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You were still relatively new to the complete madness of the circus. Maybe that was why you were here, in your pitch-dark room, hyperventilating. You hadn't thought to turn the light on when you burst through the door, for what felt like hours ago. Realistically, it was most likely only a few minutes ago, though your frantic mind successfully swayed you to believe you had been in this panicked state for a great lump of time. The dark floor of your room was all your eyes could make out through your widened eyes while you sat on the edge of your bed. Your hands scratched invisible lines onto your thighs, a small thought sneaked its way through that, if you were still human, you would have definitely left scratches on your skin. This had always been your feeble attempt to try and ground yourself wherever you found yourself in a situation like this. In the real world, and now in this one as well. Old habits die hard, and all of that nonsense.
You tried your damned hardest to force your mind to forget all about that stupid adventure Caine had put you all through, the one that had caused this episode. Your mind, once again disobeying you, replays the way you felt towards the end of the adventure when a certain interaction with an NPC struck a significantly uncomfortable memory you swore to never think about again, to the front of your mind. You couldn't really remember what you did after the conversation, all you remember is the stinging sensations of digging your fingers into your palms and not speaking a word in response to Ragatha's concerned questions. Opting to just nodding and shaking your head. Thankfully, she seemed to know that you just didn't want to talk and so left you be with a defeated expression. Until you saw that familiar swirl of color that made up the portal back to the circus, you just stayed to the side of the other members, ignoring the pang of embarrassment and guilt you felt in the pit of your stomach when someone would throw a concerned look at you. You kept your gaze either on your feet or on the floor nearby so as not to meet anyone's eye. You weren't oblivious, though, you could feel the distant presence of Kinger's gaze on you from the corner of your eye. If you sensed it right, his eyes never left your face as you were enthusiastically welcomed back by Caine himself. You didn't bother waiting for everyone to shuffle back to their rooms and darted to your room as soon as the ringmaster was done with his greetings. You could almost guarantee you got looks as you left, but that was the last thing you were thinking about.
Your lungs, which you weren't sure if you even had a pair anymore, felt as if they weren't capable of taking a breath deeper than four counts. You felt the sensation of a cold sweat encase your entire body, and you wiped your hands on your bed sheets to try to blot the nonexistent sweat away, another thing you did in the real world. You didn't know what to do. Normally, you would run to your parent, and they'd immediately do all they could to ease you out of this horrible mess, rub a reassuring hand down your back, and you'd slowly feel the ugly anxiety leave your chest. But they weren't here anymore. There was no one to help you through this anymore, and God, did you miss them. The thought alone made you grab at your thighs helplessly, and you stared at the balled-up appendages as tears blurred your eyes. Your whole body tensed, and you curled over your knees on your bed, having brought your feet up and off the floor to the edge of the bedframe. You were glad that you and the other circus members didn't necessarily need air in here. Because of the lack of proper air you were allowing yourself, you would have most definitely felt faint. You were probably heaving through short breaths while tears fell and disappeared onto the dark ground, but you just gripped your hands together around nothing and allowed the consuming feeling of panic wrap its old and familiar arms around you.
Then you heard the doorknob twist open. Damn, you must have missed someone knocking on your door while you were crying. Your face shot up, and you felt hot tears stream down your face as you squinted your eyes from the onslaught of different colors from the hallway that formed a beam onto your bed. After blinking a few times, you recognized the silhouette of who was standing in your doorway. Kinger. You swipe your hands all over your face in a sad attempt to try to seem like you were fine, and you felt a pang of fresh panic go through you when you couldn't bring yourself to say anything. You just looked fixedly back down at the ground and felt your breath grow shallow once more. You couldn't see Kinger's expression, but if you had looked back up, you would see that the thin black lines that make up his eyebrows were pinched together, and that his gaze had softened. For a moment, he didn't speak and simply studied your quickly deteriorating expression. He shuffled into the dark room and closed the door behind him. "You okay, kiddo?" You weren't expecting his voice to sound so gentle, and it weirdly grounded you just enough to flicker your gaze up to his slowly approaching figure to signal that you were, in fact, not okay. You had so many things in your head you couldn't manage to get even a word out, just shrinking into yourself once more. You registered a weight dipping the mattress next to you, and you had to lean the opposite way to not slide next to Kinger. You felt as your body began to ache from how you were tensing it so much. Your chest began to rise and fall quicker and quicker. Kinger, noticing that you definitely were not doing the best right now, raised a very hesitant hand to hover near your shoulder, then, after a brief hesitance lays it softly on your shaking figure. You had severely underestimated the comfort of having literally anyone else with you right now.
"It's alright, just slow down." The hand on your shoulder was softly squeezed, and for the first time in the last thirty minutes, you actually tried to regain control of your breathing. It didn't work right away, and you began to panic once more, causing you to desperately look over to Kinger for something, you weren't even really sure what. You're met with the softest and most patient expression you've ever seen on the guy in the little time you've known him. He nods at you. "Just keep breathing, if you keep doing it, I promise you'll feel better." You almost start crying again from how much he reminded you of your parent when they'd help ground you. You shakily inhale for a couple of seconds before you hear Kinger join in with you, and after a few more seconds of holding the air in, the two of you breathe out together. For the following few minutes, the two of you do nothing but breathe together in the now comforting darkness of your room. Kinger's hand that was on your shoulder began to gently rub up and down your back, and you immediately felt tears well up in your eyes as you sighed. Tears rolled down your face as you looked at his eyes. If he had the mouth, you knew he'd have the kindest smile. The way his wooden eyelids slid up from the bottom of his eyes was the best he could offer you when your eyes met. You felt yourself grow exhausted as you felt your body relax for the first time in what felt like hours. You focused on the rhythmic up and down of his hand on your back, and the collective sound of your breaths being the only sound in the room.
It had probably been around fifteen minutes since your panic attack smoothed over, and you felt the exhaustion weigh your eyes down. You look at Kinger from the corner of your eye with your hands clasped together. He wasn't rubbing your back anymore, laying his hand on your shoulder where it was before. Kinger was just staring straight ahead into your room, his mind was obviously busy with something. You should probably thank him for helping you calm down instead of just staying silent. "You were kinda quiet today," He beat you by one second. "Did… something in the adventure make you feel like this?" His words seemed so genuinely concerned about how you felt, it threw you off again. You were a little shocked and just stayed silent in thought as you stared at his expression. He seemed so serious and concerned at the same time, you had a hard time wrapping your mind around the fact that he wasn't acting like the usual unserious and confused guy you knew him as.
You wanted to tell him why you had stormed off, you wanted to tell him how you were feeling, and why you had that panic attack. But something reeled the words back down your throat when you opened it. You looked away from him. Kinger hadn't noticed his eyebrows were tense, and when he saw the expressions warp on your face, he realised something and scootched a little closer to you and took his hand back. His expression was softer once more, and he looked down at his gloved hands. "You don't need to tell me anything you don't feel ready to y'know, I get that talking about a sensitive topic can be hard. It takes time." You turn your face to him slowly, and his expression makes your heart sting. He had his hands clasped together, and his top eyelids were covering half of his eyes. It looked like he was thinking about something, maybe something that was hard for him to open up about, too.
You leaned towards him and let your shoulder meet his, a silent way of reassuring him as he did you. That seemed to distract him from his thoughts as he looked towards you with surprised eyes. Though it melted into a grateful smile just as quickly, he returned the needed weight to your shoulder to balance the two of you out. "Thank you, Kinger for…" You pause for a moment. You didn't think out what to say as a thank you. "For being here with me." Kinger chuckled softly and raised his hand to wrap you in a side hug, as well as he could, since he had no arm. "Don't mention it." You melted into the hug and felt the beginning of a small smile form on your mouth. You weren't sure how long he was going to stay with you here, but a small, selfish part of you wished he would stay as long as he could.
Well, that was until the door swung open and you felt Kinger wince from the bright light beside you. The one who opened the door, Jax, strolled into your room in a few steps with a hand up to his forehead, pretending to look for you. "Why the hell is it so dark in here? You two having a playdate or something?" Kinger's hand fell from your shoulder, and he closed his eyes to greet Jax. "Oh, hi, Gangle!" Jax ignored him and let his gaze fall to you, and you could've sworn, for just a second, he looked… Relieved? But that could've been a trick of the light from the hall because the next moment, he walks up to the two of you and gestures to you with a pointer finger. "Well, well, look who I found hanging around with the nutcase in their pitch dark room!" You were just about to respond to him and try to justify yourself when Jax spoke over you and stretched his arms above his head. "Anyway! Yours truly, and everyone else is playing Uno downstairs, and Ragatha keeps pestering everyone by saying we should wait for you. So let's get going so I can kick your a#$." You felt a little warmer at the fact that they were going to wait for you. You sneak a glance at Kinger as you get up and recognize he's back to being crazy, if his cross eyes are any indicator. You hope he's paying any kind of attention to you as you motion towards the door with your head.
"C'mon, Kinger, we're gonna go play Uno." He twitches at the sound of your voice as if he couldn't hear anything until just then. "Sorry, I couldn't hear you. We're having what for dinner?" You have a somewhat sad smile on your face as you offer your hand for Kinger to take. His eyes focus on the outstretched hand, and he takes it after a moment, his eyelids expressing a smile. You ignore the judgmental look Jax was most likely giving you and walk out of your room ahead of him, Kinger in tow. The walk there was mostly quiet besides the hollow jabs Jax threw to you in an attempt to egg you on, which you ignored. Every once in a while, you'd look up at Kinger and see that he was staring cross-eyed ahead while the three of you walked. You gave his hand a small squeeze. You turned to Jax and talked about whether they were going to have stacking in the game, to which he said yes with a smug crease in his yellow eyes. You rolled your eyes playfully and mentally prepared yourself for the arguments that were bound to erupt from the card game. As you were about to come to the clearing where everyone was sitting down and keeping their cards close to their chests, you felt the unexpected squeeze of Kinger's hand around yours.