DetectiveRed

Hi, long time no see! Unless you read A Body for Someone Else. The new story I uploaded while trying to write this chapter. It's a body swap story! An idea that I had thought about alongside NNC. If you like NNC check it out!

Anyway, about why this chapter took so gosh darn long. As I said its new content but that isn't an excuse. Long story short I just couldn't focus. Hence why Nick will likely come across as rambly I think. I think it works since I had planned for him to be ADHD for a while. Also while trying to upload this my computer freaking crashed and I'm mad. I'm uploading from mobile right now. Hopefully, I can get that fixed.

Updates will be more regular again I think. I'm back onto rewriting old content now so if I can get my computer to work it should be fine.

As always thanks to Trismegistus Shandy. Please give their work a look. Unfortunately linking is a little hard right now but the links on previous chapters work.

Nick had never seen James have a panic attack before. The day before hadn’t exactly been special, either, and he couldn’t pinpoint a trigger. Was it something he did? Something he said? He wasn’t sure, but he was worried about it nonetheless. The fact that James didn’t turn up at lunch only made that worry worse. He tried a breathing exercise and went through the more logical explanations; it was right after he'd complimented him on his clean shave, was that what did it? He should have known not to compliment James but he looked so down, it was hard to resist wanting to see him smile. It wasn’t like James resisted his help; maybe he was just stressed in general. Hopefully, there was something he could do.

English yesterday had been oddly quiet without James talking. All he was able to get out of him was an "I'm fine." which Nick could tell was a lie. Maybe his cold or whatever he had, flared up and he couldn't talk. He did say he was sick. That didn’t explain why he wasn’t responding to any messages though. Being sick didn't make you unable to type. Trying to catch up with him the next lesson seemed like the best way to go. Hopefully, James would respond this time.

Walking to class was an anxious experience. He knew things would be fine; there wasn’t anything James could do to him. Except cut him off, leaving him alone, since James was the only person he’d been able to make friends with, who didn’t treat his excitement over his current hyper fixation as something to be mocked. There was nothing James could do except that. Losing the one person who actually listened to his embarrassing rambling wasn't scary at all. James was one of the few people Nick felt comfortable around, he always felt this warmness just from seeing his face. Maybe it was just feeling like someone cared what he was saying that made his face light up while around James.

The class seemed normal when he got there, normal except for James; the guy looked broken, that cocky smirk he usually wore after homeroom was replaced by a blank and tired expression. It was depressing seeing him like that. Nick sat down next to him and silently hoped that it might help. It didn't seem to.

“Are you okay, mate?”  Nick asked. It wasn’t the most original way to check up on someone but he hoped it would do the trick. Nick liked to think he'd learned to interact with other people his age. Throwing in 'mate' and 'dude' tended to help with being perceived as normal.

James looked at him and then looked back at the desk. No response. That was frustrating.

“James, how are you after yesterday?” Hopefully, James would answer if the question was rephrased. James continued staring at his desk. Maybe a more targetted question would help. “Does your voice hurt or something?” 

James nodded. Finally a response. A non-verbal and not very helpful response but a response nonetheless.

 “Are you going to the library at recess?” Nick hoped James would give something substantial here. Going to the library without him seemed like a recipe for disaster. 

James shrugged a resigned shrug. His expression looked hopeless like he'd just let whatever happened, happen. Nick wanted to hug the guy; it might not have been the best idea, but seeing this usually very loud guy suddenly be so quiet was a shock. He wanted James to be his usual self again. Lunch yesterday had been boring with just Ben and Lachie; there was no one to balance them out. The way they played off each other was always amusing to watch, but now it was two guys just flaming with no buffer, no banter. It would be easier if Nick was able to bounce off the others but he hadn’t figured out how to do that yet. It seemed to come naturally to Ben, James and Lachie, but Nick just couldn't figure it out. How did they not worry about messing it up? What if he went too far? 

“Would it be okay if I hung out with you then?”

James seemed shocked. Nick didn’t really get why. Didn’t it make sense to be worried about your friends? After yesterday, it sure seemed like he should be worried. James didn’t get to answer before the teacher started calling roll. It was hard to focus on his work when he wasn’t able to talk to anyone. Usually, he’d talk to James to figure out how to structure things. There were so many thoughts going through his head. When it came to doing his work he could never find a way to structure it without talking it through with someone else, and James was great for that since he often needed a little bit of help. Now that there was no buffer between his ideas and what he needed to write down for his work. On top of that, he was worried about James, which didn't help with trying to figure out how to get his work done since he kept thinking about James, who wouldn’t tell him what was wrong. There were also his own anxieties he needed to deal with, as they wouldn't shut up. There was just too much going on. Way too much.

Nick closed his eyes and laid his head in his arms. Blocking some visual stimuli would hopefully help matters. He just had to organise things. Just had to try and separate his thoughts into pieces that he could deal with. 

The issue that was taking up the most amount of brain space was James. Something he had no control over and that he couldn’t understand unless James would answer his questions. Which he didn't seem inclined to do anytime soon.

Classwork took up the other space. Arranging sentences to create paragraphs, to create a structure to make a persuasive piece that would hopefully be legible. That would be a pain. Trying to argue was never his strong suit. There was so much about the subject he’d been given that selecting what to put in was paralysing. It didn’t help that his one friend in the class wasn’t talking and he wasn’t sure why meaning he wasn't able to structure anything.

Maybe it was time to just ask James about what they were doing at recess again. Hopefully, he would answer this time. He gave James a nudge. He hadn’t written much either, it seemed.

“Is it okay to hang out with you at recess?” 

James looked at him without the look of shock from earlier. That was a relief at least. He shrugged again. Nick decided to take that as a yes.

At the end of the class, James had no idea where to go. Maybe he had never thought about where he would go if he couldn't go to the library anymore. Nick followed James to his locker, where they had stood in silence for around a minute. It made sense that he wouldn’t have a backup plan. James was a central part of their group, while Nick was an add-on. He probably didn’t think he would ever not be hanging out with them, which led Nick to believe that the decision to avoid the library was an abrupt one.

“Do you know where you're going?”

James shook his head sheepishly. That was a look he’d never seen James wear, sheepish and -- was he blushing? Nick had never seen that before either. Why did James have to act cute? Why did he have to think James was cute? Before he could try and process what he had just felt, he had already put those thoughts in the ‘feelings Nick can’t deal with’ box. 

“How about you follow me.” There were a couple of places people didn’t tend to go around the school. Melody’s tree was probably his favourite. People seemed to actively avoid it for some reason. It was out of the way, down near the back of the oval, sure, but a lot of places around the oval were filled with people. He had wound up at the tree a couple of times, mostly when he was overstimulated by the group whining and yelling, or when he needed to get away from the slurs they liked to throw around. He knew they were often applied to him, and getting away at least allowed him to keep himself as a part of that group without crying in front of them. 

Upon arriving at the tree, Nick instantly felt calmer. The calm aura surrounding the tree was something that there was no real explanation for. At least, not one that he could find. It just felt nice. Hopefully, it would make James feel better, even if for Nick it was just some dumb pavlovian response that had nothing to do with the tree itself and was more just a response to being away from the things that were making him uncomfortable. 

“Are you able to tell me what's wrong?”

Surprisingly, James responded.

“Sore throat,” he said with obviously fake hoarseness, that probably meant he didn’t want to talk about it. The guy just couldn’t lie well at all and he knew it. He was looking at the ground guiltily, like a kid who got caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Why did he have to make Nick feel butterfly in his stomach? The ‘Feelings Nick Can’t Deal With’ box was getting full quickly today.

“Okay, if you need anything, let me know?” 

He nodded.

“Do you want to just use nodding and head shaking? I’ll only ask things with yes or no questions,” Nick asked. Even if James wouldn’t tell him what was going on, it would at least be nice to communicate in some way.

James smiled and nodded. A smile was good to see. He looked a little more like his usual self. His usual handsome self, with a cute smile. Now he just needed his usual demeanour back and things might be fine. Even if it did mean they would eventually have to go back to the library. For now, things would be fine. 

“Are you okay with me talking?”

He nodded enthusiastically this time. A smile, closer to the one he normally wore, graced his face. It took all Nick had to stop himself from blushing