Never had he had an attack that was brought on by stress, but as he sat there across the table from his boyfriend, a thousand thoughts racing through his mind, Loke started to feel it.
There was uncomfortable sensation as the pain in his chest started to tighten and he felt as though his lungs were caught in a vice, slowly being wound closer together. He tried to push the smothering feeling to the back of his mind. Focus, Loke, focus. But it didn't work. It never did.
He let out an abrupt cough that made Lucy look up at him from his plate, the amusement in his eyes turning to concern.
"You ok, Loke?" Lucy questioned in a quiet voice, looking directly at him as he put down his knife and fork to rest on either side of his plate.
Loke was unable to answer. It felt like there was something lodged in his throat, stopping the air from passing down into his lungs, strangling him from the inside out. He opened his mouth as wide as possible, in hope that it would help to circulate air into his lungs. It didn't.
He gripped onto the table as he struggled to gulp in the air, forcing it down his throat and felt defeated when only a small amount entered his lungs causing him to become breathless and weak. He hated it. Hated the fact that this disease could have so much control over him. Especially on a night like tonight. At this precise moment.
He started to feel numb and in the midst of it all he watched breathlessly as Lucy pushed his chair back and rushed to his side frantically grabbing at his pockets. He wanted to stop him but the suffocating feeling that had welled up inside of him prevented him doing so.
"Shit, Seb…where is it?" he heard his boyfriend demand hysterically, as his trembling hands pawed at his lover's pockets in search of the inhaler.
By this point they had attracted the attention of other diners as well as the waiters, whose eyes were on them, watching and alarmed.
"when asked one of the waiters who had now come to stand by the table to be of assistance.
"Oui, je veux dire non. Il est en train de faire une crise d'asthme. J'ai besoin d'aller chercher son inhalateur." Replied Lucy hurriedly, not even looking up at the waiter, his eyes fixed on Loke as his fingers still rummaged.
Finally Loke felt as Lucy tugged the inhaler out of his pocket, flipped the lid off and moved it towards his mouth. Once it was between his lips, he took several deep puffs as Lucy kept hold of it and pressed down to release. Loke felt his body instantly relax and his chest felt as though a weight had been lifted from the vice as air started moving in and out of his lungs freely.
After a minute or so Lucy passed the inhaler to Loke before standing up and asking the waiter for more water before he sat down again.
Loke felt unsettled for the rest of the meal as they ate and continued their conversation as they had been previous to the attack. He noticed as Lucy kept shooting him worried and sometimes questioning looks which he purposely ignored. By the time they left the restaurant his state had returned to normal.
It wasn't until later when they were strolling along the Seine that Lucy brought it up. Loke had purposely ignored any of the leading questions that he had been asking and it was only when Lucy directly asked him in their second language that he stopped walking, turned and looked down at him in annoyance.
"Lucy, I have no idea what you are on about." Loke stated turning the conversation back to English because in all honesty, speaking in French while standing on the edge of the Seine, while their surroundings were romantically lit up was just a bit too cheesy for him.
Lucy rolled his eyes at his boyfriend and bit his lip before speaking again.
"I felt it."
"Felt what?" Loke replied, still ignoring and trying to put Lucy off the obvious looming subject between them.
"In your pocket. I felt it when I was trying to get your inhaler out." Lucy said matter of factly, starting to look a little annoyed and offended.
"Lucy! Jesus, I was nearly suffocating. That was no time to perve on me. But in all honesty, I can see why you couldn't resist. I am gorgeous. The temptation to touch me when I was at my most vulnerable must have been excruciating!" Loke mocked and winked down at his boyfriend, whose mouth had curled up into a small smile with disbelief at how frank his boyfriend could be.
"Ok." Lucy replied simply, defeated, as he turned to continue their walk.
Loke tipped his head back in frustration and let out a deep breath and before he knew it he was reaching out for Lucy's wrist to stop him from moving away.
"Stop. Just stop a sec." He commanded.
He watched as Lucy did as he was instructed and turned back to face him. Loke felt his chest tighten again and cursed himself. No. Not this time. Not again.
He took two uneasy breaths and realised that this time the chest tightening wasn't an attack, but nerves. After he had calmed his breathing, he moved forward so that his body was now resting against Lucy's, chest to chest and looked down at him to be greeted with excited eyes.
"It was meant to be a surprise, Lucy." he stated and laughed as Lucy pretended to furrow his forehead as though he didn't have a clue what Loke was on about.
They continued to look at one another for a minute, no words passing between them until Loke reached into his pocket and pulled out the black velvet covered box that hadn't left his side since they had arrived in Paris three days earlier.
"It was meant to be romantic." He continued in an annoyed tone but his lips were smiling, he moved back slightly and raised the box up in-between them and flicked open the lid to reveal and single silver band.
He watched as Lucy's eyes left his and looked down at the ring in front of him before returning to lock eyes with him once again, a huge grin appearing on his face.
"It is romantic." Lucy stated, the smile on his lips getting even wider. "Who else can say that their fiancé got so stressed and nervous about proposing that they ended up having an asthma attack and disrupting a whole restaurant from their meals? It's defiantly a story to tell the Grandkids!"
Loke laughed as he looked down at Lucy, looped an arm around his waist and pulled him in to an embrace, pressing Lucy's lips lightly against his own.
"I don't get stressed and I definitely don't do nervous. No one would ever believe you." He mumbled against his lover's lips before deepening the kiss even more so.