Synopsis: Reader has an anxiety attack. Jack comes to your aid without hesitation.
Warnings: anxiety attack. Established romantic relationship.
Author’s Extra Introspections: After reading multiple articles and other research, I’m understanding the difference between a panic attack versus an anxiety attack. I dealt with my only anxiety attack with people I wasn’t close with and I guess I wrote this because this feels like the thing that would have helped me the most. You are so loved, reader. Stay alive |-/
Jack knew of your anxiety. He knew what you’d told him: the overthinking, the constant planning ahead for the worst, the anticipation of everything going wrong, the emotions that ruled your sternum and controlled your breathing, and how you coped. Well, you were less clear on how you coped, but Jack knew you were visiting a therapist and he had learned quickly that there were times he needed to encourage you and other times he needed to drag you into the door. In any case, Jack knew it was something you lived with.
Being said, Jack hadn’t been around for any of your anxiety attacks. In your nine months of dating, Jack had never guided you through that sea of emotion. But when you had a panic attack for the first time, Jack was thankfully off work to hear your shocked gasps of breath when it happened. In the aftermath of that, you’d looked at him with a fake nonchalant expression on your face as you tried to say “if it— if I’m too much— I’m sorry” to which Jack shut you up by physically placing his palm over your mouth and pulling your shoulder into his chest. “If it happens again, I want to be the first one you call. Because you love me and I can help you and I, quite frankly, very selfishly want to know that you know I am someone you find safety in. You’re never too much. Never. And I never want to make you feel that way.”
Your poor facade of carelessness crumbled as you dissolved into choked sobs: this time tears of contentment instead of suffering.
When Jack’s phone rang at work, he was on his way to the break room for a quick coffee break before the wave pulled everyone under. His face softened as the picture of you sleeping on Dana’s couch filled his screen. Your contact name—‘Mrs. Ma’am💍♥️’ flowed across the top. Jack accepted the call and pressed it to his ear as he closed the door. “Hey honey,” he greeted.
His heart stalled at the sound of your labored breathing on the other line. “Jay? I’m- I can’t-“ the sound of a thud sends him in action. He flies out of the breakroom, eyes wildly identifying someone he can trust.
Ellis looks at him with a furrowed brow. Jack shakes his head and says “I will be back.” Nodding, Ellis offers a thumbs up before taking over for Jack.
“Hey there, honey,” Jack cooes over the phone. “I’m on my way to you, okay? I’m coming.” He fondles his pockets and retrieves his keys as Jack approaches his vehicle. “How’re you doing, honey? Where are you?”
Ten miles away, you’re unable to see with how hard your eyes are closed. You’re getting lightheaded, now, from how much you’re hyperventilating. It’d taken you longer than necessary to call Jack. “De-Deck,” you finally answer, your head pushing against the glass door as tears travel down the peaks and valleys of your face. “Jack I can’t-“
Jack clenches his jaw. “I’m about five minutes out,” Jack tells you, very much driving over the speed limit. He couldn’t give two shits— let alone one, though. You came first. Every time. A speed suggestion bore no real weight to Jack. “Why don’t you breathe with me, honey?”
Every panic attack usually centered on helping you remove yourself from one specific place. Jack had seen what happened the first time he physically picked you up and sat with you outside. He imagines, after mush introspection, that the physical contact paired with the different environment helped to show you were not isolated and stuck in a spiral you could not break yourself. In any case, it worked then and it worked the next time, so Jack wasted no time gauging where to take you when it was all too much.
You attempted to match breaths with Jack, but your own breath count increased even more as you got more frustrated you weren’t doing it like Jack. “I can’t. Jack, I can’t do it,” you choked through tears.
“It’s okay, sweetheart, I promise. Just keep listening to me, okay? I’m almost there and then we can fix it together, okay?” Jack whipped his turn harder than anticipated but it truthfully didn’t matter because Jack was about 100 meters from home. “I’m pulling in the drive now. Do you hear the garage door, honey?”
You did. You heard them and knew Jack was there. You heard the garage door open and then you heard a car door shut. Next was the footsteps. The call ended just before you felt a light touch on your shoulders.
“Hey, you,” Jack greeted breathlessly. Your eyes were closed and you turned your shaking sternum toward Jack’s. “Can I hold you, honey?”
In all honesty, Jack didn’t know what the fuck to do. Usually your eyes were wide open and darting every which way, your hands would pull at the front of your shirt like it was obstructing your breathing, and you’d be more physically pliant. All signs pointed to an anxiety attack: muscle rigor, hyperventilation, closed eyes. The only problem was Jack didn’t know how to help you.
That doesn’t mean he sure as hell wouldn’t try.
You nodded weakly, neck jerking forward like it was weighing you down. Jack immediately filled in the space between you. He sat down on the deck with you and took your hands in his. “I feel like… I’m about to pass out,” you said. “Jack?”
“Yeah, honey?” Jack answered immediately. You hands were tense: the pads pinky and ring fingers pressed against the palm of your hand, the middle finger nearly tensed up like the others. He wished with everything in his soul that you never had to feal this kind of pain.
“Pull me up,” you said, leaning forward. “Kitchen chair.”
Jack nodded. “Okay.” In the blink of an eye (…Jack’s eye. Yours were still closed and dripping tears.), Jack wrapped a hand around your back to the other side of your underarm and hand you pulled up against him. Your breaths—thank fuck—slowed down a little as soon as you leaned you full weight against him. He guided you through the patio door and to the kitchen with ease. “Okay I need you to sit down, honey.”
You slumped easily into the seat. Jack pulled a chair over by you and held your wrists. You leaned your head forward to put your head down, down where it was darker against your eyelids. “Talk to me. Quiet. Please.”
Jack watched you, breathing turning less erratic by the minute and felt his chest release a bit of tensions. “Okay. So…” he murmured. “I had a girl come in today, about nine years old. Completely flipped over her bike. Like, brakes pulled, cartwheel over the front, bad landing. The poor thing had injuries bad enough to make some fully grown men cry. When I asked her, you know, why she braked so hard, she shrugs her little shoulders and tell me that she saw a birds nest on the ground and she thought she was going to run over it.“
Jack’s story was only partially comprehensive to you. You were hearing his voice but not listening to the words. In truth, you wanted him to talk because hearing a voice you trusted was a kind of achor in the raging waves of your body and emotions. Hearing his voice meant you weren’t alone, and things were always easier when you weren’t alone.
“Were they… okay?” You ask, feeling your hands tingling. The weight of your head seemed to subside as you focused on Jack’s story. “The girl and the birds?”
A laugh sputtered out of Jack. “Yeah, yeah. Yeah, they’re all okay. She said that she put it in a little knothole of the trunk.”
You nodded. “I’m cold.”
“Okay.” Jack slowly retracted his hands and closed the patio door. He jogged over to grab the thick green chunky-knit blanket you’d bought from your nephew. Draping it over your shoulders, Jack grabbed you your water bottle from the kitchen counter and opened it for you to drink. “Drink.”
You shook your head, pulling the fabric around you. You sat up in the chair, finally taking Jack in. He held the water out in front of you with a genuinely stern expression. “Y/n you need to drink some water. I won’t ask again if you just have a little sip.”
Sighing heavily, you leaned forward and closed your lips around the straw. You pulled the water up the straw and earned a brief sigh from Jack—probably off relief that you didn’t put up much of a fight. When you finally pulled away, Jack wasted no time in setting your water aside and opening his arms out to you.
“C’mere, honey. I’ll put you in bed and then I’ll be back later, okay?” He cooed as you reached your own limbs up to him. Your legs shook with tension as Jack swept his hand under your knees and hoisted you into the air. “There’s my girl,” he murmured. Your chest stuttered as you inhaled: something you always did after you cried or depleted your energy. “I’m proud of you for calling me, y/n, genuinely. Thank you for trusting me enough to help you.”
You tilted your head up to look at Jack. “I… Thank you for being someone I trust.”
After the attending physician helped you slide under the quilt, he thought about the casual delivery of that powerful line. He slid back into the seat of his vehicle, feeling the hum of the engine rumbling, and thought of the vibrating tension in your hands that didn’t pull away from his. Jack strode back to work with a kind of renewed vigor: all because he’s someone you trust, unconsciously and by choice.
Reuploading this comic because I simply cannot believe that I forgot the most imporant page in the original. Truly a blunder I'm never gonna recover from.
