gatheringswans:
daybreak diner / closed: @sylvan-scenes & @arloreynoldsboyle
the day probably couldn’t have gone worse, as far as bash is concerned. the universe has unfortunately gifted him with a couple of very common fears—heights, first and foremost (this is exactly why he’s never even been on a plane) and then the dark. being unable to see anything is bash’s worst nightmare and it’s coming true now. were he at home, it would’ve been fine…ish. bash was meant to leave soon anyway, he was this close to hanging up his apron and calling it a day but the weather had other plans.
when the lights go off, he’s in the bathroom washing his hands. at first, he figures it’ll come back up in a moment but it doesn’t. more time passes and it’s still dark and bash’s breathing picks up because this can’t mean anything good. he reaches to the side and takes a careful step, enough so he can touch the wall and then lean against it. his hands are shaking as he reaches for his phone—old thing, the torch doesn’t work anymore so the best he can do in terms of light is the glow of his screen. he feels dangerously close to a panic attack too (he can’t even remember when was the last time he had one—this is bad) but tries to do his best to stop it from developing any further.
it takes him five minutes to get his breathing back to normal and for his heart to slow down. his hands don’t feel so clammy anymore and any sudden noises don’t seem to be making him jump anymore. he takes another five to make sure that he’s actually fine and then he finally walks out to meet his boss, his phone doing a shit job of guiding him.
“okay, so…what’s—uh, what’s happening? are we getting out?” bash asks but he guesses that the amounts of snow he can see outside of the windows is answer enough. “shit.”
•••
When the lights flickered, Arlo’s first response was a flash of panic. Then, they shut off entirely, and Arlo’s panic moved up from a flash to a constant thrum under every thought. He’d known panic well, and he knew just as well how to push it down, to shove it under a smile and a forced sense of confidence. He spent a solid three minutes pacing around, looking for anyway out, only to find that while he had been cleaning, every single exit to the diner had been loaded with snow, too strong to escape. He made a valiant attempt, pushing hard at a door, then a window, but the verdict was clear. He was stuck.
The next three minutes involved intense breathing, trying to regulate his nervous system, and failing. The cold was encroaching, slow and ominous, the temperature of the diner dropping degree by degree. Help was on the way, he reminded himself, smiling at nothing in particular (he heard that helped, when someone was panicking, but it just made him feel crazier).
He was genuinely considering trying power posing when he heard Bash’s voice, at which point he was flooded with some kind of relief. At least the snow hadn’t somehow trapped Bash in the bathroom, right? He turned around to the source of the voice, wishing that he could just see what was happening.
“Help is on the way,” he announced, trying to push the shaking out of his voice, and failing. “Diego is coming to rescue us... it’ll be fine. Totally fine. I will not freak out. Bash, if I look like I’m freaking out, don’t let me, okay? I cannot freak out.” He was the captain of this ship, after all. He could not freak out. Nope. No way.