Do I have a paper I should be working on right now? Yes. Did I do this instead? Also yes.

Please leave a comment if you liked the chapter! Again, everything I know about PTSD comes from the internet and my imagination so if I got anything wrong let me know!

"I turned around for two seconds. How did you have time for this in two seconds?"

Despite Jem's annoyance, Will looked very pleased with himself. "I can move faster than you think I can."

Somehow, in the time that Jem had taken to turn around, grab a box of cereal, and turn back, Will had put seven boxes of Pop-Tarts, each one a different flavor, in the shopping trolley. He was fine with one box, but seven was pushing it a bit.

"Pick one and put the rest back," Jem said.

Will, who was 24 years old and far from being a small child, pouted like a small child. "Why not all of them?"

"Because we don't need, what, 80-something Pop-Tarts? You're not even supposed to be eating too many of those anyway."

"They'd do more than all those vegetables you keep sneaking in," Will muttered, but he gathered up everything but the cookies and cream box and put them back on the shelf.

"I was given explicit instructions to make you eat those vegetables so don't blame me."

"The next time I have an appointment I'm making a formal complaint about the horrendous amount of vegetables."

Jem grabbed the trolley and started pushing it towards the end of the aisle. "Let's just get out of here before you make me pay £100 for Pop-Tarts. We need meat," he said, then looked back to make sure that Will was following (and that he wasn't trying to smuggle any more boxes).

It was always a battle to take Will to do the shopping, but Jem had quickly learned to keep an eye on the trolley after the incident where they got to the register and he found four packs of Oreos under the produce. But, no matter how hard it was, Jem still took him with. Will hated going anywhere without Jem or staying home alone, and Jem could easily understand why. He certainly wouldn't want to be alone when any little thing could cause a flashback or panic attack.

Will was doing better, though. He'd been on medication for about a month now and it was helping. Sometimes. He was generally less depressed than he had been before, but the panic attacks and flashbacks hadn't gotten any less frequent or easier. The episodes of hypervigilance were also more frequent and lasting longer every time. Dr. Branwell, or Charlotte, as she had told Will to call her, had been informed, but she wanted to wait a little while longer to adjust the dosage just to give the meds more time to work.

Jem had the frozen section in sight and was trying to see if they had the cuts of chicken he needed from far away when he heard, "Oh, Oreos!" and immediately had to turn back to save his wallet.

. .

Will hadn't actually been planning on making Jem buy seven boxes of Pop-Tarts and four flavors of Oreos, but he really did love antagonizing his boyfriend. If he was going to come to the grocery store with Jem, he was going to make the most of it. He didn't hate it when Jem took him to do the shopping, though. It might have been tedious and boring but at least it meant that he wasn't home alone. The last time Jem had left him at home while he went out, it had been… interesting.

Jem had been absolutely amazing over the past few months. No matter how many times Will's nightmares woke him up or how many times he had to drop everything when a flashback started, he never once complained. Instead, he made sure that the light was on every single night and made Will download an app to remind him to take his meds.

Unfortunately, though, Jem sometimes just wasn't enough. Sometimes the flashback or nightmare was too bad for the meds and it took hours for it to finally end. The meds had worked great in the beginning but the symptoms they had suppressed were starting to come back. Jem knew that, but he didn't know how bad it was. Just last week, he had spent three days looking over his shoulder and jumping at every little noise. Even the breathing exercises that Charlotte had taught him didn't work most of the time.

Today was a good day, though. He'd woken up normally and not from a nightmare and managed to keep Jem from getting out of bed for another hour. Church hadn't tried to bite him when he took him off of the table. He hadn't encountered any triggers at all that day and the hypervigilance was nonexistent. Maybe things were starting to get better.

Jem was currently standing over a freezer full of chicken breast and searching for the lowest price, so Will took the opportunity to select a few lovely £20 filet mignon packages to put in the trolley. It was only about £100 and he didn't think Jem would mind at all. He was searching for the next most expensive cut of meat he could find when he heard someone clear their throat and turned around to see Jem holding two packs of chicken and giving him A Look.

"Unfortunately," Jem said, "you're going to have to put the filet mignon back. We are not a fancy restaurant that can spend that much on meat."

Will shook his head but gathered up the packages. "You're just no fun…"

Jem put the chicken in the trolley and patted him on the shoulder. "I am fun, but I'm also financially conscious."

"I guess so," Will said. "Did you at least get chicken thighs? Those are a lot better than chicken breast."

"I did not get thighs because we already have some in the freezer and breasts are much healthier."

"See what I mean? No fun at all."

Jem rolled his eyes and walked away, but Will could tell he was trying to hold in a laugh. He already knew that they had chicken thighs in the freezer because he had found them while trying to find the ice cream that Jem had hidden under bags of frozen vegetables but again, antagonizing Jem was the best form of entertainment.

Apparently meat had been the last thing on the list because as Will followed Jem he realized that they were going towards the checkout area. That could change pretty quickly, though. Sometimes Jem forgot something and Will had to go running back to get it, and it was always something all the way in the back of the store. Fortunately, that didn't seem to be the case this time. They made it to the checkout area with no stops and found a line with only one other customer in it. It looked promising, until they saw the plethora of groceries the woman in front of them had put on the belt and realized they were going to be there a while.

It would have been the perfect opportunity to put one of every flavor candy bar into the cart while Jem wasn't looking, but Will decided that he had already been through enough with the Pop-Tarts and Oreos and filet mignon and deserved a break. There were also about 20 different candy bars and putting them all back in the right place would be way too much work. Instead, Will settled for reading Jem the headlines from the tabloids in the checkout lane's magazine rack.

"Did you know that Brad Pitt had a secret love affair with George Clooney's wife?"

"Oh really?" Jem said. "And what evidence is there for that?"

"I don't think there is any but I just know it's true."

"I agree. Did you know that Queen Elizabeth actually had her father murdered so she could take the throne?"

"Did she now? I had no idea. What a scandal that must have been…"

When the woman in front of them finally finished paying for her groceries, they were able to move up and do the same. Fortunately for the person behind them, they only had the essentials (Pop-Tarts included, of course) and were done a lot faster than she had been. Jem paid while Will put everything in the reusable bags that Jem insisted on using, then waited to actually pick up the bags until Jem was done because he had once opened the chocolate bar that his mother bought him when he was six before she had finished paying and was yelled at by the cashier and wasn't taking any chances.

Once Jem finished paying and Will was free to take the bags without being reprimanded, they moved over to the windows and out of the way of others so Jem could put his wallet away and do his customary repacking of the bags because apparently putting one little bottle of salad dressing on top of the bread or putting the meat on the bottom of the bag wasn't allowed. His argument was that the bread or meat or whatever soft object Will piled other things on top of would get squished on the walk home, but Will had a feeling that Jem was doing it for the same reason that he put copious amounts of unnecessary items in the cart: entertainment.

Will was just staring out the window at someone walking their dog while Jem grumbled something about flour (which Will had expertly placed next to a cardboard box with particularly pointy corners) when it happened. While he was facing the window, a man walked who was talking on the phone walked behind him. It would have been a completely normal occurrence if it wasn't for the way that his brain had been changed over the last few months. He didn't see what the man looked like. He didn't register what the man had said. He didn't even see which way the man was going.

But the accent.

It was like a switch had been flipped. In a second, he wasn't in some nondescript Tesco's in London. Instead, he was back There. The same place where that same accent yelled and screamed and threatened. The same accent that caused so much fear and pain. The same accent that taunted and laughed and was accompanied by slamming doors and the sounds of gunshots. The same accent that he heard every day for far too long. The same accent that still haunted his dreams almost every single night.

He was dimly aware of Jem grabbing his arms and talking to him, but he didn't register anything. All he could hear was that accent. The man was long gone, but the accent wasn't. He was able to make out the word "breathe" in the static that was Jem's voice and realized that he hadn't taken a full breath in a while, but he couldn't. He couldn't get his chest to expand any more than it was and he couldn't even think about trying to do that because the only two things in his mind were danger and that accent.

Then he was sitting on some hard surface with one hand on the back of his neck and another gently trying to pull his hand away from where it had somehow gotten hold of a fistful of his hair. He didn't let it, though. It hurt and the pain provided the slightest distraction from the thoughts of the accent. It was working, until the static of Jem's voice started up again and suddenly Jem had the accent. He wanted to tell him to stop but he couldn't find the words to do that. Instead, he waved his free hand around until he found something that felt like a body and pushed. It made the voice stop but the hands didn't leave and he was glad of that. It wasn't much of a distraction but it was something.

For a while, all he could think about was the accent. He could think of nothing but that, even when he tried his hardest. Eventually, though, other thoughts started to come back. The first one was that it was brighter than it had been before. The second was that it was louder than it had been before. He slowly opened his eyes, which he didn't remember closing, and instead of seeing the front window of Tesco's, he saw the other side of the street with no window in between. He looked over to the left and saw Jem sitting cross-legged on the sidewalk next to him, holding a plastic water bottle and looking scared.

"Can I talk now?" Jem asked. Will immediately tensed up, but it came out in Jem's voice and Jem's accent, so he nodded. Jem broke the seal on the water bottle and held it out towards him. "One of the workers brought this out for you."

Will took the bottle from Jem but hesitated before drinking it. The water was clear and colorless, but he'd been fooled before, especially where That Accent was involved. He eventually took a sip and was very glad to find that it tasted completely fine this time.

"Do you know what happened?" Jem asked. Will had a vague idea of it but didn't know the details, so he shook his head and Jem continued. "I think you must have had a flashback or something. I looked up and you were just… frozen. You looked terrified. I couldn't see any triggers around so I don't know what caused it. All I could do was bring you outside and wait for it to be over cause nothing I was doing seemed to help."

"It helped a bit," Will whispered. He really wasn't in the mood to talk, but Jem's smile made up for it.

"That's good," Jem said, not too enthusiastically. "Do you know what caused it? If it was something new we'll have to talk to Charlotte about it." Will didn't answer right away and Jem said, "Of course you don't have to tell-"

"That man. The one on the phone."

Jem frowned. "What about him?"

"His accent."

Jem had to think about it for a minute, but Will could see the moment the lightbulb went off. "Oh, he had a…"

"Yeah."

It was at that moment that Will realized just how exposed they were. People kept coming out of the shop's doors and staring at them as they walked by, probably wondering what two young men were doing sitting on the concrete outside of a shop. He'd also probably had a bit of an audience before Jem had brought him outside. They were probably all people that he'd never see again, but that didn't matter. They had seen. He was also starting to get a bit sore from where he'd been sitting for an indeterminate amount of time. Concrete wasn't very forgiving and the position he was in was not doing wonders for his back.

"Can we go home?"

Jem nodded about pulled his phone out. "Of course. I'll get a cab."

"No!" Will grabbed Jem's wrist to stop him. "Too cramped. We can walk."

Jem put his phone away and stood up, pulling Will up with him. Will grabbed one of the shopping bags before Jem could insist on carrying both of them and kept a tight hold on Jem's hand. They set off for home while Jem talked about something he had seen in the paper that morning, but Will wasn't paying attention. He was already planning what he was going to say when he told Charlotte about his new trigger.

Clearly, he couldn't handle Arabic accents.

. .

Apparently, having a flashback at the grocery store was not only mentally exhausting, but also physically exhausting. After helping Jem put the groceries away, Will had gone into the bedroom because Jem told him to lay down for a bit and ended up falling asleep the second his head hit the pillow. It wasn't the most restful sleep he could have had because he kept jerking awake every 20 minutes or so from nightmares, but it was something.

When he finally woke up for the last time, he quickly realized that he had been there for five hours and had missed both lunchtime and tea time. His stomach confirmed that fact a second later when it decided to imitate a whale mating call to remind him how hungry he was. He slowly sat up and looked around to see if Jem was anywhere nearby, but the door was closed and he could hear faint violin music coming through the walls. The song sounded familiar and he quickly recognized it as one of the songs that Jem had a solo in for the upcoming London Philharmonic Orchestra concert. He was obviously busy practicing and Will decided that he could just get his own food without having to bother Jem.

As he turned to stand up, however, he noticed something on his bedside table that definitely hadn't been there before. There was a thermos of tea, probably still hot no matter how long it had been sitting there, and a plate with a foil packet of Pop-Tarts on it, still sealed to keep them fresh. On top of the Pop-Tarts was a sticky note with a heart drawn on it.

It was just so… Jem. Jem's specialty was small gestures that other people would find insignificant or boring. Will, on the other hand, loved it. He didn't need anybody, especially Jem, making a fuss over him and on days like today when he was just not in the right headspace for big presents and gestures, a cup of tea and Pop-Tarts were perfect.

Will found his phone on the bedside table and took a picture of the little display. He drew a heart on the picture and sent it to Jem to see when he was done practicing, then tore into the Pop-Tarts like a man who had been starved for too long.

. .

It had been a few days since the grocery store incident and things were… not great. The hypervigilance and anxiety that the flashback had brought on hadn't seemed to get better at all and the nightmares had increased in both frequency and intensity. The meds helped somewhat but things always seemed to get worse towards the end of the night or in the morning before he took them. Will still had two days until his next appointment with Charlotte so he hadn't had a chance yet to talk about the incident, but he had a feeling that she was going to up the dosage a bit.

In the meantime, though, he was making do with what he had. Or at least trying to. Yesterday, he'd laid in bed all day until he realized it was 9:00 at night and he hadn't eaten or done anything. It didn't help that Jem had been at a rehearsal all day and hadn't been there to make him get out of bed. Today, it was almost tea time and he hadn't gotten dressed yet. Jem had basically forced breakfast into him and had just given up for lunch. He had at least brushed his teeth, but that was about it.

Will was currently laying on the couch and staring up at the ceiling. There was a book laying on his chest, but it had been an hour and he just hadn't opened it yet. He wanted to, but he just couldn't.

His focus was pulled away from the ceiling when he heard Jem come in and say, "Sophie just texted me. She said she was doing some baking and she wanted to bring us some. She wanted to know if it was okay if she came over."

Will really wasn't in the mood to see Sophie, but he couldn't say no. Not to her. "She can come."

"Are you sure?" Will knew that Jem could tell there was something about Sophie, but he didn't know what.

"I'm sure," Will said. He put the book on the coffee table and sat up. "I guess I have to look presentable then."

In the bedroom, he pulled the first shirt and pants that he found out of the drawer, but it took almost ten minutes for him to actually put them on. Half of that time was spent putting it off as long as he could, and the other half was spent thinking about how he had only seen Sophie two other times in the four months since he had been home and neither of them had been enjoyable experiences for both of them. The only good thing about this visit was that there wasn't any bad news or anything to share, just bad memories.

Will was in the bathroom trying to tame his hair when he heard Jem open the door. He could hear him and Sophie talking and he was pretty sure that he heard his name at one point, but he kept the bathroom door closed as long as possible until he heard Jem loudly clear his throat. It was a subtle yet obvious signal that he needed to stop stalling and just face the inevitable, so he reluctantly opened the door and left the bathroom.

Sophie and Jem were standing in the entryway and talking while Sophie took her shoes off. Jem was holding a Tupperware container of whatever she had brought and he smiled when he saw Will coming down the hall. Sophie looked a lot better than she had the last time he had seen her, but that was pretty much the only thing that had changed. Seeing her just brought back all of the guilt and grief that he had spent the last four months trying to ignore.

"Hi!" she said when she saw him. "I went on a bit of a baking frenzy and I thought you might appreciate some scones."

She was trying, but it was going to take a lot more than that for Will to be able to look at her without seeing someone else. "Scones are always welcome," he said.

Jem nodded. "At least we actually like scones, unlike some people," he joked, referencing some random kid that had spent ten minutes explaining why he didn't like scones when they were in uni. Fortunately, Sophie had been there for the anti-scone rant and didn't take offense to what some would have perceived as an insult. "How about you two go sit down and I'll make some tea?"

Will and Sophie did exactly that and sat down in the living room while Jem went to the kitchen. They sat in silence for a while, with the only sounds being the jingling of Church's collar as he brushed past Sophie's legs and the sound of Jem filling up the kettle.

Finally Sophie broke the awkward silence by saying, "Jem said you were in therapy. That's good."

"I wasn't really given much of a choice of whether or not to go."

Sophie smiled. "I'm glad you're going. I've been going for a few months now and it's really helped."

Will took a minute to answer, but when he did, all he said was, "I'm sorry."

"I already told you it wasn't your fault," Sophie said.

"I know, but it doesn't change the fact that it still happened."

"The only reason you should be apologizing is if you were the one who did it," Sophie said. "I know that you weren't, so please stop blaming yourself for it."

Will didn't know how to answer that, but he was saved by Jem coming in with the tea and scones. Will noticed straight away that his scone had more butter and jam on it than Jem usually let him put on, but he decided not to say anything. He also noticed that Jem sat close enough to him that their legs were touching but not so close that it was overwhelming. That, coupled with the somewhat loaded scone that was dropping crumbs onto the floor, made seeing Sophie again just a little bit easier.