he knows who this man is, who the person behind the armor is. With a scoff, he cocks his rifle, turns away, and moves onward.
* * *
“Get the fuck off!” Felix screamed, voice practically cracking from his anger and attempt to be heard. What the fuck possessed ‘Sam’ to tackle him like that?
“It's me.” ‘Sam’ growls back in response but still unmoving from the atop the form of his partner.
“I KNOW!” Felix grunts back harshly and shoves him off before the two run to find cover from the onslaught of bullets bound to be headed their way.
Sitting against the wall, trying to catch his breath, Felix can feel his lips pull down into a pout; the almost absentminded shot he takes around the corner does little to distract him, even if the shot connected perfectly like he planned.
There was no reason for that asshole to do that...and yet he did.
Felix silently hoped this wasn't about to become a habit.
* * *
With a slow stir, Locus awakes to find Felix seated on the corner of their bed, head in his hands and hyperventilating. As his brain connected the dots, his body jolts, throwing back the bed covers and rushing over to Felix.
He doesn't have to ask what's wrong, he knows. It's another panic attack. The two of them have these attacks quite frequently but they're always unexpected nonetheless. And it's not just the panic attacks...there's the chronal displacement, the zoning out, the paranoia, the delusions, the hallucinations… They've only gotten worse over the years, no matter how good the disguises became.
Placing his hands on Felix’s shoulders, an urgent but gentle touch, he turned the smaller body towards him.
“I can't...Ican’tbreathe-...” Felix chokes out, his breath shallow and chest ballooning in and out.
Carefully, Locus peeled the hands away from Felix’s face, “Yes, you can. You wouldn't be able to talk if you couldn't breathe. Just calm down…” he soothes, voice as low and calm as he could possibly muster. His own anxiety was starting to spike, a cold shock, like lightning, ran down his spine as he tried to remember everything he could about what to do in these situations.
Felix was still sobbing, face completely soaked with tears and spit, “No I can't, I can't breathe, I can't-”
“Yes, you can. You're fine. Breathe in through your nose then out through your mouth, Felix.” These instructions did little to quell the shaking and shuddering mass before him; Felix had to listen to him if this was going to work.
“Look at me...it’s me.” Locus reminded, reaching his own hands to hold Felix’s face. The flesh there was warm, reddened and moist from his tears, the freckles across his nose were invisible in the dark but the scars there were easily felt. This was familiar...Felix had to realize that too.
“It's me…”
Felix tensed once he registered the hands on either side of his face but calmed almost instantly at Locus’s words. It was Locus...he was here...he was real...this was real...right? Felix took a deep breath and exhaled, he did this three more times before taking a breath in through his nose and out through his mouth, just like they'd practiced before, even if at the time it had seemed ridiculous.
“I know…” Felix breathed out, more of a sigh than an actual sentence.
“I know.”