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“I can’t feel the left side of my face.” The words are barely a whisper, wet and frantic, as Mike collapses against the mahogany paneling of the hallway. He doesn’t slide down the wall so much as he dissolves, his long limbs folding like a broken lawn chair.
The Los Angeles heat is a stagnant, oppressive weight, but Mike is shivering, a violent, rhythmic tremor that rattles his teeth. Davy is there in a heartbeat, the suddenness of his movement cutting through the heavy silence of the house. He drops to his knees, the fabric of his trousers rasping against the hardwood. He reaches for Mike, and the heat radiating off the older man is alarming—a feverish, panicked sweat that makes his skin slick and clammy.
“Talk to me, Mike. Look at me,” Davy commands, his voice a steady anchor in the rising tide of Mike’s terror.
Mike doesn’t look. His eyes are blown wide, staring at something invisible and horrific. He is clutching his chest, fingers digging into the cotton of his shirt, trying to reach the heart that is currently hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird. The pressure is an anvil, a crushing weight that makes every inhalation a jagged, shallow victory. In his mind, he can feel it—a blockage, a rupture, the sudden failure of a coronary artery snapping and leaving his chest a hollow, echoing void.
He gasps, a raw, guttural sound that tears through his throat. He isn't just breathing hard; he is suffocating on the air, his lungs refusing to expand. The panic is a physical entity, a parasite that has coiled around his diaphragm and is squeezing the life out of him. Davy doesn’t recoil. He moves closer, invading Mike’s space, wrapping his smaller, stronger arms around Mike’s trembling torso. He pulls him in, pinning Mike’s frantic body against his own, trying to use his own steady heartbeat to override the chaos.
“Tell me what to do,” Davy whispers, his breath hot against Mike’s ear, his grip tightening to keep Mike from drifting away into the void. “Just tell me. Do you need a doctor? Do you need water? Tell me what you need, Mike.”
Mike’s fingers migrate from his chest to Davy’s forearm, gripping the skin with a desperate, bruising intensity. He buries his face in Davy’s shoulder, the scent of cologne and salt filling his senses. The fight leaves him all at once, replaced by a devastating, childlike fragility.
“I just want my parents,” Mike sobs, the words breaking into a thousand pieces. “Davy, I just want my parents.”