CW panic attack, vomit

August 11th, 1894 — near Perseid Meteor Shower

Cash went to the park to leave the house, or maybe he went hoping he would catch Hart or Harper here. But he wandered underneath the surging stars and did not catch them, and the fears that had been building while he was at home mounted. Adrienne was very, very far along with child — they would have an infant before October. What would he do if she died, either in childbirth or in a later tragic accident, as Ellory had? What would he do if they lost the baby, to stillbirth or illness, as many toddlers seemed to be lost? He would not be able to emotionally support Adrienne in the way that she deserved, if they lost the child — he was not sure he would survive it.

He was going to be a terrible father. Cash left the meteor shower and started walking home, towards Wellingtonshire. His steps were swift and his heart pounded in his ears. He knew it: he was going to be a terrible father. How had he ever thought that this was a good idea? He could barely breathe.

It was panic, Cash recognized. He was panicking, but the feeling had so long been accompanied by emotional numbness that he didn't know what to do when it was accompanied by a surge of feeling. He placed his hand against the bark of the nearest tree, glanced over his shoulder to make sure that he was far enough away from the bulk of the crowd — and then he crouched to vomit bile onto the grass.

Theodore Gallivan Elias Grimstone

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   Theodore Gallivan

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MJ made this!

He hadn’t bothered with the lecture earlier, but as the evening wore on, with the sky darkening and the echoing of noise from the park growing steadily louder, Theo gave in and decided he would go. He had liked Astronomy, once – or at least had been interested in it (for more than just the moon’s movements). And he hadn’t been able to see anything from the angle of his bedroom window.

He had just walked up the path, slowly scanning the picnic blankets and the crowds, before he spotted a friend’s face or two. He had turned towards them to head that way, when out of the corner of his eye he caught a figure propping themselves up against a tree. It had seemed slightly odd, but it was not until they bent down towards the grass and he heard the faint sound of retching that Theo veered around and headed for them.

He had sped up, sure that they were ill. Just as he had opened his mouth to say something to the man, to alert him to his presence, and had stretched out a hand towards the back of his shoulder, Theo realised – it wasn’t a stranger after all. “Jesus Christ,” he swore under his breath, struck by a new wave of concern. He crouched down beside him. “Cash. What’s wrong?”

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   Cassius Lestrange

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That was Theo's voice. For a moment, Cash thought he was imagining things again — the thought of it was enough to cause a new bout of retching. His throat burned. His thighs burned, too, from the sustained crouch — but being on the grass when he threw up in it was another level of indignity he would prefer to avoid.

He let his palms touch the ground, though, avoiding where he'd gotten bile. Cash squeezed his eyes shut. He had to answer Theo, but what could he say? Lying was beyond him.

"My chest hurts," he said — his voice was high and raspy even to his own ears.

  

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MJ made this!

It was Cash, and Cash was sick. He had retched again. Poisoned, Theo thought first, but this wasn’t Auror training, that didn’t make sense. Had he drunk too much? Another drug? Had something made him panic? (Theo was panicked, seeing him like this.)

But someone had to be calm here, so – Theo put an arm around his back and tried to guide him upwards, or at least to be upright enough that he could get a better look at him. At his side, Theo put his other hand to Cash’s chest, palm somewhere against his sternum. He could feel the race of his heartbeat, erratic and insistent. Cash looked as bad as he sounded. “I need you to breathe,” Theo urged him, keeping his hand where it was, and with a slow inhale and exhale of his own as if to demonstrate. “Can you try?”

He didn’t think Cash would want anyone else to see him like this, particularly, but if Theo couldn’t figure out what was wrong with him and fast, then he would have to get help or tell someone.

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Theo's hand on Cash's sternum felt solid, felt real — just as real as the dirt on his palms and the burn in his muscles. He closed his eyes. He tried to breathe, slow and steady like Theo was. His breath hitched the first few times. The inhale and exhale of his lungs was not as steady as Theo's, but was less jagged, less swift, than it had been before he vomited.

Cash opened his eyes. His heart still thumped savagely in his chest. "Tell me something real," he begged.

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   Theodore Gallivan

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MJ made this!

That was – a small amount of progress. Theo dropped to his knees in the dirt, kneeling. Really, he wanted to get Cash up and off the ground, but that still felt too far away, with his eyes closed like that. He also wanted to keep Cash talking, because if he was able to talk he would keep breathing properly, and hopefully not throw up again. And because he wanted to know what, exactly, had caused this.

But Cash had other ideas, and Theo bit his lip and thought about protesting, but then – tried. “It’s Sunday. Sunday, and there’s a full moon next week, and everyone’s out tonight especially to see some falling rocks,” he said, because nothing felt less real right now than the grand romance of shooting stars, and everything he had said felt nonsensical and colossally stupid so far, but the other things he could have said – and I still love you; I still miss you – would not help. “We’re in the park. And I’m here for you. I’ll always – be here for you. And you’re going to be alright.” He said it with more conviction than he felt in the moment, but he was determined to be right about it. “Tell me what happened?”

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   Cassius Lestrange

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Sunday, a full moon, falling rocks — when they had been seeing each other, consistently, Cash maybe would have tried for something romantic. He had felt for years like he was completely out of control of his own life, but this was the worst it had ever been. Thinking about it had him considering vomit again, and his stomach surged — he trembled, throat working, but was not sick again.

"It's the baby," he said, tone weak. Theo had to know, though — everyone knew. Sometimes people asked him about it. Small talk. "I keep thinking about the baby."

  

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MJ made this!

Not my problem, Theo thought, but he couldn’t cling to it with any resolve – he still cared too much for his own good, too much in spite of everything. So he was here, and he had meant it when he said it: he would be here until he could convince himself Cash would be alright.

Theo bit the inside of his cheek, the hand at Cash’s back massaging in slow, steady circles. Cash’s wife was pregnant, he knew. And he couldn’t much stomach thinking about it, either – what Cash’s life looked like now, the pressure of his marriage and his obligations, and what sort of family the child would necessarily be raised in – but he frowned gently and chose to ignore it, if he was going to try and stop Cash from spiralling. “Talk to me,” he said instead, voice low and gaze searching. “What are you afraid of?”

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He blinked at Theo. He was afraid of everything; it took him a long beat to figure out how to phrase it. He had ruined his own life, over and over and over again. He had made a choice at seventeen that kept him tethered to Britain when he wanted anything but that. He was breathtakingly afraid of his own father — and it wasn't just him. Ellory was afraid of her mother, Kris had probably been afraid of his father, the Macnairs were likely afraid of their mother. Tiberius' children were certainly afraid of him — or they would be.

Cash had married someone to use her, and he could not love her, and he thought he could provide what she wanted but now he thought that had been short-sighted. Maybe it was fine when it was just the two of them — but it would not be fine when he had a child, someone he ought to be emotionally there for, someone he ought to love.

He was starting to understand Ari Fisk.

"I'm afraid that the poison drips through," he said.

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MJ made this!

“You’re not your family,” Theo said fiercely. “You’re not your father.”

And he felt trapped in this conversation, but that discomfort only helped to imagine how captive Cash must feel in his life, in that dread of his oncoming fatherhood. (And for all he tried, Theo didn’t think he could imagine it, not really. Their families were just too different.)

“It’ll be different,” he insisted. “You can make it different.” That depended on Cash’s ability to, though – Cash, who struggled to take care of himself at the best of times, would have to take care of his child. Make sensible choices, where he could. Make more sacrifices than he already had. Protect them from his parents, from the things he might have gone through. Take responsibility for them, even if he wasn’t ready. Love them, if he could.

Children would forgive a lot, Theo considered gloomily, if there was a strong enough foundation of love under it.

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He wasn't his family; he wasn't his father. What he was instead was useless, and frightened, and feeling increasingly small. Cash leaned into Theo's arm, which at least had the effect of straightening him slightly — he was stooped slightly, but there was a relieving cessation of the burning in the muscles of his legs.

"I never — had a father who liked me," Cash admitted, quiet and vulnerable. "And I don't want them to — be like this." He gestured to himself, thinking of the panic that had chased him his whole life, the new bad habits he had developed in an attempt to stave it off.

  

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MJ made this!

Everything Cash ever said honestly about his family made Theo feel a little sick – like the damage done to him by his family was somewhere beyond reach, the roots of the problem buried too deep. When Cash leaned into him a little, Theo moved his hand to squeeze his arm. There was – not sympathy enough for words like that.

“Do you want to walk?” Theo suggested first, because he thought the rhythm and movement might help to calm him, to shake off the worst thoughts and reorient; and also because he was half-worried that if he didn’t get Cash out of here now, that he would end up on the ground again, more helpless and stricken than before. And if anyone saw them leaving the park now, he hoped it would just look like – Cash had gotten a little drunk, or something; and nothing else to remark upon.

“And – humour me,” he said softly. “Give me one reason – one good reason – you wouldn’t like your child when they’re born. Anything?” (Cash’s father’s reasons could get fucked. Theo couldn’t fathom a good reason to hate his own child; and he couldn’t imagine Cash ever forcing his son or daughter into an unbreakable vow.)

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   Angie Swan

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Cash nodded. Really what he wanted to do was fly — he had never felt more steady than he felt on a broomstick. But he couldn't get on one like this, and he knew it, so — they may as well walk out of the park and maybe he would find a rhythm in his breathing later.

He swallowed, at Theo's question. He could not think of a specific reason to hate his children — he had not in adulthood known many children very well, but he could not apply serious dislike to someone so helpless. He didn't know them. They were a child. They would also be his child, and he was not sure he could remember a time he had particularly liked himself.

Staying close to Theo, Cash took some steps back towards the path out of the park. "I don't want to resent them," he said quietly, "For keeping me here." (Here, what did he mean by that — with Adrienne, in Britain, or —?)

It was not a good reason. It was a real one.

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   Theodore Gallivan

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MJ made this!

They were walking: that was good. He wasn’t paying much attention to where they were going, besides out of the park – they could head back out to Bartonburg, or he would walk him home to Wellingtonshire – but when Cash spoke again, he came to an abrupt halt.

“Fuck you,” Theo said, suddenly sharp, as a surge of anger or fear bubbled up, irrepressible, in his chest. Here, Cash said, but Theo couldn’t shake the instinct that what he really meant was alive, that he didn’t want reasons to be tethered to living, and that was – that was the truest fear that had come with knowing Cash, the idea that he would rather not be here. “If that’s really how you feel, you should – go now, and spare them the hurt.”

He was immediately aware that that was the wrong thing to say, not at all how he should answer if Cash was thinking that way again, but – his pulse had picked up; he was oddly stung by it. After all that had happened. Cash had been the one to talk to about trying, years ago. He had gotten married, hadn’t he, for a longer leash of freedom, to get to live? And Theo had ended things, given him up, just to make sure that he would. And he – was no better off for it, if he still wanted to die. And nor would his child be, if he – now or later – took the coward’s way out and left, out of some... some misplaced sense they would be better without him there. Theo felt feverish at this; all his attempts at calmness had ebbed away.

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TW: suicide/self harm/food issues!

Cash came to a stop when Theo did; he flinched, as if he had been hit, when Theo spoke. The sentence was one Cash had thought, off and on, through the pregnancy — he wasn't screaming in his sleep, he didn't think he would create another dementor, but he was not sure that he wanted to do this anymore.

On the first February twenty-eighth, when he'd found Ari Fisk's body and not the man alive, Cash had felt the marks on his arms and known the impulse, although he had never acted on it. Now he — felt more out of control of his life than he ever remembered feeling, and for the first time in a long time, he wasn't comfortable with that. The impulse's image had a new side: something he could control.

He still was not hurting himself. Not like that.

But he also was not eating. Not when it was a meal he took on his own, which meant he was mostly eating dinner with Adrienne, and other meals were — dodgy.

He didn't speak. He looked at Theo, feeling mute, the shock wrought clear on his face.

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MJ made this!

Theo bit his bottom lip hard enough to make it bleed. “I didn’t mean that,” he said hastily, the apology spilling out in panic, because of course he hadn’t meant that. He didn’t know how to impress that, though, or how to take it back – he angled himself to face Cash where they stood, and settled his hands on Cash’s arms, though tentatively, because there was that look on his face and Theo wasn’t sure he would let him get close to him now. “Cash, I swear I didn’t – mean it like that.” He felt afraid and helpless, too, unprepared for this; unsure of how to make things better.

“Just – I love you,” he whispered – or mouthed, more than anything; a silent plea – “I don’t want to lose you. And your kid will – love you too.” They would not deserve to lose him either, whatever kind of parent he was. Theo knew there was probably an awful pressure in that, if he felt how he did, but — maybe it would make it easier than Cash thought? He had to hope Cash wouldn’t resent people keeping him here, that he wouldn’t end up enacting some worse version of what Theo’s father had done to his family, choosing to leave them behind.

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