#some unresolved resentment after beiNG SLAPPED DURING A SEIZURE

[just-a-whumping-racoon-with-wifi]

Convulsion

@spookyboywhump Zander is... not having fun. Is he ever? Poor boi, oh well. A ~little~ longer than I expected, but I genuinely don’t know how to not be this way. 

All characters belong to @spookyboywhump, used with permission. Go look them up if you somehow haven’t already!!!!

CW; detailed pov of a seizure, uhhh a lot of swearing, some self-blame

It started small. His eyes blurring and clearing like a camera focusing. Zander shook his head and tried to pull himself together. He was kneeling in the dinning room next to Wren, waiting for Cain.

“You look hungry,” Cain smirked as Zander rolled his eyes, both knowing just whose fault that was.  

“You can eat when you fucking learn to behave, mutt.” Cain smacked the back of his head, almost knocking him off balance before he put a plate in front of Wren. He could feel Wren’s eyes glancing sideways at him, worried like always. Zander breathed deeply and closed his eyes. Words felt like they were behind static in his brain.

“Fuck you, sir.”

Cain grabbed a chunk of his hair and wretched his head back. It might have been stupid, but it always felt worth it. Before Cain could react further, his phone rang. He growled at Zander and answered it.

“What?” he spat. Zander could hear rapid speech on the other side but couldn’t make out the words. With his head craned back, he could see Cain’s frustrated expression. The expression soured by the second, until his hand released the clump of hair. Zander’s head dropped down to his chest.

“Well, you tell him that I’m going to go over there and fucking strangle him myself, if you don’t do your fucking job,” he nearly yelled into the phone. Cain grew more and more agitated until he was screaming into the phone and stormed out of the room.

Zander lifted his head and opened his eyes, but found that they wouldn’t focus in one place, instead bouncing around the room from object to object. A familiar sense of adrenalin was flooding into his system. Familiar, yes. Explainable? No. In a choice of fight or flight, he chose to fight every time. Every time but this time, when the choice was held just out of reach. Distantly, he remembered that third option; freeze. His eyes twitched and blinked, lids never quite opening as far as they were before. They kept twitching even after they were closed. A tremor ripped down his body.

“Zander?” came Wren’s worried voice. Yes, he was hungry, but Cain hadn’t given him permission to eat before he stormed off, and Zander’s eyes were fluttering faster than he knew was possible.

Zander meant to turn his head to Wren, but he couldn’t. His head was light, feeling like it might topple off his shoulders any moment. An itch was growing under his skin, deep in the sinews of his muscles. Like that split second before a shiver fully runs its course, but never resolving. He wanted to move his arms, his legs, his neck. His body felt stiff and frozen, like he hadn’t moved in years. Tension wrapped around every muscle, every joint. He was locked inside himself, clawing at the surface of his mind but utterly unable to break through.

“Zander? Please… please say something? Zander?” Panic was creeping into Wren’s voice. Was Zander breathing? If he was, it was too shallow to see.

Fuck, thought a distracted Zander, it’s just getting worse. The itch was getting more intense, until it was electricity crackling under his skin. The only part of him that was moving was the muscles near his eyes, and they were starting to burn from the constant, rapid blinking. Suddenly, Zander’s head snapped to the side like an invisible slap, and fuck did it feel good. Like the smallest bit of the electricity had dissolved. After the first one, the flood gates opened. The tension in his frozen joints that held him up disappeared, and he crumpled like a puppet with cut strings.

The first moments were almost nirvana, the pure bliss of finally moving again after being frozen like a goddamn statue. The muscles in his arms, his legs, his head, his back all convulsed as the trapped energy pulsed out of him. Was he moving his muscles, or were they moving him? He didn’t know, he just gave up control and gave in to the compulsion. He let the waves crash over him and feel the tension release from under his skin. He could feel hands straighten him out on the floor, his head carefully lifted and laid on someone’s lap. Wren.

“Zander! Zander!” Wren cried out as his friend jerked and convulsed on his lap. “Zander, can you hear me? Please open your eyes!”

He tried. His lids were heavy and trying to open them just made the fluttering more intense. He could feel his eyes twitch and jerk under his eyelids, like he was deep in a REM sleep cycle. No, I can’t. Just leave me be, thought Zander.

Each convulsion was getting harder, straining his muscles just a bit too far, too fast. It didn’t feel good anymore. He could feel where his body struck against the floor travel through him, sending vibrations through his bones. Muscles he didn’t even know he had were starting to scream at him, but it didn’t stop. He didn’t stop. Zander’s mind scrabbled to take back control, this was going too far, but it couldn’t grab the reins. He was tired, but it wouldn’t stop. The electricity was long dried up, but it just wouldn’t stop. God, how do I make it stop?  

Even the muscles in his face twitched and pulled. Wren, he tried to form words, but a spasm killed them in his throat, Wren, I can’t stop it.

Wren was fully panicking now. “Zander, please! I-I-I don’t know what to do!”

Zander’s eyes were moving rapidly underneath his eyelids, his breath shuddering in his chest. It looked like he was trying to say something, but there was no sound. Wren didn’t know what to do, there was nothing he could do. He wracked his brain, trying to just come up with something.

“Cain!” he screamed. It wasn’t a great plan, but it was all he had. Zander had mentioned that the shock collar used to give him seizures before, so maybe Cain would know what to do.

Don’t call that fucker, what’s he going to do? thought Zander. Fire burned through him, and the shallow breaths he had been taking weren’t cutting it anymore. Spasms overtook his breathing. They racked his lungs, pushing air in and out with no rhythm or pattern. His shoulders kept curling in on him, making it even harder to get a real deep breath. Fuck, fuck, shit this hurts. Why am I still awake? Why do I have to feel this? Aren’t I supposed to black out?

Wren keeps shouting for Cain until he storms back in.

“What the fuck is wrong with you? Why the fuck are you-“ he stopped suddenly at the sight. His two dogs, one crying and fearful, holding the head of the other as it seizes on the floor.

“Oh, fuck fuck fuck,” he mumbles as he rushes over and kneels down.

“Zander? Zander can you hear me?” He slaps Zander’s cheek to wake him, but it feels like daggers of ice are digging into his skin as pure anger and hatred blot out anything else. Zander jerks his head to the side to get away from him. It makes him want to scream, to attack, to scratch Cain’s eyes out. Shit shit shit, fuck you, you fucking asshole. Out of all the things you’ve done to me, how is that the most fucking annoying? Fucking goddamn asshole.

Slowly, the gaps between jerks grows longer. Zander pulls his eyes open, feeling like they were made of pure lead. His eyes still won’t focus on one place. They move faster than Zander could normally. For a fraction of a second he’s looking at Cain’s worried eyes, then the ceiling, then Wren’s hair, then up into his own skull, then to Cain’s ear, and on and on and on. His peripheral stitches the scene together, but it’s still too much. He closes his eyes again and focuses on trying to breathe.

“Fuck, I’m calling Andrew again.” Cain rises and moves away from them, pulling out his phone.

“Zander? Please… Zander you, you need to breathe…” Wren doesn’t try to grab him or shake him, just keeps his head on his lap. The break in Wren’s voice kills Zander, and he hates that he can’t do anything about it. His body is betraying him, and he just has to wait it out. His breath is so shallow, so slow he can’t believe he’s still conscious. Fuck, I’m sorry Wren. I’m sorry I couldn’t stop it, sorry I gave it, sorry I didn’t fight it more.

Finally, he gets one, full, good, real breath. Another minute, and he’s breathing normally again. It’s fifteen minutes before he can speak without stuttering and loosing his train of thought mid-sentence. It’s hours before Wren stops watching his every move like the world’s most worried hawk.