Hello, it is Wednesday and I am back with a new chapter! I very much loved writing this story, though it must be nearly a year now. For a while I had wanted to write a story tackling Jorginho's experiences with anxiety, and show where they began. Like him in this story, I too have dealt with anxiety for as long as I can remember and one night I woke up having a panic attack. I managed to get through it and to calm myself down as I fell back to sleep, I started imagining how James would help Jorginho with that occurrence, given they were both heavily on my mind at the time. I decided to actually write what was initially a daydream and I'm so glad I did. I think it's so important to especially write men dealing with mental health problems because that willingness to be vulnerable can lead to not only relatable stories but connection. Anyways, I hope you enjoy this story. It's not all anxiety inducing, promise! :)
In case you only see this and skip the rest of the author's note - this chapter revolves around a panic attack and has mentions of grief and remembering a deceased love one.
When James turned around in his sleep and stirred because of the low light bathing the dark room of nearly winter in citrus, he thought about just going back to sleep. But after his sleepy eyelids tumbled open just a fraction and he saw the blurry silhouette of the other man sitting at the end of the bed, he knew that sleep was far less enticing.
He opened his eyes properly and prepared to sit up, smiling contentedly as he wondered how on earth he had been so lucky. Stumbling back into the life of Jorginho had been an entire twist of fate. But getting to know him like he had in recent months? Getting to hold him? To feel himself falling into him?
Life should not have been that kind to him. No wonder he did not want to drift back off to sleep. He was then in a dream.
Jorginho, however, was currently in a nightmare. And as James adjusted to the start of the looming new day that they were then approaching, he realized that the other man was not sitting up in bed because he was reading – and he certainly was not lost in reverie as he too pondered his own fortune.
Jorginho was lost in something. Lost in his own mind. It became all too familiar to James as he saw Jorginho's torso pressing nearer to his thighs as his legs hung off the bed and he could hear his panicked, quickening breathing.
James knew it all too well, both from seeing it within Jorginho on more than one occasion and knowing it in himself. The hand pressed desperately against the center of your chest whilst your heart pounded as if you were running down a hill. Eyes squeezed tightly shut, reminding yourself that it was not the end. Your heart was not packing up. You would be okay.
Not hesitating to break the distance with him when he saw the state he was in, James touched his shoulder against Jorginho's and his hand reached for his upper arm, squeezing his bicep gently. His fingers nestled close to his armpit.
He only spoke one word. But he hoped that the gentle word would at least give him something else to focus on, even if he could not make it all better.
"Hey." James mumbled, his hand beginning to softly massage up and down the inside of his arm caringly in a different way than he usually would. This was not the time to marvel at the other kind of strength that he possessed.
James was not sure if Jorginho would realize he was even there. It was like that sometimes during one particularly strong attack. Sometimes he was far too busy agonizing over all the past, the present, and the future to realize that there was a shape beyond the chaos of his thoughts. To realize that somebody was there.
But after a few seconds and as Jorginho continued to breathe heavily and feel as if he could not look at anything else at that point other than the dark insides of his own eye sockets, James felt a clammy hand pat over his own one.
James in turn squeezed his arm tighter. Jorginho knew that he was there.
In the same way, James knew that it was not time for words other than the initial hey. Jorginho's breathing into the night was still very labored and fast paced as if his brain was not yet trusting that he was safe. He could not focus on breathing slowly. Nit deeply. His body hungered for gasping air and that is what it forced him to fight for.
James had a million things that he could say. For a rare occasion, he had so many things that he could concoct just for the other man. But it was not the time. He could see that it was not the time. The time would come. But for now, it was time for him to just be there.
For half an awful second that nearly sent panic thrashing into James' throat as well, he heard the other male let out a sudden groan and Jorginho's chest pressed down firmly against his thighs. James stopped feeling a hand over his. Both Jorginho's first two fingers on his hands began to desperately massage his own temples before he felt the urge to cover his ears.
It was all too much. His thoughts all too racing. He was so very sure that it was the end. That his bloody best friend was going to watch his last gasping breath. His lover. He was going to die in his arms. He did not want to do that. Even his romantic, secretly poetic heart did not want that.
He had so much more to do. To say. It could not be the end.
James hated seeing Jorginho in that way and it caused him to lift his own palm desperately towards his chest now that he was forced to not touch him. He had a sudden thought. It was a risk. But he had to do something. He could not just watch Jorginho suffer.
His lower lip falling into his mouth as sleep became a forgotten memory and his new purpose was to comfort, James broke the distance with Jorginho all over again. At first, he merely traced his fingers along his smooth, bare back, letting him know that he was approaching.
And then James sat fully behind him, his legs straddling either side of his waist that was far slimmer than his broad shoulders. Not stopping from tracing one hand along his back even though he no longer needed to let Jorginho know that he was there, James hugged around Jorginho's stomach with the other and pressed his cheek against his bare skin.
His face rested right against the back of his trapezius muscle. And he whispered:
"Tell me to stop." he told Jorginho. Meaning, tell me if this isn't okay. Tell me if I'm the reason that you can't breathe. Tell me if you want me to go.
But it was okay. James was not the reason for his shuddered breath. In fact, he was the only reason that he had not given up. He did not want him to go. Not then. Not ever.
At first, James did not know any of this because it was not communicated by stammering, breathless words, nor was it said with actions. But then it was. Action occurred.
Trying to gulp moisture into his dry mouth, Jorginho encouraged his clammy hands to break away from his ears, protecting himself from the ringing echoing through the frenzied chambers of his mind, and he made contact with James again.
Feebly, he reached his hands behind him and secured his arms around James' waist like his legs were doing to his. Licking his lower lip, James set free a far calmer exhale from his lungs, and he knew this was the time to begin saying words to him.
He broke his cheek against the soft skin of Jorginho's back, moving his hands back underneath near his armpits again and swearing that he could feel how hard his heart was hammering in his chest. He wanted to make it go away. He knew that he could not. Could only be there. But he would have brought the clouds down from the sky if it meant that he could breathe steadily again.
"Try and get your breathing to slow and deepen, Jorginho." James whispered, momentarily, touching his chin against the bareness of his back before his hands trailed from on the other man's triceps and rested against his thick wrists.
He did not hold his hands. But they were there in case Jorginho wanted to reach for them himself.
Instead, Jorginho let out a whimper that caused James' heart to become dropped glass and he needed to swallow against the other man to compose himself before his heart splintered entirely. Jorginho proceeded in doing his own thing to steady himself. To act at least somewhat composed.
He tried to turn his whimper into a chuckle. Then, he spoke to James for the first time since they had both been awake.
"It's hard." he confessed; his eyes now open but still not looking at James. From his close position right behind him, James gathered that they were even glossier than normal, that his crow's feet were etching to the corners of his eyes. But not because of joy.
James knew that it was hard. James did not tell him verbally that it was hard. He instead encouragingly patted Jorginho on the back of the shoulder blade with his knuckles before hugging him with both arms this time, his arms wrapped around his stomach.
Jorginho's eyelids fluttered shut again as he heard James breathing deeply against him. He knew that he wanted him to copy him. His hands patted over the man with the long hair tickling his neck and he told him that he heard the encouragement.
He felt the encouragement. Deep in his frantic lungs. In the depths of his throbbing heart.
James breathed alongside Jorginho, leading their joint task for a couple of minutes and privately, he was glad that he had taken them as well. He, however, began to feel a lot more level a lot quicker than the other man and he certainly felt very soothed when, slowly but surely, he stopped feeling Jorginho's pulse thudding quite so loudly against his own body.
His own eyes fluttering shut at their closeness and knowing that they were getting somewhere, James' intuition told him that Jorginho was no longer having to fight so hard to focus on his breath, to focus on him, and that his body was no longer betraying him. No longer was his body telling him that something was wrong when it was not. It was not longing to thrash around like a child, doing the worst possible thing to get any sort of attention.
Jorginho's perseverance had shown the panic who was boss.
Pressing a gentle kiss to the back of his shoulder blade, James' hands moved from the wrists of Jorginho since they had not been clasped and the pads of his fingers on both of his hands softly traced the other man's skin from the nape of his neck and downwards towards the center of his back.
James reassured him with more than just actions.
"You're safe here in this house. You're safe here with me." he whispered to him, for some reason feeling moisture tickling at the insides of his nostrils rather than pricking his eyes when he felt Jorginho's body twitch with a nod. "This won't last forever."
And it did not.
Jorginho knew that James was right, that all that panic would not last forever. It never did, even if during it he was always so certain that he would never be okay again. These were the words that Jorginho often told himself when he did it alone.
If James had not been there then surely, he would have fought with all his might to remind his brain of this. But it was nice that James was there. Was nice that he was the one saying them. It was more than nice. And Jorginho would start to show this when he began to come down from his panicked state for good.
For the time being, however, he continued his intentional breathing just to make sure that he would not be rendered breathless again. He felt brave enough to open his eyes and though his vision was a little blurry, he was no longer seeing those awful lights like a sinister version of some in the north streaking across his pupils.
Jorginho looked around the room for something to do. To make sure that he was there. To make sure that he had made it to the other side of it.
Of course, he had. James would never have given up on him. He never would have let him succumb. He was convinced that he was the reason that he had been able to be so brave.
Jorginho could not stop himself from longing to fill his vision with the other male. Though he did not want to break away from their intimate position, he did want to gaze upon something a lot more lovely, so he began to move his body.
Like they were practicing a dance just for them, James knew what Jorginho wanted from the second that he moved. He shuffled himself backwards on the bed so that he had more room. Jorginho had the space to sit on the bed a little more and he fully turned around to face him.
When he felt his meadow eyes that were more like forest green in the sunset glow of his office melting into his, he knew that he wanted to thank him. Wanted to say all sorts of things. In fact, he wanted to totally come apart in another way just for him.
But Jorginho knew that his voice was certain to tremble. He was not his usual self at that point. He, however, was of course still in there, was still fighting. The usual, brave part of himself fought to show off a shaky smile, a dimple like a softened segment of fruit as if it were coming to the end of its goodness making the effort to appear on his cheek.
Jorginho's hand rested back against his own bare chest, rubbing up and down against the flushness that was kissing his skin.
"That was horrible." he said. Even though he did not spell these words out, the words thank you tumbled out like a whisper in the wind.
Thank you. For being there. For not giving up. Not thinking I'm crazy. For being there. For making it all better.
James broke the distance with Jorginho all over again. He knew then was not the moment to smother him, with touch or anything else. But he could not help but catch Jorginho's wrist as his hand rose to scratch underneath his eyelid and he pressed a tender kiss to the bone there.
Jorginho forgot all about his itch. He cupped James underneath his chin with his colder than normal pads of his fingers for a moment or two.
"Did something happen?" James could not help but ask, managing to ignore the instinct that made him want to dip his face closer to Jorginho's fingers in return, pressing another kiss there.
Jorginho's touch fell away from him whilst he discovered himself to be sighing. He thought about it. But he found his words in an instant because he remembered the moments before his body had tried to play a cruel trick on him.
His head swung from side to side.
"Not at all." Jorginho spoke. James' mouth pressed into a gentle line as it often did when he listened to him. His lips did not break apart from each other all while they heard the rest of his brief tale.
Jorginho had woken up in a comparable way to James had done when he had turned over on his side and instead of being able to fall back to slumber as well, he needed to go to the toilet, so he had headed for the one still in James' office.
Clambering back to bed, he had quickly realized that some of his sleep had worn off while he had been relieving himself and he had reached for his phone laying charging on the floor and had wanted to know the time.
Five thirty-three. He still had a few more hours of sleep to enjoy.
But before that, he wanted to check his messages. He had not received any. No news was good news. He prepared to switch his phone off. But for some reason as his eyes scanned all the messages that he had sent the previous day – not many – a reply or two to James when they were not in each other's pockets like usual and a message to Sammy because they liked to message at least once every single day – it had suddenly occurred.
It had started by his eyes feeling funny and not because of the memory of sleep. It was as though they were darting from side to side even though they were facing calmly at the same point. And then before he knew it, that dreadful sinking feeling had washed over him, and his heart was pounding. He knew that there was no turning back.
James had found him not long into sitting at the end of the bed, desperately trying to compose himself. He was surprised that he had not woken him when he had initially moved. Somehow, he had woken him with his silence. With his energy, perhaps.
James continued listening with an air of empathy spilling out onto his face. He did not struggle to find his own words. It had never been hard talking to Jorginho, not even when they first met at the age of nineteen years old.
"Were there quite a lot of thoughts on your mind before you fell asleep?" he could not help but wonder, his eyes dropping down to Jorginho's hands back in his lap but making no effort to hold them.
His gaze took in the tiny tattoo etched close to his thumb before he wanted to reside in Jorginho's steadying stare.
Jorginho could not help but allow air to escape from his lungs in a puff, this time the feeble laugh that tumbled out of him being a lot more truthful. His hands tussled through his growing locks for something to do. For something to hold. He did not know whether James needed space for watching him go through that again.
"There always is." Jorginho admitted. James' lips quirked up in the one corner, tugging his lips closer to an earlobe that had been rid of all his earrings for the night. He related to that. That night had been one of the rare ones that they had not fallen asleep intoxicated by each other, so the lack of blurry memories left room for overthinking. "I was thinking about Christopher." Jorginho's second confession caught James off guard, but it should not have done. "It would have been his birthday the other day."
James drew backwards, finding his body urging him to tousle a hand through his own hair before thinking it was a sign when both he and Jorginho's hands flopped listlessly downwards at the same time. His fingers then cupped around Jorginho's wrist.
After his lower lip had momentarily fallen into his mouth, James let a breath free from his nose. He nodded his head. Slowly. Softly. Knowingly.
His mouth pressed back together in between words.
"I know it was." As James said these words, Jorginho found himself mirroring his nod. And after that inadvertent action, he then realized that he had not called him any sort of sweet name all night.
That could have usually sent him into a different state of panic. But perhaps he was all panicked-out. And perhaps, not that he would have suspected it, that it was this action on James' part whether it was conscious or not, encouraged him to be the one to yearn for vulnerability.
He traced his thumb along his own tiny bullseye tattoo on his hand and he could feel James spying his gesture.
"Sometimes I feel like he took a part of me with him when he died." Jorginho admitted, so lost in honesty and tracing the pad of his thumb over his tattoo repeatedly that he did not realize that he had set these words free until he looked over at James and saw him looking emotionally back at him. "Shit." his breath froze. "That was really dark, wasn't it?"
Before he had said these words, Jorginho's chest and neck had flushed an even deeper shade than usual, bleeding through his tanned skin and he had let out an uncomfortable chuckle.
But James did not think anything of the sort. Though he did not swing his head from side to side, he told Jorginho exactly what he thought. He may not have made the effort to tell Jorginho that he too had remembered Christopher on his recent birthday – perhaps he should have done – but he made the effort to say what he thought then.
As he edged closer to the other man, both of their knees brushing as they sat with crossed legs on the bed.
"I think it was incredibly honest." he told him. And with that, more than just the unconscious touch of his knees reached out to Jorginho, and the tops of his fingers began soothingly tracing underneath his beard before he could not help but break the distance with his strong nose, watching his fingers roam down the length of it.
Whether it was James' purposeful, savoring touch or it was his moment of vulnerability that made him smile unsurely, it was not clear. Jorginho was not as quite as embracing of uncomfortable, deep feelings like the other man was. He showed this by coming out with a word – one simple word – just to say something, to say anything.
To get his mind away from what he had said. To get his mind to think of happier ones surrounding Christopher.
He had been such a beautiful boy.
"Maybe." he muttered, his upper lip pressing down against the slight dip in the center of his lower one. James knew that this gesture and this single word spelled out that he needed more from him.
Although he stopped himself from touching the other man, he did not stop from looking at him and as he did, he realized how much of his words had been correct. Jorginho had not been the same since they had lost Christopher back in the days of Team Rocket. None of them had.
It did not seem possible that someone so vibrant in a quiet, quirky way and someone so lovely could have been snatched from them in an awful way. But it was possible. That day had opened Jessie, James and Meowth's eyes to the darker sides of Team Rocket. Jorginho too. But he still had not quit.
James understood why Jorginho had been so changed by grief. Though it had been James' first experience with it and not Jorginho's, he had dealt with it enough since then to know that it really did alter you as a person. And you never really got used to it. Only grew around it.
It had been the same when his Nanny had passed away. Then his Pops a couple of years later. Hell, he felt like he had to come face to face with that awful beast every so often when Lynne and Jordan were snatched from him repeatedly.
But he did not want to think about that anymore. It was suddenly James' turn to say words to stop thinking.
His, however, were not mere space-filler.
"We could talk about Christopher more if you'd like." James suggested, greeting his hands with Jorginho's for the first time even though a million other different intimate gestures had been shared. "I'd like that. The kids don't really know much about him. And Jess..."
James did not need to finish that sentence for Jorginho to know what he meant. His fingers not hesitating to entwine with James' in return, he knew that his wife would like to keep his memory alive with the nice memories that they could think about with Christopher.
She too was seasoned at dealing with grief. And often it was nice to think about the person that somebody once had been, rather than mourning the person that they were too young to become.
Jorginho's fingers squeezed around James' in response. His digits instead of his mouth spelled out how much he would enjoy that, and how he suspected that he would not feel his heart hammering anymore if he could deal with the loss a little bit every day.
It had been more than fifteen years. But it still hurt. It was as if the air that he had tried to give away to Christopher on that dreadful night had been permanently snatched from his lungs.
Jorginho did not tell James that he helped him breathe a little bit better there and then. His words were much more practical. Yet no less true.
"I'm feeling better now." he told him with another squeeze of his right hand set of fingers against James' before his left hand cupped over his other hand.
James' shoulders brightened after a heavy albeit necessary conversation. His eyes smiled as much as his mouth did. Jorginho had always really liked that about him.
In return, James did not seem to mind that Jorginho never spelled out the words thank you.
"Good." James spelled out all his own words. His hand settling contentedly inside Jorginho's, he showed that the caring between them both was not ending. Nowhere near. "Why don't you have something to eat and drink before settling back to sleep?" he suggested. "That usually evens you out even more."
Jorginho's heart clenched privately in his chest. Part of him did not know how before he had hopped from meaningless encounter to encounter, never really being heard by someone else. Never being seen.
James knew him from the inside out. Always had done, even if had one time it had been not enough to see eye to eye. At this knowing, Jorginho's hands longed to bed inside James' for good. But they remained being on the outside. He had taken care of him enough for one night.
He, however, shook his head from side to side. Jorginho confessed to James.
"My mouth still feels too dry to try eating something." he told him, knowing how vulnerable it made him sound if he was turning down the offer of food. Usually, the world could be ending, and he would still be smacking his lips!
James understood and he smiled to show this. But he still thought Jorginho should have some sort of sustenance before trying to greet sleep.
Jorginho was left with eyes wider than usual looking across at the night when James took his hands out from underneath his and his swung his legs to the other side of the bed, hanging over it and reaching for something on his nightstand.
He was filled with knowing when James took ahold of his own cup of water and instead of his eyes blinking, wondering where he had gone, his eyebrow could not help but quirk up on his face. He knew the game he was playing.
He believed that Jorginho could wet his mouth enough to start eating. Or if he never felt hungry, at least he had drunk something.
Growing more animated for the first time since his panic attack, Jorginho's eyelids momentarily squeezed together, and his lips pursed flamboyantly, but he soon opened them back up again along with his eyes. He accepted the glass.
James swinging his legs back to the other side of his body to settle himself back into his prior position now that he had successfully reached for the water, Jorginho felt caught off guard when he tried to bring the water glass towards his lips. His hand was only shaking slightly but it was enough to send a large droplet splashing onto his upper lip that was speckled with the greying hair of his beard.
Before he could meet James' eyes as they both realized what had happened – or he could dart his eyes away, embarrassed – his lover was right there.
James broke the distance further with him all over again. And as he did so, a single, caring word escaped from his lips.
"Here." Was all he said, his whole upper leg resting against Jorginho's same one this time as he took hold of the glass himself and began to encourage Jorginho to drink from it.
If his displays before this had not been vulnerable enough, then this was taking the biscuit. But for some reason, Jorginho did not shudder and run from this display. His cheeks may have warmed near to the cool material of the glass, but his eyes relaxedly shut as he took a couple of mouthfuls.
It was nice to be taken care of after having more than just physical armor keeping everybody at a distance.
To tell you the truth, as if James were offering the whole capacity of the ocean, Jorginho felt as if he could have shut his eyes and satiated himself forever. But he knew that all things ended, and he would have to stop being greedy at some point.
He could not drain James of everything.
This time, as the moment stopped and James reached to put the glass back where he had found it, those fateful words did tumble out of Jorginho.
"Thank you." he told him, not offering him any sweet name in return and raising his hand to his mouth to wipe away the wet residue even though James had done it for him before putting the glass back.
Those words had simply come. James in return merely smiled. He touched Jorginho underneath the chin before going on his way. A different way.
Where was James heading to this time?
Jorginho should have known when he padded along the carpet and crouched down in front of the chest of drawers on Jorginho's side of the bed and he reached in for his packet of cookies.
It is true what they say. To be known is to be loved. To be loved is to be known.
Jorginho could not help but half roll his eyes – at James, at himself – when the packet was produced and put on top of the nightstand in full view just in case, he did change his mind and grow hungry.
He did not. For once, he was not hungry. Not for food anyway. Jorginho could not stop himself from staring as James made his way back to the bed all over again, his eyes following his every move. His heart was hammering in his chest all over again.
This time was different. This time, he welcomed it. He did not wish to shun it. He did not feel himself falling into deep and disastrous pits. He felt himself falling. But he felt himself falling into James.
Then he felt himself falling into James for real.
As soon as James was sat on the bed all over again, Jorginho darted towards him with his hands reaching out to the side of his face and his lips pressing against his. It was a kiss that caught James off guard. But it was a kiss that James embraced.
For half a second, he smiled against the mouth of the other man but then one hand cupped underneath his neck as the kiss deepened and the other hand roamed to the curls that had been traipsing down the nape of his neck since the beginning of summer.
He had once told Jorginho that he loved his hair like that. So, Jorginho had kept it. He was considering cutting it as little as he was considering walking away from James.
For a rare occasion, the kiss did not last as long as it usually did, and it did not lead to anything more or different. But as they pulled away from each other, both red cheeked and both smiling, James had thoughts on his mind other than the bliss that Jorginho bestowed upon him, and he trusted that it was okay to speak of them.
He trusted that it was okay to make a joke.
One hand was still buried in the back of his hair while the hand that had been on Jorginho's thick neck was now using a thumb to trace down into the tiny dent of his lower lip.
Jorginho pressed his forehead magnetically against his from the second that he felt his touch and saw his own smile.
"Now I'm the one who's breathless!" James could not help but comment teasingly, his mouth that was enjoyably plumped from the kiss stretching closer to his earlobe on the one side and this continued only more so when he could feel Jorginho grinning in response, his teeth and his dimples gleaming.
James had felt his breath of amusement tickling his own upper lip. He should have known that Jorginho would have taken this as an invitation for something more. For something better. For something magical.
Their foreheads still pressing together and James' thumb roaming away from his lips to bed into Jorginho's dimple with private hope, Jorginho made the moves to pull him onto his lap. And no sooner had they connected in this way, their lips were back on each other's all over again, and Jorginho was peppering James with slow, soft kisses that said everything. Without needing to say anything at all.
There was a time when James scoffed at the idea of living with Jorginho while having a family and children running around. What on earth would two men have done living alone together?
The answer was clear in that moment.
They would take care of each other. They would embrace one and other. Pull each other close. Wake in the night for each other. And remind each other that each breath – breathless or not – had a purpose.
They would welcome each new day together. And eventually, bid farewell when the time was right.
But for the time being, it was all about saying goodnight, not goodbye. And about saying that profound, singular word with kisses. With a touch traced along a back. And a smile that lingered a lot longer than a romantic moment in time.
The End.
There you go! Thanks so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed :) I loved getting to show the intimacy that James and Jorginho share here long before they even kiss at the end. I'm only now just realising that this is their first kiss in a chapter. Big milestone :P Even though the word love is scarcely mentioned between the two of them - for all his boundless energy, Jorginho has issues getting wholly close to people - you can see how in sync they are and how much trust they share. This chapter was also born out of wanting to write a little more about Christopher, the Team Rocket agent from Noodles Roamin Off and who passes away in my stories while Jessie, James and Meowth are still in Team Rocket. As you can see, his passing really haunts Jorginho. In some ways, James haunts him as well with all his unfaltering loyalty and affection. But one is a lot nicer than the other :) Thanks again for reading and I'll be back on another Wednesday soon so see you then perhaps!
Amy signing out :)