#like the claustrophobia??? | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

Visit Blog

Explore Tumblr blogs with no restrictions, modern design and the best experience.

Fun Fact

If you dial 1-866-584-6757, you can leave an audio post for your followers.

#like the claustrophobia???

cinnabeat · 2 years

Text

this game is freaky bc like literally all youre doing is pressing buttons u til you get to the right coordinates but also youre trapped in a tiny room that can barely let you walk like maybe five steps and you constantly hear the creaking of the hull and occainsally deep whale noises or something and youre only access to the putside is through the grainest fucking camera screen imaginable

#seeiously im even taking a photography art hustory class and those early ass photos werent as grainy as that #michi tag #like the claustrophobia???#the fucking deep ass noises everywhere that make u freeze so ur not noticed?? like bestie......#and then the fucking pipe bursts like girl what

0 notes

professorcalculusstanaccount · 8 months

Text

The Gypsum Maw - Tintin's relentless attempt to rescue a caver isn't as straightforward as first anticipated.

the second snippet! previous is here (I skipped ten pages between the first snippet and this one)

#tintin #fanart #comic #adventures of tintin #snowy #milou #captain haddock #archibald haddock #chang #my stories #the gypsum maw #long post #claustrophobia #i am Very Tired guys #i was actually intending for another part to be the second post #but realised it would be paced better if i also cleaned up this section #so i ended up drawing 16 pages of comics in like a week??? i am Tired loll

1K notes · View notes

iguessyouregonnamissthepantyraid · 11 months

Text

between elon musk breaking twitter, the spacex rocket exploding, and now a few billionaires shelling out a quarter mil to suffocate in a pressurized minivan 10,000 feet below sea level, it really feels like we're in the era of Rich People Very Publicly Showcasing How Fucking Dumb They Are

#like if there was ever any doubt that rich people don't get where they are by being smart #i hope that's gone now!#ev don't look #titanic #oceangate #claustrophobia //

2K notes · View notes

brother-emperors · 1 year

Text

When Philoctetes, son of Poeas and Demonassa, was on the island of Lemnos, a snake struck his foot. Juno had sent it, angry with him because he alone rather than the others had dared to build the funeral pyre of Hercules when his human body was consumed and he was raised to immortality.

Hyginus, Fabulae, 102

the repeating cycles of it all, and also the. the everything about Sophokles' Philoctetes. wounds. abandonment. the fucking isolation and misery of it all.

Introduction to Sophocles' Philoctetes, Diskin Clay, trans. Carl Phillips

and this too, from a conversation between Philoctetes and Neoptolemos

Sophocles' Philoctetes, trans. Carl Phillips

society6 | ko-fi | twitter (pillowfort, cohost) | deviantart

#there's a line in the intro about how claustrophobia is intimacy at too high a pitch that i have been thinking abt non stop #like oh my god jesus christ fucking hell #philoctetes #like hera is here but who cares about that #drawing tag #it’s all greek to me

422 notes · View notes

the-grin--reaper · 5 months

Text

On the surface, the gang is just a happy found family but

Lindon has struggled with self worth all his life, being told that if he was murdered his clan would have to apologise to his murderers, and generally being treated like he's less than dirt. He didn't even start to see himself as important or strong until book ~eight that's how deep his insecurities ran. That is 3 years away from the valley, as a guy in the top 16 of the Uncrowned Tournament. He still felt lesser. When he saw his family again it all got worse and set him back probably months on the measure of his self worth because they still saw him as a useless unsouled. It makes it worse that his underlord revelation was literally "I practice the sacred arts because I don't want to be useless anymore".

Yerin has abandonment issues. Her whole village got killed by a monster, a monster that then lived inside her. Then her master got killed and she was left alone again and in her povs you can see how deeply this affected her, especially in the early books. She was enraged that the Sandvipers attacked her and Lindon whilst he was advancing to Copper because it was cowardly, sure, but she also thought "they wanted to leave her alone again. That was unacceptable." Her Underlord revelation was about never being alone again. She always panicked when Lindon leaving was mentioned; when Cassias told him that they would send him home she froze up, worried that Lindon would leave her alone. She didn't want him to leave her behind, the mere thought of him leaving her frightened her.

Eithan has a deep set loneliness and is the antithesis of what he wants to be. He has been ahead all his life. A prodigy, a genius. But that means that he left all his friends behind. He had no equals, still doesn't, even among the most powerful beings in the universe. He was alone his whole life. When he manifested the broom icon for fun, a bunch of people killed themselves. He wanted to be a healer but he became the literal God of Death. He found a way to reverse death to manifest the Life Icon, and instead manifested the Death Icon. He was compatible with every Abidan type, except a healer. The one he wanted. He created a weapon called Penance. Penace. As penace for everything he's done. Then he had to spend millenia reaping worlds - billions, trillions of people. Regularly. A change in the system could lessen this, he wouldn't have to reap so many lives (lives that he feels the sorrow of) if they just changed the system. But they won't because this one works "so well". At the expense of the one Judge that can never stop, never leave, because he doesn't have anyone that could take his place.

Mercy has mommy issues and was the victim of gaslighting. Throughout the series Malice treats her like a prized possession to be discarded once her worth is lessened in her eyes. Malice shamed Mercy over the fact that her friends are better, she made her feel lesser and weak. She was horribly manipulative towards Mercy and tried to hold her hostage. She lied to Mercy to keep her on her side, and only ever showed Mercy love when Mercy needed to be manipulated. Mercy feared her. Malice also publicly humiliated Mercy, in front of friends and family. Meanwhile all Mercy has ever wanted was to make her mother proud. She even physically abused Mercy, when Mercy was trying to urge her to ascend, and verbally abused her because she didn't want to see the truth.

Ziel got tortured and lost the will to live. He wasn't suicidal, but he didn't care whether he lived or died. He was forced to watch as his whole sect died, then got mutilated and crippled by a mad scientist that took pleasure in torturing him and fixing him up wrong. Then this same scientist threatened to hurt him again and he was prepared to let it happen, prepared to endure it again, because in exchange Yushi and Calling Storms would send the others to help Lindon. He was so apathetic and depressed because of what he went through, and suffered for years, his spirit causing him pain, hardly considering himself a sacred artist. And the worst part is, that he is just a genuinely nice guy. He helps Lindon in Ghostwater. He stays with Lindon after his contract to Eithan expires. He tries to cheer the group up by jumping out from behind a couch, pretending to be Eithan, because they miss him. He doesn't deserve to have suffered so much, but even then, he still finds a way to be kind. Despite his suffering, and having lived with it for so long.

#thats not even mentioning other trauma #like lindon's claustrophobia #they have been through TOO MUCH #TOO MUCH !!#cradle series #wei shi lindon arelius #eithan arelius #yerin arelius #akura mercy #ziel dawnwing of the wastelands #ziel of the wastelands #cradle will wight

86 notes · View notes

unlikely-gravestones · 2 years

Text

I wonder if Hob's ever been buried alive.

I don't know how his immortality works- do his wounds miraculously heal within minutes? Hours? Has he sometimes had to pretend to be injured, because no one heals from a stab wound to the gut over night?

Or does it take him just as long as any other person? Does he spend weeks bed-bound while recovering, slowly but surely knitting himself together? And if that's the case...has he been buried?

Has Hob woken up, weeks after being 'laid to rest', starving and in pain because fuck does his head and chest hurt and- why can't he move. Why is it so silent. Has Hob ever trailed his fingers, shaking from the effort, across wood grain 5 inches from his face? Has he, head pounding with pain and confusion, frantically mapped the limited space of his chamber because why are the walls so close to him why is he lying down why does-

Has Hob ever realised he was buried six feet underground.

Has he ever clawed at what he realises now is his coffin, hands scrabbling and nails catching? Pounded at the lid of it and screamed? Has Hob ever had to climb his way out of the ground

Anyway :)

#I was reading a fic that mentioned the air in Hob's dream being stuffy and hot and idk why but my brain was like #Oh a nightmare??#Maybe bc I live in Australia and the heat is my no 1 nightmare but #My brain was like ooohh warm air STUFFY air must be contained somewhere what about a room no a BOX no a COFFIN #And then I thought of Hob having a nightmare about being buried alive #And then I thought....what if he has been #And now we're here besties #Forgive me comic people I don't know how his immortality is handled in the comics please let me have my fun #And by fun I mean putting my blorbos well being in a blender and wrecking that shit #the sandman #hob gadling #sandman #dreamling #Cw buried alive #cw claustrophobia #I mean he's def gonna be fucked up about that for a while

774 notes · View notes

starsnores · 3 months

Note

not sure how much youve explored the angst of gamzee being stuck in a fridge but im obsessed with it,, him with ptsd and being horrified by small white spaces, cant use a bathtub or shower so karkat gives him sponge baths is a personal favorite idea

oh i haven't really talked about it but it is good to think about... i don't think a fridge is very well ventilated. do you think he was suffocating, unable to die. i think about what that would be like sometimes. buried alive, left to rot.

#asks #definitely traumatic!!#i like your idea to go with it tho that's cute in a sad way #whenever i think of claustrophobia i always think of my favorite book series from when i was a kid #lady sandrilene fa toren you will always be famous to me

35 notes · View notes

basu-shokikita · 4 months

Text

Dethentines 2024 Day 4

College AU or forced proximity

Happy Sunday, I finished this entry a few minutes ago! It was a no brainer between these two tropes, making the boys suffer is ALWAYS morally right. And I got a little carried away so this one is closer to a fic than a drabble. 🌸

Skwistok being stupid and flustered, go!

“Whats happens?” Toki asked, his eyes seeing nothing but darkness.

“Eughhhh….” Skwisgaar replied, not too far away from him, but Toki couldn’t see where. “Where…ams we?” He sounded confused.

Toki blinked, trying to remember what went down…

Charles had given them specific instructions. Go to the dungeons, don’t speak to anyone, deliver the package and get back to the main levels. And don’t play around the traps, especially do not play with the traps. They were not made for playing.

Toki dragged Skwisgaar with him, because he was bored and Skwisgaar was bored too though he probably would never admit it. And everything was going smoothly, until Skwisgaar thought it would be funny to start shoving Toki when they were close to those mysterious holes in the ground. Because he was an idiot and wanted to see Toki fall, no matter how many times Toki told him to stop it. Until Toki stumbled and held onto Skwisgaar out of reflex as he fell.

And then everything was black.

“Ah!” He let out a shout of realization. “You dildos, Skwisgaar! I tolds you to stops wif de pushings!”

“Ja, and dens you fells and-” There was a thud, most likely Skwisgaar impacting against something. “What de hells?”

“Whats?”

“I tries to moves and-” Another thud. “I hits against somethingks. Where ams we?”

“I don’t knows!” Toki said with exasperation. “I can’ts even sees! Does you have a lampterns?”

“Toki, why woulds I carries an lants in my owns houses?” Skwisgaar asked, with that tone like Toki had said something incredibly stupid.

“Wells, you shoulds!” Toki started feeling around. It’s not like he hadn’t spent his childhood in dark places, it just so happened that he wasn’t used to this one. Okay, so he was lying down and there was something hard all under him. He knocked it. Wood most definitely.

Then, he stretched his arm to see how far it went but, before too long, he hit a corner that went upwards, and then another corner that went to the left and above him. If he could reach it with his fingertips that meant it was small. When Toki stretched his left arm, he almost immediately came across something soft, fabric?

“Eugh…?”

Toki kept fondling the unknown texture against his palm. “What ams this?”

“Dats…woulks be mines ass, Toke.” Skwisgaar said in a low tone and Toki jolted so hard he felt his head knock against the wood.

“Wh-Why ams yous ass soes close to mes!” He screeched, pulling his arm away in a frenzy. “What ams wrongs wif yous?!”

“I tolds you I tries to-” Skwisgaar knocked hard against something. “Odins! Dere ams no goddamns spaces in dis plasckes!”

“We needs light!” Toki exclaimed with desperation. “Looks for lights!”

“Okeys, okeys…” Judging by the awkward taps he was hearing, Skwisgaar was searching. Eventually, he stopped. “I thinks I founds somethingks.”

“Ja?”

“Ja…” There was a click and a flash, red light blinding them. Toki instantly covered his face and closed his eyes. After a while, he opened them and it took a while to process the sight.

And when it did, it was the opposite of reassuring.

They were stuck in some sort of enclosed space, with Skwisgaar on top of him, his head facing Toki’s feet and his crotch hovering over Toki’s chest and his legs resting on the sides of Toki’s head. There was hardly any space to move away from each other.

“What de fucks…” He let out in abject horror.

“Eugh…” Skwisgaar tried to look back, clearly not quite aware yet of what Toki was seeing. “Dis why I couldnts moves earliers.” He tried to back away and Toki saw his ass fastly approaching his face.

“Waits, Skwisgaar!” He raised his hand but stopped inches away from touching his bandmate’s behind. “Don’s move…yous ass is…ams closes to mes right nows…”

“Oh.” Skwisgaar said almost unemotionally. After a pause, he added. “Ams it like de sixty nines-”

“Ja.”

There was some rustling and Toki glimpsed at Skwisgaar moving his head, most likely to confirm the information. ““...Fucks.”

“J-Ja.”

“Nows what?”

Toki tried to think. All things taken in account, he had the better position. Skwisgaar was propped on his arms and legs, there was no way he was going to be able to stay like that for a long time. And when he gave in…

The image that popped in Toki’s mind was so obscene that he had to physically shake off his head. “Tries movings soes we ams facing each others…faces.”

There was a short-lived silence. “Why don’ts you moves?” Skwisgaar sounded irritated.

“Because ams de ones betweens de woods-walls and yous?!” Toki huffed in disbelief. To demonstrate his point, he lifted his knee and it impacted against Skwisgaar’s shoulder.

“Augh!” Skwisgaar groaned in pain and weakly punched Toki’s calf.

“Sees? I can’ts even moves!”

Grumbling, Skwisgaar began the process of changing positions. He twisted his body to the side before burying his head in his chest and moving to the right. Clumsily, his legs followed, not without Skwisgaar’s boot rubbing against Toki’s face.

“Heys!”

Skwisgaar ignored him and continued, purposefully sinking his elbow into Toki’s chest as he moved. Annoyed, Toki grabbed him by the wrists to move him faster.

“Don’ts touch!” Skwisgaar complained, running his hands over Toki’s face like a child.

“Yous-” Toki slapped Skwisgaar’s hands with his own. “Yous de ones touchings!”

“Yous startedks!”Skwisgaar was now shoving his fingers inside Toki’s mouth.

“Youghh…busheds me!” Toki retaliated by digging his digits into Skwisgaar’s nose.

“Eugh- Yous mades me falls!”

Slaps and kicks were delivered everywhere, Toki wasn’t even looking what he was punching against, just that it was Skwisgaar’s body. They groaned and cursed and were certainly going to stay frantically hitting each other for an indefinite time until they heard a weird noise in the distance.

Skwisgaar went still. “W-Whats was dats?”

“I don’t knows…” Toki couldn’t hear it anymore. He wondered how deep they were, if maybe there weren’t monsters in the vicinity. He swallowed heavily. “Maybes we shouldn’ts makes noises for nows.”

Skwisgaar nodded in agreement. “Ja.”

As they stared at one another in silence, Toki realized that maybe his suggestion was foul. They were so close to each other now that Toki could see Skwisgaar’s pearly sweat forming on his forehead, could feel his hot breath on his face and his chest pressed against Toki’s.

“Eugh…” Skwisgaar seemed to notice as well and he shifted his body, to decrease the physical closeness, to no avail. There was no space to move to, one of his knees resting between Toki’s legs. “Dis ams…”

If anything, Toki was glad the light was red because then Skwisgaar wouldn’t notice his flushed cheeks. “M-Maybes turns off de lights?” He suggested, thinking it would be less uncomfortably intimate if they didn’t have to gaze at each other’s faces.

“Ja, good ideas.” Skwisgaar accepted and his foot began searching for the switch. His eyes strayed away from Toki, frowning deeply and biting down his bottom in concentration and Toki briefly wondered if that’s how Skwisgaar looked in bed before rejecting the thought in a panic.

“Ah!” Skwisgaar looked at Toki victorious and Toki wished it had been in any situation but this one. “I finds it!” And like that, the last thing Toki saw was Skwisgaar sticking his tongue out with his eyes rolled back before they were plunged into darkness again.

Fuck his life, seriously.

There was another noise and the space trembled and Skwisgaar just fell on top of Toki, no longer propping himself up with his limbs. “What da fucks ams goingks on?” Skwisgaar asked, the fear prevalent in his voice.

“Oh, Gods…” Toki said, just as scared. He had been so busy thinking about the space they were in, how cramped it was, that he had forgotten to think about how the hell were they going to leave. “Ams we goings to-” The space shook violently and he instinctively clung to Skwisgaar. “Oh, Gods!”

“Fucks…” Skwisgaar whispered, his face buried in Toki’s shoulder. “Fucks, fucks, fucks…”

“I don’ts wants to dies…” Toki said, his eyes watering.

“I don’ts wants to dies eide- uh, Toki?” Skwisgaar suddenly lifted his head.

“W-Whats?” Toki’s voice was shaky.

“Ams you…Ams you hards right nows?”

“Whats?!” Toki let go of Skwisgaar. “No, ams no-” The space shook again and he was back at hugging Skwisgaar in fear. “Ahhh!!” He screamed like a child.

“Ahhhh!” Skwisgaar echoed him as the shaking grew worse and worse.

Toki closed his eyes, preparing himself for the end. His life was flashing before his eyes when…

“Toki?” A familiar voice called him. “Skwisgaar?”

Toki opened his eyes. “Was dats…?”

“Toki? Skwisgaar? Just answer if you’re there, boys!”

“Ams dat…?” Skwisgaar trailed off.

“Alright, they’re not here.” Charles said. “Let’s keep looking.”

Panicked, Toki and Skwisgaar yelled at the same time.

“Helps!”

“Helps us!”

“We ams downs here!”

“Quicks, dere ams bigs monsters whats gonsa eats us!”

“Helps us!

–

Toki and Skwisgaar looked down in shame as their manager scolded them in his office. Apparently, while messing around, they had fallen into one of the torture traps designed for…Dethklok’s enemies. It was a slow asphyxiation kind of deal, coupled with potential decrease in temperature and eventual crushing. They would’ve certainly suffered a slow and excruciating death if Charles hadn’t realized they were taking too long to come back.

The most embarrassing part was, though, when the Klokateers rescued them and Toki discovered Skwisgaar hadn’t been lying about his you-know-what being awake. Really awake. Nobody referred to it, but still.

While glancing down at his own groin, Toki decided two things. He was never asking Charles for stuff to do ever again. And he was especially never bringing Skwisgaar with him again.

#dethentines #dethentines2024 #skwisgaar skwigelf #toki wartooth #skwistok #metalocalypse #my writing #no beta we die like men etc #tw claustrophobia #just in case

40 notes · View notes

keulixeutin · 2 years

Text

Breathless

a/n: my plane experience didn’t quite go like this. would’ve been nice, though. hope it makes sense, and hope y’all enjoy! summary: a stranger helps ground you when you feel trapped on a plane. bakugou x reader. she/her pronouns. cw: claustrophobia attack, panic attack, anxiety, nausea (no vomiting), fluff, just bakugou doing the best he can. au, but no powers are mentioned so u can pretend its canon if u want lol. word count: 4,258 words

You jerked awake, suddenly feeling odd.

There was something—off.

You didn’t feel right, but you couldn’t pick up on the reason why. There was an uncomfortable sense of dread growing in the pit of your stomach, spreading throughout the rest of your body. Your hands were clammy; your skin felt sensitive; you were jittery in ways you hadn’t been before, and you couldn’t put a finger on why.

You looked around the plane. It was dark; most of the passengers had their window shutters closed against the blinding afternoon light. Many of them were dozed off, too. You wondered if anyone else felt this—unnerved.

You were sitting in the back of the large plane, sandwiched tightly between the window and the man beside you. You felt more cramped than you remember feeling in previous plane rides. You normally handled them well, so what was happening now? Was this plane somehow more narrow than others? Was it more narrow in the back? Did this man with his wild hair and impossibly wide shoulders really have to put his elbow so far across the arm rest into your space?

No, no, that wasn’t fair. It was tight for everyone. This uncomfortable feeling—you just needed to stretch. Just need to shift a little, like a cat circling a spot three times before settling down to sleep.

You straightened your back, trying to soothe out the knots and kinks and pop it. It didn’t work, didn’t pop and didn’t help. The odd feeling lingered—intensifying even—no. No, it wasn’t intensifying, because intensifying would be bad. It was just there. It was just uncomfortable. Disagreeable—yes. That was a good word, a calm and collected word, a not-too-negative word to describe your situation. Once you found an agreeable position, you would easily fall back to sleep and bypass the last couple hours, you thought to yourself.

Optimistic, you leaned against the window.

Then, you leaned back into the chair, folding your arms, hyper aware of his elbow still past the invisible line.

Then, you unlocked the table from the seat in front of you to try and rest your head on it, but you realized that there wasn’t much space for you to curl your back, so you pushed it back up, locked it, and sat, staring at the seat in front of you that began to recline back, toward you.

It was so tight here. So confined. You felt restricted. You felt—

—Trapped.

You felt trapped.

As soon as that thought crossed your mind, you clearly felt the weighted dread on your chest, the difficulty swallowing, the starting heat.

It was a lack of air.

Fuck.

Fuck fuck fuck.

It wasn’t discomfort; it wasn’t disagreeable. It was suffocating.

You couldn’t breathe.

Instead of finding a comfortable position, you found that you were possibly—probably—very definitely having a claustrophobia attack.

You felt yourself starting to panic. This was new to you. You usually flew so easily; sometimes, it got tight, but you never felt stuck. Sometimes you ached, but you never felt nauseous.

You closed your eyes, imagining that you were in a car driving through grassy plains, imagining beautiful wildflowers of all types of colors. The sun was bright, as bright as the tall sunflowers that greeted you as you stared out the passenger window.

Okay, okay, you thought. This was doable. You could do this. You could manage two (and a half) more hours doing this.

The plane shifted suddenly—slight turbulence—and that was all your brain needed to go into overdrive. The grassy plains in your imagination suddenly got taller, bigger, growing wildly to eclipse the flowers, the sky, the path, boxing you in, trapping your car—and then the car suddenly wasn’t a car, but a metal box getting smaller and smaller and darker and tighter and—

Your eyes shot open, breaths coming out in short, tiny pants.

You were dangerously hyperaware of all movement and spacing around you, how everyone seemed to take up so much space, how they seemed to take up so much of your space, the elbow crossing the arm rest, the reclining seat in front of you, the child accidentally kicking the back of your chair. Your nausea was building, your chest was burning, your vision was darkening—shit, shit, shit, what were you going to do—what were you going to do?

“Hey. You alright?”

You turned to the man beside you, the one whose elbow was two centimeters too far over the invisible line, and logically you knew that it was illogical, but with the way your breaths came out shallow and desperate, with the way your heart was trying to claw its way out of the heat behind your diaphragm as though there were a fire starting behind your ribs, under your skin, it only seemed right and helpful and sane to blame him.

He seemed to see something on your face. His red eyes narrowed at you. Maybe he saw the terror. Maybe he saw the flames.

“I have to get up,” you said, trying to keep your voice steady despite your intense need to double over and cry and throw up and pass out, in whatever order gave you the most relief. “Please. Please, I n-need to get up.”

Without hesitation, the stranger woke up the woman in the aisle seat. Instead of stand up, she stayed seated, twisting her body and moving her legs to the side, expecting the two of you to squeeze through, but the man hissed out an aggravated, “Move your ass, lady!” She scrambled to her feet with a huff.

You all but fell into the aisle, feet trying to find ground beneath you, but you were furiously aware that nothing was solid ground, that you were in the sky in a metal bin, and it wasn’t the fall that frightened you but the walls, how they wouldn’t expand, and the people, how they could only expand, only take up more space, more oxygen.

So close to the back of the plane, your eyes caught the back room where the flight attendants sat. It was empty, though, so you quickly rushed to the back, trying not to frighten people with your heaving so loud in your ear as you gripped the wall and turned the corner, slowly falling to your knees.

You swallowed a gasping breath—one, two, then another, more. The darkness that had been dotting your vision was fading. The space here wasn’t much; you wouldn’t be able to stretch out your legs without leaning against the emergency exit (which you absolutely weren’t going to do), but the fact that you weren’t pressed up against a hard shoulder and a shuttered window was already relieving some weight off your shoulders, extinguishing some of the flames from your chest.

“You need water?” Same gruff voice—same gruff scowl.

He was crouched in the aisle, peering at you from the entrance. You were vaguely aware that, though he couldn’t tell his elbow had been encroaching your space, he was mindful of not crowding you here and not hovering over you with his size and height.

You nodded. He disappeared. You hazily remembered the flight attendants were pushing their drink cart at the front of the plane. When he came back, he handed you a cup and sat down on the other side of the little space, legs tucked against his chest.

“Thanks,” you said. The nausea was still bubbling in your stomach; you didn’t want to give it fuel, so you took tiny sips. “Y-you can go back,” you told him. “I should be okay now.”

“It’s fine—I’ll stay.” He was still scowling, eyebrows furrowed in sharp, angry angles, but there had been a softness in the red of his eyes when he had seen you gasping beside him, when you had asked him to let you through. “Lean back and keep your chest open,” he said. “Stop hunching.”

You slowly adjusted your posture.

“Good. Fix your breathing; you’re on the fucking verge of hyperventilating. In through your nose and out through your mouth to slow down. Three or four counts. Whatever you can manage.”

You didn’t realize that you had still been gasping for air. The initial panic had subsided as soon as you sat down in this open space (open being extremely relative), but you could still feel the anxiousness on the edge of your skin, as though it were lingering smoke, or embers ready to reignite.

You crossed your legs, tilted your head back, and rested your hands on your knees to ensure that your shoulders didn’t shift back into a cowering hunch. You closed your eyes, counted three as you inhaled through your nose, counting again as you exhaled through your mouth.

“Good,” you heard him say again.

Good, you thought.

In—out.

In—

The plane shook suddenly. It wasn’t an abnormal shake, just a small, tiny piece of turbulence that was to be expected at that height, but in your delicate and frazzled state, it felt as though you were minutes from the door and ceiling collapsing on top of you, seconds from your breath being taken away.

You choked out a gasp—

“You’re fine.”

No, he couldn’t know that, he—

“Hey—look at me.”

You felt a grip on your left hand that rested on your knee. You opened your eyes; he was glaring at you—no, he was looking. Brows sharp. Angular. Crimson eyes fierce—intense—but not knife-like. Not jagged. Not cruel.

“It’s mild turbulence,” he said. He squeezed your hand once.

You swallowed a nervous lump. Your mouth was dry. Your throat hurt.

“I’m telling you, you’re fine. You need to keep breathing,” he said, then adding, “slowly,” as though you had forgotten (how could you forget?).

You tilted your head back.

“Come on—inhale, one…two…three…four… Good.”

Good, you thought.

“Again—one, two, three, four. That’s it.”

He squeezed your hand a second time.

He was—odd. And fucking rude. You thought people were supposed to be more compassionate in these situations, empathy coloring all their movements, expressions, and voices, but this stranger was sharp, brusque, all angles and hard lines.

And yet—there was an unusual and unexpected sense of reassurance in his terse honesty, in the tight grip of his hand, in the callouses that brushed against your knuckles every time he shifted and squeezed. There was an inexplicable comfort in his curtness, in his hard angles, like you could touch him and your fingers wouldn’t sink; and there was something pleasant about holding someone and knowing that they had a weight to them, a structure, a frame that wouldn’t bend or break or flatten. You felt like you could trust him to tell you without falsities or sweetness whether the plane was landing safely or exploding wildly. You felt like he’d find space for you in his diaphragm in the fire, in the fall, like he’d give you the air from his own lungs if that was what it took. You didn’t know why you thought this, or what about him said this, but you held onto that thought with clenched hands and clenched jaws.

It helped you settle against the makeshift wall behind you, made of the flight attendant’s folded seat. There was still a curling ball in the pit of your stomach, but at least the air was coming in deep and leaving slow, unobstructed.

“How do you feel?” he asked; a question that was normally laced with concern was colored coarse.

“Better,” you answered quietly.

You felt a tender loss as he released his hand and shifted back to his end. A silence settled between the two of you as you both listened to your breathing.

After a few minutes, he asked, “This happen often?”

You shook your head.

“No medication then? Sedative, anti-anxiety?’

“No,” you said, shaking your head again. “This is the first time.” You would’ve laughed incredulously if you didn’t feel like every energy was being used to keep your chest open and not on fire.

You thought back to the past several weeks, leading up to this trip to visit your friends on the coast. You thought about the stress from work, the deadlines you couldn’t miss and the projects you couldn’t disregard, your calendar piled on and crammed with events and hang-outs to try and please everyone’s desire to see you, the way you forced yourself to clean the apartment at 1 AM because you couldn’t stand the mess, and then sleep at 3 AM because you had to decompress, and then wake at 7 AM to shower and get dressed, starting all over again. All of it finally caught up with you in the tiny back of this tremendous plane.

The flight attendant suddenly peered in. “Is everything okay?” she asked, looking between you and the stranger. Her frown seemed to imply that she had initially thought something lewd was happening, but then she noted that you were sitting separately and still straining to keep from boiling over. Her frown softened. “Are you okay to go back to your seats? You can’t really be back here, and the seatbelt light is on. I can get you more water if needed, ma’am.”

Before any type of panic could bubble in your chest, before the words even had the time to linger in the air with her breath, the frenzy-haired and red-eyed stranger interrupted, saying, “She’s trying to catch her breath. Give us ten minutes and then we’ll head back."

The flight attendant looked hesitant, but another look at you made her acquiesce. “I’m sorry. I can only give you five minutes; we’re almost done passing out drinks and the cart has to come back here, okay?” she said. Then, turning to you, she asked, “Do you want more water?”

What you wanted was for her to give you a break.

“No,” he said.

She looked to him, maybe confused as to why he was answering, maybe concerned as to why he was so rough, but she didn’t say anything else and disappeared down the aisle. You relaxed the best you could against the hard wall, grateful for his gruffness, and murmured your thanks.

“It’s whatever.”

You sat back in silence, focusing on breathing. You didn’t try to imagine anything. You just counted. You almost asked to hold his hand again, but then the flight attendant came back too soon and you were forced to get up.

The walk back to your seat was painful, each step rekindling the embers in your chest. You took your seat, feeling the dread as a lump in your throat that, when you swallowed, sat in your stomach with a gravity you didn’t think you could keep contained.

“Hey,” the stranger said, catching your attention. “You got anything to keep occupied? Fidget spinner? Games?”

You shook your head hesitantly, feeling small, feeling stuck, feeling tr—

“Focus on me, dumbass. No games? No portable consoles? Like a DS?”

You sighed shakily, trying to focus your unfocusing eyes. “I know what consoles are. I brought a book and my laptop, and I promise you, I will upchuck if I read right now.”

“Tch.”

He pulled his dark red backpack out from under the seat and rifled through it. He took out a Nintendo Switch, turned it on, and shoved it into your hands.

“Here. Play,” he ordered. He didn’t explain the rules, just plugged in the earbuds, tucked both into your ears, skipped the wordy intro, and then watched you maneuver your character and die. A lot. He swore a lot, too, and you found that listening to his harsh mutterings was better than listening to the game’s soundtrack. You tugged the earbuds off, letting yourself be distracted by his game and his voice.

You felt okay for a moment, whispering back to him—

“This is hard.”

“You’re just ass at it.”

—thinking that you could spend the rest of the flight like this, not relaxed but just okay.

And then the plane shuddered and your stomach clenched and your vision was wobbly, and he was too close to you, the game was too much in your hands, just another thing taking space, and you had to drop it into your lap or you were going to be so nauseous. You gripped onto the seat in front of you, aware that you were encroaching on the passenger’s space but not finding it in you to care. You fought the desperate urge to clamber out of your seat and crawl toward the back, quickly forgetting why you even needed to fight it.

“Chest open.”

You were vaguely aware that you were nodding, vaguely aware that he had shifted back from you as far as the seats would allow, even to the point where he was invading the aisle woman’s space, but it didn’t seem like he cared either.

“Keep the count,” he told you. “You want to sit in the bathroom?”

You shook your head.

“Then you gotta sit fucking straighter than that.” There was no fire behind his words. You wondered if swearing was just part of his everyday vocabulary. He gently grasped your shoulder, touched your back, helped you sit up with your chest up and shoulders back. You closed your eyes, counting, counting, breathing.

It felt like there was a blazing in your chest, like something ready to ignite, something trying to—and it felt like you were trying to cover it with just your body, just your small diaphragm, just the little bones of your ribs. How could so much heaviness, so much fire, fit behind the smallest bones, you wondered.

He must’ve noticed you squeezing your knees, because you felt his hard hand grasp the back of your soft knuckles. Another hand gently massaged the back of your neck.

“You’re alright,” he said. “You’ll be fine. Keep breathing.” His hand dipped to your shoulders, moved up and down your back, heavy fingers pressing against knotted muscle, blunt nails scratching at clammy, stiff skin. “Good?” he asked.

You nodded, appreciative of the touch, of a different type of pressure on your body. Good.

“Focus on my voice. Just keep breathing.”

“—W-why—” you gasped out softly.

“Why keep breathing?” He looked like he was restraining himself from yelling. There was a pulsing vein in his forehead, visible even in the dim light, that would’ve made you smile, that would’ve made you laugh if you weren’t so busy trying to rework your lungs.

“No—why h-help?”

He frowned. “Why the fuck wouldn’t I?”

What a bizarre response, you thought. What a perfect one, for someone whose scowl didn’t quite match his red eyes.

You flipped your palm over, interlaced your fingers through his, and held tightly. His thumb rubbed circles into the back of your hand. The callouses right beneath his fingers were dry and cutting. His hand and hold felt honest. He murmured encouragingly, the same few lines in the same low tone, choppy and curt, on repeat like he didn’t know what else to say. His hand on your back was similar. Sometimes he massaged too hard; sometimes he scratched too light. A clumsy and sweet effort.

You closed your eyes, fighting the mismatched breathing, counting your breaths, counting the seconds, and then counting the circles he drew against your skin and the times he gripped your shoulder, the hold slowly grounding you.

You were on the edge—but you were tied to a lifeline. Your toes hovered over the black space right past the threshold, but you wouldn’t fall—you wouldn’t fall—you wouldn’t fall. You weren’t comfortable—but you were okay.

You leaned against the shuttered window, and fell into a light and jerky sleep. Whenever you felt yourself fall too deep, though, you were wracked with an immediate and sudden fear. You’d shoot awake, panting, gasping, but he’d squeeze your hand tight, murmuring the same comforting and clumsy words until you settled down—“In through your nose, idiot. How many times I gotta tell ya? Good, good, just like that.”

Good, you thought.

It was the same pattern every five, maybe ten minutes. You didn’t fall asleep for long, the nerves always working you up to a dreadful jerk awake, even if there wasn’t any turbulence. But he squeezed your hand every time, with a scowl that didn’t meet his eyes, and he’d repeat the words again and again, like a chorus, like a mantra, like a prayer, one you held onto fiercely as you hovered over the edge for the rest of the flight.

The jostling of the plane landing was what woke you up next. Rather than a panicked gasp, your eyes fluttered open, feeling an ache in your neck and a weight on your head. The seat before you was crooked—no, you were crooked. Your head was tilted, resting on the stranger’s shoulders—and his head was rested on yours. In your lap was his Switch—and the both of your hands, still intertwined.

You smiled and took in a deep and unimpeded breath of stale plane air.

You touched his shoulder tenderly. “Wake up,” you said.

“Shut up,” he muttered.

“We’ve landed,” you said, pulling your fingers out of his warm hold and watching how his hand twitched in your direction, as if chasing your grasp.

He sat up, eyes groggy. He tried to stretch his arms, immediately hitting the top of the aircraft cabin with an annoyed growl. You wondered if he ever had claustrophobia attacks. His frame was so large; how could he move through this world without feeling enclosed, encaged in every room he stepped in?

He caught your eyes staring.

“You good?” he asked, voice surly and shaded with sleep still.

“Good,” you said. “Thanks to you.”

You watched everyone get up before you, thinking that it’d be easier to let the fast-paced crowd hasten toward the exit first. The man sat with you; you shouldn’t have been surprised, but you were. He seemed like the go-go-go type.

When it was finally your turn, the stranger stepped out, slung his backpack over his shoulders, and grabbed his black suitcase from the overhead compartments.

“Which one’s yours?” he asked.

You pointed to the dark mauve, plastic one behind him.

Without another word, he pulled it out and set it down; his biceps flexed under the weight. He let you leave first with your backpack over your shoulders and his Switch against your chest, with him following behind, easily rolling both suitcases down the aisle.

When the two of you exited the gate, you pulled off to the side, relieved to be back on solid ground—but a little disappointed, you found, to be leaving him.

“I really appreciate everything,” you said, giving back his Switch. “I don’t even know how to truly thank you.”

“It’s fine. Don’t mention it.” He was gruff, he was scowling—and he was soft. You could see it clearly in his eyes. Now that you were out of the dim plane cabin, you could see how his brows had imperceptibly straightened, how his eyes weren’t so much red but a darkened and complicated pink.

“Can I hug you?” you asked quietly, hearing your heart hammering for a variety of reasons that you were too tired to think on.

He didn’t answer, but he uncrossed his arms, holding his hands out to you, the posture as gentle as the pink in his eyes. You stepped into his embrace eagerly, his larger body engulfing you entirely.

His heartbeat was strong. Steady. Curt, like his words. His body was all hard angles, all flexed muscles, all sturdy structure and heavy frame. His cologne smelled faintly of spiced wood, reminding you of summer storms, electricity crackling through a vibrating air. You took in a deep, deep breath, holding the smell behind your aching diaphragm, behind the small bones of your ribs, inside your tired lungs for as long as he held you.

You pulled back finally. Reluctantly.

“Thanks,” you repeated, looking up at him and catching the softness in his eyes again, the only part of his body that wasn’t all sharp.

For a moment, you thought he was going to kiss you.

You didn’t know why. Just a feeling. Just the way his grip tightened on your waist, the way his eyes flickered down to your lips, the way the air seemed to buzz, your body answering on your tip-toes.

But he pulled away, dropping his hands to grab your suitcase handle.

“Got anywhere to be?” he asked.

“Not yet,” you said. “Why?”

“You should hydrate and eat. Come on.”

”Wait—”

“Stop complaining and let’s go.”

You smiled, touching his arm as you caught up. “I was just going to ask your name.”

He glanced at you. “Bakugou,” he said. “Katsuki—just call me Katsuki.”

“Okay,” you said, breathless in a way you didn’t mind.

But he didn’t ask your name. Instead, as you followed him down to luggage retrieval, he asked when your return flight was, and when you found that you were both on the same plane again but not in the same aisle, you saw him check the airline app for any available seats near you. You thought that it was somehow on brand that he didn’t ask for your name. You thought this was part of his curtness, part of his clumsiness, part of how his hands were so rough but encompassed yours so warmly, so sweetly.

#╰【 TAGGED AS … 】❖ ━━━━━ ❛ fandom「 bnha 」#╰【 TAGGED AS … 】❖ ━━━━━ ❛ character「 bakugou 」#╰【 TAGGED AS … 】❖ ━━━━━ ❛ titled「 breathless 」#╰【 FILED UNDER … 】❖ ━━━━━ ❛ novae writes 」#╰【 TAGGED AS … 】❖ ━━━━━ ❛ reader「 she/her 」#bnha fanfic #mha fanfic #bnha x reader #mha x reader #bakugou katsuki x reader #bakugou x reader #claustrophobia tw #panic attack tw #anxiety tw #claustrophobia attack tw #dang got another one up?#on a roll #it don't usually happen like this LOL

656 notes · View notes

c-kiddo · 11 months

Text

watched one of those vry melodramatic (im sorryy ok its just spoken too dramatically for me lol) cr analysis videos with no expectations but actually interesting take in one about caduceus and how he is kind and respectful and a caretaker as like , core values, but underneath is also so angry at the injustices he encounters once he has actually left his home. and i just think that is interesting and a different (but accurate) way of thinking about his reaction to things. like, finding out what ikithon did, fjord being killed before his purpose was fulfilled, innocent people getting hurt in more powerful peoples (eg: the dynasty and empires) conflicts etc, all times when he got so quietly angry . v cool read of the character 2 me

#kiddo say #cads arc is subtle and soooooo good love it sm #you got me this time dramatic youtube dnd guy #also lads i went back to th iron shepherds arc in my relistening to cr2. i may act silly #i love that arc sm its comfort arc in a weird way #so sad and rainy and dark grey blue again #ALSO matts initial description of the grove is so scary i looove it. like oh this is a horror situation .#bc techinically ik theres 3 fences getting swallowed by the forest but hearing the first description is soo good. he describes the grove as #being 'crushed' in by the forest around it . love that. the claustrophobia of it all .

100 notes · View notes

angels-whump · 2 months

Text

Whumper locks whumpee in a coffin or in one of those drawers at a morgue

(I'm working on the vampire thing I promise I've just been kinda dead for writing lately)

#whump scenario #whump prompts #claustrophobia tw #oooh death confusion like how I like my fitmc whump recently #anyway

20 notes · View notes

Last Seen Blogs