The silence was so ridiculous, he didn’t realize that his brain was already whistling and going off in all sorts of alarm bells when the words finally registered in his ears. Shaking his head for the briefest of moments, he looked down—and wondered.

Just what was the other man up to?

And then he realized that his ears felt ready to fall off because of the pressure he associated with the rush of blood going straight to them. Ah, shit.

“O-o-oh,” he finally managed to sputter and stammer out, metaphorically picking up the broken pieces of his brain as he made himself move and quickly made a mad dash back to the room he’d come out of, slamming the door behind him in the process.

Holy hell balls, why were his ears going off like that?!

Breathe! He yelled at himself internally, finally crumpling to the floor and holding his head in his hands. Fucking breathe! He continued to himself, willing away the pressure building up on his ears because holy shit he needed to calm the fuck down.

“Laurence, calm the fuck down!” he hissed to himself, still feeling the pressure behind his ears as he forced himself to stand up, shaky legs as he made his way back to the bed and quickly dressed himself as best as his trembling hands could manage.

Roughly ten minutes later, the door to his temporary ‘room’ opened once again and now he was sufficiently dressed, another towel draped over his head.

“Okay, I’m dressed. Now what?” he inquired owlishly, hiding the fact that less than ten minutes ago his brain had almost gone into nuclear meltdown.