There had been a mission. Another opportunity for them to assist the police. Lloyd and Jay had broken away from the group to pursue a crook as he ran through the streets late on a Friday night. For some reason the criminal decided to try and evade them by dashing into a beer garden, possibly the only place the roughly dressed, bulky individual had a snowball's chance in hell of blending into a crowd.
It had resulted in a couple of broken stools, one table snapped clean in half, and a full beer being thrown in Jay's face.
Lloyd eventually manages to get the guy in a hold on the ground and lets out a sigh of relief before glancing over to Jay whose pupils were blown wide with fear. One of the patrons tries to help Jay up out of the splintered wood, but is met with a flinch and a rough "get off'a me!" from the dazed blue ninja. People backed off after that, giving as much space as the small cluttered garden would allow.
"Jay? You alright?" asks Lloyd as calmly as he can, heart pounding in his chest, trying to ignore the stench of alcohol. He checks the newly applied cuffs were secure, and then gives his team mate a worried stare.
Jay manages to push himself to his feet, eyes darting around warily, small sparks forming on his hands. It's in my mouth! His brain coils in disgust. The rest of the beer clung stickily to his face, to his clothes. He tries to spit it out, but the taste, the smell, clings to him. His mind swims as he focuses on breathing, ears ringing, the bustling noises of the garden sounding far away.
The bouncer takes over ensuring the criminal wouldn't make a run for it and Lloyd approaches Jay slowly, as non threateningly as possible. The smell of alcohol is overwhelming, but he could dwell on that later. "Jay? You ok? You hurt somewhere?" Jay's eyes snap to him as he takes a defensive stance. "Jay, it's me Lloyd. We got him, the fight's over. Time to go home."
Jay frowns, lowering his hands slightly. "Lloyd?" he croaks before looking around at all the patrons, staring, surrounding him like some sort of fight club. Like the pirates did on the ship during scrap and tap. He couldn't lose his shit in front of this many people, it would make headlines, but his every nerve is on fire, the smell of booze on his skin filling him with absolute dread. Telling him to panic, telling him he isn't safe, I need to fight, I need to stay on guard, I need to…
"Jay." A hand grabs his shoulder, voice far too close, Jay swings at the attacker only to have the attack blocked, wrist grabbed by a green clad arm. "Jay! Snap out of it, did you hit your head or something?"
Jay stares into Lloyd's confused eyes. His heart is pounding way too fast, his breaths short and shallow. "Lloyd…" he whines, arms falling limply to his sides, unable to articulate that he needs to be anywhere but here.
"Come on." says Lloyd, gently guiding Jay away from the crowd. Seeing two police officers arrive to take care of the criminal, nodding to them on his way out, and pointing over to where the bouncer was. He keeps a hand on Jay, feeling the rapid heartbeat trembling through his body, listening to his shallow breaths. Jay had had panic attacks before, but not normally in the middle of a mission, and this felt like a bad one. There isn't anywhere completely private they could get to quickly, so Lloyd settles for the alleyway beside the bar, getting Jay to sit down.
"Jay, you're ok, you're going to be ok. Just breathe with me ok? Nice deep breaths." Jay nods feebly, eyes darting between Lloyd and their surroundings. Lloyd keeps at least one hand on Jay at all times, hoping to ground him, to comfort him with touch, ignoring the slight tingle of static that occasionally passes through. He goes through the breathing technique Nya had taught him, and Jay does his best to follow.
After a couple minutes of breathing Jay blurts out "Sorry, shit, I'm-I'm so sorry! I shouldn't have… " unable to find the right words Jay groans in frustration, reaching up and clutching at his hair.
"Hey, it's ok. I'm fine, no harm done."
"But all those people!"
Lloyd gently helps to remove Jay's hand from his hair. "All those people saw you get thrown through a table, they probably just think you have a concussion or something."
Jay's eyes fall to the side, thinking over Lloyd's words. He starts bouncing his leg up and down. "I still shouldn't have hit you… I shouldn't have… I should be better than this."
Lloyd lets out a sigh, "Do you know what triggered it?" he asks softly, not sure if this was quite the right time, but if they could prevent it happening again, especially on missions…
"Heh." Jay lets out a puff of air, then wipes at his face with his sleeve. "Never liked beer much." he follows up with a forced chuckle. Lloyd frowns trying to figure out if he's joking, considering they are both still under drinking age. He doesn't have much time to ponder this before the anchor of the bounty lands in the adjacent street. Jay pushes himself up, eager to get home, and get this smell off of him.
Jay had walked swiftly to the shared room, grabbing the nearest clean clothes before pushing past a concerned looking Lloyd and muttering the word "shower."
Once isolated in the bathroom he strips off the offending beer soaked gi, stuffing it in the hamper. He enters the stream of warm water and scrubs at his face until it is red and raw, wanting to get it off, needing to get it all off. Once dressed in the clean clothes He examines himself in the mirror. While his breathing could almost pass as normal, he is still shaking slightly, mind on fire, circling through the events of the evening, among others… fear keeping him constantly on edge. He wants it to stop.
Nya had dragged him to the doctor only two days prior. Practically forced him to get a refill on his anxiety meds. He had been so determined not to use them, but FSM he needs to make it stop.
He sneaks into the med bay, finding the pill box easily amongst the other medications. He pops one out of the blister back and downs it with some water. This isn't Jay's first rodeo with meds like this, he knows the pills take a bit of time to kick in, so he just needs to find somewhere to wallow in self pity until then, preferably where he will be away from well intended interruptions.
The bounty has limited hiding options, even more so when you rule out locations he has used before, or at least the ones where he had been found. So this is how Jay finds himself in the engine room, squeezed in the corner, where there was barely any space besides the complex machinery. He knew the engine inside and out, the parts closest to him were unlikely to get hot, even if Zane started them up again. (They had reached the night's docking position during Jay's shower.)
He sits, and he breathes, and counts the rivets on the panel, and jiggles his leg, and tries to recall what component was next due for maintenance, and places a hand on his collar bone feeling the rhythm of his jittery heart.
Eventually the inferno in his mind starts to dull into a raging bonfire, and then a friendly campfire. He lets out a sigh of utter relief, resting his head against the wall, listening to his normal heart rate, eyes drifting closed, overcome with a wave of physical and emotional exhaustion.
The relief lasted maybe 3 minutes before it was replaced with something else. He lifts his head from the wall, blinking slowly, trying to focus. Something was off. He felt… he felt groggy.
Jay groans, resting his head on his knees, remembering why he had stopped taking the meds. Why he had been so keen not to start again. He tries to compare the feeling, wondering if this was what they had slipped into his drinks aboard Misfortune's Keep? The hard surfaces of the cramped corner felt so much like his cell.
While he was no longer actively panicking, able to sort through his memories with slightly more calm, they still fucking sucked. So he did the only logical thing, and started to cry. Just like he did in his cell, all alone, where no one could see.
"Jay, are you in here?"
Jay startles awake, trying to stay quiet. He vaguely remembers he was hiding, sleepy brain slowly trying to remember why, was that Lloyd? He hears the door close and lets out a sigh of relief, believing his hiding place was successful and that Lloyd had moved on to search somewhere else. That is until he sees Lloyd sit down and lean against the wall right in front of him.
Lloyd lets out a sigh as he looks at Jay, curled up in the corner, tear tracks still visible on his face. Jay realises he is cornered, so moves onto plan B. Play it cool. He wipes a sleeve over his face. "Yeah, guess I am in here." He forces a chuckle. "Must have fallen asleep."
"Strange place for a nap?" says Lloyd. "It doesn't look very comfortable."
Jay shrugs. "Sometimes I miss sleeping on scrap metal." Lloyd doesn't buy it, looking at him with disdain.
"Are you ok?" Lloyd is staring at him, lines of worry etched on his face.
"Just peachy." says Jay with heavy sarcasm.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
"Would I be hiding in the engine room if I wanted to talk about it?"
Lloyd turns away, letting out a deep breath. Jay at least seemed to be relatively calm. He had been worried he was stuck somewhere in a state of panic.
"I'm sorry, about the mission." says Jay glumly. "I won't let it happen again."
"Jay…" Lloyd lets out a frustrated sigh, "I came looking for you, not an apology. I just wanted to see if you were ok." he wrings his hands, trying to think about how to proceed. Jay was stubbornly independent. "Can I tell you something?"
Jay frowns at him, Lloyd had him literally cornered, so he nods figuring he wasn't getting out of this lecture.
"The beer garden freaked me out a bit." Lloyd pauses, gathering his thoughts. "Morro, um, the first night he took me to a bar. We did shots, it ah, wasn't good. But Morro liked it, or he liked making me squirm. It wasn't just that one night. What I'm trying to say is, I don't much like beer either."
Jay wriggles out from behind the engine, moving to sit beside Lloyd, and leans over resting his head on Lloyd's shoulder. How had he missed that? Lloyd had also been freaking out and he just blew on by, trapped in his own little world. "Are you ok?" Jay asks softly.
"Yeah." Says Lloyd. "I didn't get a beer thrown in my face. First master, you smelt awful!"
Jay chuckles slightly. "Yeah, I really did."
Lloyd wraps an arm around Jay, holding him close, running one hand up into his hair, playing with his curls but also subtly searching for any concerning lumps. The number of times one of them had concealed an injury was down right ridiculous.
"Something happened to me." Says Jay timidly. Lloyd tenses slightly, but forces himself to relax, trying not to scare away Jay's honesty. "It's hard to explain… but I guess I've been thinking about it lately." Jay pauses, taking a deep breath before continuing. "I was trapped somewhere. Alone. And there wasn't any water, but there was booze. I think that's why I freaked out."
Lloyd continues playing with Jay's hair. He carefully considers what to ask that Jay would be likely to answer. Things like 'when did this happen? Where were you trapped? Who trapped you?' were all too direct, he would just shut down. "How long were you stuck there?"
Jay squirms. "About two weeks. But there was some water at first."
Lloyd frowns slightly, trying to figure out when Jay had been absent for more than 2 weeks. "So about the same time as Morro had me?"
"Yeah."
"Thanks for telling me. I'm sorry you went through that."
Jay sighs, "Yeah… same to you."
They stay sitting there for a bit longer until Jay's eyes start to drop and Lloyd says "come on, we really need to get you to a proper bed."
Cole was fishing. The nights had been getting harder to deal with, dragging on into an unbearable monotony. So he was fishing, trying to take Zane's advice about doing something productive.
It had worked somewhat, going through the motions of setting up the gear, tying all the knots. It was a little tricky with his ghost hands, but it gave him something to focus on. Something to fill the empty void in his head.
After casting off he watches the lure eagerly, bobbing along in the calm water, slivers of moonlight reflecting off the surface. He takes a deep not-breath, feeling just a little calmer than he had been before he started.
After about an hour, the calm starts to be replaced with something else. Cole frowns, not immediately recognising the feeling. It was hard to explain, a slight feeling of dread? Like his body was heavier than usual, like he was having trouble breathing. I don't need to breathe… he thinks with confusion. He looks down to the lure and has trouble seeing it, a thick mist is rising from the water, obscuring his vision. Cole glances around and he can't even make out the front of the ship through the fog.
What? It must come on gradually for him not to have noticed. The sense of dread was increasing, his ghost body didn't feel right. Shit. Fog is made of water right? Maybe I should go inside… He takes a step towards the entrance, but stumbles, body not obeying him as pain throbs everywhere.
He needs to get out of the fog, and he needs to do it now.
Nya was making a cup of tea when Cole fell through the ceiling. She startles as he lands on the table face down with a yelp. The fall was weirdly quiet, no loud thump from the contact. She was used to seeing Cole walk through walls and jump through floors by now, but this was different. He was lying down. He fell.
"Cole! Are you ok?"
Cole groans as he rolls onto his back. "No…"
She rushes over to him. "What's wrong? What happened?"
"The fog…" he mutters, it looks like he is in pain, but ghosts couldn't feel pain right? Unless they got wet…
"The fog?" Her eyes jump to the window, which she had opened up to hear the calming sound of the sea. She quickly leans over to close it, then takes a fighting stance and tries to gather all the water from the air in the room with her powers, waving her arms around, pulling the droplets towards the sink. Thankfully it isn't too much, and when she is done, she turns back to Cole who has managed to sit up.
"Cole, are you ok?" she asks again.
Cole lets out a sigh. "Yeah, thanks, I'm feeling better already."
She looks at him with concern. "What happened?"
Cole shrugs. "A fog came in. I guess it doesn't take much water to mess me up huh."
Nya frowns. "You sure you're ok."
"Yeah, fine." His voice is hollow, defeated, head hung low as he stares at his feet. He clenches his fist and slams it into the table. This time there is a thud and Nya feels the vibrations from where she was leaning.
"You don't, um, look fine." says Nya gently.
Cole gives a hollow laugh. "What, now I need to be scared of the weather? I was already checking the forecast each day for rain, but fog too? A little fog is enough to make it feel like I'm suffocating?"
"We should tell Zane, he can make sure to dock us somewhere less foggy, or we could fly above it if needed." Cole lets out a deep sigh. "It'll be ok, you've managed to avoid fog until now, so surely it won't be too much of an inconvenience?"
"I just can't believe this is my life now." Cole finally looks up, and meets her eyes.
"Yeah… me too. It sucks." Nya thinks about giving him a hug, but the last time she had tried, it hadn't worked very well. She didn't want to frustrate him with something else he can't do, so she goes back to her cup of tea, removing the bag and taking a sip. She would offer to make Cole one, but he couldn't drink tea either… what with it being mostly water. Being a ghost was really limiting her comfort options.
Nya was right, being a ghost sucked. But he couldn't change it, so he needed to accept it. Cole thought he had. He thought he was past the point of being angry, past the point of being hopelessly frustrated. It was meant to get better, he was meant to feel better, so why were things still getting worse? He takes a deep not-breath, he wasn't going to break down in front of Nya. She had enough going on right now. Cole gets off the table and instead takes a seat at the counter. "Um, do you think you could pack up my fishing gear?" He asks sheepishly.
Nya raises an eyebrow. "Wait, you were fishing?"
"Yeah, Zane taught me."
"Zane did?"
"Yeah?"
"So then why doesn't he ever cook fish?"
Cole snorts with laughter. "I didn't say we were any good at it!"