Warnings: drowning metaphors, panic attacks, passive suicidal thoughts

Today, he is drowning. The news comes as no surprise. He knew he'd failed his exams. He's known he would fail his year from the moment he received his mock results. Why then, is it difficult to breathe?

"Eirik?"

Mikkel's voice echoes from far away, calling to him from a distant shore beyond Eirik's reach. The waves pull him under, crashing against him with vicious words and bitter regrets. They hold him under until the tingles running up and down his fingers turn them numb. His hands shake, clutching his phone tightly.

"I didn't get through," he rids his voice of all emotion.

How could this have happened? How could Eirik Thomassen, consistently top of his class, have failed his exams? He can already imagine the gossip. Family members looking down at him with disappointment they don't even try to hide. Friends shooting him pitying stares, thinking him to have lazed away all term. How can he even begin to explain to someone who's never gone through the system just how difficult it is to succeed when there's a new thirty page lesson to memorize each day, when the questions on the exam sheet seek to trick you?

An entire year wasted. There will be no second chance, not for him. The current drags him even deeper, to the depths where the terrifying monsters lie dormant. He considers fighting it, kicking his legs and propelling himself to the surface. There are islands nearby. He can try to swim to one of them. But why bother? Surely it's easier to let himself drown?

"Eirik, listen to me."

A hand grasps the collar of his shirt and tugs at it. It pulls and pulls, dragging him out of the depths. He resists it, lashes out with his legs, scratches at it. It retreats for a moment, before grabbing at his arm instead and pulling him again. It drags him towards the surface, fighting against the current with a will so much stronger than Eirik's own.

As his head breaks the surface, he's torn back to reality. He's in Mikkel's arms, he realises with a start. He can hear his boyfriend's heart pounding in his ear. It races. Ba-dum. Ba-dum. Ba-dum. His eyes flutter shut and he listens.

Mikkel's words wash over him like the sun's rays. They soothe him, comfort him, chase away the thoughts that reach out to pull him back under the surface. He doesn't understand, he never will, but he understands how Eirik's mind works. He knows what thoughts race through him, what worries poison his determination.

There are other paths, he says. This isn't the end. No one will judge him for changing course. His life isn't set in stone.

"It's okay to fail," he repeats, a mantra Eirik reluctantly accepts as truth.

He doesn't know how long they stay like this, all he knows is that it's helping. Mikkel combs his fingers through Eirik's hair as he talks, while his other hand rubs circles up and down his back. Feeling rushes back to the Norwegian's fingertips, his ragged breathing slowly evens out. The tears he hasn't realised he's shed dry on his cheeks, and exhaustion takes hold of his limbs, causing him to sag against his boyfriend's warm body.

He doesn't want to speak. He doesn't want to move. He just wants to sit here for a little while longer and listen to Mikkel talk, bask in the comfort his gentle touch brings, and relish in the tranquillity, forget for just a little while that he's failed, that he now has to decide what to do with his life, that his decisions will also have an impact on Mikkel, whether he can continue to live with the man he loves.

For now, though, he's content to doze off to the lullaby of his partner's steady heartbeat. Nothing else matters.