Ch 14:
"This feels stupid." Chloe grimaced, glancing over at Anthony, who was sitting on the spare bed in Chloe's dorm.
Anthony grinned. "Safe to say you're not joining the drama club?" he joked, to which Chloe rapidly shook her head, making him laugh. "It's not stupid, honestly. And it's either acting out a fake panic attack, or waiting for a real one, and it might be hard to train her if your in the middle of a real attack."
Chloe groaned, looking down at Motley, who was watching her with a tilted head as if wondering what on earth she was doing. "What exactly am I supposed to do?"
"Well," Anthony started thoughtfully, "everyone has slightly different experiences when they have a panic attack. Just try and reenact what a panic attack looks like for you. So, what does that entail?"
Chloe thought for a moment. "Well,…my heart pounds, I start sweating, I feel nauseous,…but I don't really see how I can act most of that out. I can't make my heart pound unless I run a few laps down the hallway. Same thing with the sweating. And the nausea…"
"Okay, fair enough. Um,…well, the few times I've seen you have a panic attack,…you start gasping for breath, like you're struggling to breathe in. If you're walking, you sometimes stumble, sometimes you curl up into a ball on the floor. Sometimes you cover your ears with your hands. Sometimes you shiver or tremble."
Chloe blushed in embarrassment at all the details Anthony had picked up on.
"Hey." Chloe glanced over at the gentleness in his voice. He was looking at her sympathetically. "I can leave if me being here makes you uncomfortable. I just want to help."
Chloe shook her head. "No, it's fine. I wouldn't even know where to begin without your help. This is just…out of my comfort zone."
Anthony smiled. "I get that. Just take your time. And hey, if you're genuinely uncomfortable that might actually help it seem more believable for Motley."
Chloe nodded. "You're a glass-half-full kind of person, aren't you?" she joked lightly, which made him chuckle.
"Sometimes, I guess."
Chloe took a deep breath before trying to fake a panic attack. She tried gasping for air, making herself shake, though the shaking was probably more pronounced than normal. She fake-stumbled a couple steps toward her bed, sliding down to curl up on the floor. She squeezed the squeaky toy in her hand and glanced toward Motley.
The Dalmatian instantly scurried over at the sound of her favorite toy.
Chloe continued the gasping, lifting her hands to cover her ears. Motley sat in front of her, scooting as close as Chloe's bent legs would allow, and started pawing at Chloe's knee.
"Good. Praise her." Anthony whispered, and Chloe gave the toy to Motley, tugging playfully on it when the dog grasped it. "That was perfect." Anthony grinned. "Just do that or something similar every so often, not so often she gets bored, but maybe a few times a day or so. Reward any good behavior that you want to encourage, and ignore anything you don't want her to do."
"Like when she pawed at my knee." Chloe whispered, the fake gasping actually making it so she had to catch her breath now. "That's good behavior."
"Yes, it's one of many things a dog could do that's helpful. Pawing at you or maybe licking can be used to distract an oncoming attack." Anthony agreed.
Chloe stretched her arm up and over the footboard of her bed, grasping the journal Anthony had gotten her to keep track of Motley's training. She jotted down the date and some notes on how the day had gone before tossing it back onto her bed.
Anthony came and sat on the floor next to her, tugging at Motley's squeaky toy and making the dog shake her head in play before rolling onto her back. Meanwhile, Beelzebub apparently felt left out and hopped down from the bed to curl up in Chloe's lap, giving an almost growl as she glared at Motley and the offending squeaky toy.
"So, where is everyone?" Anthony asked curiously. "I haven't seen much of Carlos and the others since yesterday, when Carlos and Jay practically ran out of the ROAR training. And none of them were in class today."
Chloe stroked Beelzebub's head and back, feeling her purrs rumble deep in her bones as she contemplated how to answer that. "They…had a late night adventure and…were excused from classes today."
That wasn't even half of it.
Apparently the storm at the Seaside Festival had been caused by Arabella, a girl in Chloe's year who stole her grandfather King Triton's trident and lost control of it, resulting in her losing it at the bottom of the ocean. Terrified and not knowing what to do, the girl went to Evie to ask for help, and Evie pulled in Mal and the boys. Carlos insisted on being completely honest with Chloe, not wanting a repeat of the last time they left her out of an adventure.
While Chloe was grateful, she was in no way interested in their plan of stealing a boat in the middle of the night to find a lost magical artifact at the bottom of the sea. She knew it was a terrible idea. And her worst nightmares nearly came true when she was summoned in the middle of the night to Fairy Godmother's office, where the headmistress threatened to send the other four back to the Isle of the Lost for stealing. Seeing the raw fear in their eyes, in Carlos' eyes, nearly made Chloe fall to pieces.
Luckily, Ben came through and showed up with seconds to spare, lying to Fairy Godmother and telling her they were on a secret mission for him, without even knowing what they'd all been up to. He trusted them that much.
So, Ben was filled in on what was happening, and he went with them on the mission, and Chloe went back to her dorm to try and keep herself from freaking out. There was no way she'd be any help on a boat in a stormy ocean, driving toward the Isle of the Lost. There were so many potential triggers in that one scenario she could fill a sheet of paper.
And then, she found out they barely got the trident before Uma did. Uma. The daughter of Ursula. The girl whose crew had caused Chloe almost as many issues as her former Dragon Hall classmates.
No thank you.
Apparently, they didn't get back to the school until dawn, and were excused from classes for the day to catch up on sleep, which Chloe thought was fair, considering they'd just saved Auradon again.
Anthony glanced at Chloe in amusement. "Something tells me there's way more to the story than that. Let me guess…Classified?"
Chloe laughed. "Something like that. Hey, do you know when the ROAR tryouts are supposed to be? I thought it was yesterday? The day after the tourney championship." Saturday was the tourney championship, which Chloe had watched with Motley, Dude, Anthony, Mal, Evie, and Doug from the grass by the field. The Fighting Knights won against the Seaside Mermen.
"I think they do it in rounds. Like it's more practice and training leading up to the actual tryouts. But I think the final tryouts are sometime this week or next." Anthony shrugged.
Banging on Chloe's door interrupted their conversation, causing them both to jump. Motley flipped over so fast one of her ears ended up flopped over atop her head, and Beelzebub grumbled and slipped under the bed to hide.
Before either could say anything, a familiar voice called from the other side of the door. "Chloe! Chloe are you there? I have some great news!"
Chloe sighed in relief. "Come in!"
Jane rushed in, almost slamming the door behind her. She was bouncing on her toes, grinning from ear-to-ear, and was hiding something behind her back. Jane had been growing her hair out since Chloe first met her, and it was already a couple inches past her shoulders.
"Hi." Chloe greeted her slowly, a smile twitching at her face. Anthony was also trying to stifle his own amusement. "What's up?"
Jane seemed to finally burst with excitement. "I made the team!" she squealed, pulling out a new, blue, white, and yellow Auradon Prep cheerleading uniform.
"That's great!" Chloe grinned, standing up and hugging her friend tightly. "Congratulations! I knew you could do it!"
"Thanks! Don't tell Carlos, I want to tell him myself." Jane insisted, before frowning slightly. "Is that weird? No, yeah, that's weird. Never mind. You can go ahead and tell him. He probably doesn't even care."
Chloe tried not to smile in amusement at Jane's rambling. "How about I not tell him, and you can surprise him next time you see him?" she suggested.
Jane smiled sheepishly. "Yeah, that works."
A couple days later found Chloe sitting up in the balcony of the amphitheater with Mal, Evie, Lonnie, and Motley, watching the ROAR tryouts. The balcony was nearly empty compared to the seats on the first floor around the mat, which was packed with students. Despite that, it was a bit of a struggle getting Motley to stay in her down-stay position at Chloe's feet with all the cheering and excitement.
As soon as Carlos joined them in the balcony, Chloe hugged him tightly and congratulated him on making the team, trying to focus on the tryouts more than her insecurities. She was in her average T-shirt, jeans, and jacket look with her hair in its natural waves, while both Mal and Evie were wearing pretty princess-like dresses. While that was normal for Evie, Mal never wore dresses unless it was for a dance or something. Chloe had a feeling she was trying to fit the princess mold Auradon had, since she was dating the King. At least Lonnie was wearing a sweatshirt and joggers instead of a pink dress for once.
"So, what's Chad's problem?" Chloe asked curiously as Carlos stood next to her, all of them looking back down to watch the next match. The arrogant prince had a red nose and bloodshot eyes, which he kept wiping at.
"I guess Audrey dumped him." Carlos shrugged.
Chloe hummed thoughtfully. "I should probably feel bad for him, shouldn't I?" she asked, her tone making it clear that she really didn't. Carlos chuckled, tossing his arm over her shoulder as they watched Jay step up.
Jay took out the first four guys he faced with no problem. It was clear he was a natural if this was how good he was after only a few days of practice. His final match was against Chad.
It was a close match but Jay managed to pull out a win, not only earning his place on the team, but taking Chad's title as Captain. Chloe and the others burst into applause on the balcony, and Chloe noticed Lonnie looking longingly at the swords against the wall. Before Chloe could ask, everyone was rushing down to congratulate Jay on his win.
When everyone started clearing out of the amphitheatre, Evie turned to Chloe with an excited smile. "Could you come by my room? I need to get your measurements for your Cotillion dress. I've been getting a lot of orders and want to get yours in before I'm too busy."
"Um, I can't right now, Evie. I have to meet up with someone to study." Chloe told her, heading off with Motley and sighing in relief. She didn't really know what Cotillion was, but she knew she had no desire to go, but she dreaded actually saying those words to Evie after what happened with the Castlecoming dance. And she'd only partially been lying. She didn't need to study right now, but she was meeting up with someone.
She entered the art classroom to see Ben carefully moving a couple of the paintings, Anthony helping him by putting flowers around the room.
"Um, Ben?" she called. "You wanted to see me?"
"Yes, Chloe. Thanks for coming." Ben smiled, carefully setting down a painting and approaching her. "I was hoping for some help, if that's okay."
"If I can, sure. What's up?"
"Well, I was planning on asking Mal to be my date for cotillion in here, since it's her favorite class." Ben explained, glancing around the room. "I'm going to have her favorite flowers all over the place, and I'm going to put most of the paintings away. But I wanted to leave a few paintings out, like maybe some of Mal's favorites or something. Do you have any suggestions? I'd like to leave Mal's self-portrait out, but other than that I'm not sure." Ben explained, gesturing to the self-portrait Mal had been working on for their final assignment, which took up almost a whole wall of the studio.
Chloe hummed thoughtfully, approaching where they had Mal's paintings lined up slightly separated from the others. Chloe easily picked out a few that she knew Mal was particularly fond of, one of a foggy meadow, and one of a dark, gloomy castle. She picked a couple more out and showed them all to Ben, who smiled gratefully.
"Perfect. Thanks, Chloe."
Chloe helped them set the paintings out, as well as the flowers. She didn't think she had much of an eye for decorating, but between the three of them bouncing ideas off each other it turned out looking nice.
Ben told her what time to be there, so everyone could be present for the surprise. She could tell Ben was nervous, so she smiled reassuringly.
"It'll be fine, Ben. She'll say yes."
AN: There's some Anthony, Motley, Chloe bonding for you all. There were a lot of references to the book Rise of the Isle of the Lost and it's events in this chapter. There will be a couple more chapters before the events of Descendants 2 start. The next chapter will include some twin bonding, and the following chapter will get into how the VKs spend their summer vacation before returning to Auradon Prep.
I've had a couple people excited to see Motley help Chloe through a panic attack. I'm not sure when that will happen in regards to the story, as training service dogs takes time, but it will happen, I promise.
Review and let me know what you all thought of this chapter! I know it's another slightly-uneventful chapter, but I'm trying to make up for it with the fluffiness.