#panic attack?

Really, what did Isaiah lose? Why should he be the only one always trying? Stepping back, making room, giving time? Showing understanding, patience, retreating to meet him?

Okay, maybe it wasn't that okay and that easy to let go. Isaiah couldn't be dishonest with his shadow around. He would not hurt himself with lies.

It mattered and it stung, but it wasn't fair and he wasn't budging.

Maybe he should. Especially at night, like this, alone with his thoughts and no distractions, the little hurts kept poking his brain.

Isaiah was the older brother. Hector was bad with emotions, immature, overwhelmed, still learning to be responsible and accountable. He spend years living a lie, a protective cocoon Isaiah created—that Isaiah sacrificed himself for—and it was hard and slow process to adjust to reality emotionally too.

Isaiah had worked very very hard not to resent him for it.

For not noticing something was wrong, when they were kids.

For being more focused on jealousy and rivalry than if Isaiah was okay.

For making him into his ideal, putting him onto a pedestal to defeat instead of letting him be human.

But Isaiah was the older brother. Thr bigger person. The one with the training privileges. The one who spent all that time with father—the good time, when Vincent was still sane, kind, wise and taught Isaiah everything he knew.

Whatever the madness was and what it took, it wasn't just bad things. Vincent taught him how to treat strays, how to train, how to be just, how to help.

Isaiah loathed lot of things about himself and hated the consequences of Vincent's wounds left on him.

But the truth was, everything good he did, the skills and the knowledge—the tools to help Matthew, to teach Rip, to protect Seline, to balance the packs—all of that came from Vincent too.

How could you resent and love someone so much at the same time? Even when it became easier, or maybe just possible to think about, it didn't make it easier to speak about it.

Who would understand? And who deserved to be burned by something like this?

So the very least Hector and Arnie could do is respect that. Not ask, not doubt, not blame him. That's all he wanted. Was that so much?

Why did he always have to step back for them, make all the effort? Couldn't they meet him halfway too? They weren't kids anymore...and he was tired of it.

Arnie's meager little meetings and running into Hector during the wolf meets...they only came when they needed him for something. Isaiah, solve this. Help me with that.

Validate me, support me, take my side.

He tore himself to pieces for them and once they understood it, they thought it was the new standard of their interactions? That's what he was obligated to do, now and forever?

He could be the bigger person. He could stop this tension, this restlessness, this...grief and loss he felt. The emptiness in his life that couldn't be covered by noble reasons and excuses anymore.

He was the one choosing to cut them off now. Doing exactly what they blamed him for in the past. When he bore it for their sakes.

Isaiah turned from his back onto his side, gripping the pillow harder.

It was his choice. He could stop it. Forgive it, step back, let them go back to normal.

If it was his choice, he swore to himself he would always choose them. What did it matter if they deserved it or not?

Maybe he should do it for selfish reasons. He would feel better, resorting contact—knowing they were fine, being close, sharing onto their lives.

That way, they would think they won, but he would be at peace. Weak looking or not.

Isaiah squeezed his eyes shut. He was tired and wanted to sleep. There was a big Eastern holidays meet tomorrow. He needed to bring his best game, come in best shape.

Hector would be there and he would have to avoid looking at him. Avoid getting upset.

Kieran would be there. Cause that was always fun, seeing him poke and sniff at his wounds like a shark.

Rip would be there. Hiding in the shadows of the shadows, cause the society he was working for ad Executioner's apprentice wouldn't accept a stray they themselves created.

So much unfairness. So much work he needed to do. Sleep was a waste of time, really. If he could last without it, he would make so much more progress on all these projects.

He envied Seline's peace. She would stay home, enjoy the holidays, work on her thesis and PhD proposal. She would write songs, read books, watch a series or two, not at all worried she was missing out on something.

So happy with this balance of time, of being concerned with only finding inspiration on the free days. Only scared of losing the rhythm of life she already enjoyed.

And Matt. Matt would do his workout routine, his run. Trian with Dylan or with Rip. Study for exams. Bicker with Seline about what movie to watch and if it needed to be Chinese or Korean again.

He could ask them to come with him. Make it a little easier.

He could let them have a carefree life they deserved.

Who was he to take it away? Nobody asked him, if he wanted this. He would not do the same thing to someone else.

His pulse picked up. In his mind, he could imagine his arteries closing up, tightening. The blood thickening, as the flow started to hurt, as his heart fluttered in effort to push through.

He couged into the blankets. His chest constricted, his lungs heavy, like made of cement and not of tissue. His heart was hammering in his ears.

If he didn't slow this train of thought, he would make himself sick. His stomach flipped inside him and the first crawls of nausea, like cold fingers up his back, nape, stroking around his jaw.

Shut up, shut up, shut up.

He imagined going outside, onto the roof. Letting his shadow out. Letting himself feel.

Even the thought calmed him a little. He should do it soon.

He turned on his other side, Matt in his sight. Snoring softly, mouth ajar.

Hector called Matthew instead of him.

Bile rose in his throat. He swallowed it heavily. That's how far they have come now.

He closed his eyes, checking for Seline's steady breathing upstairs. Focusing until he could pinpoint it, lose himself in it.

Seline didn't tell him about Dylan. Only now, years after, she told him a school story that led to the police and to his depression and his episodes. Explaining the situation of that young wolf.

Shrugging, like it wasn't a big deal. She hadn't told him, cause it wasn't actual, not just her secret and not something he could help with. It wasn't something to bring up over coffee, she said.

His tounge tasted like sandpaper. The air was hot and raw and painful, in his nose, his eyes, at the back of his throat.

Isaiah buried his head harder into the pillow, losing hearing in one ear from the pressure.

His stomach twisted painfully. His dinner, hours ago, felt heavy now, like it stopped digesting halfway through and decided to go backward instead. The cramp made him gasp into the sheets.

They smelled of sweat. His shirt was glued to his back, the sheets clinging to the shirt and the pants. He scrunched his nose at how gross it felt.

His stomach lurched. Of all things about this? Like a last drop for the night.

Isaiah got up from the bed in haste, forgetting a little how wobbly it would feel with his blood pressure this high.

He shook himself, leaving the shoes behind in the dark, stumbling towards the bathroom as quick as he could.

The light was blinding, but grounding too, making the suffocating darkness a little easier to bear.

Braced against the cold sink, he looked at his mirror expression. Watched himself gasping for breath, throat all closed up without a visible cause.

Pathetic, really.

His chest felt torn up, like it was bleeding, with raw patches of meat missing in the middle.

Pressing his hand against his left side, he felt his own heartbeat. Wild and uneven.

He could call Hector right then. Hear his voice, reassure himself and him everything was fine. He could break the silence, admit defeat, prove himself as pathetic and dependent as he felt.

The one who would always care more. Always invest more, offer more, accept anything, just to have them close.

The nausea rose higher. Isaiah turned the facaut on, the running water sound a little grouning. Reminded him if Seline.

The retch was almost lost in the gentle sound, as he heaved over the white granite, bite and water and pieces of meat shooting up.

He didn't fight it, retching harder. The next heave came with a loud burp, just to be more disgusting.

Black dots in his vision. The raw cuts in his chest burning as he heaved and heaved. He should slow his breathing or he would lose his balance.

His fingers curled around the edge of the sink a little harder. He couldn't remember what he was upset about. Everything was wrong and cutting and tiring. He just wanted it to stop buzzing in his head.

Just a moment of peace.

The water was still running and the light was still on. He let himself slide down to the floor carefully, closing his eyes.

The exhaustion from the vomiting with the relief of it ending settled him down.

It was not that thick mouthed fear that would grit its teeth and snarl, slam down and keep its ground. Burn the fear to create a deep seated barrier because there were things worth using the bone rattling feeling for.

No she was locked tight, joints dipped in that flavor of fear she hated with a passion. It hurt, banged against her chest in a thrum that would skip and stutter. Sending rockings of agony as though her plating would come apart. Deep within herself she sputtered, shockwaves of that choking pain not even able to escape her as a scream. 

No. Her joints in her jaw had been dipped and frozen so she could not even alert the air around her of the way she had fallen. Balance lost as the panic had spread so deep, so quickly. A disease or infection that had attacked her at that slam. That loud echoing noise that resembled gunfire, she had heard it in halls before. Felt a shot rattle through her and shake her insides. That was a long time ago she had whispered within her mind, even as the second paint can dropped from her hand and slammed to the ground when she lost her grip.

Her spark had jumped, her limbs had half locked. Legs becoming useless beneath her she fell. Crashing down and only having mere seconds before the pain of her panicking heart locked her tight in the embrace of fear. Only having enough time to curl defensively forward for the split second she unlocked when the pain in her chest dulled moments later, before snapping sharply and raggedly tight again. So she sat stiff and coiled tight, spark screaming as it strained to contain itself and calm. Over stressed and weak as it already was, the fear was too much. 

Fear of tall shadows, bloody handed mechs, thick weaponry. Mechs who she had watched and helped crafted the battles for. Mechs that spoke loudly, mechs who would look at her and see every crevice. Optics predatory enough and alien in their brutality her limbs would stutter. Transports with the head Tech, watching from the loading ramp, those soldiers she would only see as numbers on her desk to be calculated for battle movements and fronts, shoot political prisoners. The exploding gore so brilliant in its grotesqueness in the setting sun.

A spray of pink, metal twisting as it was blown apart. Mechs screaming, echoing and challenging the restraints that held them down. As the sparkless frame fell limply to the ground. Jumping and twitching almost demonically in the dirt. Later Ebbin would know as she was welded together not for the last or first time by the Decepticon medics, that the display was from left over signals and pumping insides still loaded with energy. Since they had hit the mechs Helms. Not their chests. 

Ebbinwane had been one of the minds behind the taking of said base, of that fortress. She and her fellow strategists had been taken from their dark rooms and mathematics to leave the compound. Security measures. Ebbin had tried to never leave her safe dark desk after she had been moved there. Too much danger beyond it.

She would never have known those few numbers left from her equations would be dragged out to be killed as the forces flocked. If she had not been last to be dragged on the transport, she would never had seen the display. 

Thats what had caused a major attack then, her spark screaming from shock and fear. Because it became once again painfully real that her math and board games were people, that those pieces held weapons and walked beside her. In that crypt of a ship her spark cried and screamed because those weapons and monsters surrounded her. She had been afraid, and could not scream then.

Even now within the supply closet, busted paint cans seeping past their confines onto the floor, she could not do more than suffer in silence. Optics dimming and flaring bright white blue she struggled to breathe, images of every other nightmare she witnessed flashing past. The panic grew when the pain did not ease, and like a snake sinking its teeth into its own tail. Panic fed panic.

Her body grew impossibly tighter. Like an over twisted cable, joints aching and wishing to spasm against the strain. But her frame ignored her, primal fear of incoming pain and consequences keeping her still. The feeling of pain so intense, or pain at all so alien her body had only one response, freeze. 

No further movement could be made as her chest grew hot, pain feeding fear.

Mind numbing the shocks did not stop, it wrenched through her so hard her frozen body quaked. Breathing clogged, her optics seized and focused on the slowly growing puddle of thick paint. Hunched and so very small Ebbinwane suffered in complete silence. Save for her rattling plates, thin and rounded. A representation of the bot and where she came from.

She could not flinch from the much louder crash that resounded from the doorway, not even look up to see what stepped so heavily and had a voice so deep. No she could only stare at that paint, watch its glossy surface ripple. Her hearing must have become staticky, because she could make out the deep rumble of a voice. But words slurred and stuck, overwhelmed as her spark twisted. Sending a wave of heat that made a slow whine finally escape her throat.

The paint was overshadowed now, a darker shade as she felt a slight brush of the air shifting. Ever so softly she felt a slight touch on her shoulder, rough and catching on her paint. The voice as it rumbled kept her frame from trying to tighten any farther, it actually began to slowly begin to unwind it. Touches that eased, a thick blue splash of plating that spread the paint out of her view. Ebbin, stiff as a board, stared unblinkingly downward as Powercase moved to cradle the much smaller mech against himself.

The guardian was large, thick shoulders and heavily armored. But was infinitely gentle as he wrapped an arm over the servant’s painfully tense frame. Powercase continued to talk, his drawl soothing as he tried to slowly calm Ebbinwane. Reassurances firm even as his nerves bristled with tension. 

“Its ok Doll, m’ here. I'm sorry I didn't find you sooner, just breath for me. That's it, that's my girl just breath.”

 He rubbed slow circles into her side and pressed her close as he listened to the slowly calming hum of her spark. He frowned deeply, trying his best to temper down an anger at every odd frequency he could hear coming from her pain filled frame.

Not anger at her, not ever at her it seemed. Powercase had a while ago found the rage at his own inability to keep her safe from her own spark. He hated this, hated that she couldn’t fight it and had to sit and wait for the fit to pass. He hated that he couldn't fight it for her, keep her safe. Could only hope she could hear him and slowly come out of it. If all he could do was comfort her, make it stop faster. Then he would. Everytime. That firm thought would keep him up later, have him staring at the ceiling as he did so many nights. 

But right now he could only frown and hug her close as her spark sluggishly returned to that hum. That frequency only her’s hit, that he knew. Powercase clenched his jaw tightly when her body finally gave her up. Let her loose. Ebbin sobbed, slumping and curling inward as her joints raggedly let go. Powercase without a moment to spare caught her exhausted frame against his own, letting her cry hard into his chest. Powercase only felt his engine growl lowly as her hushed soft voice choked out an apology.

“Im sorry- Im so sorry-” she fell into another hard pained whine as she shifted slightly, her joints screaming from all the time locked. Powercase released a breath, pressing his face softly against her rounded helm. He felt a deep sadness and agonized squeeze of his spark at her trembling hands, at her pained breaths. 

“Never apologize Doll, ‘m here remember?”

Taking up a good portion of the supply room floor, the shaken servant pressed into the guardian as the aftershocks of her fit rolled on. He manoeuvred himself so she was firmly hidden from the door and against him, keeping an arm around her as she pressed her face into his side.