Earth could feel a sharp pain in his chest when he saw the facial expression of the other, the pain that was suddenly evident and the tears that started rolling down his milky white skin... But this time it was different from back then in the kitchen. Mix didn't faint when seeing the scene with all the fake blood. He didn't lose consciousness but rather... his legs seemed to give out and his body sank on the stage, still staring at the scene in shock.
Before Earth was aware of it himself, his body had already started moving, him running down the stairs of the auditorium as fast as he could. It just took mere seconds for him to reach the ground before running alongside the stage to the side stairs and climbing them in a hurry, two steps at the same time. Both him and Vee, who was following right behind him, must have attracted the attention of other people, their steps being the only thing that cut the silence in the auditorium. But this didn't matter to either of them. The only thing that was important right now was to reach Mix - and then to take care of him, even if Earth was unsure what that would exactly look like at the moment.
Both men stopped when they finally reached Mix, their breaths hitching due to the sudden physical activity but their attention completely focused on the person that was sitting in front of them. Mix was trying his best to keep himself upright, his trembling hands searching for support on the stage floor while his head hung low and tears were continuously dropping to build a small puddle of water right between his hands.
"Earth... Could you pick him up and then follow me? " Vee wa spanting hard, trying to catch his breath but even when he gave those instructions to the other, he didn't take his eyes off Mix.
"Sure."
He slowly kneeled down right next to Mix, moving the other's body carefully until he could pick him in bridal style and then followed Vee to the side exit as quickly as he could. Of course, he paid attention that no part of Mix' body would hit a corner or the wall, which was a little more difficult than he had really anticipated and made the two of them quite slow in following the older. While Earth was trying his best to get down the hallway, Vee opened the doors on the left and right side, having a look into each in every room before moving on, seemingly not having found what he was looking for. Whatever that exactly was.
"Here"
Earth lifted his head a little more, making eye contact with his best friend who had suddenly stopped at a door on the right side, holding it wide open so that he could carefully get Mix inside the room. It didn't seem to be anything special, just an average storage room, but then again - Vee probably knew better what to do in this situation than him so he was no one to complain. Besides, Mix was slowly starting to get heavy in the other's arms.
Once Earth was inside the room, he slowly lowered his body until he was kneeling, placing the still trembling and crying Mix on the ground before carefully leaning his back against the wall. The view of how he seemed to be in so much pain, his body shaking violently and Mix hugging himself tightly... just broke his heart. What in the world had happened that he reacted like this to blood? Did he... did he see someone die? Was that why he had reacted like this?
In any way, since he wasn't sure what to do in this situation, Earth moved a little to the left and away from Mix, giving Vee the opportunity to sit down right in front of Mix with his legs crossed. The older carefully loosened Mix' arms from his body before taking his face in both his hands and carefully leading the other's body in his direction, until his face was in the crook of Vee's neck and his arms wrapped around the older naturally, holding onto him while still crying his heart out.
"Shhh It's alright..." He softly whispered again and again, his arms placed on the younger's back while he was rubbing it softly. "Everything is okay... I'm here so you don't have to worry...I'm here..."
Everything Earth could do in this moment was watching the two others, the way Mix was still trembling and sobbing, while it was evident that this was calming him down, even if it happened slowly. It took some time but after a while the sobs that were echoing through the storage room grew quieter until Mix' hitching breath was the only thing that could be heard. Shortly afterwards his body stopped trembling and his hands loosened their grip on Vee's dress shirt, until they were numbly placed around the old one and Earth could clearly see that Mix had relaxed... he almost looked as if he was asleep...
"This... this happened before right...?" Earth asked silently and made eye contact with Vee, who seemed a little caught off guard by the question.
"How..."
"It almost looked like a routine... that exact position you put him in and...."
"Help me place him down first and then we can talk... I'm sure you have questions , " Vee said softly, making the younger agree with a nod.
Earth moved himself closer to the other two, wrapping his arm around Mix back before they together started leaning mix back against the wall, until they could remove their hands off him without waking him up. Indeed, he was asleep, his eyes looking puffy from all the crying and his cheeks still wet... but at least Mix was breathing calmly, his chest lifting up and down in a normal rhythm that made Earth sigh. He had really panicked seeing Mix collapse on the stage and felt helpless while watching Vee doing... whatever he was doing. It was like the last time, he had no idea what to do or how to help the other and was in need of someone else in order to handle the situation properly. That was nothing to be ashamed of, but again... he felt bad for it. How could he like someone and not know how to help them in emergency situations? Was he really qualified to like Mix even though he had no idea why this happened or what exactly he should do if this happened again?
"Let's leave the moment for a moment and talk , " Vee whispered and the two of them exchanged a glance.
"Will it be okay to just leave Mix here like this?"
"Yes, Don't worry. He is just asleep but once he is in deep sleep, we can carefully move him to one of our apartments... but if we did it now, he would surely wake up again and I'd like to prevent that from happening."
Earth slowly nodded, turning his head back to Mix and smiling softly at the other before finally getting on his legs and following Vee outside. The older was careful to close the door silently, and once it was completely shut, both Earth and Vee left out a heavy sigh. They had been oblivious to how tense their bodies were during all the happenings and now, that the situation was mostly resolved, they could finally relax again and breath freely.
Though the younger was curious, he didn't start asking the million questions that were going crazy in his head, that tried to push themselves forward so that they would be the first one to get answered. He knew that this situation came out of nowhere for Vee too, that though he seemed aware of what was about to happen when seeing the scene on stage, he still hadn't known beforehand and was probably shocked as much as Earth was. And beside all of that... the reason why Mix had such uncommon reactions to blood definitely had some kind of reason, maybe something had happened in his past that caused this... and it should really be Mix revealing it, if he ever wanted to. It was true that Earth was curious and wanted to know what to do if the happenings from earlier ever were to repeat itself but still... how could he respect Mix privacy while also making sure that he could handle such a situation if it were to happen again?
"I... am not exactly the right person for you to have this conversation with , " Vee started and let out a soft sigh, his body leaning backwards against a wall.
"I know... If this is somehow related to a past happening or a trauma he has... it should be Mix telling me about it when he feels comfortable enough. But I am worried. What if this happens again and you are not there the next time? How can I prevent something like that? I... I felt so suffocated not knowing how I could help him... and I feel worried , " Earth admitted silently.
Vee seemed to think for a while, closing his eyes and massaging the brim of his nose, something he usually did when he was contemplating about things or trying to find the right decision. The older stayed like this for a while, until he crossed his arms and looked at Earth with a defeated facial expression.
"No, you are right. Something like today could happen again, and I am currently the only person knowing about this... it's just not safe. Mix could be somewhere with you and it might happen again... so I will tell you enough for you to know how to deal with those kinds of situations, but I will leave it to him to reveal the complete story behind it. "
"Thank you."
Earth's lips formed a soft smile and the two of them sat down on the ground next to each other, their backs leaning against the cold stone wall, before Vee started talking again:
"As you recognised it... something happened in his past that led to him heaving Hemophobia, the fear of blood. If it is just blood that he sees, like a paper cut or someone falling down and their knee bleeding, he normally just gets nauseous and faints."
"But that didn't happen today... I was confused at first because his reaction was completely different from that afternoon in his kitchen... "
Silence was filling the hallway, none of the two men daring to open their mouth and form a real question or answer....It almost seemed as if they were waiting for something, but without anything happening Vee moved his head in Earth's direction until they locked eyes.
"His reaction was different, because the scene earlier was a person dying. When he sees something like that, his body and mind react differently. Whenever there is a person that dies in connection with blood accumulating around them, he gets a panic attack like earlier. "
"Is it.... because he saw someone die who was bleeding heavily ... ?" Earth asked silently, his voice nothing more than a whisper but the pain that suddenly flickered in the other's eyes was enough of an answer for him, he didn't need Vee to verbally confirm it.
"Real life, Stage play, movie... whenever a scene like that comes something similar would happen. That's why I normally watch movies first and see if there is anything that might trigger Mix, before watching anything with him. When it does happen though... it is normally best to bring him to a secluded area, sit him down and then make him lean onto you like I did earlier. Placing his face in the crook of your neck and then slowly breathing in and out will make him adapt to the speed of your breathing and over time he will slowly calm down. Sometimes it takes longer than other times, but talking to him during these moments helps a lot like you saw. The more things you give him to focus on, you voice, your breath, your heartbeat, your touch - the easier it will be for him to try and concentrate on it and calm down."
Earth slowly nodded to himself, taking mental notes of the explained procedure so that he would remember what to do the next time something like this was about to happen.
"It is different for everyone what helps when having a panic attack or how exactly a panic attack looks like, but what I told you about works best for Mix. I tried different things in the past when it happened, but this calmed him down the best..."
<< Heyy everyone ♡♡♡
It's been a long time since I wrotea note below my chapters buutttt I think this is the perfect time to do it. I struggled a lot with this chapters and had a medium emotional explosion last night because I just couldn't write it down as good as I wanted to. What happened in this chapter is something I had planned probably since August last year (so a looong time ago) and I just couldn't write it as good as I wanted to, so I've been feeling frustrated and put it down again and again.
But on a good note: The Switch hit 6K views yesterday... and that's crazy. i can't tell you all how happy I am that you love this story so much. It is honestly my favourite story out of all of them while also being the first BL story I intended to write on here. Crazily enough, this story isn't even halfway done yet (it will have at least 48 chapters) so... let's see how many views it'll get in the future hahaha.
Please leave a vote and comment here if you like the story ♡♡
Love, Ia ♡ >>