Car horn near him is scary, he's scared, scared is the thing you're supposed to be when there are sudden loud noises next to you.

And now he just needs - he just needs to get himself back under control - he's - got to - it was a startle, not something that could start a panic attack -

Fuck.

"Mister? Are you okay?"

"Ahahahahaha yes.  Thank you.  It's - finals!"  It could not be less the time for finals. "Midterms.  College.  You know how it is!  I am very tired."

"Wow, looks rough, good luck on your tests."

"Thank you!"  Jesus Christ.  He routes towards someplace with less traffic.  That's very normal.  People don't like loud noises and he's people and he's even a specific person who normally likes to walk along quieter streets.  Sometimes.

Nobody bothers him on the quiet street, though he can spot a person adjusting the blinds in a second story window. And a squirrel.

Hhhhhhhh fuck.  Fuck.  The fucking squirrels are watching him.  He really wants to put on some music and try to chill out some but he can't do that without unlocking his phone, there's nothing it thinks he might want to resume, and he absolutely cannot do that.  So he doesn't do that, and he doesn't look forlornly at his phone wishing it were safe to unlock, because obviously he just had an update queued, or thought he did, and then hasn't gotten around to unlocking it since then.  He doesn't want to listen to music, actually, it's fine.  He whistles, some.  That helps; having something to do with his breath control is better than just trying to keep it even.  It is a lovely spring day and he's enjoying the weather and he forgot to bring his lunch out to enjoy the weather with.  Yes.

He's back at work with two minutes to spare; he does have to look at his phone in its capacity as a clock.  But that's not suspicious.  Is muffin guy still around or did the oven finish up or did he give up and leave on his own.

Muffin guy took the kids on a different errand but has returned for the four blueberry muffins.

Here they are.  He can even have four warm ones instead of the three from the case and one fresh one.

The kids probably appreciate that. The guy doesn't thank him but his wife leaves a dollar in the tip jar before they go hand out the muffins to the kids.

Except for how he isn't real, muffin guy probably has his own problems.  The character of muffin guy is raising multiple kids and is maybe taking them on vacation or something and that's hard.  The character of Julien sympathizes with him.  And once again the tip doesn't fucking matter so the character of Julien doesn't really need to form or express any opinions about the character of muffin guy's wife and whether he's insulted by or appreciative of the loonie.  There are other customers to serve!  For another two hours!  And then it's normal to go home so he has to go home.

Pigeons. Panhandlers. Traffic. Taco stand.

It's probably safer to eat at a taco stand than at his apartment or getting food from the grocery store but no way no how is it safe.  He'll have to figure out something later.

Hello his apartment hello one of his housemates who's hanging out in the kitchen; he greets you normally.  What can he do, what the fuck can he do to kill the evening, that's normal and that doesn't involve his phone or computer and also doesn't put him at incredibly high risk of slipping up in front of people.  ...Music.  He takes the guitar off its stand in the living room and - normally he would look at chords on his laptop but they have a songbook around somewhere.  He finds it after twenty minutes.  He wants to improve his technique it's normal the book is instructional it has lessons it's normal.  He doesn't lock himself in his room because it doesn't have a lock and that would be weird and he's, instead, normal.

After several hours his fingertips are very sore and he's really, really really incredibly thirsty, and also pretty hungry, but at least he can do the fingerpicking part and not just chords to 'Hey There, Delilah'.

Car alarm in the distance. Housemate fixing stirfry for dinner. Bird out the window.

Yes great his captors are successfully piping in 'Toronto Soundscape College Apartment Spring Evening | ASMR To Not Have A Panic Attack To (10 Hours) (Binaural)', good job, them.

Right, books exist also.  He replaces the guitar in the common area and - doesn't really feel like hunching over a textbook for the time being; what else has he got.  Traceless's blog, if he'd somehow known to print it out ahead of time; what's he actually got.  Holmes collection?  Holmes collection.  Holmes collection can keep him at least nominally occupied well into the night, until he wears himself out enough to fall asleep on it.  He doesn't need to unlock his phone for his alarms for tomorrow to still be set, thank fucking god.  Even if he was able to sleep straight through he'd be getting about four hours of sleep, but of course they have to give him nightmares on top of that; aren't they so funny.  They must be having a good laugh at him.

He's at work on time.  8:00 AM sharp, and looking a little more like people tend to for the 4:00 AM shift.  He stands outside for a minute, digging his smiles out of the junk drawer in his torso where they got shoved last night, and then steps inside.  Chipperly.  For another eight and a half hours of yesterday's deal.

Latte with a pump of cinnamon. Black coffee and make it fucking hot. Peppermint mocha. Tall regular. Guy asking for a "large" daring him to insist that he call it by its Starbucks name.

Julien will call it a large if that's what the guy wants!  It's not fucking Starbucks doing this to him, is it; he's sucking up to reality and not to company policy.  (....If it is Starbucks doing this to him he's going to get so much money from suing them, but also it's definitely not Starbucks doing this to him.  They're not that powerful and he's not that lucky.)

Vanilla bean custard danish. "A muffin", like it's obvious which kind. Sandwich. Tea. Seasonal beverage which is not in season.

Julien can handle all these customers with grace and tact despite his looming headache and dizziness and fixation on the idea of drinking some water, any water, even though it will poison him.  He was right about his water bottle being safe before, he's pretty sure.  Would it be safe now?  - No, that's ridiculous.  It was safe because he filled it up before this started happening.  Now it's solidly in the happening phase and all the water available to him is evil.  That's the only thing that makes sense.

People usually don't read his nametag and address him by name but this guy is going to before ordering a complicated thing in French.

"Eugh. Anglophones." He orders the thing again in accented English.

He's - he can't.  He ran out of him.  There's no more Julien.  He's going to get tortured - okay he is already being pretty tortured but now there are going to be like.  Broken bones, or knives, or the sensation of pain being beamed directly into his mind, like everything else already is.  Should he try and kill himself, first?  It doesn't really seem like it would help.  Getting back in character would help, almost certainly, very definitely, and he -
just -

can't -