Sturniolo Oneshots (NO Y/N)

Panic Attack - 🥧

TW: Panic attacks

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    Chris calmly closes his bedroom door before breaking out of the mask he held in front of his brothers as his knees gave out and tears started to fall. His breathing picked up at a rapid pase and his mind was heavily crowded. This had all happend before, so why was it so hard to calm down?

—

A few weeks ago, the triplets were back in Boston, visiting their family and friends, when Chris had gotten into a fight with his mother. It was a stupid argument about something that had happend on the way home from the airport, but Chris couldn't get it out of his mind.

He decided to leave the house for a little while and try to distract himself by visiting Nathan. His best friend always understood him, so he knew he could get his mind off things.

Chris knocked on Nathan's door and the short boy opened it up not long after. The two boys went inside and sat down on the couch as Chris started yapping about anything possible to keep his mind away from his mother, but his best friend knew better.

"Chris what's actually going on?" Nathan asked. The question kind of caught Chris off guard. He wasn't expecting to talk about it so soon. He didn't even know what to say.

All of a sudden, he felt his heart rate increase, his mind was clouded back with his fight from his mother, and everything he had regret saying. He completely forgot where he was until he felt a hand on his shoulder.

Chris' eyes focused in to see Nathan now kneeling in front of him, concern crowing on his face. "Chris?"

Finally able to think right again, Chris looked Nathan in the eyes. "Sorry," he whispered. "I don't even know what happend there. He shrugged his words off with a hint of laughter, trying to change the subject.

"Looked like a panic attack." Nate got back up onto the couch to talk to Chris. You wanna talk about anything?

After a moment of debate, Chris told his best friend about his fight with his mom back at the airport. The more he talked about it, he realized how stupid it really was, which only made him feel worse about yelling at his own mother.

"You should go talk to her. Obviously avoiding it didn't get you anywhere." Nathan advised his friend, once he was done talking.

"Yea...what do I do though? Like if this happens again?" Chris said, still trying to grasp everything that has happend in the past 20 minutes.

Nathan stood up with Chris following along soon after. "Depending on the situation, try to have someone with you if possible." The two of them walked out the door. "Sometimes you just need someone to help you back into the right mindset and help keep you grounded." Chris thanked Nathan and headed back to his house to apologize to his mother.

——

The thing about Chris though is that he hated feeling miserable around other people. He decided not to tell anyone else about what happened at Nathan's house. It wasn't that big of a deal, and it probably won't happen again if he's careful.

That is what lead Chris to where he is now, sitting on his bedroom floor, holding onto the last bit of ground he has before his mind spirals out of control. He thought about Nathan's advice: "try to have someone with you if possible." It was very possible. Chris just didn't want to.

Chris never liked sharing his negative emotions with other people. He didn't want to bring anyone else down. Because of this, he learned to fight a lot of his mental battles in silence. He didn't want to stress his brothers out with his incapibility to stay calm.

He also felt like it was unfair to Matt, who had to deal with these thoughts all the time. If he acted like it was the end of the world, what would Matt think of him? He would probably tell him to stop being a baby and get over it.

Chris decided to think back to the fight he just had. Him and his triplet brothers were watching a movie on the couch in the living room when Chris started to chew a little too loud.

-flashback-
"Chris can you quiet down? You sound like a cow eating grass" Nick said

Chris got louder for a second before quieting down, but the same thing happend a few minutes later.

"Chris actually please stop it's obnoxious." Nick asked again

"I'm trying not to but popcorn is just a loud food in general I promise I'm not doing it on purpose." Chris said

But it kept happening. Matt even decided to jump in too and eventually, Chris just stoped eating his popcorn.

The movie was about three quarters through when Matt spoke up again.

"Chris how have you not eaten any of your popcorn?" He asked "we don't want it to go to waste."

"I didn't want to disrupt you guys anymore." Chris responded, not taking his eyes off the TV.

"You could of just quieted down a bit like we asked." Nick jumped back in

Chris thought about responding, but didn't think it would get him really far. From not responding, he now had all the built up emotion from the popcorn event and felt his heart rate rapidly increasing.

"I'm gonna take a quick bathroom break." Chris got up off the couch. "Don't worry about pausing it, I'll be back soon." He said as he walked downstairs to his room.

Which was weird to Matt and Nick because why would Chris go all the way down to his room just to use the bathroom?

-end of flashback-

Matt gets up and pauses the TV which makes Nick look at him in confusion.

"It's been 10 minutes you'd think he would be back by now." Matt said to Nick

"I don't know. Maybe he's not feeling well. He's been acting kind of off recently." Nick suggested.

"No but he doesn't act like this when he's sick. He'd want to be around us not staying away from us." Matt countered Nick. "I'm gonna go check on him. You coming?"

Nick got up off the couch and the two of them heading down to Chris' room. Matt knocked on the door first and when he didn't get a response, he opened it up.

The two of them walk in to find Chris, sitting near his bed, shaking and crying into his lap. Matt runs over, trying to shake Chris out of it, but nothing is working.

At this point, panic is starting to rub off on Matt a bit, and Nick notices. He walkes over to Chris and gently pulls his head up. Once he knows Chris is looking at him, he gives him a simple smile for peace.

"Chris? Just breath with me ok?" Nick coached his brother through breathes as Matt followed, both trying to calm down and help Nick.

Once Chris' breathing was more normal, he started to feel more grounded. He looked up at Nick, but still didn't make eye contact. "Thank you"

"You don't need to thank me." Nick wiped the tears from his youngest brother's face. We'll always be here for you. I promise. Don't feel like you can't come to us. We're your brothers and we are here to help ok?"

Chris nodded. "I'm really tired. Can we finish the movie later?" He whispered.

Matt moved a little close to be next to Nick. "Yeah I think that's a good idea. Want to go to my room?"

Chris nodded and Nick headed upstairs to clean up the living room slightly. Matt looked over at Chris.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Chris looked up at Matt as he spoke. "Panic attacks are scary. You shouldn't ever have to deal with it alone."

"Does it still scare you?" Chris asked.

"All the time. If it didn't, there wouldn't really be much panic, would there?" Matt laughed off his comment and walked him and Chris upstairs where they found Nick already in the bed. The three of them cuddled together and ended up falling asleep for the rest of the night.
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A/N: I'll edit this when I remember, but I'm tired and I just finished it so YAY. Hope you enjoy!!! -Leah <33333           (1379 words)