Doe's POV:

I dug my grip into my limp upper arm, trying to limit its movement as I staggered behind Xander to his brother's room.

With every step, this odd, unfamiliar panic settled in deeper and deeper.

It wasn't like the internalized, preparatory anxiety that I had become accustomed to.

This one was like an aftershock, blowing through everything I've been feeling prior and amplifying it.

It was deafening with the ringing in my ears mixed with the impossible quick thumping in my heart.

And suffocating to where I couldn't fill my lungs all the way if I tried.

Every breath felt forced and scraped like sandpaper against the ever-growing lump in my dry throat.

No. This was absolutely nothing like the panic I knew.

This one acted like a fuze, quickly burning its way quicker and quicker through my body, building suspense each second as to when it was going to combust.

Until I was going to break.

I could feel it creeping up on me, and could do nothing but brace for it.

All of that on top of the now angered vampire in front of me.

That shift in him that just added and added to the feelings that I didn't understand.

He pounded on the door of Nico's room the second it was within reach

The action was hard and frantic, unlike the usual pattern he liked to knock with.

The sound echoed in my ears with everything else.

I spared a look at him while he did, the tension in his jaw still mainly evident, as well as that look in his eyes.

The dark circles under them finally registered in me aswell, now that I could actually look at him.

I looked away as the guilt that had made a short appearance churned in me even harder.

He cursed under his breath at the lack of a response from the door, lifting his hand to start pounding on it again.

I barely felt myself take a pitiful step back at the sound of it.

The tone, the frustration I'd never before been able to imagine hearing with his voice.

One that I once thought would be impossible for him to produce.

The door opened soon after, and Xander didn't even wait till it was halfway open before he pushed through, leaving me scurrying behind him to catch up.

Nico didn't stop him, and barely seemed surprised by his presence, just stared blankly at him as he stormed further into the room.

He closed the door with a roll of his eyes, moving to approach us until he spotted my condition and froze.

"Oh," He spoke like the sight had caught him off guard, eyes growing wide for a moment.

"Help her," Even though the harsh tone, I could hear the plead behind it.

He cleared his throat, taking a moment to compose himself before speaking his next word as calmly as he could, "Please,"

Nico's brows drew together at the oddity of those words coming from his brother, compared to what Xander's showed him lately.

Only for a few seconds though, before his gaze returned to my piteous form.

New worried piled themselves into the storm of what I was already dealing with as he stayed silent in thought.

What if he refuses...?

He already cut us off of his help, and we just barged into his room unannounced so what if he turns us away?

I'd like to think that Xander was having the same thoughts, but in the moment I wasn't sure.

There was a lot I was unsure about right now.

The silence broke at the sound of footsteps, all eyes turning to Khloe who immediately looked like she regretted her decision to step out of the bathroom and into this scene we had caused.

That familiar sigh cut through the air as Nico turned back to us, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"You can't keep doing this," he lectured, gesturing to me with his hand.

The guilt doubled at that alone, despite the fact that this was the first time I've had an issue with my bones.

Of course, it looked like he did this to me, what else would he think?

Well... he did, but it was my fault, to begin with.

He could have just let me go, then all of his lies and problems that sprouted from them would have been done with.

"Oh ok, you automatically think I'm to blame for this?" Xander bit with the anger from before.

"Are you're telling me she did this to herself?" he retorted.

Yes.

I could just barely tell Xander was looking at me, but I didn't have the guts right now to see the hard gaze I knew he held.

The grating way in which he spoke his next words sent a shiver down my spine.

"Well, yeah, damn brat was lucky I caught her or else she would be dead right now."

He was right, and I think that's one of the main things haunting me right now.

The realization that I was mere seconds away from dying on top of the other source of my endless anxiousness that peaked with the words he just spoke.

He was furious. Unrelentingly furious at me for what I had done.

And through everything, even though the knowledge that I was the one who had the right to be mad before all of this, I couldn't invalidate his reaction to what I did.

I was mad at myself too somewhere buried deep beneath everything else.

Both irritated and defeated by the fact that I let myself enter into that dark void of a thought process, and couldn't manage to catch myself in time.

"I'm going to need you to elaborate on that further," Nico's confusion was greatly evident.

He didn't believe what Xander was telling him.

And the fact that what Xander had said was 100% true just made it that much more frustrating

I stiffened at the low growl that radiated beside me.

It was faint, but it was there.

"What the hell do you need elaborated? This idiot was being stupid on the window sill and ended up tripping on a damn pillow, falling against the window with enough force to open it, and fell out of it, I barely reacted quick enough to grab her arm and drag her back in!"

I found myself biting my bottom lip yet again to keep it from bobbing.

It wasn't the full truth, but it did cause some questions of my own to arise.

Did he think I did it on purpose?

I swallowed hard, hating the question as soon as it appeared.

I didn't want him to think that of me, even if that was partially what caused it.

But it was just a thought... just a hypothetical that got taken too far.

Part of me debated if that was why he's so angry, but that didn't last long.

Not when that look of pure panic was the first thing I saw after he had caught me.

No... this wasn't adding up.

"She's lucky that all she got was a dislocated shoulder," he grumbled, crossing his arms.

Nico just blinked at his explanation, but I could see the thought behind his gaze as it switched between us.

The silence in of itself was agonizing, especially when I could feel the energy in my legs beginning to deplete.

I tried to shift my stance, earning another quiet rumble in Xander's chest, followed promptly by another outburst.

"Are you just going to stare at me or can you fix my pet?" He snapped.

'pet'

I couldn't recall the last time I heard him refer to me at that.

It made my stomach, empty as it was, lurch.

His words were enough for Nico to settle on something, yet his uncertainty of it all still showed.

"Yeah... Yeah just have her sit on the edge of my bed," he instructed, stepping sideways to give us a straight shot.

I noticed one of Xander's hands raise and inch towards me before he dropped it, instead taking the first step over to the bed.

Keeping my head down, I somehow managed to get myself up onto the high mattress with one arm.

Xander kept himself close beside me, and I could practically feel his eyes on me, checking to see if I needed help.

Or at least, that's what I wanted to think his presence was for.

With the unfamiliarity of this new emotion, I didn't know what to expect and trying to think about it only made everything else worse.

Yet I still felt a strange ache as he stepped back and Nico took his place.

I was extremely aware of the speed of my breaths as he took another close look at me.

It's fine. Nico will handle it.

Yeah, Nico will fix it and then everything will be fine.

The thoughts weren't as convincing as I wanted them to be, but Words couldn't tell how badly I wanted that to be the truth.

For this injury to be my main problem right now and not the fact that I could feel myself falling apart from everything that's happened prior.

It almost made me wish that this injury was more serious, just so I could have some more time here to try to pick some sense out of my mangled thoughts.

I had no idea how I was supposed to face Xander after this.

I got snapped out of my thoughts the second Nico took a gentle hold on my arm, pain exploding from the area and throughout my entire body.

"I-Is it going to hurt?" I heard my voice sputter.

I just wanted to be ready.

To prepare myself for what this was going to feel like so that this physical pain wouldn't be my breaking point.

I knew it was coming soon, but I didn't want it to be here.

Not in Nico's room.

I just needed to make it back to ours before...

Xander's eyes furrowed into a glare in my periphery, causing me to focus in on it.

Luckily I noticed that he wasn't looking at me, but more so my shoulder.

A short showing of guilt passed his features before he turned his head to the side.

"Not if you relax," He replied.

My lips pressed tightly together with the knowledge that relaxing was the absolute last thing I had the capability of doing.

Nico's expression was the only familiarity I had right now, and I tried to use it to distract myself from the thrumming pain radiating from my shoulder as he bent my arm with one hand, and pushing back on it with the other.

It took everything in me to keep my discomfort silent as he slowly pushed my arm back.

I couldn't do this. This pain on top of everything else.

But I had to try to fight it. Just to hold off until after.

Something that I used to be so good at, but my limit had been reached despite how high I had set it.

"I'm gonna pop it back in on three, okay?" He told me, the tone of his voice tragically failing in easing me.

I don't think anything would, so I just nodded and squeezed my eyes shut.

"One two,"

He cut my preparation short, a quick pull on my shoulder and push on my arm setting it back into place with another sickening snap.

Then he just took a step back, an almost proud smile on his face with how well he pulled that off.

I found myself frozen, the pain still present, but subsiding.

Okay... okay okay okay.

I'm good, I'm fine, I've got this.

Though, as relieving as that was, now I had to deal with the aftermath.

The fuze was getting close, I could feel it.

"Is that it?" Xander asked from behind, a bit of relief of his own peeking through.

I worked up the nerve to attempt to move my arm, being successful despite how insanely sore it felt.

"Yup that's it. Now get out of my room." Nico said as he turned to go open the door.

I took that as my cue to remove myself from his bed.

"Thank you!" I somehow managed to get the words out, inclining my head.

I hope that he knew I meant it.

Footsteps approached from my side before a hand set at my lower back.

I found myself surprised by the softness of it of all things.

How gingerly he set it there.

It was undoubtedly the gentlest thing about him right now, which oddly didn't help in easing me at all.

In fact, I think it made it just noticeably worse, tears swiftly returning to brim in my eyes at the contact.

Okay... I just had to get back into the room. Get back there and somehow manage to hide.

Maybe in the bathroom.

I couldn't fight these tears anymore, not with everything.

I've been fighting them and after that fall, they were finally winning.

I didn't have much time.

"Yep, thanks. You're the best," I could feel his urgency as he lightly pushed me to move towards the door.

It seemed he wanted to return as well.

"Y'know I'm gonna start charging you if you keep coming to me asking me to fix her." Nico's voice rang out.

Xander hesitated a moment, yet didn't have the immediate comebacks that he usually did.

I guess he too was unsure of what to do in the moment.

Meanwhile, the tears were pushing hard against the walls they've come oh so close to demolishing.

Nico found Xanders silence amusing, you could hear it in his next words.

"Why aren't you out of my room yet?"

"This conversation isn't over," Xander settled with, guiding me again out of the room, and into the hall.

Nico's voice sounded one last time before the door shut on us.