Work Text:
You don't know exactly what happened, but you just couldn't calm down.
All you remember is running, running back to the circus. You had ventured out of the tent tonight, just exploring, hoping secretly to find an exit somewhere.
Instead though, you found yourself staring at bugs on the ground. Hundreds and thousands of them on the ground.
You remember not noticing them before, and that scared you even more. You aren't afraid of bugs, but you hated stepping on them,
and if you hadn't seen them before, you surely stepped on a few.
That thought did it.
You remember how your eyes went wide, fear immediately settling in. You couldn't move, because what if you stepped on another one?
You remember how you looked around for any open path to walk on.
You remember shaking as you slowly stepped on any open ground you could find.
You also remember running as fast as you could as soon as you were out of there.
Now, you're running. You are praying that you are going the right way and don't get lost.
Your legs are still shaking, your breaths uneven, and it doesn't help that you are running, that's making everything worse.
You start to feel tears well up in your eyes, your legs are starting to hurt, breathing is starting to hurt, and you're so exhausted.
Then, finally, you see the circus tent in sight. You run as fast as you can towards it, messily entering inside.
---
Upon entering, you keep running. You have no idea where, you just keep running. And you are aware that if you stop at any time, you won't be able to run again- not because you wouldn't want too, you won't be able too.
You are now also able to hear how loud your uneven breathing is, how heavy and loud your steps are, almost as if you are carrying something heavy.
You are still shaking, your eyes still barely holding on to the tears urging to come out. Your chest wheezed with every half-filled breath, and breathing alone hurt.
You couldn't see, could barely breathe, couldn't run- but you did anyway.
You had too.
What will happen if you stop?
Would you not be able to push the incoming pain back once your adrenaline lowers?
Would you be able to control yourself even less than you already were?
Would you-
Suddenly, an intense wave of pain went through your lungs when you deeply breathed in. You fell to the floor on your knees, letting out a breathy, high-pitched scream.
Every breath from that moment on hurt as if you were inhaling glass shards.
The tears you tried so hard not to spill, came flooding out in waves, intense waves that made your whole body shook with pain.
With every cry, you inhaled thin breaths of air that made your lungs burn, and the pain made you cry more, but the more you cried, the more 'thin breaths' you took, making it an unbearable, painful loop you couldn't stop.
You planted your hands onto the floor, shaking while trying to keep yourself up. Your eyes blurred with tears, most spilling out and falling onto the floor between your two unstable hands.
You couldn't stop. The pain from breathing was unbearable, so you started avoiding it, although you sobbing made you forcefully do it.
You started feeling lightheaded, not helping with the pain at all. You also started hearing a high-pitched ringing in your ears, only for you to hear.
Seconds start feeling like hours. The pain from breathing is getting so intense that you try avoiding it completely, making your lack of oxygen that much worse, which causes you to feel even more lightheaded.
Your shaking intensifies as your body fights everything, fighting for you to stay awake and breathe, but your mind doesn't obey.
Just as the pain was reaching it's peak, you suddenly felt something touch your shoulder.
For a few seconds you forgot all about the pain, flinching backwards and trying to spot what or who touched you.
You still couldn't see, making it almost impossible to identify the thing, but you see a pink and purple blur with a bit of yellow on parts of the thing. You tried to focus more, and the best you got was identifying that this thing was human, a familiar human.
The pain suddenly came back, brutally reminding you of the situation you're in. The ringing in your ears worsened, getting mentally louder, and the tears spilling from your eyes made it impossible to see clearly.
The figure came closer to you, slowly. Then you felt it touch your shoulder again, but you didn't flinch away this time. You could hear a male voice say something to you- something you couldn't hear well at all, only him mumbling,
But you knew now who it was.
---
JAX POV:
Jax was abruptly woken up to the sound of heavy, hard footsteps from somewhere in the circus.
Of course, nobody else could hear it, it was just him and his fantastic bunny ears making him hear every single thing that happens in this damn place.
For him, it was most of the time a blessing. It made him prank others easier, surprising them, blackmailing them and so on. But now? Hell- what a curse. He just wanted to sleep after an exhausting day, but no. His dumbass ears HAD to wake him up. Great.
Now that he's awake, might as well go and find out what the noise was. He could sense that it was relatively close, maybe the main stage room or nearby that area.
Well even if it was far, he wouldn't be sleeping anyway. Plus- he loved a good exploring session. It could be some new information he could use to blackmail the others, which would be definitely worth all of this.
He stood up from his bed, now kind of excited to find out what it was. Sleeping was overrated anyways.
He quietly opened his door and stepped out of his room. He tried to close and lock the door as quietly as possible, if this was possibly a trick, he would be safe. It wasn't likely, but he is Jax. The prankster, the annoying and irritating one. The funny one. He wouldn't be shocked if someone tried to get him back.
As he slowly walked over the checkered floor nearing the noise, he could hear that it changed a bit. It wasn't hard, heavy footsteps anymore, it was... heavy breathing? Sniffling? Crying? He couldn't quite pin-point it.
The curiosity grew, making jax go a bit faster, still making sure to be quiet.
As he got closer, the sound became more apparent, and he came to the conclusion that it was some weird combination between crying and uneven breathing.
As he reached the main room, he paused, suddenly backing up to a wall, staring.
He saw you on the floor in the middle of the main room, on all fours, shoulders shaking, clearly crying and struggling to breathe.
He stared at you from the distance, standing behind a wall. He didn't know what to do. He was Jax, the mean and funny one. The one who made jokes- he can't help you. He didn't want to help you.
But something in him said that he should help you. That he should let the mask fall just this once. That he knows he's not really the funny one, and that he actually does care.
He hated that voice,
...
Because it's scarily convincing.
He stood staring for a few more seconds, contemplating on what to do. He knew he couldn't just leave you, because as he stared more and more, he realized that you were having a panic attack.
He has had those before, many times, especially after Ribbit abstracted.
He knew how they hurt, how they feel like your dying. He remembered not having anyone help him through any of them, and having to learn the incredibly hard way of calming one down all alone.
As much as he told himself that he shouldn't help you, the voice in the back of his head telling him that he should was way louder.
So, with much hesitation, he slowly moved forward to reach you.
As he came closer, he could really start noticing the details of your panic attack. How your eyes were wide and wet with fear, scribbled and tiny pupils filled with panic. You were shaking, clearly not hearing anything but yourself.
Jax had never seen one before that wasn't his. In his own panic attacks he didn't care about his appearance or how he looked like during one. But now he had a front seat view of a very intense panic attack.
It was awful. He hated how he felt his heart twist when he looked at you. His ears bent down, his worry escaping through his eyes, no matter how hard he tried to hide it.
He approached you, now very hesitant. He held out a hand to touch you then pulled it back, not actually knowing what to do.
Then, finally, he touched your shoulder, muttering awkwardly what he could to you.
"...uh...hey, Y/N... uh, it's okay... calm dow-"
Then you flinched back, clearly startled.
Jax immediately retrieved his hand quickly, flinching hard.
He saw how you were inspecting him, clearly not actually seeing him well, probably not hearing him well too.
This panic attack was extremely severe, you even looked lightheaded.
"Hey, uh, listen... this isn't really my thing but... you need to like- breathe. I don't want to deal with a passed out Y/N. That's too much work, y'know?"
He placed his hand back on you shoulder and you didn't flinch away this time, but you started tearing up more.
Jax could see how your eyes widened as you finally realized this was him, Jax.
"...Jax?" You practically breathed out the words, still not breathing right and still shaking. "Why...W-Why are-"
He noticed how talking made you just breathe less and panicked more, and from his experience, it usually did.
"Hey, don't talk to me right now," he moved his hand from you shoulder to your chest, now sitting on his knees infront of you, "just breathe. Your voice is annoying anyway."
---
READER POV:
"...just breathe. Your voice is annoying anyway."
Holy hell, this was Jax.
You could hear him a bit better now. You were already a bit calmer now, but breathing still hurt a bit.
Was he going to hurt you? Make fun of you? Why did he sound so... comforting...
The shock of seeing him gave you about 20 seconds of relief.
It didn't last long.
The panic went up again. Just as intense.
You looked at him, tears welling up faster, vision blurring again, breathing hurting again.
Speak. Just say something again.
"...I-I can't-" then another sob that burned your chest.
You heard him say something back to you, not very clearly, but his voice was very comforting. You made out a 'shh' and a few 'hey's but nothing else.
You felt his other hand grab your hands, both of which were still frozen in place were you had them before, and held them to your chest where his other hand was as well.
You felt him shift, possibly sitting down in front of you, and not on his knees anymore.
The comfort got to you emotionally, and you sobbed not just from the panic anymore.
You started shaking even more now, tears slipping from your eyes and you sniffled and cried.
It hurt a lot, but you couldn't do anything about it, and something about someone being here makes you almost feel the pain less, as if you were accepting it now.
You felt Jax grip your hand tighter when you started shaking more, not enough to hurt you, but to ground you.
Your eyes welled up even more.
"I-It h-hurts Jax... I- I can't-"
"Hey. Of course you can. You can handle me, so what makes you think you can't handle this?"
His voice was so comforting and grounding it shocked you. Was he- Jax- indirectly complimenting you?!
You tried to breathe more, but you couldn't. The pain was starting to become unbearable again.
"I- I can't breathe it- it hurts."
"And you feel like you're dying, I know. But remember that you aren't, your lungs are just being an ass right now, like any middle school friend. It'll pass."
It was comforting, but you still couldn't breathe.
You assumed that Jax noticed, because he suddenly took one of your shaky hands and held it in his. He flipped you hand upwards so your palm was facing the ceiling, and his thumb placed on top of it.
"Okay, bear with me. Focus on what I'm about to do and try to match it with your breathing."
He started slowly pressing your hand lightly, mimicking the motion of a heart.
It was hard to really focus on anything, but somehow after a while, it was actually working. Your breaths became less painful, and you started to breathe normally. Your eyes were still spilling with tears and you were shaking a lot, still sobbing, but not as painfully anymore.
You were slowly calming down.
"There we go... see? Told 'ya you could handle this."
Along with his comforting voice and him pressing his hand mimicking the heart motion, you calmed down enough to talk normally.
"...thank you...Jax."
You looked up at him, tired, but relieved.
"Uh... no problem... this was your final warning though. I'm not gonna do this again."
You smiled weakly, clearly tired.
"Wouldn't expect you to do this again, or now."
That made Jax shut up. He was clearly awkward and wordless.
"Uh... you... uh... being... helpless is uh- my job. So uh, only I get to be the reason for... you uh... panicking or... something..."
You chuckled softly, you knew he was making up bulls%$# he didn't realize he needed beforehand.
Your chest still burned, eyes still stinging, but this was nothing compared to almost 5 minutes ago.
"Whatever you say, Jax. Either way... thanks."
"Yeah. Sure, won't help you again- as I said before."
You rolled your eyes and you tried to push yourself back up, only to stumble and struggle to find your balance.
"Wh- hey!" Jax immediately grabbed your arm and pulled you upwards on your feet as he suddenly stood up.
You look up at him, shocked and confused.
"Hey now, be careful. Hell- have you ever had a panic attack before?! Jeez you can't just stand up! You need to wait awhile."
You couldn't ignore the worry in his voice, how his ears were high and stiff, and his eyes giving his emotion away completely.
"...Oh... uh, no I haven't... thanks for catching me."
Jax immediately stiffened, clearly wanting to let go of your arm but hesitates... which is odd by itself.
The two of you both stare at eachother for awhile, eyes locked on one another. You could make out just barely in the dim lighting how his face went a shade redder.
It felt as if your breaths were in-sync. You felt as if the world blurred away, and it was only him with you.
After a few seconds, he snapped out of it and picked you up from under your shoulders and started walking quickly to your room.
"I swear you are my least favorite."
As he walks, you look up at him. He is trying to look away from you, to hide his face, but you see it. You see the red colour on his cheeks, ears and neck.
You wonder for awhile as you stared at him. You have never seen him like this before. Is he embarrassed? Sick? What is he thinking?
As you thought, he practically kicked your door open, snapping you out of your thoughts. He aggressively walked in and, oddly, gently threw you in bed.
You stared up at him, he looked annoyed.
"I hope your ass gets a nightmare. Then go to Ragatha, not me." And he walks out of the room and closes the door aggressively.
You lie on the bed, startled and confused.
...huh.
---
JAX POV:
The voice inside his head would not shut up.
"WHAT THE HELL WHAT THE HELL WHAT THE HELL WHAT THE HELL WHAT THE HELL-"
He was inside his room, back against the locked door. He could feel how red he was.
"SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP- WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH ME?! SHUT UP!"
He held up an arm to cover his eyes, wishing he could undo everything he just did and said.
He DID NOT mean to catch you, AND WHY THE HELL DID HE STARE SO LONG?! WHY DID YOU STARE BACK WITH THOSE LARGE, TOTALLY NOT MAGNIFYING EYES... totally not gorgeous, beautiful, pretty, soft ey- WHAT?! WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING?!
The way you trusted him and calmed down using his trick- NO- STOP!
STOP STOP STOP STOP STOP!!!
What could have made you so upset... he needed to know so he could stop it next ti-
WAIT- WHAT THE- NO- STOP DUMBASS!!!
He slid down the door, arm still covering his pathetically red face, until he sat against it, laughing softly.
What an idiot. Stupid. Pathetic.
He hates you. He SHOULD hate you!
Then why did he wish the moment lasted a bit longer...
NO! STOP! HE DOESN’T CARE ABOUT YOU!
But the way his heart twisted- STOP.
Jax forcefully stopped his thoughts and went to go to his bed.
He climed inside and immediately turned his side lamp off, repeating the words "I hate them I hate them I hate them" over and over again.
But deep down, inside his heart, he knew that he didn't really hate you, infact,
He kind of likes you.