#fantasy emeto

[angstyaches]

hii could we please get a sick ryan because she ate something stupid (thinking about the time she stole nancys cookies heheh) with nancy as the caretaker? i miss them sm :)🍄

You also requested something Ryan-centric for this post, quite a while ago, so I've combined the two.

Word Count: 4,400+

CW (PLEASE READ): species-based food intolerance, nausea, vomiting, bad self-talk, behaviour which could be interpreted as harmful to the self so please proceed with caution and be gentle with yourselves 🖤

___

“I feel my gratitude must, once again, be expressed,” Ryan said, distracting herself with words while her knife pressed down on her stack of green leaves, tomato slices, chicken, and dressing. This chaotic arrangement had somehow cost more than an entire cow used to cost in the equivalent currency. She supposed she remained indoors far too often, if culture shock could still manage to creep up on her out of nowhere.

Her lunch companion raised her eyebrows as she chewed. She had ordered clam chowder and bread, much to Ryan’s quiet and resigned dismay. Exposure to the smells of food were a challenge for her senses to begin with, but it was a special kind of hell when seafood became involved. To make things worse, she had clams and prawns and whatever else was hauled in off the coast of Portrush had once delighted her beyond reason.

To be sickened by something once loved brought an especially bittersweet tang to her mouth. She could almost hear the crashing waves, the tinkle of little Silas’s laughter –

“For… what?” Mrs. Waters pondered innocently.

“For… inviting me to convene with you over your afternoon meal,” Ryan clarified, giving a slight shake of her head. She would have to limit the extent of her olfactory indulgences as much as possible. “I understand that your schedule must come with an abundance of restrictions –”

The trickle of discomfort in Mrs. Waters’ eyes made Ryan’s words halt on her tongue. She was being too formal. She knew that. Well, she hadn’t known that. But she knew that now.

Or perhaps it was the way Ryan’s jaw threatened to rebel against her every time she lifted the fork to her mouth, her tongue becoming awash with acrid saliva. The way she chewed as though she could somehow stop the food from touching the surfaces inside her mouth. Like a fool.

Like an utter fool.

“It was really no bother at all,” Mrs. Waters assured Ryan, eyeing her bowl of soup as she carefully lifted a spoonful towards her lips. Ryan wasn’t sure if the woman was of a generally nervous disposition, or if it was Ryan, specifically, who was making her nervous. “To be honest, I was a bit anxious to meet you. My Charlie is basically working for you right now.”

“I see,” Ryan said, poking at a chunk of tomato with her fork. It wept a sickly pink juice under the pressure of the tine. She wasn’t sure she was satisfied with the idea that the young Mr. Waters was working for her; she had thought that allowing him to continuing living on the property had been a generous gesture, not a job offer.

Indeed, he would be keeping an eye on the structural integrity of the building and preventing the odd build-up of dust and grime, but didn’t most mortals perform these duties within their dwellings –?

“Not – not that I was afraid you were some kind of weirdo or anything!” Mrs. Waters exclaimed.

“Ah.”

Half a second later, Mrs. Water’s gave a nervous chuckle, which told Ryan that she should be chuckling too, and certainly shouldn’t have given a deadpan, one-word answer. To avoid having to make up for it now, she loaded her mouth full of vinegared leaves, the texture and flavours lost in a sea of tingling, unpleasant numbness between her jaws.

The sensation came on so fast that it felt like a spike had been driven down through the top of her head, its point grating at the base of her tongue. The intensity shocked her somewhat, which was a good thing; if not for the shock, she might have started in her seat and instantly spewed her food back out onto the table.

As things stood, her jaw had clenched and her lips had mashed up tightly together.

“So, you’re looking to move out to the countryside?” Mrs. Waters asked.

Ryan’s eyes were somehow dry, yet also stinging with tears.

She made a show of puffing out her cheeks and pointing towards her closed lips to buy herself more time to chew. More time to… suffer through chewing. Every cell in her body wanted to spray the wet, slippery greens as far as they would go. Her inherently liquid diet didn’t often require her jaws or her back teeth to do much work, beyond the initial slicing into the flesh of a live pray, of course. It was oddly tedious and repetitive work.

Not to mention her guts were practically revolting in protest already. Before she’d turned immortal – more immortal than most other immortals, in fact – Ryan had lived through more diseases than many creatures who still roamed the earth, and she didn’t appreciate the reminder of what sickness could feel like.

But none of that mattered. The current situation called for her to be sociable. There was no room for anything else.

The story was that she was planning to move to the countryside with her partner, who suffered from a rare lung disease and would benefit from a fresher kind of air than the stuff readily available in the suburbs. They were planning on adopting two rescue dogs, and as soon as they were settled in, Ryan planned to take back up her long-lost hobby of painting portraits of animals in Colonial-style dress. This last detail had been Ryan’s own contribution to the charade, and Nancy had raised an eyebrow at it.

The more seemingly innocuous drivel included, the more convincing the fabrication, Ryan had assured her wife, and when it seemed as though Nancy had been about to protest, Ryan had done what she generally did when Nancy was about to protest. She’d kissed her on the mouth.

She couldn’t quite tell Mrs. Waters the truth, that the house her son resided in was plagued by the densest swarm of demons the world over, or that her son himself was possessed by a demon, or that Ryan was monitoring him for fear he’d caught the attention of the most dangerous immortal on the planet.

These were simply not appropriate lunchtime topics of discussion.

“Well… that’s exciting,” Mrs. Waters smiled. She smiled more with the left side of her mouth than the right. “Can I ask why? Are you just… looking for a change, or is there a job…?”

Ryan’s lips trembled, and she wanted to smack them to make them behave. Her lungs gulped in air, despite her efforts to refrain from excessive breathing, as she swallowed the foul mouthful. It gurgled in her throat, her internal muscles twitching and spasming as it was forced down, into a stomach that felt how she imagined Felix’s did when he had to watch a creature being slaughtered.

With a disdainful curl to her lip, Ryan certainly hoped she didn’t look the way Felix did when he had to watch an animal being slaughtered.

Below the table, her stomach burbled.

She pressed a poised finger to her lips, stifled an indigestive burp, and nodded in response to Ingrid’s question. “Well, my partner, you see, has a rather uncommon lung condition…”

___

Ryan sat in her car long for an excessive amount of time after arriving home. The shadows that had descended as the garage door closed behind her had felt like a blanket encircling her shoulders, shrouding her from the prying eyes of the world. The sensation disgusted her. Ryan never had need for blankets or warmth or self-pity.

And as soon as her defences went down, they went down. Hard. The cogs in her brain began to analyse every moment of the interaction, criticise every facial expression, pick apart every selected word, twist at every hum of agreement.

Even the fact that she was sitting in her car, emotionally paralysed, told her that she, herself, needed improvement. If spending the afternoon with a human person could take this much of a toll on her, then she was in dire need of… practice. Exposure. She had once attended Lions Club meetings and taken painting lessons; perhaps it was time to explore those options again. Spend some time with beings other than witches and vampires and… others.

Ryan rested a hand against her abdomen as she pressed her spine into the car seat, feeling a rather violent tension pushing against the buttons of her crisp white shirt. Her stomach was bubbling and squelching away, as though it thought its sluggish efforts would achieve anything close to digestion.

She used the heel of her hand to knead the space beneath her ribs where her meagre meal sat like a thick slime. The wretched organ might as well have been a dried-up clay pot, for all the good it was doing her.

And yet, no matter how many strategies and recalculations spun through her brain, she couldn’t see how she could have excused herself entirely from eating. She could have implied that she was on a diet, or taking medications that limited her mealtime options, but she couldn’t see Mrs. Waters reacting well to either of those. Well, why on earth did you agree to a meeting over lunch? She would have been too polite to say this, but Ryan knew she would have been thinking it. She was thinking it herself.

Thinking about Shayne, Ryan wondered if Mrs. Waters would have felt guilt for eating her lunch if Ryan hadn’t also ordered something. If she’d learned anything from her latest protégé, it was that mortals had the fascinating ability to feel guilt over the most inevitable of their human needs.

Luckily, Ryan was not a human.

And she had things to do.

She drew her shoulders back, released the tension in her stomach - the result was an even tighter press against the buttons of her shirt, but she could ignore it - and opened the car door.

___

As she entered her study after a slow ascent of the stairs, Ryan’s stomach was snarling like a small animal attempting to assert its dominance. She gritted her teeth and bore down on her abdomen with her knuckles. If anything in there wanted out, it should… well, it should make haste. While she usually preferred to shut the door to the upstairs hallway, Ryan left it ajar today, so that she could make a brisk exit to the bathroom when the time came.

Grrrlllrrrgghh.

Ryan listened to the distressed gurgling with a muted sense of contempt. If her stomach was so unhappy with its contents, why hadn’t she thrown up already? She didn’t have all day to wait around for it to happen. Two hundred years, and two transformations later, and it seemed her earthly form was still not without its flaws.

So concerned was she with her despondent gut that she wasn’t even aware that the thrum of Nancy’s footsteps had taken a route from the bedroom to the study, and the soft knock on the doorframe made her heart jump into her raw, delicate throat.

Nancy poked her head around the door with a soft, almost slow-motion swish of her ponytail. “Oh, you’re home!”

“Nothing gets past you, does it, my love?”

“Oh, enough of that,” Nancy tsked, tugging on Ryan’s hand and pulling her about to plant a kiss on her lips.

Ryan softened a little, overcome with relief that she wasn’t married to another vampire. Despite her fantastical abilities, Nancy’s senses – the five main ones, that is – were as dull as the average mortal’s. She wouldn’t detect the scent of salad on Ryan’s breath, so long as Ryan didn’t exhale near her. Therefore, it was a very chaste, brief kiss that they shared.

“How did it… Ryan?” Nancy gasped as she stood back, holding a hand to her mouth as though to quiet herself. “Why do you look like death warmed over?”

Ryan curled her lip as she stalked over to her desk. She thumped the documents onto the wood. “I did not think this was news to you, Nan, but it did. Two hundred years ago, to be precise.”

“Sweetheart, I meant that you –”

“Yes, yes, thank you, love. Incidentally, you also look radiant this evening,” Ryan murmured. As she slumped into her chair, her stomach gave yet another obnoxious, unproductive grumble. She cleared her throat and gazed across at Nancy.

“Sorry, Ry,” Nancy said, cheeks reddening. Then she swept her hands down the front of her skirts, with an air of starting on a clean slate, as she planted herself in the plush armchair that sat to the side of Ryan’s desk. “How did everything go?”

“Fine.”

“Everything signed?”

“Of course.”

“Wonderful,” Nancy smiled, with a distinct lack of the excitement she’d had at every other point of this endeavour. “What was Charlie’s mum like?”

“Mrs. Waters,” Ryan rather snapped,“was akin to a pleasant, yet overall remarkably ordinary, individual.”

Nancy let out a gentle scoff, once again brushing her hands over her skirts. “Well, don’t overwhelm me with details.”

“I do not know what more to tell you. Except that… I am…” Ryan’s eyes widened as she trailed off. She’d been trailing off an awful lot today, even though it was a habit that irked her in others.

But a tingling, numbing wetness began to fill her mouth at an alarming rate, worse even than when she’d been taking bites of the salad that was prickling at the base of her oesophagus. The air felt like hot soup against her skin, in her lungs.

Why, why couldn’t Nancy have been occupied elsewhere? Now Ryan was obliged to share her discomfort, or continue her silence and risk giving her wife an untimely fright. “I believe I am… ‘bout to experience… emesis.”

Nancy blinked. “You –?”

Ryan’s eyes were wrenched back so hard in her skull that they ached, and her back arched forward so hard that she felt like a doll being pulled by the hair. The wheels of her desk chair rattled as she trundled out of range of anything particularly porous… Her stomach muscles clenched so hard that Ryan – in a moment of hyperbolic weakness – thought that her internal organs might come up through her nose –

And yet, while her senses braced themselves for the wet, clattering sound of stomach contents hitting the tiled floor, nothing came. Ryan swayed between emotional relief and dismay at being denied the physical relief.

“Oh, sweetheart, come,” Nancy murmured, and then her delicate, warm hands were guiding Ryan’s shoulders up and out of the desk chair. “I knew something was off about you. Did you eat?”

“I may have… ingested… a few mouthfuls of leafy matter.”

“A salad?” Nancy could neither have looked nor sounded more horrified if Ryan had hinted towards having had a stick of plutonium for lunch.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“A refusal to ingest would have resulted in…” Ryan slapped a hand to her stomach – silly as it sounded, her instinct seemed to be to try to physically suppress the spread of pain through her insides. “… Suspicion or discomfort.”

Nancy’s lower lip dropped down silently, but Ryan knew her wife well enough to guess what her thoughts were; how can someone with so much wisdom and experience be so stupid?

Thankfully, dear, sweet Nancy spared her the actual voicing of the thought.

“How… How was it?”

Amidst holding down her gorge, and fighting the urge to slump to the floor and take Nancy with her, Ryan managed to muster up a look of derision. She cast it lengthways as she hobbled from the study with her hands clasped on Nancy’s shoulders. Nancy looked back at her with a gormless grimace.

“Right. Never mind.”

___

“It. Refuses. To. Emerge,” Ryan moaned into the toilet bowl.

"Sweetheart," Nancy murmured distractedly.

Ryan flung a hand up in the air, then clapped it against her thigh in a display of finality. “It will never emerge! I shall now persist with rotting vegetation in my tract for the remainder of my existence.”

Nancy gave a light-hearted click of her tongue. “This,” she hummed, “coming from the woman who refuses to give up on a single other person on earth.”

Ryan attempted to spit the sour taste from her mouth, but her excessive saliva had dried up, leaving her with nothing but a tacky residue that clung to her cheeks like cells held together with collagen. If she’d had more spit, maybe the foul contents of her stomach would have slipped up and out of her by now, instead of sticking to her insides like leeches.

“What makes you the one and only hopeless case on this entire planet, hmm?” Nancy’s eyebrows quirked as she focused on something she’d arranged in her lap, nestled in the folds of her skirt. “What makes you so special?”

Ryan sank back from the toilet, though couldn’t quite get her head to remain straight without supporting it against the side of the bowl. She rubbed miserably at her gut; the chances of producing a physiological benefit were low, but she couldn’t fight the instinct to try. Her mood shifted once she’d realised that her wife was concocting something; not hopeful, but lured back from the brink by scientific intrigue.

Her weary eyes skimmed over a couple of ingredients that Nancy had used to throw together potions over the years, though Ryan had never seen them in this combination before. From her knowledge of Nancy’s works, it seemed to her that the result of this project would be rather… well, explosive would be a word for it.

“An elixir,” Ryan murmured, “to induce emesis?”

“Mmhmm,” Nancy’s voice pulsed in her throat, as though parting her lips to answer would have been too much of a distraction.

Disappointment clouded Ryan’s curiosity, rendering it difficult not to sink into the pains in her stomach, not to feel them so completely that everything else dimmed once again. “It will not be effective on me.”

“What if I told you I have added one very special ingredient,” Nancy said, raising one sardonic eyebrow, “for one very special lady?”

“I would remind you,” Ryan muttered, “that I am not merely a special ‘lady’, but an organism of unnatural qualities, including a resistance to the potency of –”

“In that case, you would have nothing to lose, isn’t that correct, my love?”

Ryan snatched the vial with what was probably excessive force and knocked back the liquid. Something stirred in her memory as she gulped, as though her taste buds had somewhat drifted out of slumber, just for a nanosecond. Mostly, she enjoyed how cool the fluid was as it snaked down her burning throat and carved its steady way down towards her stomach.

“It,” she spat, mouth dry as she lowered the vial, “will be ineffective.”

Nancy wore a patient smile almost as well as she wore a sweetheart neckline. More impressively, even, for Ryan knew that Nancy’s reserves of patience did not run as deep as their boys, or her students, thought. That patient smile was a thing of fine craftsmanship.

“If so,” she said softly, “I apologise. But wasn’t it worth a shot?”

Ryan had to turn her face away to avoid the humbling light of Nancy’s well-fought-for optimism. Her stomach rumbled in acknowledgment of its latest arrival, confirmed even further by a vibration through Ryan’s hand. “I suppose so.”

Nancy stretched her arms above her head, tilting her folded knees to keep her equipment and ingredients from rolling over the tiled floor. “Whew. I for one am mighty tired of this floor, Ry. Mind if we move you to the bed with a bucket instead?”

___

Bed and bucket proved a mundane combination to an immortal woman with work on the brain and an immovable lump in her stomach.

Ryan lay slumped on her side, face right at the edge of the bed so that she could keep an eye on her designated bucket, for so long that the sun set behind the curtains. About six kilometres away, a cricket began to shriek, adding itself to the din of the city. The world moved on, progressed, thrived, while Ryan lay overwhelmed with nausea, unable to digest or eject the offending food.

And yet her stomach continued to grumble its discomfort.

Nancy had stayed awake with her, fondling her hair in a way that reminded Ryan just vaguely of being fussed over by her mother. She wasn’t certain if the memory was welcome or not, and tried to let it wash over her like the tide. Nancy had also massaged Ryan’s back for a while which, whilst failing to dislodge the knots in her stomach, had done wonders for the tension in her muscles.

Gghhhhrrrlllgghh.

“Ssshh,” Ryan hissed, pressing her knuckles harshly against her stomach muscles. The pressure evidently would offer no help in inducing vomiting, but there was nothing to say a little aggression wouldn’t discourage the infuriating noises that continued to –

“Ry,” Nancy chided, closing her fingers around Ryan’s fist and guiding it halfway across the bed. She pressed Ryan's wrist into the top sheet, far away from where it could do any more persuading. “Please don’t do that. You’ll hurt yourself.”

“It is wearing on my nerves like –”

“I don’t care.” Nancy’s tone prodded at the fog of nausea and rage, and Ryan caught glimpse of herself through her wife’s eyes. “You’re wearing on mine with this nonsense. You’ve put your body through an ordeal already today, and now is the time to let it recover in whatever way it needs. Isn't that the wise thing to do?"

She exhaled noisily through her nose – was that a snort of amusement? – as Ryan’s stomach gurgled and bubbled a few inches from her elbow. Ryan’s brain flared with annoyance, which she quickly threw some reins on.

“Perhaps.”

“There is no ‘perhaps’,” Nancy said. “But you’re already suffering enough bodily, so I won’t put you through the mental torture of admitting that I'm right."

Ryan hummed in appreciation. Nancy didn't let up on her hand, so Ryan eventually turned her palm upwards so that their fingers could interlock. She almost found herself drifting off to sleep when she realised Nancy had shifted and slipped her hand away. Ryan felt her tug a wisp of Ryan's silvery-blonde hair back from her face, heard her wife holding her breath in a way that invited conversation.

“Yes?” Ryan had slurred before Nancy had even spoken.

“Will you try taking a second dose?”

It took Ryan longer than she was proud to admit to realise that Nancy was talking about the elixir she’d concocted earlier. If she thought about it hard enough, Ryan was sure that she could still feel the cool, slightly sticky medicine sitting alongside the offending mush in the pit of her stomach. Not making anything worse, but certainly not improving anything.

Ryan grunted. “I do not think it will –”

“Let me rephrase,” Nancy interrupted. “I have a second dose for you, and I strongly suggest you take it.”

With an even more aggressive grunt, Ryan hauled herself into a somewhat-upright position. It would be easier to take the useless potion than to incite further argument. She winced as the sudden movement made it feel as though her intestines were poised to crack inside of her.

“Give it to me,” she deadpanned, but Nancy was already un-stoppering the vial for her. Ryan slurped it back, fueled by nothing but the assuredness that this was not going to work, and was astonished to find herself licking her lips as soon as she’d swallowed. Even more bizarre, she found herself anticipating the smooth sensation of the medicine coursing down her throat, cooling and almost pleasant in its –

It stuck. It stuck, like a rock in the centre of her chest.

Ryan swallowed again, her posture turning rigid. She was only vaguely aware of Nancy’s hand coming up to rest on her waist.

A bubble of pressure slipped into the back of Ryan’s throat, and her stomach muscles jolted, resulting in a high-pitched exclamation and a thunderous, sloshing gurgle.

And then a belch.

A deep one, one that she felt reverberate under her lower left rib. The moment had a faint gloss of eureka to it, like she’d made a world-changing discovery, but at its core was a pit of dread, like she’d made a world-ending discovery.

She shuddered, torn halfway between turning towards the edge of the bed and turning to face her wife in disbelief.

“What… what’d you –?”

"Don't worry about it, cookie."

"But..."

In her desperate curiosity, Ryan almost choked on a mouthful of vomit. She would have ejected it all over the bedroom floor, had Nancy not laid gentle hands on the sides of her head and directed the spray downwards. There was a conveniently-placed bucket beside the bed, primed to catch and contain her vomit.

The bulk of it, at least.

As the retch had lost momentum, a small wave of thick slime had dripped from Ryan’s lower lip, hitting the floorboards between the bed and the bucket with a weighty thwop.

“Wonderful,” Ryan choked out, swiping her chin with the back of her hand. She barely had time to consider where she was going to wipe said hand when her guts gave another powerful lurch.

This time, a delicate hand slipped across the bed and tugged the rim of the bucket closer to Ryan’s side of the mattress. Nancy’s chest and stomach brushed softly against Ryan’s back.

“Great job,” Nancy murmured softly.

Ryan would have scoffed, if she���d been able to catch her breath. Great job? Great job suffering through the consequences of a bad decision? Great job smearing the hardwood with her gastric juices? She was not a child; even a child shouldn’t have been praised for anything she was doing.

Ryan cried out instinctively as she gagged again, the hollow ring of her voice echoing loudly inside the metal bucket over the gushing and splashing. She felt Nancy’s hands move to her shoulders, fingers lightly massaging the tumultuous muscles there.

"Oh," Ryan sighed as soon as she could get a word in between heaves. The mechanical harmony of clenching muscles and ejected fluids was almost as comforting as her wife's touch. After all, what could be more reassuring than the knowledge that one's body is working as it should?

"Better?" Nancy whispered, using her pinky to fish a pale curl away from the edge of Ryan's mouth.

Ryan hung her head over the side of the mattress, slack-jawed, unwilling to close her mouth and risk inhibiting further substance elimination. Nancy shifted her hands as though to hold her in place, and although she wasn't, Ryan found she was rather enjoying the illusion.

"Yes," she slurred, though she knew her ordeal was far from over. "Ineffably so."

[the-duchess-of-domination]

the sickfic to end all sickfics

i will never get tired of a boy going to bed feeling funny and waking up in the middle of the night feverish and horrifically sick.

he tries to brush off his sour stomach and tiredness and lack of appetite. after all, he’s been working long hours and eating the wrong things. a good night’s sleep is all he needs. he hardly touches his dinner and is in bed by 7:30.

he falls asleep quickly next to you, but his temperature rises and leaves him with feverish, confused dreams. you’re awoken by him mumbling deliriously, and when you ask him what’s the matter he starts muttering incoherent sentences that don’t seem to connect or conclude. you switch on a bedside lamp, and examine the pallor of his sweat-slicked face while using your palm to feel his forehead. he’s absolutely burning hot. his eyes, heavylidded, flutter.

“i don’t feel good” he manages to tell you through dry lips. his breaths come shallow and out of his mouth. you feel so sorry for him but can’t help but find him irresistible in such a weak state. you ask him where he isn’t feeling good, brushing back his bangs.

“stomach” is all he says. you probe further and ask him what kind of stomach ache it is, and with a heavy swallow he says “nauseous” and that “everything is spinning.” you lie there with him until his saliva is too much for his own mouth, and you have to help him to the bathroom. you stay by his side until he thinks he’s done.

the next morning doesn’t fare much better. he got sick a couple more times in the night, and is still running a fever. he mumbles incoherent thoughts about having to call into work sick, so worried about having to take a sick day, about how much he’ll be missing at work. he tosses layers of blankets to the floor and removes his pajamas, complaining about how hot it is. within fifteen minutes he is shivering and you have to help him put his pajamas back on.

he goes a couple hours without throwing up, and you suggest crackers. he manages to keep those down, and before long he agrees to a can of chicken soup. when you come to place the tray over his lap, he is lying there staring off into space looking so miserable and pale. you hope the soup will give a little color to his face.

he slurps the soup down to its bottom. you’re glad to see him eating, and after he’s done you take the bowl to wash. as you’re doing the dishes, you hear him coughing. you think he might be trying to clear his throat.

you hear him start to retch.

you leave the sink and come back into the bedroom. his head is hung over a trash can. he looks up.

“im sorry,” he mutters. “im so sorry. i didn’t mean to.”

this sight absolutely breaks your heart. in this woozy state he feels the need to apologize, worried about upsetting or offending you for throwing up the soup you made. you rub circles on his back and hush him as he apologizes again and again and again. after he’s done you tuck him back up, kissing his burning forehead. you sit at his bedside to play with his hair and make him sleepy. he goes in and out of sleep, and senses when you’re not there. when he wakes he weakly cries out for you, begging for you to make it all better. all you can do is pet his hair and shush him, hoping it’ll all be over soon.

[letitcomeout]

Ok so a fantasy of mine would be to have a partner who is super into emeto and wants so bad to puke one day…and we go to an all you can eat buffet. I’ll get them food, they’d get themselves food…but it would just be too much food. And mid bite they have to run to the bathroom to puke it all up, they’re so turned on and so am I…we rush in there together as they sit in front of the stool, I’d be rubbing their back and running my hand through their hair as they project out all the food they ate.

[sodascribbles]

hold it in, hold it in

The Bad Kids have a beach day. Fabian regrets making these plans. Jawbone makes a disconcerting discovery.

[akihatohnoofficial]

i feel like the sickly weak shaking pukey barely functioning mecha pilot that exists in tumblr’s collective imagination

[whumpdrivethru]

Hi! Can I get, uhhh... a meal of high fantasy whump with a knight whumpee getting hit with some kind of a lightning spell. I'd love it if they get dragged to safety by other party members afterwards!

Coming right up!

Cw// electrocution, bone breaking, gore/body horror, burning, emeto, insecurity

Knight was running when pain struck their body. Their team was winning, but Knight was specifically targeted by the others’ mage. It seemed their tactician had planned this. Suddenly, they regretted wearing metal armor. It only seemed to amplify the agony that ripped them to shreds. At least, it felt that way.

Knight would have almost preferred it.

They fell, losing their footing and tumbling down a rocky hill. This time, they were grateful for their armor. As singed as it was from the attack, it held as Knight rolled, scraping at the ground for something to stop their fall. The rocks and gravel slipped through their fingers and their helmet cracked against a large rock.

The clang reverberated around the helmet, Knight’s hands coming up to their ears, but it did no use as they couldn’t get their hands under the helmet in time. Their ears rung. Their body burned. Any exposed skin was rubbed raw and cut from sharp stones. They didn’t know if the enemy mage was following them, but that didn’t matter. All that mattered was stopping their fall.

They couldn’t even do that.

Finally, after they came to a stop at the bottom, they let out a shaky exhale. They hurt in more places than they did before they fell. They couldn’t move their right leg. They could feel their skin melted to their armor, which was still hot from the attack. The only thing they could smell was their burning flesh, singed hair, and they gagged.

They struggled to pull their helmet off, managing to throw it to the side and roll over onto their hands just in time to empty their stomach into the gravel. The motion of that alone caused a wave of pain that forced them down to their elbows.

“Fuck,” they whispered, looking away through tears. The mess was speckled with blood. They didn’t even want to imagine the internal damage the lightning caused. Besides the external burns, which the medic could handle (at least they thought he could) there was still a matter of their insides. They were almost roasted alive, their armor becoming a sort of Brazen Bull, for fuck’s sake.

“Knight! Knigh-“ Swordsman screamed when Knight looked up. “Holy- fuck, I’m coming!” Swordsman knelt beside them and helped roll them over again. “Knight, what happened?” Knight groaned, wincing as Swordsman took them from under the arms.

“The mage got-“ they gasped their leg was shifted. “Got to me. Lightni-“ they screamed as their armor was jostled. “Lighting. The fucker,” they spat through the agony, shaking their head. They were seeing spots. They begged the spots to take over their vision, to pull them under so they didn’t have to deal with the pain any longer.

But they didn’t.

The pain kept Knight awake and sobbing, chest burning in embarrassment. They forced themself to stay quiet as Swordsman lifted them to their good leg, pulling an arm around his shoulder. Their broken leg screamed as it brushed the ground, eliciting a heaving sob from them.

They were crying in front of Swordsman. What a baby.

If Swordsman shared the sentiment, he didn’t make it noticeable. He mumbled comfort and reassurance into their ear whenever they whimpered or cried particularly loud. Knight was grateful for that.

“You’re going to be okay, Knight,” he squeezed their hand. “We’re going to help you. Just a little further now. Nice and slow.” Knight shook their head, letting it fall forward. The sky was a crisp blue, not a cloud in the sky. It would be nice if they weren’t dying. They looked at the gravel instead, the stones blurring as they limped along.

Each small step forward was more painful than the last. “I can’t- can’t do this, Swordsman,” Knight gasped, letting out a pained whine as Swordsman stumbled. Their armor was heavy. It was weighing both of them down. Swordsman was strong, but he couldn’t hold up the tank that was Knight in full armor. “Just leave me here,” Leave me here and save yourself, Swordsman. I’m-“ they burst into body wracking sobs, making Swordsman collapse and bringing Knight down with him. “I’m not worth it!” They wailed, digging their fingers into the gravel. “I’m- I’m sorry… please, forgive me.”

Swordsman laid there for a minute before he wrapped his arms around Knight. They seemed to freeze as he tightened his embrace. They obviously weren’t expecting Swordsman to feel this way after they dumped their insecurities onto him. Swordsman inhaled deeply, breathing in the stench of burnt skin. He gagged quietly and closed his eyes, trying to hold his breath. He couldn’t stand to see, or smell, his best friend in their current state. Knight lifted an arm with difficulty and let it fall against Medic’s back.

“Knight? Swordsman?” Swordsman sat up.

Medic. And Archer and Bard and Leader.

“Guys? The-“ footsteps pounded the gravel as the rest of the team ran to them. “The reinforcements are pushing the enemy back. Knight-“

“Knight’s injured. The other team’s mage hit them with a lightning spell. I don’t know how badly they’re hurt, but-“ Medic’s features twisted into worry. Swordsman could see the panic behind his eyes.

“I need to help them now.” It was easier to pick up Knight with the rest of the group assisting Swordsman in lifting their body. Knight’s moans and cries of pain made everyone uncomfortable, not just Swordsman. They felt guilty. Guilty that they couldn’t help their beloved teammate any more at the moment. They felt worried. Worried for their safety and survival. Knight’s survival depended solely on the team’s haste and their own will to live.

Please let them be alright, God, Swordsman prayed as the team helped them to the boat. He trailed behind, holding his own injured arm. The adrenaline had finally worn off and it began to sting. A minor injury that didn’t need treatment.

Not compared to Knight. They were the priority now.

Please, I need them to be okay. Please.

———

I’m Quill and I hope you enjoy your meal. Come again soon :)

[playingsick]

Oh to have someone gently pat my back and praise me as I vomit. Hottest shit ever.

[smileymxx]

How would people feel about vomiting videos? I got a couple of really good clips on myself throwing up while way too drunk and I thought it would be good content 🥰

[angstyaches]

ooh 16 and 25 for sick eli would be so cool! we haven’t had a proper sick eli for so long 🍄

Hehe you're so right, thank you for the prompt!

Prompt List by the magnificent @butterfliesornauseous 🖤

CW: (imagined) danger of falling from a height, body horror, supernatural abilities, blood drinking mention, emeto, sick character with emetophobia*, anxious caretaker.

(*accidentally published with emetophilia earlier, oops)

___

Felix sat at the edge of a rock, sucking on a blood lollipop. A few minutes ago, he had started swinging his legs rhythmically in an attempt to soothe his nerves. It had helped… marginally.

He knew he ought to be enjoying what was one of the most stunning views he had seen in his life. That was why they had pulled the rental car over into this viewpoint – a dusty little outcropping on the side of the mountain road, separated from a sheer drop by a wooden barrier. But that was more than a little difficult, considering that the view might, at any second, be spoiled by the sight of the love of his life plummet from the sky like a sack of potatoes.

As much as he couldn’t bear to look, the faint shape that seemed to pass between him and the sun drew his gaze upward. He didn’t so much see the shadow as feel it, as though it had passed across the surface of his brain instead of his skin. He wondered if he’d have noticed it, if it hadn’t been for his heightened vampiric senses. Were there humans on this mountain who were experiencing unexplained shivers up their spine in the middle of their summer hikes? Did they keep glancing towards the sky, unnerved by an undetermined sense of the supernatural?

Would today see the birth of local legends that people would whisper around campfires? Even in his state of anxiety, Felix had to admit that would be pretty cool.

He had to lift a hand to shield his eyes from the sun’s glare. His stomach burned with squirming discomfort as a faint, black smudge zipped across the sky, probably about forty feet higher than the plateau where they’d parked the car, if Felix’s spatial awareness could be trusted. He didn’t even want to guess how high Elliott was flying over the bottom of the valet itself.

He let out a high-pitched hum, leaving the lollipop sitting in his mouth while he squeezed the fingertips of his left hand, starting with his thumb and working his way across to his pinky.

Please, Elli, he thought. Come down soon.

___

Elliott rode the wind.

No. No, that wasn’t intimate enough to describe what this felt like.

Elliott was the fucking wind. A force of nature, slipping and dancing through the cracks between the physical and the otherworldly.

Technically, he was a swarm of ethereal bats, but when you were faced with scenic majesty on a scale like this, it was hard to give a shit about technicalities. The summer air rushed through the fur on each of the individual creatures, each shard of him. He had a bird’s eye view of the landscape, and instead of having actual bird’s eyes, he had hundreds of eyes to drink it all in.

He tumbled through the air, whipping up wisps of water vapour and bathing in dazzling sunbeams. He twisted his way up the side of a sheer mountain face, cut through the crystal rush of a waterfall, cast his form out through the endless blue sky like a dark, shadowy firework.

If he’d been in his humanoid form, he’d have been whooping and laughing until his lungs collapsed, but he settled for a contented chittering.

Elliott was in his element.

___

A shudder bolted down Felix’s spine as the beat of a thousand wings filled the air, lifting dust from the dry ground.

Elliott moved the swarm like the bats were performing an interpretive dance, swirling them in a circle around the rock where Felix was seated. He couldn’t tell if this little display was intended as a greeting (the bat-cloud equivalent of a hug, or a kiss on both cheeks?), or if Elliott was just showing off how well he could control this form’s movements now.

The bats shot together as though pulled towards the centre of the swarm by a magnet, and Elliott’s figure materialised a couple of inches above the ground. He dropped delicately onto his feet, lifting his head to grin at Felix as soon as his eyes and mouth had formed. His pupils were blown out wide and his mouth hung slightly ajar.

Gosh, he was beautiful. Felix drew a trembling breath, feeling his gratitude for Elliott’s safety congeal as tears in the corners of his eyes. He swallowed back the emotion, though, not wishing to taint Elliott’s experience.

“How w-wash it, darling?” he asked, slurring his speech around the lollipop.

“Oh, Fee, it was…” Elliott pressed his hand to his head, dumbstruck.

He stared at Felix for a few seconds and then turned to lean on the barrier and stare off across the valley, as though he was still trying to comprehend the fact that trees and mountains and rivers could possibly exist. The view from the platform must have looked as flat as a postcard after he’d been tearing through the air above it.

“Fee, that was unlike anything I ever thought I’d ever experience.”

Felix sat forward to rest his chin in his hands, feeling a smile of his own coming on. This was why his anxious waiting had been worthwhile; Elliott was happy, and nothing else came even close to being as important as that.

He watched his partner spread his hands to the landscape, and followed his gaze as though he were seeing the view for the first time himself.

“Everything we’re seeing right now, from here…” There was a faint distant quality to Elliott’s voice, as though he knew human languages couldn’t encompass what he wanted to say. Felix could understand that. He’d gone through the same thing the first time he’d tried Kobe beef.

“It – it’s only a fraction of what is like out there. It’s magnificent. It’s –”

Elliott retched and sagged forward.

Oh, boy. Felix lurched to his feet instantly.

Elliott’s hands clawed at the wooden barrier as he hung his face over the side, saliva and bile and swallowed blood draining from his lips as his torso convulsed. The sticky combination dripped down into the rocks and foliage that awaited on the other side of the barrier.

Felix jogged over to the car, sparing only a brief flash of concern over his own decision to run with a lollipop in his mouth. Not a good idea, but his darling needed something. They had packed a cooler box – mainly for Felix’s benefit – which he dug through now, pulling out a bottle of water.

Felix pulled his lollipop out of his mouth and tried for an encouraging smile.

“God fucking damn it,” Elliott was muttering to himself as Felix approached him.

“Agua?”

Elliott turned his head. He blinked heavily as he put out his hand to take the bottle. “Gracias, mi amor.”

“Are you alright, darling?”

Elliott closed his eyes and nodded in that gentle, tentative way he did when he wasn’t quite sure if he was alright, but deeply wanted to be.

He lifted the bottle and filled his mouth with water, holding it in his cheeks as he glanced briefly across the valley again. The hyperactivity had drained from his expression, and now his eyes were watering, his pupils shrivelled into his golden irises. He spat the water from his mouth over the side of the barrier, and lifted the bottle again. This time, he took three long, deep gulps that made his throat ripple with the force of them.

“Ugh,” he muttered, propping his elbow on the wooden barrier and letting his head hang forward. “Fuck, my stomach…”

Felix’s nerves spiked at the thought of the barrier giving way under Elliott’s weight, but soothed himself with the knowledge that Elliott could switch into bat form and fly himself to safety.

Maybe there were perks to having a flying partner after all?

“I was… quite nervous about you flying so high,” Felix admitted, again trying to keep a light tone. He started fidgeting with his fingers again, despite himself. “But I didn’t think it would make your stomachhave such a bad reaction…”

Elliott groaned as he took one more swallow of water. His breath trembled while he exhaled. “Yeah, me neither. I might’ve thought twice.”

That made Felix’s heart sink. The thought of his adventurous partner restricting his indulgence of his new power was like… well, it was like Felix giving up cake and bread despite being perfectly capable of ingesting gluten. It just didn’t sit well with him.

But as he leaned on the barrier, trembling and gulping audibly, Elliott seemed to be letting his eyes fall anywhere but on the view that he’d been so in love with until a few moments ago. It looked like he was trying to avoid making eye contact with someone he’d once kissed at a party.

He wasn’t just shaken by the sudden onset of nausea; Elliott was embarrassed.

“Perhaps you’re still getting the hang of it, darling,” Felix said softly. “I’m certain it will get easier with time. Like me, with my car sickness. A few years ago, I’d never have been able to make it all the way up here in a car, with all of those switchbacks.”

Elliott grunted in acknowledgement.

“Perhaps I’ll let you steal some Dramamine for next time,” Felix chuckled softly.

Elliott’s eyes drifted up towards Felix’s face at that. His eyelids drooped a little, and his lips were glistening. “Do… you think it would help, if I took some right now?”

“Now? It is better to take it beforehand…”

Elliott gave another – sadder – grunt of acknowledgement. He lowered his head again, jolting as a low, wet belch crept up his throat.

“Honestly, darling, I don’t think medicine can help your belly if it's this upset.” Felix started to lift a hand to rub Elliott’s back, then stopped himself. “It would be better to… get it over with.”

Elliott let out a small, closed-mouth whine. He had hated the sensation of vomiting ever since his transformation to full vampire had ridden him constantly nauseous for month-long bouts at a time.

On top of that, he had always been repulsed by touch when he felt sick, meaning that Felix was left with very little to do.

“I don’t know what I was thinking,” Elliott groaned.

Felix’s heart sank. “Darling, you were… you were thinking that you have an awesome new power. You were thinking that you were awesome. Which is true; you are. Just because you feel a little sick now, it doesn’t mean you failed at anything.”

Elliott shook his head and let out a soft burp.

“You… you aren’t weak, Elli.”

“I appreciate,” Elliott murmured, “that you believe that’s true.”

“Are you saying that I’m wrong? Does seeing your strength and power make me silly?”

“I… no, boo, of course you’re not silly.”

“I resent that,” Felix smiled. “I am the silliest, I’ll have you know. But for a multitude of reasons, not one of which has anything to do with believing in you and thinking you’re amazing.”

Elliott shook his head again, though Felix could have sworn that the ghost of a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, deepening his cheek dimple just a little. As far as cheering him up went, that would have to do for now, because the moment was interrupted by a sharp gurgle, and Felix had the feeling that this time, Elliott’s stomach wasn’t just churning up a belch.

“Fuck, fuck, it’s happening again,” Elliott whined, knuckles tightening on the wooden barrier. “Fee, it’s happening again.”

“I know, my darling, I know.”

Felix moved his body as close to Elliott’s as he dared. He might not be able to touch him, but at least Elliott could lean into Felix’s side if he decided he wanted a little bit of support. If Elliott appreciated the thought, he didn’t say so, but it might have been because his gratitude was muffled by another mouthful of red, glistening vomit.

Felix grimaced as the natural greenery continued to be painted in red. It looked like strawberry syrup dribbled across a salad. He tucked his lollipop back into its wrapper, which he’d thankfully saved in his pocket, his desire to snack away his anxiety dissolving.

Elliott’s shoulders convulsed with another retch.

Felix sighed in sympathy and rested his hands on the barrier. His heart lifted as Elliott stretched out his pinky finger, so that it interlocked slightly with Felix’s.

“I’m right here,” Felix whispered. “I’m right here, darling.”

[the-duchess-of-domination]

Bad Berries

i have always be obsessed with the idea of wild berries. some are a delicious, tart treat, and some can make you sick as a dog. which one you get can be a gamble.

imagine, for a moment, a young male traveler trotting through a lush forest. he’s the kind of guy that goes village to village and doesn’t stay in one place for too long. in his travels he’s acquired quite an eclectic taste for foods from all different regions, so he’s pretty brash and adventurous with his appetite.

the forest stretches on, maybe even for days, and he quickly notices his hunger. he’s run out of rations from the last village, and there isn’t an end to this forest in sight. maybe he took a wrong turn.

he continues, getting hungrier and hungrier, to the point that he starts considering mushrooms and acorns. however, he doesn’t have to resort to that. his prayers are answered when he notices a berry bush along the path with ripe, juicy, blue-colored berries. without hesitation he pops one into his mouth. it’s ripe with sweetness. it practically explodes in his mouth. he gathers a healthy portion using the hem of his shirt as a basket and periodically plops them into his mouth as he trots along, his hunger sated until he gets to the next village. his fingers are stained blue, and so is his mouth.

after finishing the berries, within an hour he’s feeling hot, hot enough to visibly moisten his shirt. he sponges a sickly sweat from his brow. the traveler doesn’t want to admit to himself he’s feeling a little feverish. maybe the temperature has risen with the midday sun…certainly, that must be all it is, right?

when a turbulent feeling settles into his stomach, he knows he can’t be so lucky. his steady pace has slowed to a snail’s crawl. he puts a hand on his belly and burps up a sweet taste. by this point he decides to sit down on a fallen log and assess the situation. he’s so dripping hot that he shucks off his cape. his eyes fall to his belly. his heart starts hammering against his ribs.

the buttons of his shirt are straining. he can feel his belly swelling and churning. i imagine the traveler is already a bit husky, so he cant believe how tight and full his big tummy has gotten. the longer he sits, the worse he feels, and the more his tummy boils and froths with the berries. he rubs his belly, trying desperately to settle it. he can hear and feel it gurgling in waves as it continues to bloat.

he decides to power on, what else can he do? he clutches his upset stomach and trudges forward, starting to feel a little light-headed and fuzzy. the pain worsens, and soon his throat and mouth are feeling thick. everything gets slow and starts spinning. the traveler collapses onto his knees, dry heaving like a sick cat. when he can’t get anything up, he crawls over to a tree and rests against it, groaning and clutching his berry-filled belly.

imagine you’re a healing witch or warlock, and on your midday walk you find him slumped there. by looking at the blue stain on his lips and fingers, you know exactly what’s wrong. this isn’t the first poisoning you’ve seen. you help him up, and with your arm over his shoulders you lead him back to your cottage. you tuck him into bed with a wet, cold towel on his forehead. there is a bucket at the side of his bed. he’s restless, tossing and turning from side to side, moaning and groaning about the pain and how hot and feverish he feels. he’s delirious and can barely articulate himself. you hush him and put a tea kettle on the stove, promising a remedy that will help.

you return with a tea cup and help tip it into his mouth. he guzzles it all, and you tell him the only way to feel better is to get everything up, which your medicinal tea will help do. he groans, panting hard, complaining that he doesn’t want to throw up.

minutes pass. in his delirium he worriedly tells you the tea isn’t working. you laugh, and promise that it will. no sooner do you say that he winces. the traveler tells you he’s not feeling too good all of a sudden. he begins to retch and gropes for the bedside bucket. you place it in front of him on the bed, rubbing his back as he gets the berries up.

the traveler stays overnight. you watch him closely to make sure he’s okay. he falls into a fitful bout of sleep, waking the next day confused as to where he is and how he got there. you tell him he ate some poisonous berries and went into shock. you tell him he’s going to be alright, and in no time you send the traveler on his way with a belly full of breakfast.

you await the next traveler that mistakenly eats from your berry bush.

[sickmeds]

— into the woods , a short random piece

tw: emeto

He swallows thickly, eyes fluttering, and the water slips down the bones of his cheeks. It’s warm, tingling, a soft hum that pickles along his skin, palms resting against the cold tiles. His head bows down, soft locks falling across his face, muscles shifting stiffly, bending, shoulders hunching, lips parting.

Nothing happens, besides the soft groan that falls, drowned by the spray of the shower. It echoes in his ears, filling the space, and his throat burns.

A heavy breath of air, his muscles relax, eyebrows furrowed and creasing along his skin as he slowly pushes up, leaning back, running fingers through his hair and letting the water spill into his mouth. He spits, hair falling back, matting on to his forehead as his thumb and forefinger massage the bridge of his nose.

Leaning back into the spray, he swallows, warm water trickling down his throat.

A soft burp pushes its way up from his chest, lungs crackling, expanding and sinking, and his eyes close. Off , not right , strange – all of which had evolved into this moment, as his palms press back against the wall, unbalanced between clammy and wet, a low, shuddering breath.

Apprehension clings to the shake in his legs, the almost unnoticeable tremor except , except as his adam’s apple bobs in his throat, his ankles strain, muscles twinging, and something shifts dangerously in the tilt of his stomach.

A thick swallow, and the tang of something hot, bitter, lingering in the back of his throat as he exhales through his nose, scratchy, breathy, inhaling deep and slow. He’s not scared, not quite, in the silence and space of his empty house.

A gurgle, that turns more like a growl, and a hand drops to rest lightly on the muscles of his stomach, gingerly pressing to the frothing magnitude of the flipping, inside his body. A groan follows quickly, shifting, stretching, leaning further over, nails digging into the plaster between the tiles until a sharp pain shoots up his knuckles.

“Uhhrk,’ His face crumples, its soft tan warmed by the light of the bathroom, yet stricken pale in a sickly manner that resonates in the gloss of water lingering in his eyes. His breath catches in a low pant, a gurgle beneath his hand, and a dry retch crawls shakily up his throat.

Only half aware of the water still spilling down his back, running between the creases of his skin, trailing along the tensing of his muscles, there’s a groan from the piping and a soft click, as the water begins to grow colder, from the hot steamy warmth to a lukewarm, that sends a shiver down his spin.

He licks his lips, dry, swallowing, braced on the wall and his head presses momentarily on his arm, leaning on himself as if the urge to crumple was not there ( but it was , arms aching , straining with the effort ).

It wasn’t the physical act that brought a shallow breath and a pang of fear slipping through his heart, although even on a good day he cringed at the thought. It was the fact he didn’t know why. He couldn’t remember eating anything that had tasted funny, he had been careful to order oatmilk in his morning coffee, and the strange clinging nausea had not arrived until mid afternoon, sitting at the old oak table in the kitchen sipping on tea.

It was sudden - the glimmer of sweat accumulated on his collar, rubbing his palms against his jeans, blinking wearily at the laptop screen as it lagged for the fifth time that day, the small circle in the corner going round and round and round. And the frustrated huff of air that escaped his lips, palms pressed into the cavern of his eyes, had come with a swooping sense of dread.

Then it only grew, from a strange wooziness that he thought was simply tiredness, to the last drop of tea in the cup that he struggled to swallow, and found himself wrapping a protective arm around his stomach as it attempted to digest his lunch. A chicken sandwich that tasted good.

So confusion crawled restlessly across his skin until everything was a little too uncomfortable, and he pushed aside any thoughts of completing the last few tasks, including the dishes in the sink that had been glaring at him all morning, and wandered slowly through the cabin to his bedroom.

And now , now –

He burps, bile splashing at the back of his throat and his palm slips on the wall. He swallows automatically, a shuddering breath, jaw clenching, breathing heavily.

“Nnng..” A groan slips past his lips, a tear soaked breath , arm wrapping fully around his stomach. It’s sloshing, tumbling, a tremor through his spine.

He’s alone . It’s okay .

A twinge in his stomach that turns to a wet retch, and his shoulders lurch up to his chin, squeezing his eyes shut against the trickle of sour liquid that stings in his throat and joins the spray of the shower head.

Panting, hands gripping his thighs, nails digging into his skin. A shallow, unrestrained burp, and his stomach lurches with a dangerous flop . Shivering, his eyes flutter open for a second, as a deep growl emits from the caves of his belly, and it seems to swallow him whole.

He feels like jelly — stumbling, gasping, and it cuts off into a heave that sends him entirely over the plug , and a thick wave of digested food erupts from his mouth.

His eyes slam shut , but not before the dark dregs of his stomach were ingrained into his head. It sends a throbbing ache into his stomach, as if only now it was catching up, as if it was all in the wrong order, and burps a mouthful of puke into the shallow water.

The shower is cold , freezing , but now he can’t move , now he’s stuck , thighs cramping in time with his stomach as he crouches down , gripping the edge of the bath.

A groan emits from his stomach, mimicked by his voice, and his hand splashes into the shower water as his balance shifts, narrowly avoiding falling forwards as a harsh retch turns productive.

He’s dragging in a breath before a burst of warm vomit joins the water, and he has a moment to be grateful it’s slipping away down the drain before he’s gagging, stomach churning, spilling liquid from his belly,

“What the fuck,” he mumbles, coughing, and retches. “ .. fuck.”

It burns, aching his throat, darkening the cold water still streaming overhead ( and it’s almost nice , he knows it shouldn’t be , goosebumps on his skin ).

The nausea clings like sweat on his skin, as he gags into the empty air, pushing hair from his eyes with trembling hands. A dry heave, and another, and his stomach protests the motion. He can feel it, still simmering, sloshing away, refusing to come up.

An actual shiver now, buried in his bones and a moan follows, curling his arms protectively around his stomach. He waits, moments ticking by and nothing happens, just that same queasy feeling from before licking at his heels like flames.

Slowly, ever so slowly, his fingers clamber on the edge of the bath, dragging himself up. A shaking hand bumps at the handle, turning it off, and he’s standing, watching the last of the water drain out, cold and shivering.

Cautiously wrapping a towel around his waist, his throat feels thick and heavy, like his stomach, and he hesitates, hovering between the bed in the other room and staying there.

Awkward, unsteady, he fills a glass left on the side with water and washes the taste from his mouth - like gauze on a wound he knew would be reopened ( it was only a matter of time ) .

Finally, salty tears spill over , rubbing the soft towel against his cheeks, they trickle, falling in soft raindrops of misery like gentle strokes down his skin. His fingers bury in the towel, tugging it closer and closer, wrapping himself up like a cocoon and edging towards the door.

He was alone. Alone, but not longer sure he wanted to be.

His tongue runs along lips, as his fingers shift, a slow maneuver, tugging soft linen from the dark oak draws along his damp skin. Tartan pattern and cotton, cool and fresh and he shivers, climbing into the white sheets, dragging the towel with him.

[gusherguy]

i Love (emeto edition)

😶i love quiet pukers, who have a hand in front of their mouth as they vomit, letting out quiet exhales with every gush. they shut their eyes and their body rocks forward with the heaves. they are helpless, just having to let their stomach have its way, silently barfing it all up until they're empty.

😠i love pukers who are in denial about having to puke. even when they start to let out dangerously wet burps, swallowing hard to keep their stomach contents where they should be. maybe even after they vomit back up into their cup, they insist they're fine -- before loud retching takes hold of them and sick comes bubbling up.

😔i love sickly little pukers who take a long time to vomit. they whine and lay about with no energy, every now and again dry-heaving in your arms. despite their constant queasiness, they take hours to get anything more than sickly sweet saliva out of them. but when they do start to spew, its violent and copious.

🤮i love dramatic pukers who get sick immediately out of nowhere. they have a weak stomach perhaps, or overate, or took one last daring shot of vodka before their guts revolt. after sweetly burping and hiccuping all night, it takes everybody - even them - by surprise when a little burp suddenly ends in a gush of sick alllll over the place. they inhale and try to speak, but their gut clenches and they keep on vomiting helplessly.

[actress4him]

June of Doom 2023

Previous | Next | Masterlist

Taglist: @painful-pooch

Day 4 - “Does that hurt?” | Delirium | Hypothermia | Stabilization

Day 5 - “It’s not as bad as it looks.” | Handcuffs | Swelling | Flinch

Also qualifies for @whumpawoman ’s Whump Girl Summer, Alt. Prompt - “Look at Me”

Contains: lady whump, graphic broken bone, restraints, fainting, brief emeto mention, captivity

.

.

Isa is still hunched over on her knees, breathing through the pain shooting up her arm, when a hand lands lightly on her other shoulder. Instinctively she jerks backwards, which only doubles the pain. She throws her head back and cries out hoarsely.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, hey, look at me, it’s just me. Just me.” Glancing over, she can see Lainey holding up her hands, cuffs jingling. “Are you…are you okay? That’s a stupid question, obviously you’re not okay, but…crap.” Her hands drop to her lap. “He just…broke your arm, like it was nothing. I don’t…I can’t…” She shakes her head. “I hate him!”

She can’t deal with the chatter right now. “It’s fine. I just…need some time.”

“It’s not fine, would you quit acting like all of this is fine? I know it’s what you're used to, but it is far from fine and you deserve far better than this, okay?”

She knows that being treated like this isn’t alright. Intellectually, at least. It’s hard to remember sometimes, though. In fact, if she’s honest with herself, it’s really only due to Lainey’s presence that she’s started remembering it now. This isn’t normal.

But that doesn’t help her situation any, so she can’t really afford to dwell on it. Maybe that’s why it’s easier to accept that it’s normal for her, at least, instead of worrying about what she can’t change.

Lainey sighs heavily. “Is there…anything I can do?”

Isa starts to shake her head no. She just wants to sit, and breathe, and cope. But she has someone here now who’s willing to help her, and she’d be stupid not to take advantage of that. “There’s a…the cabinet. On the far end.” She motions toward it jerkily before returning to digging her fingernails into her upper arm. “It’s unlocked. There’s a kit in there. And a, uh…a piece of wood.”

Immediately Lainey is up and crossing the room to look in the cabinet she indicated. She holds up the two items in her cuffed hands for Isa to see. “This?”

“Mm-hm.”

She comes back and sits cross-legged in front of her. There’s already a bruise forming on her cheek, matching the ones around her broken nose. “I’m kinda surprised he lets you have first aid stuff.”

“Yeah, well, he…wants me to stay alive…for whatever reason. We have to be careful with it, though. It doesn’t get replenished often.”

Lainey nods in understanding, opening up the kit on the floor. “So…use the wood to stabilize it and wrap these bandages around?”

“Yeah.” It’s good that she has at least a basic knowledge of first aid already. Means she doesn’t have to explain everything, and she can hopefully count on her to do things herself if there comes a time when she can’t help.

Clenching her jaw, Isa carefully moves her arm out where it can be better reached. Lainey sucks in an audible breath through her teeth at the sight of it.

“Ugh. Aw, man, that’s…it looks so wrong.”

“It’s not as bad as it looks.” Isa runs the fingers of her right hand lightly over the misshapen arm. She’s definitely had worse. “Most of it is swelling. Though this…” Her fingers stop on a slight lump in the skin. “This is gonna have to be pushed back into place.”

“Oh, man…”

She glances up at Lainey, who looks a bit paler than usual. “I can do it. I’ve done it before.”

“No, no way. I’m not making you do that yourself. I’m…you’ve got me now, I can do it.” She hesitates, hands hovering in front of her. “Just, uh…tell me what to do.”

“I usually do it against a wall. Makes it easier to brace.” Isa turns her body so that she can splay her arm across the wall, and Lainey scoots herself around closer.

“The fact that you have a usual method for this is…disturbing.”

Ignoring that comment, Isa points to the spot on her arm. “This is it right here. All I can tell you other than that is just…get in a sturdy position and push. And don’t stop if I scream or whatever.”

“Oh man. Okay.” Lainey moves in closer, shoving strands of messy brown hair out of her face. “I can do this. Okay.” Bracing both hands against the arm without pressing down yet, she glances over at Isa. “Alright. You ready?” While Isa nods, she sucks in a deep breath and squeezes her eyes shut, then focuses in on the arm once more.

Looking away, Isa grabs a handful of her shirt and clutches it tight.

“Okay. Three…two…” Before she gets to one, she shoves with all her strength. The bone pops back into place and Isa screams even more hoarsely than the first time before everything starts to go dark.

She can faintly hear a surprised shout and feel herself falling to one side. An instant later, she opens her eyes and finds herself lying on her left side with her arm stretched out in front of her. Lainey is gingerly wrapping the worn, slightly bloodstained bandage from the kit around both her arm and the makeshift splint.

“Hey,” she says softly when she glances over and sees Isa’s eyes open. “You okay? Kinda freaked me out there. Good news is, having to keep you from smacking your head on the floor distracted me enough that I didn’t end up hurling everywhere like I thought I might.”

Isa picks her head up and looks over her bandaged arm. It’s so weird, having someone else do this for her. She’s not used to it, and part of her doesn’t want to trust it, but Lainey seems to have done a decent job. “How’s it looking?”

“Almost done. Wish we had an ice pack to get some of this swelling down, though.”

“Yeah, he doesn’t do fancy things like ice packs.” She glances up at the other girl, who’s tucking the end of the bandage as best she can. “You seem like you know what you’re doing, at least somewhat.”

One corner of her mouth quirks upward. “Softball, remember? We got hurt all the time. I picked up a few things from the medics like splints and recovery position. I’m no expert, though.” Sitting back, she looks over her work. “How’s that? Does that hurt?”

“Yeah,” Isa answers honestly. “But not as bad as it did when the bone was out of place.” She begins sitting up, slowly, moving her arm carefully into her lap. “Thanks.”

Lainey shakes her head. “You need a hospital, and some of those heavy-duty painkillers they gave me when I broke mine years ago.”

“He definitely doesn’t do painkillers.” Using her good hand, Isa scoots herself back to lean against the wall. “I’ll be fine. Like I said, I’ve done this before.”

“You shouldn’t have to, though.”

Isa doesn’t have an answer for that.

[emeto-film-critic]

Damsel - 2024

SAFE/Caution - A,V•

Approx. 52:06 •A,V• Elodie drinks from pond and spits it out in a spray.

[kingsstew]

Summary: “Note to self – never eat a gas station burrito again,” Prompto thought miserably as the Reglia flew down the highway toward Cape Caem. “You will regret everything.”

In which Prompto's lunch isn't sitting well, Gladio is helpful, Noctis blames beans, and Ignis is a caring boyfriend who is not about to let his Chocobo suffer alone. Warnings: None Rating: Teen Category: M/M Fandom: Final Fantasy XV Relationships: Prompto Argentum/Ignis Scientia Characters: Prompto Argentum, Ignis Scientia, Noctis Lucis Caelum, Gladiolus Amicitia Chapters: 1/1 Word Count: 3,195 Additional Tags: Promnis, Sick Prompto, Sickfic, Hurt/Comfort, Food Poisoning, Stomach Ache, Belly Rubs, Vomiting, Fluff, Cuddling

[angstyaches]

Hey, hope you had a great Christmas and new years! If you're still accepting requests, how about one where Shayne eats a different kind of demon? Similar to the fic where he ate a snow demon and it made him freezing cold, maybe he eats a fire demon or something and it makes him burning hot, like he has a high fever? And charlie tries his best taking care of him despite not really knowing how to deal with something like that. Feel free to change anything or ignore this request if it doesnt fit with your world building!

Ahem, let's pretend this didn't take me three months to finish, despite being one of my favourite prompts I've ever gotten. I hope you enjoy it, anon! I kind of ran with the idea of heat rather than fire.

CW: demon eating, stomach ache, stomach noises, emeto, burping, FANTASY/SUPERNATURAL, angst, trauma mentions, nervous caretaker.

___

Shayne’s stomach churned under the gentle pressure of Charlie’s hand. There was a jolt, a slight undulation, in his abdominal muscles before yet another quiet belch gurgled up into his chest, fizzling out before it could make its way into his throat.

He had his lips pressed together, but he still raised the back of his hand towards his mouth in an act of weary defiance against his own body.

Charlie gave a sympathetic hum, the kind one would usually make in response to a verbal complaint. Half-formed burps were as close to a complaint as Shayne had made all evening, despite what he’d been through.

The memory still shuddered in the back of Charlie’s mind.

It’d all been over in what felt like a heartbeat. Charlie had barely grasped what was going on by the time Shayne had sorted it out. He wasn’t a good organiser, or a communicator, or a planner, but when it came to devouring demons – and to protecting the house – Shayne had much more natural talent than he gave himself credit for.

Natural, horrifying, blood-curdling talent.

On the bright side, Shayne had submitted to resting almost immediately after devouring, something Charlie had seen him do before. Not like this. He hadn’t tried to suggest going about their day as though nothing had happened. He had only rolled his eyes once, not repeatedly, as Charlie coaxed him upstairs and onto the bed. And he hadn’t resisted when Charlie had tugged his t-shirt up so that he could rub his tummy.

Charlie fixed his gaze on Shayne’s distant, glassy-eyed expression and hoped he wasn’t internally struggling with all of these things after the fact.

“Hey,” Charlie said. “You've been quiet for a while. What are you thinking about in there?”

There was a soft, bitter twitch near the corner of Shayne’s mouth. Was that guilt? Regret? Pain?

“Nothing.”

“You did what you had to do,” Charlie said. “It would have wreaked havoc.”

Shayne frowned and rubbed at the centre of his chest with his fingertips.

“Heartburn?” Charlie smoothed his own hand upwards to take over, tucking itself under the folds of t-shirt.

“Mm.”

“We have stuff for that, you know, cutie. You only have to ask. Want me to grab some?”

Shayne shook his head. “Not right now.”

“Okay,” Charlie said, knowing by now that he shouldn’t expect to be able to negotiate. He traced a light circle over Shayne’s sternum, which he seemed to like because his eyes fell shut and the frown lessened its grip on his face. It seemed a shame that his stomach was exposed and no longer receiving any attention, though, so Charlie slid down a little further on the bed and slipped his other hand across it.

Shayne sucked in a breath and shut his eyes. His stomach muscles tightened ever so slightly under Charlie's palm.

“Holy shit, Charlie, that hand is freezing.”

“Sorry,” Charlie grinned. “I think your tummy’s just warm.”

“Or your circulation is shit.”

“Or your tummy is warm.”

Shayne sighed. “Stop saying that.”

“I think you know by now that I can’t and won’t.”

“Are you okay?” Charlie wished he didn't wear his anxiety quite so loudly on his sleeve.

Shayne’s eyes squeezed shut a little tighter. There was a low vibration under Charlie’s right palm, the rippling of the stomach walls as the organ churned. It seemed like he was going to belch again, but instead, his belly let out a groan that sounded like pipes straining.

Charlie’s heart fluttered until the look of discomfort on Shayne’s face deepened. Come to think of it, Shayne’s stomach wasn’t usually this vocal at this point in the process.

“I’m fine. I just… kind of felt like I was going to be sick for a second.”

“Yeah?” Charlie tilted his head. He eased off on the pressure his hands were putting on Shayne's chest and stomach. “Should we move to the bathroom?”

Shayne shook his head. “Not yet. It’s still… um.”

“Still…?” Charlie swallowed over the fear that brushed up against the back of his throat.

His hand instinctively shied back from Shayne’s belly, and he was seized by guilt at having that reaction. He always focused on Shayne’s suffering, and the need to comfort him, which didn’t give his mind very long to linger on why he was suffering.

But when he thought about it…

His boyfriend was a devourer of live demons. They would be reborn on the Other Side, but that didn’t erase the fact that there was a demon fighting for its life inside his stomach right now. It didn’t know that it wasn’t dying, not in a permanent sense. It didn’t know that this was necessary for keeping the world balanced. It didn’t know that it hadn’t been captured by some sadistic monster.

It didn’t know that Shayne didn’t enjoy this.

Then again, Charlie - and Charlie Two - knew all of those things, and still couldn't help feeling a shiver of terror at the thought.

“H-hey,” Charlie said, realising Shayne was getting that faraway look in his eyes again.

“What?”

Are you spacing out because it hurts, or are you worrying about something? Charlie swallowed the words before they could come forth. Shayne was very sensitive to being over-analysed, and the last thing Charlie wanted to do was accidentally start an argument with him.

“Can we do something to distract you?” he asked instead. “We could watch a movie, or something. Or just take a nap.”

“Whatever you want.”

“Don’t just say that. What do you want?”

“I want to fucking…” Shayne seemed to stammer against something that he wanted to say, but clearly thought better of. Charlie, having been in some dark spots of his own mind before in the past, immediately found himself assuming the worst, and fear and anger bubbled in the pit of his belly.

“Lovely, you can’t just –”

“I wasn’t going to say that. I want…” Shayne blinked, fighting the wetness that was creeping into his dark eyes. “I want my mum. I want to talk to her. Every time something, like, different happens, I wish she was here so I could ask her –”

“Different?” A chill coiled around the base of Charlie’s spine. “Different? What feels different?”

“This.”

“Different, how?”

“I can’t describe it, Charlie. I’m just scared. No, I’m not scared, don’t fucking look at me like that, I’m not – I’m not dying. My body can deal with it, Charlie, my body is made for this. This is –”

Shayne lifted a hand towards his head, cupping the side of his neck and swallowing so thickly that Charlie saw the fluctuation in his throat. He sat forward, his hand sliding further around the back of his neck.

“Shayne,” Charlie whispered. “What’s wrong?”

“I-I’m…" Shayne shuddered. He let out a low whimper, which didn't drown out the not-so-low gurgle that rippled through his stomach. "I’m gonna throw up.”

___

A dry, strangled gag made the muscles in his throat crash inward. It felt like he'd been tipped upside down, like the gravity inside his body had shifted. His legs were so weak and shaky, and his insides cramped so hard he could barely keep himself from folding in half. The burn in his chest was getting worse, too, and it felt less and less like the sting of stomach acid and more like a true burn.

He eyed the toilet miserably, and disappointment tugged his heart even further into the turbulent depths of his body.

He hobbled to the sink instead, and turned on the tap. He found himself avoiding his own gaze in the mirror, as though he were afraid his reflection would try to start a conversation.

Or maybe he was avoiding Charlie’s refection. His boyfriend had, of course, followed him, and was lingering near the doorway, unsure of what to do.

Shayne splashed water on his face, mostly to give himself something to do, but the sudden rush of cold was extremely welcome.

His throat gurgled deeply, and there was a stir at the base of his ribs. His abdominal muscles crammed themselves up into a knot again, shooting as much pressure as possible towards his stomach and his diaphragm. The singeing heat reached his throat in a desperately tight hiccup.

He scrambled towards the toilet, eyes stinging and jaws aching. Shayne’s mouth hung open and his body heaved and trembled, but all this achieved was an even drier tongue and an even more taut ache in his belly.

“Lovely,” Charlie said after a few minutes. “Don’t force it.”

You’ll never get stronger if you don’t push yourself.

Shayne stopped gagging long enough to slap a hand over the back of his own neck, swatting at goosebumps like they were a swarm of flies on his skin. He flexed his jaw, wishing he could shake away the tension.

“Hey,” Charlie exclaimed. He took his hand, tried to pry it away from his neck, but Shayne shook his head and Charlie let it go. “Sweetheart, relax, please. You’ve got yourself in knots, and you know that doesn’t do any good.”

You know you’re not worth anything like this.

“Go. Away,” Shayne hissed, curling forward so that his forehead met the edge of the toilet bowl, still clutching his neck. His jaw trembled in place, so hard it felt like it might break and send tiny cracks scurrying through his skull.

“Me, go away?” Charlie’s voice was small. Breakable.

“No,” Shayne growled. His heart was speedily pounding against his ribs, but it faltered now. He hadn’t been specifically speaking to Charlie, but maybe it would be better if he left, too.

A dark, sticky stain always revealed itself in the back of his mind at times like this, when he wished he could still be alone. He knew how to be miserable alone. He didn’t know how to be miserable with Charlie around. He didn’t know how to wield his overwhelming love for Charlie whilst navigating around this huge part of his life that he’d never be able to fully explain. Or justify. Or be rid of.

Before he could formulate any kind of response, his stomach slammed itself upwards, battering the inside of his ribs as though it wanted out.

Which it did. Or rather, the demon did. And so, the organ had twisted itself up so tightly, keeping him from vomiting while the demon was still in an active state. If he tried to expel its remnants too soon, there was a chance that the demon itself would escape. It’d never happened, but the sensations in his body had always been strong enough to inform his mind of their meaning.

He knew it was going to be an unproductive gag, but he still flung himself over the toilet seat, choking on pain and burning dryness and tears that didn’t leave his throat. He felt Charlie’s hand on his back and shivered at the touch.

“Okay, you’re getting upset, lovely.” Charlie snapped his hand back. “I’m sorry, I don’t – I don’t know if you’re panicking or just in a lot of pain, but… Try sitting up straight.”

Shayne chest and head felt like they might simultaneously explode. “Ca… n’t.”

“You’re not breathing properly, lovely. You have to breathe.”

“I can’t.”

“Shayne. Slowly. Slowly. Let everything relax.”

I can’t relax, he wanted to scream, not with her breathing down my neck every minute.

“I’ve got you. I’m right here,” Charlie said. His breath trickled against the side of Shayne’s neck, and then suddenly there were lips pressed where the rush of cold had made his hair stand on end.

A low, involuntary whimper stirred in Shayne’s chest and Charlie pulled back slowly from the kiss, breath quivering.

He could barely see through the stinging tears in his eyes. The nausea pulled at his gut, ramping up to a boiling, roiling spike of pain that lanced at his ribcage. The heat pressed up against the insides of his cheeks and made him wish he could crack himself open to release some of it.

“Are you okay?”

“I-I don’t… know. It hurts,” Shayne admitted, as though this could possibly be news to Charlie. “It – it feels wrong, Charlie, it feels… so different.”

For the next few seconds, Charlie looked like he was the one who might be getting sick soon. Shayne recognised the creases near his eyes, ones that were very distinct from his smiling ones, and which usually only showed up before he was about to cry.

“Fuck,” Shayne wanted to shout, but it was only a choked, breathy sigh. Frustration suddenly burned brighter than all of the pain and the fear. He said the stupidest shit when he was feeling like this. This was why he was better off alone. This is why he should –

“No,” he growled, not even realising what he was saying no to.

“I-I’m, I’m sorry,” Shayne blurted out. Was he actually sorry? Was it good if he was sorry? Apologising on behalf of his own body – the way it was, the way it acted – was just second nature, but he knew it made Charlie uncomfortable.

A second later, he saw Charlie’s hand retreating. He had been reaching for Shayne’s face, and Shayne had batted him away.

He flinched, the reflex surprising him like a punch in the gut – and judging by his face, it’d felt like one for Charlie, too.

“It’s okay, it’s just…” Charlie was struggling to keep his voice soft. “It’s just hard sometimes.”

Shayne’s stomach twitched, tightening its walls. Warm, sharp pain trickled through his belly, accompanied by some uneasy rumbling.

“I'm – I’m sorry.” Charlie pressed his forehead into the palm of his hand, eyes shut. “That wasn’t fair of me –”

“S’fine.” Shayne was starting to feel as though he was stuck in some sick, twisted version of purgatory where he’d be saying that things were fine for the rest of time. Even if he was currently unable to literally vomit, his body churned up little sickly chunks of denial like it was nothing.

He just wanted to skip the next twelve-to-twenty hours, so that he could be a little less of a nightmare to be around. So he could hold Charlie – be held – without this need to keep his guard up.

Charlie sat back on his heels, arms folded and hands clutching his own biceps as though he didn’t trust them not to reach for Shayne again unless they were occupied. He kept quiet for a few minutes, only humming wordlessly in the back of his throat when Shayne groaned and folded his own hands over his stomach.

“Can I get anything for you?” Charlie murmured. “The hot water bottle?”

Shayne tried not to scoff. It felt like he could have provided heat to the entire house for a whole winter, if only it wasn’t all contained within the walls of one organ. It felt like the scalding sensation might have dissipated, just slightly, if he unfurled his body, but the pain kept him locked up tight.

He shook his head.

“Some water to drink?”

The thought of trying to get any kind of substance into his stomach right now made Shayne groan again. A strangled burp gurgled up from his belly, making it all the way to the back of his tongue before he reflexively swallowed and suppressed it.

His eyes widened at the mildly acidic taste that flooded his mouth. A shudder rolled through him, his muscles finally giving way to the pressure inside. He started shivering with something that, if he wasn’t wrought with the knowledge that the worst was still yet to come, might have been relief.

A tight belch gurgled in his stomach and then scraped its way up his oesophagus. Tears spilled over from his eyes, his ears and sinuses suddenly tight and burning hot.

Shayne unfurled himself just enough to lean over the toilet.

He focused very gently on the nausea in his stomach, afraid that it might slip away again if he didn’t. He imagined it shifting from its perch in the pit of his stomach, holding the image in his head the way he would hold a handful of sand – carefully, lightly, watching that it didn’t spill out through his fingers.

When his stomach muscles unclenched, he vomited. He vomited steam.

At first, he thought dizziness and dehydration were fucking with his eyesight, clouding his vision as he heaved. Or maybe his eyes were just watering again.

Shayne wanted to comfort him somehow, but before he could say anything, his chest and belly muscles were punching inwards again, and another plume of steam rolled up out of him. It felt more like belching than puking, but Shayne still dragged himself back over the toilet seat, whimpering at the pain that coated the entire surface of his tongue and the insides of his cheeks. It felt like he’d sipped tea that was too hot, and then sipped it again, and then sipped it again, and then sipped it –

But then he heard the hiss, like cold water hitting a hot pan, only it was the liquid that was molten-hot and the outside air that was cool by comparison. He felt the thin, white fog condensate against his cheeks and shrank back, shock overriding the nausea even as his whole body trembled with it.

“Oh, my god, oh, god, what the fuck?” Charlie had also scrambled back a little, almost pressing himself against the bathroom wall.

“Shayne,” Charlie whimpered.

Shayne gasped, desperate to fill his lungs before the next cramp. “What?”

“I – is this – has this ever –?”

“Nah, this is new,” Shayne rasped, cheeks already filling up with liquid again.

His stomach cramped and gurgled audibly, and he had to focus on the nausea like before, in order to let go of the next hot, wet belch. Steam came twirling out from between his lips. Liquid dripped into the toilet, cooling on his lips.

“F-fire… fire demon? Maybe?” To his credit, Charlie was remarkably quick at adjusting his thoughts to fit in new information, no matter how implausible. One second, he was pressed against the wall, convinced his boyfriend was dying, and the next, he was theorising. “But how – why would – it came from the forest. Why would there be a fire demon in the forest? I didn’t see a fire.”

“I don’t know,” Shayne snarled under his breath. He had a longer reply in mind; I’m not the demon’s fucking personal assistant, I’m just the one digesting it, I don’t have all the answers – but talking felt like gargling with shards of glass. He wouldn’t have had to talk at all if he’d been alone, and even though he knew it wasn’t real, he felt resentment bubbling through his belly.

His vision was blurred with pain and rage and tears, and he had to grip the edges of the toilet bowl to stop himself from swaying.

“Do – do you think I should call Ryan?” Charlie sounded distant, as though his anxiety was making him dissociate. “Just to check if this is normal.”

A scoff got stuck behind a wave of nausea. Shayne’s throat bubbled and crackled as another steam-filled belch snaked out of his mouth. His stomach felt like it was stuck on a loop, churning over and over and –

“Earlier on, you said – you said it felt wrong, Shayne. That scared me. You’ve never said that to me before. And now this.”

“It… Charlie, there’s –” Shayne’s throat felt like it’d been scorched. Why, why, did he have to keep explaining everything?! He had to speak at a higher, raspier register just to finish his sentence. “Th-there’s – there is no normal or wrong.”

“I-I know.”

“My body isn’t normal,” he murmured, coughing out a puff of steam mid-sentence as though for emphasis.

“No, but…”

“I’m built for this. This is what I’m –” He broke off with a retch, which was probably for the best. He didn't want to finish that sentence anyway.

This is what you’re for, Shayne.

Shayne gasped and attempted to breathe himself through the sensation of Madelyn’s words sending cold shivers along the back of his neck.

Charlie’s mouth bobbed open. “Shayne, you –”

“Just give it a rest, okay?” Shayne realised his voice came out sounding far more pathetic than commanding. He was close to crying again; that, or there was steam cooling in the corners of his eyes. “You’re… stressing me out. Just stop.”

After a few seconds, it became clear that Charlie wasn’t going to respond, at least not verbally. Shayne was just beginning to worry that he’d been too harsh after all, and was wondering if he should lift his head up and apologise, but that was when he felt Charlie’s lips press lightly against the side of his neck again.

Shayne was so startled and relieved by the kiss that he let out a shaky sigh, expelling another small puff of steam into the toilet bowl. A cough promptly followed, squeezing his ribs into his lungs and irritating his throat.

His stomach gurgled and reminded him far too vividly of pasta boiling on the stove. It felt like flames were licking at the base of his ribs and sending hot sparks crackling towards the back of his throat.

“The heat coming from you…” Charlie’s hands were hovering in the air next to Shayne’s shoulders, like he was warming them over a campfire. “No wonder you’re burping up steam.”

Shayne shifted uneasily, throat tightening a little at the gentle teasing. “Makes sense now?”

“It does. Hey, maybe this would be nice."

Shayne didn't lift his head to see what Charlie was doing, but he did hear the towel rack squeak, and the tap being turned. He almost screamed when something cold came to rest on the back of his neck. The sudden sensation made him start, and the muscles in his stomach twitched so hard that both his hands moved to try to soothe the pain.

"Fucking warn me next time," he hissed.

Charlie chuckled softly. "Sorry."

Shayne exhaled, shivering. The wet towel on his neck was chasing away waves of stifling heat that he hadn't even been fully aware of, plus it was keeping the goosebumps as bay. It seeped water into the back of his t-shirt, but that already felt soaked through with his sweat. His chest and throat still felt like they'd been burned, which was an improvement upon feeling as though they were currently being burned. And there was a funny, weightless sensation in his stomach that he could live with far more easily than the cramps or churning sickness.

"What do you need?" Charlie asked, almost as soon as Shayne started to lift his head from the toilet.

"Bed," he whispered.

The corners of Charlie's eyes crinkled with a smile. "That sounds perfect."

___

Shayne was lying on Charlie's side of the bed, which was closest to the door in case he needed to get back to the bathroom in a hurry; his stomach ached very much like it'd been beaten up from the inside, and he didn't trust it not to turn again. There was a basin near the bed, too, but Shayne didn't like throwing up in bed if he could help it.

He lay outside of the duvet so help bring his body temperature down, but had changed into a fresh t-shirt instead of going topless like Charlie had lightly suggested. But even through the cotton fabric, he felt Charlie's torso press up against his back and curl around him like he was made of ice.

“Ah,” he complained. His throat felt like it’d been ripped open with the sudden exclamation. “Ho-ly fucking shit, Charlie, you’re freezing.”

“No, I'm not. You’re just so warm,” Charlie hummed, wriggling with what could only be described as contentment. He tucked one arm under Shayne's pillow and wove one leg in between Shayne's knees, so it felt like they were woven together.

“Glad you’re enjoying yourself.” Shayne pulled Charlie’s hand closer to his mouth and kissed his knuckles to undercut the sarcasm. He’d never hold Charlie’s happiness against him, even if it was at his own expense.

“Where were these fire demons all winter, hmm?” Charlie’s other hand cupped the warm spot at the base of Shayne’s ribs and traced a slow circle down over his tummy. “Think of all the electricity and hot water we could have saved.”

“That's –” Shayne almost gulped against a gurgling hiccup that seemed to get itself lodged halfway up his oesophagus. He strained his stomach muscles a little and inverted his head before the pressure could slip back up as a wet, steamy belch. “That's what I was thinking.”

Charlie hummed inwardly. His face was pressed so closely to the back of Shayne's head and neck that Shayne felt the hum go through his spine. He brushed his fingers back and forth over Shayne's stomach as it made a soft, pitiful whining sound.

"Is your tummy doing okay?"

Shayne nodded, tucking his head a little further down on the pillow. "Mmm. For now."

He let himself enjoy the closeness - and the careful attention Charlie was giving to his aching stomach - for a couple more seconds before he took a deep breath.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. "For snapping at you so much."

"It's okay. I could have handled it a little better," Charlie said. "I just get so flustered when I feel like I can't help you. It really fucking sucks."

Shayne swallowed. His throat ached drily. "I love you."

"I love you so much, cutie." Charlie gasped. “Shit, I forgot; I was going to get you some water –”

“Don’t want it,” Shayne grumbled, tightening his hold on Charlie’s hand before he could start trying to disentangle himself. His throat was screaming out for something cool, admittedly, but his belly felt ready to erupt again at the slightest disruption. He wanted to relish the peace for as long as he could.

And he really, really didn’t want Charlie to go anywhere.

“Okay.” Though he didn’t sound convinced, Charlie’s body relaxed again. “It’d probably just create more steam, anyway." He pressed cool lips to the side of Shayne's neck. "My little dragon.”

When there was no response, Charlie slipped his hand closer to the centre of Shayne’s belly. His fingertips seemed to seek out the spots where the spasms were still tugging at his stomach muscles, massaging lightly to try to relieve the knots of pain.

“You going to sleep now?” Charlie whispered.

Shayne was almost sure he’d responded in some way to the question, but the combination of exertion and comfort had already sunk him far too deeply into sleep.