the way chronic pain, especially joint/bone/muscle pain, is amplified by 100 when the person is sick…even the lowest of low grade fevers has them wincing with every movement
pretend I haven’t been MIA for a month. have a Lex migraine as a peace offering
if you have any questions, comments, requests, etc., send them my way!
tw for migraines, emeto, injections
By the third day, Lex had stopped calling it a headache.
Not out loud, of course. Out loud, it was still weather pressure. It was still bad sleep. It was still the stale, metallic exhaustion of too many obligations stacked too close together, the kind that made the bones behind his eyes ache and the muscles at the back of his neck feel like they had been tied into knots with wire.
On the first day, it had been easy to dismiss.
The sky had hung low over Los Angeles, gray and damp and strangely heavy, the clouds pressing down on the city like a hand over a mouth. Lex had woken before dawn after maybe two hours of sleep, his pulse already too aware of itself, his jaw sore from clenching through whatever thin, useless scraps of rest he’d managed to get. His skull had felt pressurized, tender at the temples, a dull throb settling behind one eye.
He had stood in the kitchen barefoot, hair mussed, one hand braced on the counter while the coffee machine hissed and sputtered. Star had sat at his feet, tail curled neatly around her paws, watching him with the grave suspicion of a tiny tuxedo nurse.
“It’s the weather,” he had muttered to her.
Star had blinked once. Her ears twitched and she let out a very soft, yet very offended, little chirp.
Lex had taken that as judgment.
Still, he had made breakfast for everyone. Carefully. Automatically. Gluten-free for Soren, exactly separated, no cross-contact, no shortcuts. His hands knew what to do even when his head felt full of rainwater. He had moved through the kitchen with that familiar, controlled efficiency, measuring, stirring, wiping down surfaces, checking labels he had checked a hundred times before.
The rhythm usually helped. Ritual with usefulness attached. Something productive enough to quiet the ugly little panic that lived under his ribs.
But every metallic clink of a spoon against ceramic had gone through him too sharply.
Every overhead light had seemed too white.
When Soren came in, still sleep-soft and quiet, Lex had already turned half the kitchen lights off and was pretending it was because the morning looked better dim.
Soren had looked at him for half a second too long.
Lex had smiled before Soren could ask.
That was day one: manageable. Annoying. A pulse behind the eye. A faint sourness in his stomach that he blamed on letting his tea steep too strong, even though he had barely touched it. He pushed through calls, rehearsal notes, texts from management, a quick errand, a meeting he didn’t need to be at but went to anyway because Lex’s brain believed absence was a moral failure.
By evening, the headache had sharpened whenever he bent forward.
A hot, bright spike through the socket of his eye.
He had paused in the laundry room with one hand around a basket handle, eyes closed, waiting for the room to stop tilting in tiny, nauseating increments.
Then he had opened his eyes, swallowed hard, and kept going.
On the second day, it had become harder to lie to himself.
He woke with the pain already waiting.
Not worse exactly—not at first—but deeper. Rooted. It had sunk into him overnight, threading itself behind his eyes, down the side of his neck, into the hinge of his jaw. His scalp felt bruised when he dragged his fingers through his hair. The left side of his face carried that strange migraine tenderness, like every nerve had been peeled raw and laid too close to the surface.
The weather had shifted again. Heat under cloud cover. Damp air. Pressure rising and falling like the city couldn’t decide what kind of miserable it wanted to be.
Lex hated that his body noticed.
He hated that his skull seemed to know the atmosphere better than any weather app. Hated that stress, sleep loss, and a low gray sky could combine into something that made him feel trapped inside his own nervous system.
Still, he dressed. Still, he answered messages. Still, he ate half a piece of toast because Soren had been standing there and Lex didn’t want to make that soft, observant expression worse.
The toast sat in his stomach like a stone.
By midafternoon, he could feel his digestion slowing in that awful, unmistakable way. It wasn’t nausea at first, not exactly. It was stillness. A wrongness. His stomach felt too quiet, like a machine that had powered down with everything still inside it. Then came the tightness, low and deep, pulling across his abdomen in a tense, cramped band.
He kept pressing a hand there when no one was looking.
Not rubbing. Not yet. Just checking, almost accusingly, like he could catch his body in the act of betraying him.
The food remained.
Coffee curdled on top of it. Water sloshed faintly when he moved. By evening, the fullness had turned dense and bloated, a hard, swollen pressure that made sitting upright uncomfortable and bending forward quietly dangerous. His stomach felt packed too tightly under his ribs, like he had eaten far too much and then swallowed a brick for good measure.
Except he hadn’t eaten enough for that.
That was the worst part.
His body could make abundance out of almost nothing when it wanted to punish him.
The migraine climbed with it. Pain pulsing behind both eyes now, though one side was worse, a deep blue-white throb that synchronized with his heartbeat. Light became texture. Sound became impact. Voices didn’t just reach him; they struck him, small blunt objects against the inside of his skull.
He started closing his eyes whenever he could get away with it.
At first, it was only for a few seconds. In the car, waiting on Soren to get a prescription fill, one hand on the dashboard while the other covered his eyes, waiting for Soren and for once being glad he never drove anymore.
In the bathroom, seated on the closed toilet lid, elbows on knees, fingers pressed against his brow.
In the hallway outside the studio, leaning back against the wall while footsteps passed him like distant thunder.
Then the seconds stretched.
His body kept taking them.
He would close his eyes to block the light and wake five minutes later with his chin dipped toward his chest, mouth dry, stomach heavier than before. The dozing helped while he was gone. That was the cruel little trick of it. For those shallow, accidental slips into sleep, the nausea loosened its grip. The pain blurred at the edges. His body floated somewhere dim and almost tolerable.
Then he would surface.
And everything would come back meaner.
The fullness in his stomach would seem to have thickened while he was unaware. The cramps would wake with him, coiling tight and hot under his hand. The migraine would reassemble itself piece by piece: eye, temple, jaw, neck, throat, stomach. As if sleeping had not healed anything, only allowed the symptoms time to gather in the dark.
By the third day, Lex had gotten good at disappearing for ten minutes at a time.
Too good.
Soren noticed, because of course Soren noticed. Soren noticed the untouched water bottle. The way Lex kept his phone brightness turned all the way down. Sunglasses as much as possible and his usual prescription glasses every other time.
The way he stopped wearing his rings because the pressure of them annoyed him. The way he held himself carefully, shoulders slightly raised, abdomen guarded, every movement reduced to the smallest possible version of itself.
Ksenia noticed because Lex snapped at a sound check tech for dropping a cable, then immediately went still with shame so sharp it was practically visible.
“I’m fine,” Lex said before either of them asked.
Ksenia stared at him.
Soren said nothing.
That was worse.
Lex tried to make it to the end of the day anyway.
He nearly did.
Late afternoon found him on the couch in the apartment, technically upright, technically present, one knee drawn up while Star sat against his thigh with one paw pressed possessively over his leg. The room was dim except for the gray smear of daylight leaking through the curtains. Someone—Soren, probably—had turned off the overhead lights. The television was off. The apartment had taken on that careful, padded quiet people used around a sickroom before anyone admitted it was a sickroom.
Lex hated it.
He also could not make himself ask them to turn anything back on.
His head felt too full for his skull. Every pulse of pain seemed to push outward from the inside, swelling behind his eyes, pressing at his teeth, settling in the delicate bones of his face until even his cheekbones ached. His stomach had gone from tight to distended, not dramatically visible under his loose shirt unless one knew him well, but obvious to him in every breath. The bloating sat high and hard, stretching him from the inside. Each inhale nudged against it. Each exhale failed to ease it.
He had eaten maybe half a bowl of rice hours ago.
It felt like a feast gone rotten inside him.
Lex closed his eyes.
Just for a second.
Just to take the gray light away.
His thoughts thinned almost immediately. The room softened. Star’s weight against him became distant and warm. Somewhere nearby, Ksenia’s voice murmured low, then faded before the words became meaning. The nausea loosened—not gone, never gone, but muffled under that strange dozing veil. His body, desperate and opportunistic, dragged him down before his pride could object.
He slept sitting up, poorly and briefly, with one hand curled over his stomach.
When he woke, it was because his own body startled him.
A cramp seized hard beneath his ribs, deep enough to punch a thin sound out of him before he could swallow it. His eyes snapped open to darkness behind his own lashes, then the dim room lurched into focus around him. For one terrible second, he didn’t know where he was. Only that his head was splitting, his stomach was too full, and something inside him had shifted from discomfort into threat.
The nausea rose slow and thick.
Not sharp yet. Not immediate.
Worse.
It crawled up from the stagnant weight in his stomach, warm and sour, winding through his chest and into the back of his throat with awful patience. His mouth flooded. His skin prickled cold under a sudden flush of heat. The room tilted sideways though he hadn’t moved.
Star stood at once, tiny claws pricking gently through his sweatpants.
Lex swallowed.
His stomach cramped again.
Harder.
He pressed his palm against it on instinct and instantly regretted it. The pressure pushed against the bloated tightness and sent a sick, rolling surge up his throat. He jerked his hand away, breathing shallowly through his nose, eyes half-lidded against the migraine’s violent pulse.
Soren’s voice came from somewhere close.
“Lex?”
Soft. Careful.
Still too loud.
Lex tried to answer. Truly, he did. The words were there, arranged somewhere behind the pain, but his mouth felt slow and his throat had gone slick with saliva.
He lifted one hand.
A useless gesture. A warning, maybe.
Then his stomach gave a low, ugly turn beneath his ribs, the kind that made his whole body understand before his mind caught up.
Soren didn’t move right away.
He watched.
It was a quiet kind of watching—one he had learned over time, honed into something almost instinctual. Not invasive. Not prying. Just… attentive in that careful, weightless way that didn’t spook Lex into retreating further into himself.
Lex sat there trying to exist like nothing was wrong.
That was always the first tell.
Not the pain—Soren couldn’t see that, not directly. Not the nausea, not the pressure building behind his eyes or the slow, stubborn shutdown of his stomach. Those lived under skin and bone and silence.
But the way Lex held himself around it—that, Soren could read.
Too still. Too contained.
Like if he moved too much, something might spill over.
Lex’s eyes had drifted closed again, just for a second—just long enough that his head tipped forward a fraction before he caught himself. His fingers flexed faintly against his stomach, then stilled when he seemed to realize he’d done it.
Soren filed it away.
Third time in ten minutes.
He let a few more seconds pass. Let Lex have the illusion of control.
Then, gently—
“I think I’m gonna lie down for a bit.”
Lex’s eyes opened, slow and heavy, like they had to drag themselves back to the surface. The dim light caught in them wrong—too glassy, too unfocused for someone who was supposedly fine.
Soren didn’t look at him directly when he said it.
Didn’t make it a question. Didn’t make it an observation about Lex.
Just… a statement. Casual. Soft.
“Head’s kinda… off.”
Not a lie that would hold up under scrutiny.
But Soren knew Lex wouldn’t scrutinize it.
Because Lex loved him.
Because Lex always responded to that.
There was a beat. A small one.
Then Lex shifted, slow and careful, like every inch of movement had to be negotiated with his own body first.
“…yeah?” His voice came out quieter than usual, slightly rough around the edges. “You okay?”
There it was.
Even now.
Soren hummed lightly, already pushing himself up from where he’d been leaning against the arm of the couch. “Mm. Just a headache. Nothing crazy.”
He glanced at Lex then, just enough. Star let out a small meow Soren was sure was her way of calling bullshit, but if it was Lex didn’t seem to notice.
“Come lay down with me? We don’t have anything else today.”
He didn’t add anything more than that.
Didn’t press.
Didn’t ask in a way that could be refused.
Just… left the space open. Try to smooth the inevitable thoughts of obligations and needing to fill them to be useful.
Lex hesitated.
Not outwardly. Not in any obvious way. But Soren saw it in the micro-second pause, in the way Lex’s gaze dropped, in the faint tightening of his shoulders like his body was bracing against something internal.
Soren could practically hear the argument in his head.
You’re fine.
He needs you.
You can rest later.
Just a little while.
Lex exhaled.
“Yeah,” he said, softer. “Yeah, okay.”
Star was already on her feet before either of them moved.
She didn’t wait to be called.
She slipped off the couch with quiet purpose, tail held high, pacing once at Lex’s leg before trotting ahead like she already knew exactly where they were going and why.
Soren led without rushing.
The bedroom was dimmer than the rest of the apartment, curtains drawn enough to keep the light low and gentle. The bed was already half-unmade—typical—blankets rumpled into something soft and familiar rather than neat.
Soren climbed in first.
Not because he needed to.
But because he knew Lex would follow easier if there was already a place for him.
He settled onto his side, back against the pillows, leaving space open in front of him. An invitation, not an instruction.
Lex took a second longer at the edge of the bed.
Just standing there, swaying slightly—not enough to be obvious, but enough that Star circled his legs once, pressing against him insistently.
Then he climbed in.
Slow.
Careful.
Like gravity had gotten heavier without warning.
The moment he was down, something in him… gave.
It wasn’t dramatic. There was no sigh of relief, no verbal acknowledgment. But the tension in his shoulders loosened by degrees, like muscles that had been held too tight for too long were finally being allowed to slacken.
He turned toward Soren almost immediately.
Instinct.
Lex always moved toward warmth when he needed it.
He curled in close, folding himself into Soren’s space like he belonged there—because he did. One arm slipped around Soren’s waist, not tight, just enough to anchor himself. His forehead pressed into the hollow beneath Soren’s collarbone, breath warm and uneven against his skin.
Star leapt up a second later and settled firmly along Lex’s side, pressed against his ribs like a living brace.
Soren’s hand came up automatically.
Into Lex’s hair.
Slow, gentle passes, fingers threading through the dark strands, smoothing them back from his face. The kind of touch that didn’t demand anything in return.
Lex exhaled into him.
A long, quiet breath that seemed to come from somewhere deeper than just his lungs.
For a few minutes, nothing happened.
Just breathing. Just the soft rhythm of Soren’s hand moving through Lex’s hair. The faint, grounding weight of Star purring against him.
Then Lex shifted.
Not much.
Just enough that Soren felt it.
His hand slid lower, almost unconsciously, resting at Lex’s side where his shirt had ridden up slightly from the way he’d curled in.
And—
There.
Warm.
Tense.
Wrong.
Soren stilled for half a second, not pulling away, not pressing harder. Just… letting his palm rest there, feeling.
Lex’s stomach wasn’t soft the way it usually was. On a normal day, Lex didn’t have much of a stomach. Soren grew used to the underweight flatness, slightly easier to feel ribs and abdomen, when he and Alex laid like this. But this was different.
It was firm. Distended in a way that didn’t match what he’d eaten—Soren knew exactly how much Lex had had that day. Bloated and hard. The fullness sat high, tight under his ribs, like everything inside him had stalled and swollen at once.
And beneath that—
Movement.
Slow, uneven gurgling.
Not normal digestion. Not the quiet background process of a body doing what it was supposed to do. This was heavier. Louder. The kind of internal shift that came with discomfort, with pressure building and nowhere for it to go.
Lex made a small sound.
Barely audible.
More breath than voice.
Soren felt a twitch in Lex’s stomach, followed by a soft wince of surprise and a thick swallow.
And then—closer.
He tucked himself further into Soren, pressing his face deeper into his chest like he was trying to hide there. One hand tightened faintly in the fabric of Soren’s shirt, fingers curling and uncurling once before settling.
Soren didn’t say anything.
Didn’t call him out.
Didn’t ask.
He just adjusted—subtly—so Lex could fit better. One leg shifting to support the way Lex had curled, his arm sliding more securely around his back, hand still moving in slow, steady strokes through his hair.
Lex’s breathing evened out.
Not fully.
There was still a hitch to it, a shallow quality that spoke to the pressure in his chest and stomach, the way his body was trying to work around itself. But it slowed. Deepened just enough to signal the edge of sleep.
He dozed.
Not the restless, half-aware drifting he’d been doing all day.
This was deeper.
His weight settled more fully into Soren. His grip loosened. His face relaxed in small, fragile ways—the tension around his eyes easing, his jaw unclenching just slightly.
Out cold.
Soren stayed very still.
His hand never stopped moving.
He could feel everything now that Lex wasn’t holding himself together so tightly—the subtle shifts in his stomach, the occasional tight pull of a cramp that made Lex’s body tense for a second even in sleep, the faint heat clinging to his skin from the migraine still burning through him.
He pressed a soft kiss into Lex’s hair.
Barely there.
“Yeah,” he murmured under his breath, more to himself than anything else. “Thought so.”
But he didn’t wake him.
Didn’t push.
Didn’t try to fix it right now.
Lex would fight that.
So instead, Soren just held him.
Let him curl in, let him hide, let him finally—finally—stop pretending for a little while.
There would be time to talk when Lex woke up.
For now, Soren just lay there in the dim quiet, one hand in Lex’s hair, the other resting lightly over the tense, unsettled rise of his stomach, and loved him through it.
-
Soren let time stretch.
It settled around them in that soft, dim way the apartment seemed to understand instinctively—lights low, noise reduced to nothing but the distant hum of the city and the quiet, steady rhythm of breathing. Lex stayed curled into him, weight fully surrendered now, his body no longer fighting itself in small, constant ways.
Soren’s hand moved in slow, absent patterns along his back.
Up. Down. Gentle pressure through the fabric of his shirt.
It was as much for himself as it was for Lex.
A way to stay anchored.
Lex slept deeper than he had all day.
Not peacefully—not entirely. Every so often, there was a small hitch in him. A tightening beneath Soren’s palm where his stomach sat too full, too rigid. A faint shift of his shoulders when a cramp coiled and released under his ribs. But he didn’t wake. He just… endured it in sleep, his body trying to process what his mind had refused to.
Soren drifted at the edges of sleep himself.
Not fully gone. Just hovering.
Enough that the moment Lex moved, he felt it.
It started small.
A tightening. A breath that went wrong.
Then—
Lex jerked.
It was sharp enough to snap Soren fully awake.
Lex sucked in a breath that sounded like it had caught halfway through his chest, like something had seized inside him and refused to let go. His body tensed all at once, folding inward, one hand pressing hard against his stomach as if he could hold something down by force.
For half a second, he stayed there.
Frozen.
Soren didn’t speak yet.
He didn’t have to.
Lex’s whole body answered for him.
“—oh, fuck—”
It came out tight. Barely formed. Lost halfway through the exhale as his stomach rolled hard enough to make his shoulders jerk.
And then he was moving.
Fast.
Too fast.
He untangled from Soren with none of the careful slowness from before—just a sudden, desperate scramble, nearly tripping over the edge of the bed as he pushed himself up. Star startled, leaping back with a small chirp of protest as Lex staggered toward the door.
Soren was already up.
By the time Lex made it halfway down the hall, Soren was behind him.
He didn’t try to stop him.
Didn’t say anything.
There wasn’t time for that.
Lex barely made it to the bathroom.
The door hit the wall with a dull crack as he shoved it open, dropping hard to his knees in front of the toilet with a breath that shook on the way out. His hands fumbled for the porcelain, gripping the edge like it was the only stable thing in the room.
The world tilted.
The migraine hit him full-force the moment he moved.
It surged up behind his eyes, sharp and blinding, pain detonating outward in hot, pulsing waves that made his vision stutter at the edges. Light—what little there was—felt wrong. Too bright, too pointed. The sound of the door, of his own breathing, of Soren moving behind him—everything landed too hard, too loud, like his skull had lost its ability to filter anything at all.
His stomach twisted.
Hard.
There was no gradual build this time.
No warning.
Just—
A violent, upward surge that tore through the heavy, stagnant fullness sitting under his ribs.
Lex gagged.
Dry at first.
A harsh, dragging sound that pulled his whole body forward with it. His shoulders hunched, spine curving inward as his stomach contracted against the pressure, trying to force movement where everything had been stuck for far too long.
Nothing came up.
Just another gag—longer this time, more force behind it. His throat burned with it, saliva flooding his mouth too fast to swallow. His eyes squeezed shut against the pain spiking through his head, the motion sending another wave of agony through his skull.
“Easy,” Soren murmured, already dropping down beside him.
His hand found Lex’s back immediately.
Steady.
Firm.
Not pressing yet—just there, grounding, moving in slow circles between his shoulder blades as Lex gagged again, breath hitching, body fighting itself.
It came up on the fourth.
Slow.
Thick.
Dragged out of him in a way that made his whole frame shudder with the effort.
It didn’t relieve anything.
That was the worst part.
His stomach was too full. Too stagnant. What came up felt like barely a fraction of what was there. The pressure under his ribs didn’t ease—it shifted, rolling uneasily, threatening more without delivering it cleanly.
Lex coughed weakly, breath catching as he tried to inhale around the nausea that clung to the back of his throat. His hands tightened on the toilet, knuckles whitening.
Another wave hit.
He gagged again—harder this time, more desperate—but it stalled halfway. His stomach seized, contracting against itself, but nothing followed through. Just that awful, dry, dragging pull that felt like it should have been productive and wasn’t.
A strangled sound slipped out of him.
Frustration. Pain. Both.
Soren shifted closer.
“Hey,” he said softly, voice low enough not to cut through Lex’s skull. “I know.”
He reached up instinctively, fingers brushing toward Lex’s hair to pull it back—
Lex flinched hard.
A sharp, immediate recoil, his shoulders jerking away as if the touch itself had hurt.
“—don’t—” Lex rasped, voice thin and strained, one hand coming up weakly to bat at the air between them. “Too much—”
“Okay,” Soren said immediately, pulling his hand back without hesitation. “Okay, I’ve got you.”
He adjusted instead.
One hand stayed on Lex’s back, steady and slow, while the other hovered for a second—then moved lower.
To his stomach.
He didn’t press right away.
Just rested his palm there, feeling.
Still tight.
Still distended.
Still full in a way that made everything inside Lex feel heavy and unmoving.
Another gag tore through him.
Nothing.
Just that awful, empty pull.
Soren made the call.
“Breathe,” he murmured, shifting his hand just slightly, bracing. “I’m gonna help you, okay?”
Lex didn’t answer.
He didn’t need to.
His whole body was already tensing for the next wave.
Soren pressed.
Not hard—not at first.
Just enough to encourage movement, a firm, careful pressure under Lex’s ribs where everything felt knotted and stuck.
Lex reacted immediately.
A sharp inhale—almost a gasp—as the pressure hit, the sensation overwhelming in combination with the migraine screaming behind his eyes. Pain flared through his head, bright and blinding, the added stimulus too much all at once—
But his stomach responded.
Violently.
The next gag turned into something deeper, more forceful, his body finally giving under the pressure. It dragged up more this time—heavier, thicker—pulling a broken sound out of him as he doubled forward, shoulders shaking with the effort.
Soren kept his hand there.
Steady.
Gradually increasing pressure in time with Lex’s body, not forcing, just guiding—coaxing everything upward so it wouldn’t stall again.
Lex choked on a breath, tears slipping from the corners of his eyes without him even noticing. His head throbbed with every movement, every contraction sending sharp, splintering pain through his skull. The light felt like needles. The sound of his own gagging echoed too loudly in his ears.
But it was working.
More came up.
And more.
Each wave dragged out of him, long and miserable, his body wringing itself empty in slow, relentless pulls that left him shaking by the end of each one.
It wasn’t quick.
It never was.
But it was moving.
Soren stayed with him through every second of it.
Hand on his back. Hand at his stomach. Voice low and steady when Lex’s breathing started to go uneven, grounding him when the dizziness spiked too hard.
“I know,” he murmured when Lex choked on a breath. “I know, it’s rough—just let it happen.”
Lex barely processed the words.
But he leaned into the pressure.
Into the guidance.
Because as awful as it was—head splitting, stomach cramping, body shaking—
It was better than being stuck.
Better than that horrible, unmoving fullness that had been sitting in him for hours.
Soren didn’t stop until Lex’s body finally slowed.
Until the waves weakened.
Until the tightness under his hand softened—just slightly.
Only then did he ease the pressure, shifting his hand back to Lex’s spine, rubbing slow, grounding circles as Lex sagged forward, breath ragged, forehead nearly touching the porcelain.
“Yeah,” Soren said quietly, more to him than anything else. “That’s better. I’ve got you.”
And he did.
Every second of it.
Lex stayed folded over the toilet for a long moment after the worst of it passed.
Not still.
Just… emptied out in the ugliest possible way.
His body trembled in uneven aftershocks, muscles twitching and tightening under Soren’s hands every few seconds like his nervous system couldn’t decide whether it was finished panicking yet. His breathing came shallow and ragged through his mouth, throat raw enough that every inhale sounded scraped at the edges.
The migraine was monstrous now.
Soren could see it all over him.
Lex’s eyes stayed squeezed shut, not just from nausea anymore but because opening them clearly hurt. His face had gone pale beneath the sheen of sweat clinging to his skin, though there was still that flushed, overheated tint high across his cheekbones and ears that always came with his migraines. His lashes stuck together damply.
And underneath Soren’s palm, Lex’s heartbeat was racing.
Too fast.
Adrenaline. Pain. Vomiting. Dysautonomia. More pain.
All feeding each other in one vicious loop.
Another weak gag pulled through him, though almost nothing followed it this time. Just saliva and a miserable little choke at the end that made him curl tighter around himself.
Soren rubbed slowly up his spine.
“That’s okay,” he murmured quietly. “You’re okay.”
Lex made a rough sound that might have been disagreement.
Then his shoulders dipped.
Just slightly.
But enough.
Soren’s attention sharpened instantly.
The shift was subtle if you didn’t know Lex—his posture sagging heavier than before, the tension suddenly draining out of his arms in a way that wasn’t relief so much as… depletion. His head lowered closer to the toilet seat. His breathing stuttered unevenly.
Pre-Presyncope.
Not fully presyncopic, but close. Close enough for Soren’s stomach to tighten and grip on Lex to readjust to be a little more supportive.
“Hey,” he said softly, moving closer immediately. “Lex.”
Lex tried to answer.
Or maybe just tried to breathe.
It was hard to tell.
His hand slipped a little on the porcelain. His shoulders swayed faintly.
Soren wrapped an arm around him before gravity could decide things for them.
He shifted behind Lex carefully, one knee braced against the tile, pulling Lex gently back against his chest just enough to stabilize him. Lex let out a weak exhale as Soren’s arm crossed under his shoulders, holding him upright without forcing him away from the toilet.
“There you go,” Soren murmured. “I’ve got you.”
Lex’s head tipped back just enough to rest briefly against Soren’s shoulder.
His skin was burning.
But Soren could feel the cold sweat underneath it too.
That awful in-between place.
Not enough blood pressure. Too much nervous system chaos. The body struggling to recalibrate after violently emptying itself. All while being in excruciating pain from the crown of his head all the way down, probably past his shoulders and into his back.
Soren stayed exactly where he was.
One arm secure around Lex’s chest. The other rubbing slowly over his sternum and upper stomach, not pushing anymore, just grounding him through the shaking aftermath.
“No water yet,” he said softly when Lex swallowed hard again. “Just breathe for me first.”
Lex gave the smallest nod against him.
He knew.
Even if he wanted water, his stomach would revolt instantly right now.
So they waited.
The bathroom stayed dim except for the weak amber nightlight near the outlet. Soft enough not to stab through Lex’s skull. The air smelled faintly medicinal now beneath the sourness of vomit and sweat.
Star cried once—small and concerned. But she was quiet too as she strolled into the bathroom and found her objectively rightful position against Lex’s leg.
“The queen has a message,” Soren said softly, earning a half attempt at a small chuckle out of Lex as he leaned his head back a little more against Soren’s shoulder.
Soren continued rubbing slow circles over Lex’s chest.
He could feel every uneven breath.
Every tiny tremor.
The way Lex’s body kept trying to fold forward despite exhaustion, instinctively curling around the pain in his stomach and head.
Minutes passed like that.
Slow.
Careful.
Lex’s breathing gradually eased from ragged gasps into something less frighteningly shallow. Not normal. Not good. But less like he was about to drop out completely.
Only then did Soren speak again.
Very quietly.
“Do you want your shot?”
He asked it exactly the same way every time.
Never assuming.
Never reaching for it first.
Lex had once admitted—half-asleep, medicated, and horrified afterward—that unexpected medication made his skin crawl. Too many years of substances forced into his body one way or another. Too many moments where his autonomy had belonged to someone else.
So Soren always asked.
Even now.
Lex was silent for several seconds.
Soren could practically feel the internal war happening in real time.
Medication meant admitting this was severe.
Meant surrendering control.
Meant needing help.
But another pulse of pain crossed Lex’s face before he finally cracked one eye open slightly, immediately wincing from even that tiny amount of light.
“…yeah,” he whispered hoarsely. “Fuck... I didn’t want to…”
“We can wait?” Soren suggested.
Lex shook his head slowly. Very slow. Soren would’ve missed it if he hadn’t felt it.
“Needs to stop,” Lex mumbled, “Can’t do the pills. Not now.”
Relief flickered briefly through Soren’s chest.
Not because Lex was sick.
Because he was finally letting someone help him. Finally admitting things he barely did.
“Okay,” Soren said gently. “Okay, baby.”
The endearment slipped out naturally, soft and warm.
Lex didn’t even react to it.
That alone said enough.
Soren waited another couple minutes before moving, making absolutely sure Lex wasn’t about to pitch forward again. Only when Lex’s breathing steadied enough to trust did Soren carefully help him sit back from the toilet.
Lex looked wrecked.
Completely wrecked.
His hair stuck damply to his forehead and neck. His pupils were blown wide from pain. His stomach was still visibly bloated beneath his shirt despite everything he’d gotten up, the muscles there tight and reactive every few seconds as another cramp rolled through him. He looked exhausted down to the marrow.
And still embarrassed by it somehow.
Soren kissed the side of his head lightly before standing.
“Stay here. I’ll grab it.”
Lex leaned back weakly against the cabinet while Soren disappeared briefly into the bedroom.
By the time he came back with the injector, Lex had both eyes shut again, one hand pressed hard against his forehead now like he was physically trying to hold his skull together.
Soren crouched beside him again immediately.
“Still with me?”
“Unfortunately,” Lex muttered faintly.
Soren smiled despite himself.
Good sign.
“Your arm okay? Or do you want me to hit your thigh this time?” Soren asked.
“Arm,” Lex said softly, “please.”
Soren nodded.
He guided Lex through it exactly the same way every time—predictability mattered.
“I’m opening it.”
A click of plastic.
“I’m taking the cap off.”
Another tiny sound.
Lex’s hand found Soren’s sleeve blindly, fingers curling into the fabric before Soren had even touched him with the injector.
“Ready?”
Lex inhaled slowly through his nose.
Then nodded once.
Soren wrapped himself around Lex again before he pressed the injector against his upper arm and triggered it.
Lex jerked sharply.
“—fuck—”
The word snapped out of him instantly, more startled than dramatic, his entire body tensing hard against Soren as the medication burned into the muscle.
His grip crushed briefly around Soren’s forearm.
Soren immediately rubbed his shoulder with his free hand, placing a soft kiss against the side of Lex’s head.
“I know. I know, sweetheart. Just a few seconds.”
Lex buried his face hard against Soren’s shoulder once the injector clicked empty, breathing unevenly through the lingering sting.
“It burns,” he mumbled miserably.
“Yeah.”
Soren smoothed damp hair back carefully this time, avoiding pulling at it too much.
“That part sucks.”
Lex huffed a weak, pained laugh against him before immediately regretting it, one hand returning to his head.
“Oh my god.”
“Don’t laugh. Your brain hates you right now.”
“It always hates me.”
“That’s true. At least you aren’t breaking the migraine with a seizure again, right?”
Another tiny laugh. Softer this time. “Right. That’s worse… way worse. Shot still hurts like a bitch though.”
Then exhaustion swallowed him again almost immediately.
The medication wouldn’t kick in fast for Lex.
Nothing ever did.
His body metabolized things strangely, reacted strangely, delayed things strangely. Sometimes the injection helped in thirty minutes. Sometimes an hour. Sometimes it worked in waves instead of all at once.
So now came the waiting part.
Soren slid an arm carefully around Lex again and helped him stand.
Lex swayed immediately.
Not dramatically. Just enough.
Soren tightened his hold automatically.
“Nope,” he murmured. “You’re not walking alone right now.”
Lex didn’t argue.
Too tired.
That frightened Soren more than the vomiting had.
Together, slowly, they made it back to the bedroom.
Star immediately jumped onto the bed the moment she saw Lex, pacing anxiously near the pillows before settling into a watchful crouch.
Lex collapsed more than laid down.
He curled instinctively onto his side almost the second he hit the mattress, one arm wrapped around his still-cramping stomach while the other shielded his eyes from the dim room.
Soren climbed in behind him carefully.
One arm wrapped around Lex’s waist.
The other slid under the pillow beneath his head, fingers combing gently through his hair in slow passes.
Lex melted backward into him immediately.
Still trembling faintly.
Still overheated.
Still nauseous enough that Soren could feel the occasional hard swallow and the way his stomach kept turning uneasily beneath his arm.
But safer now.
Held.
Soren pressed a kiss against the back of his neck.
“We wait now,” he murmured softly.
Lex made a tired little sound.
“Just want to sleep the rest of it off…” Lex muttered.
“Yeah, figured,” Soren said, “I got you, okay?”
Outside, the apartment stayed quiet and dark.
Inside the bed, Soren held him through every miserable minute while the medicine slowly, slowly tried to catch up to the storm raging through Lex’s nervous system.
Acknowledging that someone doesn't feel good is nice but acknowledging that it's specifically the character's stomach that doesn’t feel good >
part 2
Okay onto the dialogue prompts
(As always not realistic these just neat to me, feel free to use/change wording ect)
(Also I meant to go in a different direction but half the list got deleted and I had to redo it.)
A
"You're stomach isn't feeling well is it?"
"It must be really churning."
"I know your tummy doesn't respond well to nerves but...."
"Your poor tummy really isn't feeling great is it?"
"Sorry your belly isn't doing good."
"I know you stomach is in knots but you should try eat/drink something."
"Is your stomach still churning?"
"I don't think your stomach is handling the news all too well."
(Best with context of character having frequent tummy issues/sensitive stomach ect) "Your stomach is never a bother for me."
“You should change into something loose to keep the pressure off your belly.”
“I think I know why your stomach is gurgling so much, the sauce from dinner had (insert ingredient) in it.”
“If the smell of my perfume is bothering your stomach too much I can change.”
“What did you eat to upset it so bad?”
“You know I’ve heard that cuddles are the best cure for a turning tummy.”
“What’s troubling your belly so much?”
“I didn’t think that (insert food/smell/news/who knows) would make your stomach have such a bad reaction.”
“Why didn’t you say anything sooner about your belly feeling so sick?”
“Are you sure you just have butterflies in your tum and not something worse?”
“Maybe your stomach would feel better if it was churning more than just stomach acid around.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t know that (insert food) would hurt your tummy so badly.”
“Does your tummy always get this knotted frequently?”
“It’s no surprise you need to throw up, stress/nerves always goes to your stomach.”
“Anyone’s stomach would feel icky after (insert what ever) don’t feel bad about it.”
“I don’t mind looking after you or your poor belly.”
“I don’t think even medicine can help your stomach, it would be better be sick and get it over with” (better if they don’t feel better after being sick)
”holding it in will just make your belly feel worse.”
(While placing hand on sickie's stomach)
B
“Feels like something really bad is going on in here."
“Even I can feel how upset your tummy is."
“I think I just felt your whole stomach flip."
“Your tummy feels really gurgly, I honestly think you will throw up soon.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever felt a belly so sick before.”
“Did your stomach just flutter?”
“Dinner is definitely not sitting to well in there.”
“You’re not overreacting, it’s definitely churning.”
“You sure you aren’t going to puke, I can feel a lot of movement.”
“I can feel your heartbeat in your stomach, that’s definitely not a good sign.”
still kind of in a writing slump but i started working on this as a birthday present to myself.
meet some new characters, ophelia sage and veselko! they are pairs figure skaters.
if you have any requests, questions, comments, etc., send them my way!
tw for illness, emeto, fevers
The crowd’s roar thundered behind her like the break of an ocean—distant, muted, too large to comprehend. Beneath the rink lights, sharp as a surgeon’s scalpel, Ophelia Sage held her final pose: one hand outstretched like a fallen angel reaching for absolution, the other locked with Veselko’s in a spiral of barely-contained flame and ice.
She was still. So was he. The music had ended five seconds ago, but they both knew the stillness mattered—it was the final exclamation mark, the breath after the storm.
Then came the bow.
She curtsied with fluid grace, one leg behind the other. Veselko bowed beside her, tall and composed, his hand grazing the small of her back as they turned to leave the ice. His fingertips lingered a moment longer than they needed to.
Only then—when the crowd’s applause had started to fade—did she allow the tremor to creep back into her limbs.
It had started subtly. A lurch of vertigo in the death spiral, the ice tilting sideways under her vision. A churning twist of her stomach as Veselko lifted her high overhead—an element they’d trained to muscle memory, yet suddenly felt foreign, unmoored. His grip had pressed too tightly against her ribs, or maybe not tight enough. Everything was a blur edged in white.
But her face had never faltered. The cameras had captured her gleaming smile, her flushed cheeks, the fierce gleam in her eyes beneath the arena lights.
They stepped off the ice and onto the padded mat behind the rink boards. The moment her blades hit rubber, her breath hitched.
Ophelia Sage was freezing.
Not the theatrical kind. Not the “oh, it’s cold in the rink” kind that the audience chirped about online. This was bone-deep. Inside, her stomach folded in on itself, sharp and oily, like she’d swallowed a mouthful of spoiled cream.
And still—still—she smiled.
“Clean,” she said, her voice not faltering. “Level four twist, throw loop was perfect. We nailed that footwork sequence.”
Veselko didn’t answer. Not yet.
He was watching her the way he always did when something was off—eyes flicking over the minute details. The slowness in her blink. The way her spine didn’t fully straighten after the final lift. The line of her jaw, clenched too tight to be triumphant.
He didn’t ask if she was alright. That wasn’t how they worked. Instead, he reached for the jacket the attendant offered and helped her into it once she had her blade guards on. His hand brushed her wrist—ice-cold.
They walked toward the kiss and cry, where the cameras would be waiting. Where the world would be watching. And she would not break. Not yet.
She smiled as they sat. Poised, radiant, proud. Veselko sat close—closer than usual—one hand on her knee under the camera’s line of sight, a silent grounding weight.
The scores began to roll in, but she didn’t hear them. The arena’s warmth suddenly felt miles away. Her stomach gave a sickening twist, and her breath caught in her throat.
Not here, she thought. Not in front of the world.
The poker face didn’t so much as crack.
But Veselko leaned in, just enough that only she could hear him, his voice quiet as snowfall.
“Ophelia Sage,” he murmured, Ukrainian accent thick as ever, his soft and low. “You’re freezing.”
And under the lights, beneath the world’s gaze, she didn’t answer.
She didn’t have to.
The scores had been good—damn good.
Second place, with a season’s best, just shy of the top two by less than a point. The crowd had roared again when their names appeared on the leaderboard, but Ophelia Sage hadn’t flinched.
They’d done the whole circuit. The kiss and cry, the rinkside interviews, the small medals ceremony. She’d kept her coat zipped tightly around her costume the whole time, as much to hide the cold sweat soaking through the fabric as for modesty. She even cracked a joke during the press line, something about how they liked to “keep it dramatic” with their choreo.
Nobody saw anything but fire. They didn’t see anything but Ophelia Sage.
And now, finally, the noise was behind them. The cameras were off. The glittering facade of competition lights and commentary had dimmed, replaced with the soft, echoing quiet of a service corridor that smelled faintly of Zamboni fuel and melted artificial snow.
They were alone—just the two of them—walking toward the private car waiting at the back exit. Ophelia Sage’s steps were slower now, but not noticeably so. Her arms were crossed tight, hands tucked beneath the jacket sleeves. Her face was pale beneath the makeup, her braid slightly loosened at the nape of her neck from all the turns and throws.
She hadn’t spoken in ten minutes. That was weird.
Veselko didn’t push. He never did, not immediately. But his eyes followed her with clinical precision, with the kind of observation that could only come from hours of lifts and trust falls, from years of skating with someone who never admitted weakness unless cornered.
“Are you cold?” he asked gently, as he opened the back door of the car for her.
She paused for the briefest second. “Not really,” she said. Then, after a beat, “I think I’m just tired.”
That was believable. Worlds were exhausting.
She slid into the seat without another word. He followed, closing the door softly behind him. The car was quiet, humming with heat, the windows fogging faintly from their body warmth against the cold night. The driver murmured something about traffic, then lapsed into silence.
For a moment, there was peace.
Then Ophelia Sage shifted. Just barely. One hand pressing to her stomach, subtle and slow. Her throat bobbed. She blinked—once, twice, three times in fast succession—and turned her face toward the window, as if watching the lights of Montreal blur past would steady her.
Veselko watched her from the corner of his eye. “You sure you’re alright?”
Her response was late. “Yeah. Just… give me a minute.”
But she didn’t sound like Ophelia Sage anymore. Her voice had lost its sharpness, dulled to something watery, like she was trying to speak through a wave.
She took the lid off her water bottle, then clenched it in her lap, both hands wrapped around the metal like she could will it to cool the fire in her gut.
Another minute passed.
And then—
Her whole body jolted forward.
There was no warning, no gasp or groan, just a single, violent convulsion that yanked her shoulders forward and bent her at the waist—a surge of liquid heaving up from her gut with the force of something uncontainable.
The sound was sharp and wet and awful, echoing in the confined space of the car.
Ophelia Sage clutched the bottle tight to her lips, eyes wide, as the next wave followed immediately—her chest spasming, throat tightening, every muscle in her abdomen wrenching as another mouthful of bile and a half-digested protein bar forced its way out of her.
She didn’t cry out. She didn’t whimper. She made almost no noise at all, aside from the choked gurgle of each retch, the desperate swallow between waves, the soft click of her teeth as she clenched her jaw too tightly.
Veselko’s entire body had gone still. Then—he moved.
He didn’t speak. Just reached forward and pulled the hair back from her face, fingers gentle but firm, tucking her braid over one shoulder and keeping it clear. His other hand hovered near her back but didn’t touch, not yet. Not until she gave some sign she wouldn’t flinch from it.
Another surge hit. She leaned harder over the bottle, shoulders shuddering, this one louder—uglier—the way it always got when there was nothing left in her stomach but her body kept trying anyway.
Her face was slick with sweat. Her skin had gone the color of wet parchment.
“Not. A. Word.” Ophelia found herself growling softly.
-
That night, Ophelia Sage didn’t sleep.
She tried. She’d showered off the lingering sweat and glitter of the short program, changed into soft cotton pajamas, braided her hair back, taken two sips of lukewarm tea, and crawled into bed with her hotel room dimmed to a golden glow.
But the minute she lay still, her stomach roiled.
Not in a gentle way. Not nausea. This was pressure that came in waves until it had no choice but to break. Her gut gurgled and clenched in the dark, then twisted hard enough to make her sit bolt upright, clutching her abdomen like something inside her was trying to crawl out.
She barely made it to the bathroom in time.
Her knees hit tile, and she yanked the toilet lid up in one brutal motion. The vomiting was loud—raw, guttural, soaked in bile and bitterness and that awful sour taste of electrolyte drink and regret. Her body convulsed in violent, heaving waves, over and over until she was left panting over the bowl, trembling.
And still, she didn’t cry.
No tears. No pleas. Just shaky hands rinsing her mouth and pressing a cool washcloth to her forehead as she curled against the bathroom wall, forehead resting on her knees, waiting for the next round to start.
It came an hour later.
And again after that.
Once, she tried to eat—half a bagel with peanut butter, forced down bite by bite. It gave her maybe twenty minutes of fragile calm before she was hunched over the toilet again, her stomach punishing her for trying.
At some point, she’d stopped bothering with the bed entirely. She made a nest of towels and a blanket on the bathroom floor, pressed her cheek against the chilled tile, and told herself, “You’re still skating. You’re still skating.”
Because withdrawing wasn’t even a concept she entertained. Not at Worlds. Not when she’d fought tooth and nail to earn her spot, not when she and Veselko had clawed their way to the top two with blood and fire and trust.
She’d skated through heartbreak before. Through sprained ribs and public scandal. A stomach bug was nothing.
This was nothing.
-
The world felt too loud. The fluorescent lights in the off-ice practice space buzzed overhead with a sterile hum, and Ophelia Sage stood in front of the wall-length mirror with a resistance band looped around her arms, hair pulled tight in a bun, warmup jacket zipped halfway.
She looked flawless.
But Veselko had learned not to trust appearances.
He stood behind her, mirroring her movements as they worked through the arm mechanics of their triple twist, the motion repetitive, meditative—normally. But today her arms were too tight. Her timing half a beat off. When his hands grazed her waist to mimic the lift motion, she went rigid.
Not visibly. Not enough that any coach or camera would catch it. But he felt it—in his hands. The moment of contact where her stomach tensed like a live wire beneath his fingers. Where she almost imperceptibly shifted her weight away, just slightly, and then corrected.
She was sick.
Still.
“Again,” she said, eyes locked on their reflection.
He didn’t move.
“Ophelia Sage.”
She didn’t look at him. Her voice was firm, controlled. “We need to go over the rotation on the throw. If we don’t get the axis right—”
“I felt you flinch.”
That caught her. Not the word itself. The tone—quiet, even, but wrapped in steel. Veselko didn’t interrupt unless it mattered.
She turned, eyes burning, cheeks pale under her warming blush. “I’m not flinching. I’m nauseous. There’s a difference.”
He stared at her for a moment, unreadable. His hand hovered near her elbow. “Then let me ask plainly. Can you do this program today?”
“I have to.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Something flickered in her face. Not shame. Not guilt. Rage—at the weakness of her body, at the betrayal of her own gut, at him for suggesting that she couldn’t.
“Don’t drop me,” she snapped. “And I won’t fall.”
-
The arena had never felt so silent.
Thousands of people watching, and yet when their names were called, when the opening notes of their music began—Ophelia Sage heard nothing but the sound of her own breath. Shallow. Intentional. Controlled.
Every nerve in her body was coiled like wire beneath her costume, stretched taut across ribs that still ached from vomiting, skin clammy despite the rink’s chill. Her makeup had been redone, carefully. Her hair slicked back into an uncompromising bun. Her eyes were fever-bright under the lights.
She looked like a goddess carved from flame.
She stood at Veselko’s side, hand in his. He gave it a light squeeze. She didn’t look at him.
Then the music rose—and so did they.
The first element. Fast. Dynamic. A signature triple twist.
Veselko launched her into the air, and for a split second she was airborne, spinning above the ice like she belonged in another atmosphere entirely.
Tight. So tight.
She didn’t allow a single limb to falter. Not because of perfectionism, which she had plenty of on a good day, but because she had to. If her core so much as loosened, she’d feel that grotesque lurch in her stomach again. She couldn’t afford that. Not here.
Veselko caught her clean. Her blades hit the ice in tandem.
The crowd roared.
Veselko’s hands gripped her waist. Normally, she welcomed the pressure, the trust of flight. But now—it was agony. The pressure on her abdomen made her insides twist like a knife had been buried just beneath her ribs.
She masked it.
Her smile turned sharper, her limbs more dramatic. If her stomach was revolting, then fine. She’d turn it into fury. Into art.
Above the ice, supported only by Veselko’s strength and her own locked posture, her body was the picture of elegance.
He felt it.
Her muscles weren’t soft. They were rigid. Not with strength—with self-preservation.
By the midpoint of the program, she was breathing harder. Not from exertion—her cardio was flawless. This was something else. Her stomach gurgled and lurched with every deep breath. Her mouth had dried, the taste of acid clinging to the back of her throat.
Still, her footwork was immaculate. The cleanest they’d ever done. Every edge cut like a scalpel. Every turn was deliberate and surgical.
Keep it together.
One more minute. One more lift. One more breath.
She skated backward into his hands, feeling the centrifugal pull as he helped launch her into the air. The spin—three rotations, clean—was perfect.
But the landing…
Her blade hit the ice, and her gut turned. It felt like all her organs had suddenly shifted sideways, a molten nausea that rose up with alarming speed. For half a second, she thought she was going to throw up right there on the landing.
She clenched her jaw so tight her teeth ached.
And she kept going.
She dipped low, spinning outward from his hand, her head inches from the ice, the force pressing every ounce of blood to her skull. The world twisted and spun, and her vision pinwheeled with it.
She was cold. Inside and out. Icy sweat clung to the back of her neck. Her stomach gave a low, bubbling churn.
But she held the position. Perfect edge. Graceful exit.
The music swelled. The final pose hit like thunder.
Ophelia Sage’s arms rose with the final crescendo. Her chest heaved. Her eyes glittered.
The crowd exploded.
They had done it.
They stood frozen in that final pose for a second too long.
Then Ophelia Sage staggered—just slightly. Enough that Veselko’s hand snapped around her waist, steadying her like it was part of the choreography.
She didn’t speak.
Couldn’t.
Her head tilted forward, shoulders tensing.
Her body jerked once—a silent, ugly heave.
It didn’t produce anything. But it hit her, hard enough to nearly double her over.
Veselko stepped in front of her instantly, blocking the sight from the cameras. His arms wrapped around her shoulders, guiding her into him as though it were just part of their celebration. He braced his hand to the back of her head.
No one could see her face but him.
And what he saw wrecked him.
Ophelia Sage—usually all fire and pride—was clinging to his top with shaky hands. Her breath hitched, rattling, and she dry heaved again, barely managing to turn her face into his chest to muffle the sound.
“I’m okay,” she snapped, though her lips barely moved. “I just—”
Another heave cut her off.
“You don’t have to be okay,” he whispered into her hair. “You just have to let me walk you off.”
He felt her nod. Felt her body lean into his. Not collapse. Not surrender. Just—rely, for one brief moment, without shame.
They left the ice like that. Not hand-in-hand. Not posing. The crowd kept cheering.
The cameras followed them.
Of course they did.
Ophelia Sage walked like nothing was wrong, back straight, eyes glittering with adrenaline, chin high. She was radiant. Unshaken. Invincible.
But Veselko stayed close.
Closer than usual. His hand never left her back—just between her shoulder blades, palm flat, thumb tracing slow, grounding circles that no one but her would feel. Not choreography. Not performative. Just presence.
She didn’t shake him off.
They sat.
Ophelia Sage curled her legs delicately beside Veselko on the padded bench, back arched in poise, a practiced picture of glamour and effortlessness. Her hair, though slick with sweat at the temples, still glimmered under the lights. Her makeup had only just begun to give way at the edges.
She looked like every sports magazine’s dream.
She felt like she was dying.
Her stomach was a pit of molten, sour heat. She could feel the churn beginning to crest again, the bile rising slow and steady like floodwaters against a dam. Her hands trembled subtly, just enough to make her ring catch the light as she passed Veselko a tissue.
He took it without hesitation, dabbing at his brow, then tucking it into his sleeve. His hand returned to her back, now lower, tracing just above the line of her skirt. She shifted closer to him—not dramatically, but enough to hide the way she leaned against him for stability.
Without a word, he pulled a water bottle from his bag and handed it to her.
“I forgot to give you this earlier,” He said softly.
It was new. Not just unopened—new. Her favorite color. Sleek, clean, matte plum like her dress, her favorite color, with a sticker of their federation logo he’d probably peeled off something else.
Her eyes flicked to him, briefly, surprise hidden under practiced performance.
She took it. Unscrewed the lid with careful, deliberate fingers. Sipped.
It helped. For half a second.
Then the nausea surged up her throat like a riptide.
She smiled. On camera. At the scoreboard.
Veselko saw the exact moment it hit her—how her posture went too still. How her shoulders locked. How her breathing shortened, shallow and sharp, her grip tightening around the bottle until her knuckles paled.
He didn’t say anything.
Just leaned in, his mouth close to her ear.
“Come with me.”
She nodded. Once. Tiny. Enough.
Then he turned to the coaches, calm as ever. “I’m not feeling great,” he said. “Headache. Might’ve overheated. I need a moment.”
One of them offered a quick nod, already focused on the next team preparing to skate.
And with that, Veselko stood, hand out.
Ophelia Sage took it. Her fingers were cold. Not from the rink—from what was coming.
They walked off-camera like pros, no falter in their step. No stumble. No visible collapse.
The moment the curtain blocked them from view, she stumbled.
Veselko caught her before she hit the wall, one arm around her back, the other bracing under her elbow.
“Bathroom,” she gasped. “Or—trash—anything—”
He moved fast, guiding her toward a backstage hallway where staff bins and janitorial closets were tucked out of sight. There was a waste bin tucked against the wall—lined, clean enough. He turned her toward it just in time.
The first heave was dry, her body already exhausted from the night before. But then—something gave. Her stomach clenched so violently it nearly folded her in half, and a gush of half-digested electrolyte fluid and stomach acid poured from her lips into the bin.
It was loud. Messy. Wracking.
She braced her hands on either side of the can, fingers shaking. Her breath tore from her throat in sobbing pants between waves, but she didn’t cry. Not from emotion. Just from effort.
Veselko stood behind her, not hesitating for a second. He gathered her hair again, brushing back the strands that fell out of her braid before bracing her by the shoulder, the other on her back, rubbing slow, firm circles.
She gagged again. Liquid and bitter, more than she should’ve had left in her.
“I thought it was empty,” she choked, mouth still hovering above the rim. “I thought—I didn’t eat—how the hell—”
A gurgle in her throat, a thick wave poured out of her.
“Shh,” he murmured. “Shh. You’re alright. It’s alright.”
She shook her head, spat into the bin, coughed hard.
“No. It’s not. I can’t—”
“You did. You already did.”
That quiet gravity again. His voice didn’t tremble. He didn’t flinch.
Another wave hit. Her body lurched forward with a sharp cry of pain, like her ribs were being pulled inward.
And still—he stayed.
One hand gripping her upper arm, grounding. One hand still stroking between her shoulder blades. Standing behind her.
When she finally slumped back against him, shaking and empty, he caught her gently and pulled her into his chest, cradling her like he was afraid she’d disappear.
“You bought me a new bottle.”
He wanted to laugh. That was what she was focused on? Of all the things?
“I didn’t want you to remember yesterday every time you looked at the old one.” He shrugged.
A beat.
“That’s so fucking thoughtful,” she croaked. “I hate it.”
She didn’t. They knew she didn’t.
“I know.” Veselko offered a smile, “you good now?”
“I don’t think good is the word,” Ophelia Sage sighed. “But we really should get back out there.”
But his hand was still in her hair, still brushing it back, his forehead resting lightly against hers as he whispered, “I’ve got you. You’re done. It’s over. You did it.”
And in the dark, backstage and unseen, Ophelia Sage finally let herself be held.
I would die for Ophelia Sage (I LOVE her name) and Veselko. They seem so interesting. Also I feel like figure skating as a whole has died off in the sickfic/whump community (I’ve been lurking the blr since yuri on ice was a big thing). I’m so interested in them! I would love to see another fic with them, maybe we can see Veselko sick? I want to see how Ophelia Sage reacts and how he is as a sickie. Emeto is my favorite niche but whatever fits for them/him! Take your time and much love! x -⛸️
hi nonny!
i love veselko and ophelia sage too! it's also nice to take a break from my main things (lex and soren, novak, etc.). also, i love her name too! i think its so pretty together. plus veselko's name too. i love names, but especially theirs.
*additional note: veselko calls ophelia sage 'kolyúchyi drít' (ukrainian for 'barbed wire') as a term of endearment (ophelia sage would probably kill him if he called her any traditional term of endearment)
if you have any further requests/comments/questions, etc., send it my way! i really do want to get back into writing so im saying my ask box is just WAITING for more stuff to do.
tw emeto, fever, overexertion
The rink was cold this morning.
Not the usual kind of cold—the crisp, familiar chill that settled in your bones until the movement warmed it out—but a gnawing sort, sharp around the edges and curling in Veselko’s stomach like ice water. It had started hours ago, long before their session. At first, it was just a sense of unease, something easily ignored: the faint nausea that chased him from sleep to morning tea, a lingering ache behind his eyes. Nothing new. Athletes trained through worse.
He hadn’t told Ophelia Sage, of course. She would’ve noticed, eventually—she always did—but this morning, he’d been careful. Stiff smile. Strong tea. Extra layers. No one needed to know his hands trembled when he laced his boots or that he’d spent ten minutes in the locker room breathing through clenched teeth, eyes locked on the wall like that alone might steady the queasiness rising in his chest.
His throat still burned faintly from gagging. He hadn’t vomited—not fully—but the heaving had left him pale and winded, slouched over the sink with sweat clinging to his hairline despite the chill.
Now, on the ice, Veselko moved like clockwork. Precision was armor. If he skated with enough control, maybe his body would remember it belonged to him.
The rink’s fluorescent lights buzzed faintly overhead. He blinked harder than necessary, trying to clear the fog gathering at the corners of his vision. Headache, dull and building, pulsed behind his eyes, creeping slow and merciless like a tide coming in. Every sound—blade scrape, music echo, Ophelia Sage’s sharper movements as she warmed up nearby—felt slightly too loud, pricking at his nerves. He swallowed against a rising wave of nausea, jaw tightening. Not now.
They were running lifts today.
He’d been dreading it since they arrived. His limbs felt heavier than they should’ve, like they belonged to someone else—a stranger trying to mimic control. When he caught Ophelia by the waist and lifted her clean over his head, the familiar strain of muscle felt… wrong. Not painful, just unstable. Like the effort cost more than it should.
“Again?” she asked, already sliding back into position.
He nodded, too quickly. A breath caught sharp in his throat. “Of course, kolyúchyi drít.”
Pride was a powerful drug. He knew how to ration himself: a sip of water between passes, a breath stolen behind turned shoulders, fingers pressed into his own forearm until the vertigo dulled. Don’t fall. Don’t show it. Don’t give the coaches a reason to pull you.
Ophelia Sage didn’t look at him too closely—not yet. He heard her scoff, caught a sarcastic smile, and then she was off. She was fiery this morning, focused, her own sharpness unsoftened by distraction. Good. He could coast on her fire a while longer, let her intensity hide the paleness creeping into his features.
But his stomach twisted again, low and insistent. Not panic. Not nerves. This was different. Familiar, even. Well, familiar used loosely. A stomach virus had torn through his training group once in Kyiv when he was thirteen—half the rink taken out by it, coaches yelling over buckets and disinfectant. He remembered how it started.
And this… this felt the same. At least, he assumed. It'd been ten years now and he couldn't remember a time anywhere near recent where he felt this bad. So, really, it was guess work.
Still, he didn’t stop. Not yet. Maybe it was anxiety, that wasn't new. Bad food at dinner, maybe. He wasn't going to panic. Not yet, he didn't need to.
Veselko’s fingers trembled when they closed around Ophelia Sage’s waist.
Not enough to drop her. Not enough for anyone watching to gasp. But he felt it—like the current of something wrong running beneath the surface of still water. She was light, as always, coiled strength and grace, the familiar shape of her body rising clean above him. But his balance wavered for a heartbeat longer than it should’ve, the torque of the lift pulling at his shoulders in a way that made his vision edge toward white.
She landed clean. Didn’t say anything.
But when she glided backward, fixing her ponytail with that irritated twist she always did when her hair was too stiff from hairspray or if someone was on her nerves— Veselko was sure he was too close to the end of them, he usually was— she cast him a sidelong glance. Just long enough.
He wiped his palms on his pants. They were damp.
“Let’s switch it up,” she said, breezy, like it didn’t matter. “You’re tight in the shoulders today. Maybe jumps instead. for a bit”
Veselko nodded too fast, too eager. Grateful. And ashamed of that gratitude.
He knew why she changed it. She was giving him space without saying so. That was her way—sharp-tongued when she was ill, but oddly kind when he faltered. She didn't look at him like he was weak. She didn’t coddle. She just… moved the obstacle.
And yet somehow, it cut deeper.
Because she hadn’t seen the truth. Not yet. And he was trying too hard to keep it that way.
The jump drills were a different kind of torment. Less trust, more precision. Just him and his own body, again and again, slicing across the ice in practiced patterns, arms whipping, knees bending, legs absorbing impact that vibrated through the hollowness in his core. He was too warm now—sweat prickling under his layers, shirt sticking damp across his back. But his fingers were cold. The paradox didn’t escape him. He flexed his hands between passes, pressing them hard to his thighs to hide the trembling.
The nausea was relentless now. It rode beneath every movement like a second rhythm, rising each time he spun too quickly, fell too hard, bent too low. His stomach curled with every landing. His breath hitched once, twice, and he swore she noticed—but when he turned his face away, she was adjusting her gloves.
A cramp rolled low in his gut, hot and mean, and for one heart-hammering second, he thought he might vomit on the ice.
He stopped short. One blade skidded out of alignment.
“Reset,” Ophelia Sage called out. “You’re off your axis.”
I’m off everything, he thought.
She wasn't being mean, actually. Veselko knew that. Sure, it looked like it. But there was a reason he called her kolyúchyi drít. She was sharp edged, fierce, unyielding, and yet in some way he found she often gravitated toward protection more than hostility. No less sharp, but differently. So, Veselko just nodded. Again. Swallowed hard.
The ice blurred a little around the edges. His headache had bloomed into something monstrous now, a pressure that throbbed at his temples and behind his eyes, like his skull was too small for the ache inside. His legs felt sluggish. His arms ached with that strange, flu-like hollowness that didn’t belong to tired muscles, but to something deeper—fevered, inflamed, wrong.
And through all of it, the shame pulsed louder than anything else.
He’d trained through worse. He’d been taught to. A skater was only as good as their worst day—and this? This couldn’t be his worst. Not in front of her.
So he didn’t stop. Didn’t say a word.
But when he moved into the next combination—his signature jump, the one he never faltered on—his blade hit the ice a half-second too early. His body jolted. The landing jarred his already-upset stomach. He wobbled, caught himself, and for the first time that morning, he bent at the waist when he came to a stop, palms braced on his knees, breath coming short.
Just a moment. Just long enough to get it under control.
Behind him, Ophelia Sage’s voice rang out—not angry, not suspicious. Just sharp with direction.
“Get water. You look like hell.”
He straightened. Too fast. The ice wavered under him.
He nodded. Didn’t meet her eyes.
The water felt like it hit a pit of coals in his stomach.
Veselko had followed her command—because that’s what it was, even if it came disguised as a casual observation. You look like hell. And he had. Even he couldn’t lie to his reflection in the plexiglass that lined the rink’s edge. His cheeks had taken on that pale, bluish cast that came with cold sweat, and his eyes looked too bright, too glassy. He had rinsed his face in the sink with shaking fingers, letting the cold water slap across his skin like penance. The nausea stayed. The headache pulsed. But when he returned to the ice, she didn’t say anything.
Ophelia Sage didn’t coddle. She didn’t coo or fuss or lower her voice.
Instead, she met him with a clipped nod and her usual, infuriating precision. “Let’s run the spiral sequence.”
It wasn’t kindness—it was mercy. She was giving him movements that required grace, not strength. Flow, not flight.
And Veselko, half-hollowed by his own body and bursting with silent gratitude, gave her his best.
But his best was deteriorating. Every stroke across the ice left him more winded than the last. The spirals should have felt like flight—should have reminded him of air and poetry, all blade-edge poetry—but instead they felt like he was being dragged through molasses, his limbs lagging a beat behind his brain.
The protein bar had been a mistake. He’d eaten it because he had to—routine demanded it. Fuel before the next round. But now it sat like a stone in his gut, every minute drawing up a tighter knot in his abdomen. His breath caught on it, shallow and quick, and he couldn't skate fast enough to outrun the rolling sickness crawling up his throat.
Still, he said nothing. Always nothing.
He finished the spiral sequence with a wobble on the last edge. Ophelia Sage stopped short, one arm folded, watching him like she was trying to solve a puzzle with jagged pieces.
“You’re off today,” she said, not unkindly.
“How flattering of you to notice, kolyúchyi drít.”
"It wasn't a cmpliment." Ophelia Sage rolled her eyes.
"I'm flattered, but I'm fine." It came too quickly, too flat. Reflex, not truth.
Her brows rose. “I didn’t say you weren’t.”
He forced himself to glide backward, pretending it was a deliberate cool-down instead of a collapse in disguise. “Then let’s run the side-by-side.”
“No,” she said flatly. “It’s lunch.”
He looked at the clock. Hadn’t realized how long they’d been going.
“I’m not hungry,” he murmured.
She was already skating off, her voice trailing over her shoulder. “I didn’t say it was your lunch. It’s mine.”
-
The locker room was mercifully empty.
Veselko hadn’t even bothered to untie his skates—just sat, hunched forward on the bench, his palms braced on his thighs, cold sweat gathering in the hollow of his back. He thought if he stayed still, if he just breathed through it, it would pass. It had to pass.
But his body was no longer interested in his pride.
The nausea crested with a vicious twist, and he lunged for the nearest trash bin.
His body wrenched forward as he vomited—once, then again—his stomach clenching violently around the little it held. The protein bar came up in pieces, sharp with bile, burning his throat. He gagged even after he was empty, tears stinging the corners of his eyes, his ribs aching from the force of it. Cold sweat matted messy blond bangs to his forehead. His arms trembled where they braced against the locker. The silence afterward felt almost cruel.
He hadn’t thrown up in years. Not from illness. Not like this.
His first instinct was to clean up. To hide it. To wipe away the shame before anyone could see.
But his hands were shaking too badly to stand just yet.
And for the first time that day, he let his head fall into his arms and closed his eyes.
Just for a moment.
Veselko returned to the ice like a ghost of himself.
He had rinsed his mouth three times. Washed his face until the cold water made his skin burn. Changed his shirt—though it clung damp to his spine within minutes—and reapplied a weak sort of composure that might have passed if someone didn’t look too hard.
Ophelia Sage didn’t look too hard. Not yet.
She had taken up residence at the edge of the rink, chewing on a piece of dried mango from her lunch bag with all the elegance of a starving wolf. She offered him a glance—not questioning, just measuring. She was used to his disappearances by now. Veselko, with all his quiet spirals and disappearing acts. Veselko, who sometimes needed ten minutes in the locker room to remember he existed outside the anxious knot in his chest.
So when he returned—tight-lipped, a little pale, but upright—she just popped another slice of mango in her mouth and said, “You missed my best run-through.”
“I regret it already,” he murmured.
“Liar.”
But her tone was light, almost fond. A truce offered on the ice. He took it.
Coach Bennett returned just as they finished warming back up. A blur of a woman in track pants and windburned cheeks, with a voice that could cut steel.
“All right, enough dancing. Time for lifts. You’ve got regionals in three weeks, and that carry press looked like a hot pile of dog—well, you know what it looked like.”
Ophelia Sage groaned under her breath. “Can’t wait to be immortalized in slow-motion collapse.”
Veselko didn’t speak.
He nodded.
Because of course they had to do lifts. Because saying no, even now, even like this, felt like treason against every inch of ice that had ever scarred his blades.
He flexed his hands, testing the steadiness. They still trembled faintly, but he could work through it. Mind over body. He’d done it before. He just needed to push through the fog in his head and the ghost of bile still burning his throat.
The first lift was successful.
Shaky—but not visibly so. Ophelia Sage went up and came down without incident. Her balance was steady, arms poised like a war goddess, and her trust in him—though never spoken aloud—burned in the way she held herself still as stone when his hands closed around her waist.
The second went better. Almost crisp. Almost enough to fool him into thinking he was past the worst of it.
He dared a sip of water between reps. Just a sip. He didn't notice how it sloshed wrong in his stomach, setting off the first faint churn.
The third lift was a disaster waiting to happen.
It began with confidence—an illusion born from repetition. He positioned her, hands at her waist, one knee bent in preparation. She met his eyes for just a second. A silent ready.
And then—
He lifted.
But his core didn’t respond the way it should. His legs weren’t solid. The room tilted imperceptibly—just a fraction—but his body noticed. His stomach lurched violently, bile licking the back of his throat.
And suddenly, Ophelia Sage wasn’t weightless.
She was too much. Not her fault—never her fault—but his grip faltered. His left hand slipped fractionally. Her momentum shifted midair.
She gasped—sharp, breathless—but didn’t scream. She twisted instinctively, mid-lift, repositioning her weight, and he just managed to catch her before she hit the ice. It wasn’t elegant. Her blade nicked his shin, just barely avoiding drawing blood. Their skates tangled. She landed half on her feet, half in his arms, her hair flying loose from its tie, and the silence that followed was deafening.
“Jesus,” Coach barked from the other side of the rink.
Ophelia Sage pulled away from him, heart racing. “What the hell—?”
But Veselko was already gone.
He staggered from the lift, his legs barely responding, and shoved past the boards without explanation. His stomach revolted as his blades hit the mats, the sudden change in motion nearly tipping him. A second later, he reached the rinkside trash bin—
—and vomited, hard.
It was louder than it should’ve been. Violent. No mistaking it now.
His whole body lurched forward with the force of it, one hand bracing on the rim of the bin, the other trembling at his side. What little was in him came up in heaves: water, bile, remnants of the protein bar he’d barely choked down. His hair clung to his forehead, damp with sweat. His chest heaved, throat raw, the sharp scent of acid making his eyes water.
The rink fell utterly silent behind him.
No more hiding.
The retching wouldn’t stop.
Even after his stomach had emptied itself entirely—after the second wave and the third—Veselko stayed bent over the rinkside trash bin, shuddering through dry heaves that clawed their way up from deep in his core. He didn’t remember when he started shaking so hard. His hands were locked against the rim of the bin, white-knuckled and trembling, and sweat dripped from the ends of his hair, soaking into the collar of his shirt.
It felt like his body was unraveling in layers. First the nausea. Then the dizziness. Then the aching heat in his back and shoulders, radiating down to his legs in slow, pulsing waves. Everything inside him twisted and burned. His ribs ached from retching, his eyes watered uncontrollably, and the cold air of the rink hit the back of his throat like needles.
He barely registered the sound of skates against the boards.
“Dammit.”
That voice—flat, low, not uncertain but edged with something… different. Not sharp. Not casual. Something quieter. Measured.
Ophelia Sage.
He didn’t turn. Couldn’t.
Instead, he braced a hand on the wall beside the bin, dragging in a shuddering breath. It hitched halfway down. His body curled in on itself, and he retched again, dry this time, acid and air and pain.
She didn’t speak again right away.
He hated that she was seeing him like this. Not just sick—sick. Drenched in sweat, throat raw, barely upright. Humiliation settled over him like frost.
“I’m sorry,” he rasped, the words catching, thin and broken.
“For what?” Her tone was unreadable.
“I—I should have said—”
“Shut up.” Still flat. Not cruel. Not even annoyed. Just immediate.
Veselko flinched, but didn’t argue.
Behind him, her skates clicked onto the rubber mat. He heard her step closer. Not too close. She wasn’t the type to hover. But she was there, and that meant more than anything else she could’ve done.
She exhaled slowly, like she was trying to wring the heat out of her own body.
“You look like hell,” she muttered.
“I am hell,” he whispered back, trying for humor. It came out hoarse and hollow.
“Yeah,” she said, voice low. “But I’ve seen hell with better balance.”
A ghost of a smile twitched at his lips, too weak to hold.
The silence stretched. Veselko finally reached for a crumpled paper towel someone had mercifully left on the table beside the bench. He wiped his mouth, tried to stand straighter—and immediately regretted it.
The world pitched sideways.
He lurched against the wall with a quiet, bitten-off noise, one hand shooting out to catch himself.
“Whoa.” Ophelia Sage moved faster than he’d ever seen her move outside a performance. One hand caught his arm—light, but grounding.
He froze at her touch. He wasn’t used to it. Not like this. Not when he was like this.
She seemed to realize it too, because she pulled back. Not completely. Just enough to let him stand on his own if he insisted. But she stayed close.
“Sit down,” she said after a moment, voice still not rising. Still careful.
“I’m fine—”
She gave him a look that could have stopped a freight train.
“You threw up in the middle of training. You almost dropped me. You’re shaking so hard I can hear your laces rattling.” A beat. “And, also, you almost dropped me. Sit your ass down.”
And this time, he obeyed.
He sank onto the bench beside the wall, pressing the backs of his hands to his eyes. His stomach still ached, rolling low and persistent, and his limbs had taken on that flu-heavy weight that felt like someone had poured wet sand into his muscles. His sweat-soaked shirt clung to his back. Every breath felt hot and too shallow.
Ophelia Sage was on her knees in front of him, untying his laces before he could even get to them himself. Her slim fingers worked quickly to detangle the knots before she stood and went to his bag, grabbing Veselko's sneakers.
"I am not taking those off your feet," Ophelia Sage said, "That's on you. One of us puking is enough."
She untied her own laces, put her own shoes on, started gathering her things before Veselko could even get his own street shoes on.
“You don’t get sick much, do you?” Ophelia Sage said, grabbing his things now. How the hell did she move so fast?
He shook his head, slow, careful. “Not like this.”
“I figured.” Her voice had that clipped, analytical rhythm it always did when she was focused. “You hide everything else. Illness wouldn’t be any different.”
That made him look at her, just a little.
“You’re not mad?”
She looked over at him, finally. Her eyes weren’t cold. They weren’t warm either. But they were honest.
“I should be. You’re an idiot for pushing that far. You could’ve gotten us both hurt.”
He swallowed hard. That shame again.
“But…” Her voice softened. Not in tone, but in weight. Like she was choosing her next words very, very carefully. “You’re not just my skating partner. You’re Veselko. And something was wrong. I knew it. I just thought you'd have the guts to tell me yourself... but evidently you lost those in that poor trash can.”
He closed his eyes, head dropping back against the wall behind him. The ice felt very far away now.
“Coach saw,” he said. “Everyone saw.”
“Good.” She shrugged. “Now you don’t have to pretend you’re invincible anymore.”
He let out a weak breath—half a laugh, half a sigh. His stomach cramped again, and he pressed an arm to it, trying not to show it.
Ophelia Sage saw anyway.
“I’m calling it,” she said. “Practice is over.”
“You don’t have to—”
“I do,” she cut in. “Because I’m not getting dropped. Because you’re burning up. And because if I don’t drag you out of here now, you’ll skate until you collapse. And I’m not scraping your dramatic ass off the ice.”
She stood. Offered him a hand.
He hesitated. Looked at it.
“Take the damn hand, Veselko.”
So he did.
-
Ophelia Sage didn’t give him a choice.
She didn’t ask if he wanted to go home—she simply told him he was going, and that he’d be going with her, because, quote, “If I leave you alone, you’ll crawl back onto the ice like some kind of frostbitten idiot and die dramatically in the middle of a spin.”
Veselko didn’t argue.
He couldn’t.
His legs barely held him upright on the way out. He leaned on her more than he wanted to admit—not completely, never that—but just enough for her to feel the tremble in his frame, the way his balance shifted unnaturally with every step. By the time they made it to her car, his skin was clammy, pale and sheened with cold sweat, and the headache had bloomed into something monstrous behind his eyes—full-body pain, nausea wrapped in static. It felt like his brain was swelling against his skull, a migraine built not just on dehydration or exhaustion, but fever, illness, and betrayal. His body was failing him, and he couldn’t think clearly through the white-hot fog that had settled over his senses.
The drive was quiet.
The world outside the window blurred in and out of focus. Veselko pressed his forehead to the cool glass, eyes closed. Every bump in the road jarred through his bones, and his stomach roiled with movement, twisting tighter every time the car turned. He was aware, distantly, of Ophelia Sage driving one-handed, her other hand alternating between drumming on the wheel and checking on him with sharp, sideways glances.
Not worried. Just… watching.
“I’m not pulling over for you to hurl,” she said eventually. “So if that’s happening, give me a damn warning.”
He made a low noise—might’ve been a laugh. It sounded more like a whimper.
Her apartment was warm in a way Veselko wasn’t used to. Cozy, but chaotic. Sharp edges hidden under thrown sweaters and forgotten mugs of tea, books stacked on every flat surface. The scent of cinnamon and cedar hung faint in the air—her perfume, maybe, or something herbal she used to relax when the world got too loud. He’d never been here sick. Never been here weak.
Now he stumbled inside like a man twice his age, sagging against the wall the second she shut the door behind him.
“Couch,” she ordered. “Now.”
He obeyed, but not without effort. His body moved like it was underwater, each step pulled backward by invisible hands. When he collapsed onto the cushions, he let his head drop into his hands, elbows on knees, fighting the next wave of nausea that swelled the moment he sat down. His skin burned. His fingers felt too cold. He couldn’t tell if he was freezing or feverish. Maybe both.
Ophelia Sage vanished into the kitchen without a word.
He heard cabinet doors slam. Something clattered into a bowl. The fridge opened and shut.
When she returned, she dumped a bottle of electrolyte water, a cool compress, and a half sleeve of saltines on the coffee table with a thunk.
“Don’t puke on my couch,” she said, crouching in front of him.
He looked at her, trying to focus.
Her brows were drawn together—not in irritation, but in something closer to calculation. Her version of concern.
“You’ve got a fever,” she muttered, pressing the back of her hand to his forehead. “You’re sweating through your shirt. You look like you got hit by a truck. When was the last time you were sick like this?”
He tried to sit up straighter. Mistake. His vision tilted, and his stomach flipped. He clapped a hand over his mouth, squeezing his eyes shut.
“Trash bin’s next to the couch. Use it.”
“How long have you—?”
“I’ve been sick enough to know that look,” she said. “Headache?”
He nodded faintly. “Bad.”
“Fever?”
He nodded again. She watched his fingers tremble.
“Shaky, nauseous, can’t stand, can’t eat—why did you try to lift me?”
“Because Coach—”
“Because you’re an idiot.”
Silence.
And then, softer, “Because you’re you.”
She handed him the cool compress without asking. He pressed it to the back of his neck and shivered violently.
The saltines went untouched. The water? He took a few sips—too fast, because he was dizzy with thirst—and the second it hit his stomach, he went pale as ice.
She didn’t wait this time.
She grabbed the bin and held it out just as his whole body convulsed.
He vomited violently, a sound that tore from somewhere low and helpless in his chest. Water, bile, nothing else. The kind of retching that pulled from the core, as if his body was trying to wring itself empty. He gasped between heaves, shaking all over, drenched in sweat, half-fallen forward against the couch.
And through it all, Ophelia Sage knelt beside him.
Not touching. Not panicked.
Just there.
She didn’t flinch when he shook. She didn’t scold. She stayed crouched by his side, one hand on the edge of the bin, the other holding a clean towel she hadn’t even offered yet. She waited until he sagged back, lips parted and raw from bile, chest heaving.
Only then did she speak.
“You’re not weak for being sick,” she said.
He blinked. It felt hard to focus.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I didn’t mean to—”
She reached forward and gently brushed the sweat-soaked hair from his face.
“No more apologizing. You’re sick. That’s all.”
Veselko blinked again, eyes glossed with fever and something else—something warmer, too fragile to name.
“I hate this.”
“I know.” Her voice was quiet. “But I’d rather deal with this than watch you destroy yourself trying to hide it.”
He let his head fall against the back of the couch, skin too hot, throat raw, hands trembling.
“Why are you being nice to me?”
She arched a brow. “You’re pathetic right now.”
He smiled faintly.
She didn’t.
“You’re not just my partner, Veselko,” she said. “You’re… you’re the only one I give a shit about. I don’t even take care of myself like this.”
He turned his head slowly to look at her.
“I know,” he murmured. “That’s why I call you kolyúchyi drít.”
She gave him a dry look. “Barbed wire. Yeah. Charming.”
“You wrap around things to protect them. Even if it hurts.”
Ophelia Sage didn’t answer.
But her hand hovered over his for a second. Then settled.
And she stayed with him, curled sharp and protective on the edge of the couch, a blade turned outward—but not at him.
Never at him.
-
The apartment had gone still.
Veselko had finally stopped vomiting, but it hadn’t left him with relief—just a fragile, shaking emptiness. He was propped on the couch, fevered and flushed, pressed into the cushions like his bones had melted. The cool compress had been replaced twice. He’d barely managed another sip of water without gagging. His body had declared open rebellion, and it was winning.
The ache in his head had spread like ink in water—down his spine, behind his eyes, into his jaw and limbs. Every noise felt louder. Every movement, distant. His skin buzzed with heat, but his fingers were still cold. He couldn’t tell if he was freezing or burning anymore.
He hadn’t said anything in a while.
And that, more than anything, made Ophelia Sage nervous.
He wasn’t a talker by nature—but silence like this? From him?
That wasn’t pride. That wasn’t discipline. That was pain.
She sat a few feet away in the armchair, legs pulled up under her, scrolling idly on her phone with the sound off. But she wasn’t really reading anything. Her eyes flicked to him every ten seconds. Watching the rise and fall of his chest. Noting every shift, every wince, every slight furrow of his brow.
He was sick. Really sick. The kind of sick that didn’t just flatten your body—it cracked something underneath.
And he was trying so hard not to let it show.
But she saw it anyway.
She always did.
He turned his head toward her eventually, sluggish, like every motion was a weight to drag.
“Why are you still here?” he asked, voice rough, barely more than a whisper.
She didn’t look up from her phone. “Where the hell else would I be? It's my apartment.”
“I thought you didn’t—” he paused, swallowing hard, like the words themselves were too much. “Didn’t like doing this.”
She tossed the phone onto the coffee table with a soft thud.
“I don’t,” she said.
He blinked at her.
“Then why—”
“Because it’s you, dumbass.”
Her voice wasn’t soft. But it was… different. Low. Steady. Not sharp.
She stared at him for a moment longer, her jaw ticking, her body visibly resisting whatever storm of instinct warred inside her. Then, almost without thinking, she stood up, crossed the small space between the armchair and the couch—
—and sat beside him.
Close.
Closer than she had before.
She didn’t say anything. Didn’t ask. Didn’t warn.
She just moved—like it wasn’t a conscious decision, but something her body had already decided.
And then, slowly, she reached out, slid an arm behind his shoulders, and pulled him toward her.
It wasn’t romantic. It wasn’t dramatic.
It was real.
And it cracked something inside him.
Veselko leaned into her without a word, heavy and half-limp with fever, cheek resting against her collarbone, his breath ragged with the effort it took not to cry from the sheer relief of not holding himself up anymore.
Her hand lightly brushed through sweat-soaked blond curls, detangling knots with such a gentle care that Veselko hardly noticed when she came across them. Since when was she so gentle?
“You don’t have to keep it together right now,” she murmured, almost too low to hear.
He didn’t answer. But she felt him nod against her chest.
She stared forward, heart pounding like she’d just landed a quad instead of held another person for the first time in years. Her grip tightened slightly around him—barely—but he felt it.
OMG your last fic was awesome!! Good to see you back :) Would you be willing to write a pt 2? Seems like his sickness is a bad one that he hasn't felt in a long time (yanno those ones you remember that you never feel quite the same as you did before) I'd love to see him still not completely better, but a lot better than before, and then he pushes it a bit too much and comes out worse again eg prep right before a comp where he starts to feel off. I can just imagine his frustration because he's not use to it. Or ophelia being all here we go again. Thanks!!
part one is here, but this can be read as a standalone!
decided to rework the last part since.. i can?
decided to rework the previous fic just a tiny bit (switching a phrase in dialogue). for added whump/struggle factor i decided regionals was coming up sooner than i initially wrote (because i didn't expect anyone to send more requests as much as i was hoping for it)
if you have any more (please! send me all of them!) requests, comments, questions, etc., feel free to drop it in my ask box!
tw for emeto, fever, anxiety, overexertion, illness
It had been four days since Veselko last threw up.
That felt like a triumph.
His fever had broken sometime the night before last—slowly, in waves, leaving him clammy and wrung out and starving by morning. Ophelia Sage stayed with him, much to her dismay he was sure.
His head still ached dully, but it was the kind of headache he knew how to function with. The kind he’d skated through before. He wasn’t trembling anymore. He could stand without swaying. The nausea had dulled into something he could ignore if he breathed through it and didn’t eat too much at once. She let him go home yesterday, things were getting back to normal.
To him, that meant one thing: it was time to train.
He arrived at the rink before Ophelia Sage that morning, just to prove to himself that he could. His breath steamed in the cold air as he laced his boots with steady hands, flexing his fingers every so often to reassure himself the strength had returned. His limbs still felt off, like they weren’t quite syncing with his intentions—but he wrote that off as fatigue. Lingering exhaustion. Nothing new.
Nothing dangerous.
The ice greeted him with its familiar chill, crisp beneath his blades as he tested a few strokes alone. The echo of movement, the sound of his breath, the glide and resistance beneath his feet—it was like coming home to his body after days of betrayal.
He stretched. Spun slowly. Executed a small jump just to test the landing.
It was messy. A little off-center.
But he landed it.
So when Ophelia Sage stepped onto the ice and arched a brow in his direction, he was already moving toward her.
“You’re early,” she said.
“So are you.”
She snorted. “I’m always early.”
Veselko allowed a faint smile. He wasn’t warm yet, but his muscles were loosening with motion. The stiffness was fading, the fog lifting.
“I’m ready,” he said quietly.
Her eyes narrowed. “You sure?”
“Yes.”
She didn’t move for a moment. Then—just the smallest nod. “No lifts. Coach already knows. I talked to her yesterday.”
Veselko’s chest tightened, but he kept his expression smooth.
“I’m fine.”
“And I’m not losing a tooth or getting a concussion because you think you’re invincible.”
He swallowed the flare of frustration. Not at her. At himself—for needing this argument at all. He didn’t want to push her. But he wanted the routine back. The rhythm. The control.
“We’re four days out,” he said. “Regionals isn’t going to wait for me to coddle my recovery.”
She gave him a look. “You threw up so hard I thought your soul was going to exit your body.”
“And now I’m not.”
“That doesn’t mean—”
“I want to try,” he said, voice firmer now. “Let me try.”
That silenced her.
Not because he’d won the argument, but because she heard something else in his tone. Something brittle. Something afraid.
He wasn’t saying it out of recklessness.
He was saying it because he needed to prove he still belonged out here.
After a long, breathless moment, she nodded once.
“We try once. One lift. If it’s shaky, we stop.”
“Agreed.”
He didn’t say thank you. She didn’t expect it.
The lift wasn’t perfect.
But it wasn’t a disaster either.
Veselko gritted through the entire thing—his palms slick inside his gloves, core tightening with strain, sweat prickling at the back of his neck even though they were barely five minutes into training. But she trusted him. She didn’t hesitate as she launched upward, and he caught her with practiced hands, her momentum coiling into his arms like kinetic art.
It felt… good.
Not easy. Not right. But possible.
He held her, carried her, brought her down again.
His legs didn’t buckle.
His breath came a little too fast when they broke apart, but he blamed adrenaline. He blamed excitement. He could almost taste the return of control—like ice water on a parched tongue.
Ophelia Sage skated back to him, arms crossed, expression unreadable.
“I’ll tell Coach you didn’t die,” she said.
“I appreciate the generosity.”
She tilted her head, gaze skimming over him with practiced accuracy.
“You’re still pale.”
“I’m always pale.”
“You look like you ran a marathon.”
He rolled his shoulders. “That’s just the dramatic lighting.”
Her mouth twitched at the corner—almost a smile.
Almost.
They resumed training, cautious but steady, and for a little while, the illusion held.
He ran through step sequences, jumps, even a second lift—shorter this time, but clean. His limbs burned after each pass, but it felt like good pain. Necessary pain. The kind that meant he was back.
But even as the ice danced beneath him, Veselko couldn’t shake the echo of fatigue buried beneath the performance. A strange, creeping sense that his body was letting him have this moment, not offering it freely.
Still, when practice ended, he didn’t say a word.
And neither did she.
But as they walked toward the locker room, skates slung over one shoulder, he caught Ophelia Sage watching him again. Her eyes tracked the way he moved—just a little slower than usual. The way his hand grazed the wall when they passed it. The way his chest rose too high on each breath, as if he was still searching for oxygen.
She didn’t comment.
But she lingered in the hallway longer than necessary. Just for a second.
She knows.
-
The morning of regionals dawned too bright.
Veselko cracked open one eye against the stream of sun through the hotel window and immediately regretted it. His head ached—not the sharp, unmistakable spike of fever, but a dense pressure that pooled at the base of his skull and curled behind his eyes like smoke. His limbs felt heavy. Not sore. Just… distant. Like they belonged to someone else, and he’d forgotten how to wear them.
But he moved anyway.
He always did.
In the bathroom, he washed his face with cold water until his skin felt raw. He leaned over the sink for longer than he meant to, eyes closed, waiting for the fog behind his forehead to lift. It didn’t.
Still, he dressed. Ate. Stretched.
He didn’t say anything to Ophelia Sage when she met him in the hallway. She gave him a once-over, coffee in hand, eyes narrowed just enough to mean I’m watching you without saying it aloud. He met her gaze evenly, shoulders squared, posture flawless. If his skin was a little too pale, if his shirt clung a little too much at the back from lingering sweat—well. He’d been nervous at competitions before. That was all this was.
Wasn’t it?
The rink smelled like cold metal, hairspray, nerves, and peppermint muscle balm.
A familiar blend.
Too familiar.
It brought him back all at once to a time he tried not to think about—to cracked lips and blistered hands, to coaches who didn’t care if you were dizzy or bleeding, to long weeks of training with injuries so carefully hidden no one knew until they broke. In Ukraine, skating had been his future, his structure, his salvation—but it had also been a test of endurance. Of obedience. You did not complain. You did not rest. You did not show weakness.
Veselko had been very good at learning those rules.
So now, when his stomach rolled subtly in his abdomen—empty and nervous and off—he said nothing. When the headache pulsed again, low and hot, he rubbed the heel of his hand against his temple and muttered something about the lighting.
He wasn’t sick.
He was fine.
He could do this.
The short program was tightly structured. He and Ophelia had rehearsed it to the second—choreography that leaned into contrast, built to highlight her power and his restraint, her fire and his quiet control. It wasn’t their most theatrical routine, but it was technically difficult. Demanding.
He could hear it now in the music as they stood at the edge of the rink waiting to begin. Something violin-heavy. Delicate and fast.
He closed his eyes as the announcer read their names.
Veselko Zoryan and Ophelia Sage Dallas. Representing the United States.
A quiet exhale from his partner. He felt it beside him more than he heard it.
“You good?” she asked under her breath.
“Of course,” he said. Too quickly.
She didn’t push.
She never did right before they skated.
But he knew—knew—she didn’t believe him.
Then they stepped onto the ice.
The sound fell away.
His blades hit the surface, and for the first ten seconds, everything felt the way it should.
His limbs remembered the steps. The pace. The glides and turns and sharp stillness between motions. He carried her easily through their first movement, a simple assist lift that transitioned into side-by-side choreography. Her presence beside him anchored him. Their timing was perfect.
Except—he wasn’t breathing right.
Not from exertion. Not yet.
But by the time they hit their first jump, a synchronized triple toe loop, something shifted.
Not enough to ruin the landing—but enough for him to feel it. A microsecond of hesitation. The ground rising up too fast. His knees bracing harder than they should have. The jolt up through his legs sent a throb up his spine, and for just one terrifying breath, his stomach lurched.
He buried it. Hard.
And he kept going.
They finished clean.
To anyone else, they looked like they’d skated flawlessly.
But when they exited the rink, Veselko’s breath came too fast. His hands shook as he pulled off his gloves, and he was sweating again—too much for what they’d just done. A cold kind of sweat. His head pounded behind his eyes, and when he leaned against the wall to stretch out his legs, his vision swam.
Ophelia Sage didn’t say anything. Not right away.
She handed him a towel. Watched him.
“You’re off,” she murmured.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re lying.”
He swallowed hard. The taste in his mouth was metallic.
“It’s just adrenaline.”
“You didn’t eat much today.”
“I never do before programs.”
“You didn’t sleep much last night.”
“I never do before competitions.”
He paused.
Then, softer. “It’s just nerves.”
She stared at him for a long time.
Then looked away.
“Okay.”
She didn’t believe him. He knew that.
But she also knew what it meant to let someone have the illusion—especially when that illusion was all they had.
Later, when the scores came in—high enough to place them in the top three after the short—he barely heard them read aloud.
He was too busy trying to stop his hands from shaking.
Too busy convincing himself that this wasn’t a rebound.
That he’d made it.
That he was fine.
Even as something deep in his chest whispered otherwise.
-
The air inside the arena was thick with expectation.
The free program. The final performance. Four minutes of choreography, connection, stamina, and pain.
And Veselko felt like his body was running on fumes.
He’d woken that morning with a weight in his chest—not emotional, physical. A pressure that sat between his ribs like a second heartbeat. The nausea had returned, slow and crawling, not enough to send him to his knees, but enough to make every sip of water feel dangerous. The headache was back, worse than it had been since the height of his illness, blooming behind his eyes with every pulse.
But none of that mattered.
Because this was it.
Four minutes.
He could give four minutes.
He had trained through worse. In Ukraine, he had skated with stress fractures, with bruised ribs, with blisters so deep they bled through his socks. He had competed with fever, with exhaustion, with coaches screaming at him from the sidelines. Pain was part of the contract. Discipline was survival.
And if he didn’t perform today, if he pulled out or failed or collapsed...
He’d never forgive himself.
Ophelia Sage knew.
She didn’t need to ask. She’d seen it in the way he moved backstage—his posture still perfect, his face unreadable, but his hands flexing like he couldn’t feel his fingers. The tightness in his jaw. The way he sipped water like it might betray him.
“You’re doing the whole thing?” she asked, low-voiced as they waited behind the curtain.
He nodded once.
She studied him.
“You look like hell.”
He didn’t respond.
“You’re going to push through no matter what I say, aren’t you?”
Still silence.
Then, quietly—only for her:
“I have to.”
She breathed in sharply through her nose. Angry. Not just at him.
“You’re going to pay for this,” she muttered. “Later.”
“I know.”
“I’m not carrying you off the ice if you pass out.
“Yes you are.”
She exhaled hard. “You’re a nightmare. Don't fucking drop me."
He glanced at her, pale and sweating, but with a glint of something fierce still in his eyes.
“I’m your nightmare.” Veselko said, "And don't worry, kolyúchyi drít, you're light as a bird."
And then the announcer called their names.
And the crowd erupted.
The music began.
The first thirty seconds were beautiful.
They moved like silk across the ice—Ophelia Sage, all fire and sharpness and striking lines, Veselko, all restraint and poise, quiet strength hiding the shaking of his limbs. Their blades cut smooth patterns into the rink, and the choreography unfolded with exacting grace.
But Veselko was already slipping.
Inside, he felt it like a storm gathering under his skin.
Every motion cost too much. His muscles burned too early. His breath shortened, high and tight in his chest. By the time they hit their first lift—a full press, the one they’d fought over during training—his arms were trembling with effort before she even left the ground.
Still, he did it.
She rose above him like a blade pulled skyward, and he locked his jaw, core screaming as he held her.
He landed it.
But the second she touched the ice again, his knees buckled—not enough to fall, just a stumble. He disguised it as part of the exit, hoped the judges didn’t see.
Ophelia Sage did.
Her gaze sliced toward him like a blade, but she didn’t break character. Just tightened her jaw, slid into the next sequence.
They kept going.
A jump. He landed it. Barely.
A death spiral. He executed it, barely breathing.
Side-by-side footwork. His vision blurred partway through, and he blinked rapidly, pulse roaring in his ears.
And through all of it, his body begged him to stop.
He was overheating in his costume, slick with sweat, his shirt plastered to his spine. His stomach was hollow, aching. His legs felt foreign, rubbery, dangerous. His fingers were numb. His headache had escalated to something blinding, hot and full and pounding in time with every movement.
But he kept going.
Because Ophelia Sage was still beside him. Because the crowd was watching. Because the music hadn’t ended yet, and he had made a promise to himself—to her.
The final lift came.
He almost didn’t make it.
She jumped.
He caught her.
But his arms gave just slightly, a tremor shooting through his frame. It wasn’t a drop. It wasn’t even a fail.
But it was enough.
Enough for her to feel it.
Enough for him to know—this is the edge.
He brought her down.
Collapsed to one knee behind the landing.
Not part of the choreography.
Ophelia turned as the music faded, reaching for him before the crowd’s applause could drown out her voice.
“Veselko—”
He stood. Somehow.
And bowed.
The audience roared.
And he smiled, just for a second. Bright and brief.
Then he turned off the ice.
And the moment the curtain closed behind them—
His legs gave out.
He caught himself on the wall, one hand slamming into it, the other curled against his stomach as he dry-heaved with such force it echoed off the concrete. Nothing came up. His stomach was already empty. But his body wrenched like it wanted to fold in on itself, knees buckling, throat burning, sweat dripping from his chin.
Ophelia Sage was there in a second.
“You idiot.” Her voice was sharp, furious—but her hands were on his shoulders, steadying him.
He gasped for air, swaying. “I—I finished—”
“You barely survived. You’re burning up.”
He couldn’t stop shaking.
His legs gave again. She caught him, somehow, half-dragged him down to sit on the bench, crouching in front of him like a storm in black velvet.
“I told you you’d pay for this.”
His head dropped forward. He couldn’t argue. He could barely breathe.
“I’m so proud of you,” she said, low, furious, and shaking. “But if you ever do that again, I’ll kill you myself.”
Between my own figure skating practice + the Olympics… I’m so tempted to bring back my roster of figure skaters(and ice dancers) I don’t think you ever met on this blog
if you have any questions, requests, comments, etc., send me an ask or a message!
tw for emeto, trying to hide illness from partner, getting sick on someone
There was a fluorescent hum in the dressing room that Vale couldn’t tune out—not above the quiet churn in his gut, not beneath the noise of his own shallow breathing. He sat on the ottoman in front of the vanity, one foot jittering, heel bouncing against the laminate floor in a rhythm he couldn’t seem to still. His hands—ring-laced and trembling—rested against his thighs, fingers curled inward like they were holding onto something.
He wasn’t sure what.
The nausea had been slow at first. Creeping. Lingering. He’d blamed it on nerves—too much adrenaline too early in the day, maybe dehydration. Maybe a bad energy drink. Something harmless. Something fixable. But that had been over an hour ago. Now, it was blooming—hot and wet behind his sternum, heavy in his stomach like he'd swallowed a bowl of salt water and then dared it to stay put.
He sipped water. Again. Carefully. Just enough to wet his mouth. The bottle was cold against his lip, blessedly so, and he held the mouthful of water for a second before swallowing. Swallowing felt like feeding a fire.
His stomach sloshed, sluggish and thick, like the water had dropped into a basin already overfull. Not quite liquid. Not quite solid. It sat, and it shifted, and it threatened.
Vale exhaled slowly through his nose, jaw tight. He reached for the granola bar on the table, half-wrapped, untouched. He hadn’t eaten yet. That was the problem. It had to be the problem. Nausea could mean hunger, couldn’t it? That gnawing, hollow pressure behind his ribs? That heat coiling through his stomach like bad weather? Hunger could feel like that.
Right?
He took a bite. Chewed slowly, deliberately, like the food might misinterpret him if he rushed. It stuck to the roof of his mouth, dry and vaguely sweet, and his stomach flipped halfway through the second chew.
He stilled. Absolutely still. Just breathing.
Not now. Not now.
The nausea rolled again—like something living inside him had stretched, twisted, reached up toward his throat in warning. He pressed a hand flat to his abdomen, thumb digging into the space just beneath his ribs, the heel of his palm bracing as if he could physically anchor the contents of his stomach in place.
His other hand clutched the armrest, knuckles whitening, fingers twitching like they wanted to rip the sensation out of him. His mouth tasted sour now. Metallic. That particular tightness had settled at the back of his throat, unmistakable and mean.
No. No.
He bit down on the inside of his cheek and swallowed. Once. Twice. He could do this. He had to do this. The stage was calling, the lights were almost up, and Elias—sweet, observant Elias—was somewhere in the building, probably already pacing with a spare water bottle and a forehead kiss waiting.
And Vale couldn’t let him see this. Not tonight. Not when the show was sold out. Not when it was his.
He dragged in another breath. Let it out slow. Counted it.
Four in. Seven out. Again. Again.
He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth like it might erase the nausea trying to climb out, then leaned over, elbows to knees, and whispered to himself under his breath:
The silence that followed wasn't reassuring. It was waiting.
And somewhere beneath his ribs, the storm just kept swelling.
The crowd had screamed his name like it was a prayer, and Vale had given them every inch of himself in return.
He always did.
Even now, drenched in sweat, heart jackhammering in his chest and throat dry as cotton, he glowed. He bowed like a prince, flared his arms wide like wings, and smiled so hard his face ached. His eyes glittered with adrenaline, but his stomach—his stomach was pure punishment.
Somewhere mid-set, the ache had stopped blooming and simply settled—heavy and cruel, a hot, sloshing stone behind his navel. Every jump had sent it shifting, lurching. Every high note clenched his abdomen tight enough that his breath hitched, and every lyric felt like it had to fight its way past the threat of bile building slow at the back of his throat.
He’d spent the whole last chorus holding back a gag.
But no one noticed.
The cheers were deafening. The lights were blinding. He looked, from the outside, flawless—shirt damp, hair artfully tousled, lashes slick with sweat, smile radiant.
He made it offstage on legs that didn’t feel real, still riding the high and faking the balance. His stomach flipped dangerously the moment the lights left him, a quiet protest buried under the roar in his ears. But there was no time to recover. The meet-and-greet line was already forming. Fans waiting—smiling, starry-eyed, holding out phones and vinyls and their entire hearts.
So Vale pressed his own stomach lightly with the heel of his hand and smiled wider.
It was fine.
He was fine.
He stood for the photos. Gave hugs. Took shaky steps forward every time someone new arrived. Smiled through the way his gut clenched at sudden movement, smiled through the desperate press of nausea threatening to roll upward with every jostle. Someone bumped his shoulder too hard and his stomach nearly heaved then, sharp and immediate.
He coughed, played it off, swallowed hard.
The last photo snapped. The final signature scratched onto a sleeve. And finally—finally—he was alone enough to turn, slow and stiff, toward the hallway where he knew Elias would be waiting. The nausea had grown thick now. Headache bloomed behind his eyes. His skin felt tight, too warm, and he could swear he tasted copper.
But he had made it.
He rounded the corner, and there Elias was. Leaning against the wall, arms crossed, worry already knitted between his brows.
“Hey, superstar—” Elias pushed off the wall, stepping forward into the quiet.
And then Vale was in his arms.
The hug wasn’t hard—not by most standards. Just solid. Warm. One arm around Vale’s shoulders, the other sliding around his back and settling at his waist, drawing him in, grounding him in that way Elias always did. Safe. Gentle. Loving.
But the pressure—God, the pressure—
The second Elias’s arm pressed even lightly over the front of his stomach, something inside Vale rebelled. His gut turned inside out. There was no warning, no breath to gasp, no time to speak.
Only panic.
Vale’s eyes flew wide. His body spasmed forward. He shoved his hand to his mouth, hard, but the flood was already rising—hot, sour, violent.
A wet gag tore from his chest, muffled by his own palm as the first wave came up fast and hit hard—thick and bitter, half-digested water and protein bar and acid that burned his throat raw. Some of it splashed through his fingers, and he tried to turn away, tried to swallow it back, but it kept coming. His body lurched forward again with a loud, choked retch, more of it spilling out—onto the floor, onto his boots, trailing down the front of his shirt.
He would’ve collapsed from shame alone if not for Elias.
“Oh, Vale—” Elias caught him instantly, hand moving from his waist to cradle the back of his head, the other tugging Vale’s hair out of his face with swift, practiced ease. No panic. No recoil. Just soft, sure steadiness.
Vale couldn’t even speak. He was still gagging, harsh, wet spasms that wracked through him. His knees buckled. Elias lowered him gently, slowly, letting Vale half-sit, half-collapse in the hallway, one arm steadying him as another rush of vomit spilled from Vale’s lips. It hit the floor with a splatter. Thick. Copious. The sound echoed.
“Shh, I’ve got you. You’re okay,” Elias murmured, breath warm against Vale’s temple. “It’s okay. Just let it out.”
Vale sobbed through the next heave—more from humiliation than anything. His face was slick with tears and sweat and spit, and his stomach kept clenching even though there was nothing left. He trembled like a wire pulled too tight. His hands still shook where he braced himself, slick with bile, legs folded awkwardly beneath him on the floor of the venue he’d just headlined.
He managed a breath. Just one.
“I’m sorry,” he rasped, voice shredded and thin. “I didn’t—I didn’t want you to see—”
Elias pulled him closer, gently, hand pressing between his shoulder blades. “Vale. Stop. You don’t ever have to hide this from me. I mean it.”
Vale leaned into him, light-headed and sick and finally, finally letting himself fall.
The car ride to the hotel was quiet.
Not silent—quiet in the way a room feels after something shatters. Elias had pulled his hoodie off the second they’d stepped out of the venue, draped it around Vale’s shoulders like armor, tugged the hood up over his sweat-damp hair. The extra fabric helped Vale curl in on himself, shrinking smaller in the passenger seat. He leaned his temple against the window, breath fogging faint circles on the glass, one hand clutching his stomach with a grip that never loosened.
The air conditioning was off. Elias had cracked the windows instead, just a bit, letting in the warm hush of night air. Easier on Vale’s senses. Gentler. The city passed in soft streaks of light and shadow, blurring past like none of it mattered.
“Let me know if you need to pull over,” Elias said softly, his eyes flicking between the road and the curl of Vale’s hunched frame. “I don’t care if it’s every two blocks. Just tell me.”
Vale nodded—or at least gave something like a nod. But his mouth stayed closed. Lips pressed thin and tight, like letting anything out—words or otherwise—might break whatever fragile control he had left.
Elias didn’t press.
Not yet.
He took the turns slowly. Stopped fully at every light, hands loose on the wheel like he was handling glass. The hotel wasn’t far, but every minute stretched long. Vale’s breath had gone shallow again. Not fast—careful. The kind of breathing you did when you weren’t sure if your stomach could take anything more than air.
At a red light, Elias finally spoke again, softer this time. “How long have you felt off?”
Vale shifted slightly. Just enough that the movement clearly hurt. He winced, his other arm wrapping around his torso like he could hold the nausea still by squeezing it quiet.
“I dunno. Few hours?” His voice was raw. Shaky. “Thought it was nerves.”
Elias hummed, low in his throat. “Before soundcheck?”
“Maybe a little before.”
Elias nodded once. Another breath. Another block passed. Then—
“Did you eat today?”
Vale hesitated too long.
“I tried.” He sounded defensive. Or like he was trying to sound defensive. It came out tired instead. “I had a granola bar.”
“That was after soundcheck.”
Vale didn’t answer. Which was the answer.
Elias sighed quietly through his nose. Not angry. Just—aching.
They pulled into the hotel drive. The valet looked up, but Elias waved him off. “We’re just parking.” Then he leaned over and placed a hand gently on Vale’s thigh.
“Hey,” he said, voice warm and low and sure. “Look at me?”
Vale blinked slow. Didn’t lift his head fully, but he turned just enough that Elias could see the misery etched under his lashes—his eyes glassy, skin drawn and flushed in all the wrong ways.
“I’m not mad,” Elias said. “I just need to know how bad it is. Can you tell me that?”
Vale opened his mouth. Closed it. Swallowed thickly and winced like it hurt.
Then, quietly: “I feel like I’m gonna throw up again.”
Elias was out of the car in a second, opening Vale’s door, crouching down low to help him shift. “Okay. Come on, love. Let’s get you upstairs.”
Vale moved like he was made of rubber bands pulled too tight—slow, shaky, slightly folded over, holding his stomach in one arm and gripping Elias’s sleeve with the other. They made it through the lobby fast, the hoodie covering most of Vale’s face, head down like he didn’t want anyone to see this—like being seen in this state was worse than being sick at all.
The elevator felt endless.
Vale leaned heavily into Elias, forehead against his shoulder, muttering something halfway between sorry and I’m fine, neither of which Elias acknowledged.
When they finally reached the room, Elias got the door open with one hand and guided Vale in with the other, steadying him when he stumbled slightly toward the bed. Vale didn’t lie down—not right away. He sat on the edge of the mattress, elbows on his knees, trembling.
“Bathroom?” Elias asked gently, already setting his bag down. “Or do you think it’s passed for now?”
Vale shook his head, slow. “I don’t— I don’t know. I feel like shit.”
“Yeah,” Elias said softly, crouching in front of him. “You look like shit, too.”
That pulled the ghost of a smile from Vale, weak and worn. Then his face crumpled again, and he turned away—hand flying to his mouth as his body heaved, another sudden retch punching out of him like a betrayal. Elias moved instantly, grabbing the waste bin from beside the bed and sliding it into place just in time for Vale to collapse over it.
This wave was worse than the others—louder, wetter, more drawn out. His whole body convulsed with the force of it. The sound of it—liquid and raw, echoing in the plastic bin—made Elias wince in sympathy, but he stayed right there. One hand on Vale’s back, rubbing slow, firm circles between his shoulder blades. The other tangled gently in his hair, keeping it back, brushing damp strands from his temple.
When it finally slowed, Vale slumped. Gasped. Gagged again, dry now. Coughed and spit and sobbed once—just once, but it was enough.
Elias set the bin aside and didn’t ask questions. He just shifted forward, wrapped his arms around Vale’s shaking frame, and pulled him into his chest.
“I’m sorry,” Vale whispered. Again. Always.
“Stop apologizing,” Elias murmured, pressing his cheek against Vale’s hair. “You don’t have to apologize for being sick.”
“I didn’t want you to worry.”
“Well,” Elias said, soft but firm, “I am worried. And that’s not your fault either.”
Vale didn’t respond. He just curled closer, hands gripping the front of Elias’s shirt, the weight of the night finally dragging him down now that someone else was holding him.
Elias rubbed his back. “We’re gonna clean you up, okay? Then I’m gonna get you water, and a cool rag, and whatever you think you can keep down. And if you can’t—that’s okay. We’ll ride it out.”
Vale pressed his forehead tighter against Elias’s collarbone. “I hate this.”
“I know, baby.” Elias kissed the top of his head. “But you don’t have to do it alone.”
The shower was already running by the time Elias left.
He’d helped Vale up from the floor with infinite care, his arms wrapped gently around Vale’s waist as he steadied him toward the bathroom. Vale had barely said a word—just muttered a hoarse I’ve got it when Elias tried to follow him in. He didn’t mean it harshly. Just tired. Shaky. Needing space, needing control, needing to scrape the night off his skin before he could let himself be sick.
Elias understood. He kissed Vale’s temple before stepping back. “I’m just going to the corner store. I’ll be back in ten.”
Vale gave a faint nod. Then he shut the door.
Steam bloomed fast behind the frosted glass. The water hissed sharp, then softened to a steady hum, like a heartbeat trying to settle.
Vale leaned heavily on the sink first, staring at himself in the mirror. His eyeliner had smeared down to his cheekbones. His hair stuck to his face in wet, salt-stiff curls. His skin was pale except where it was flushed—across his nose, his neck, blotching high on his chest like a fever blooming from the inside out.
His stomach rolled again, loud and ugly, and his throat clenched.
“Fuck,” he whispered.
He stepped into the shower. The moment the water hit him—hot and heavy, running down the back of his neck and over his shoulders—he shuddered so violently he nearly slipped. His whole body spasmed, ribs tightening as another gag forced its way up, and before he could think, he dropped to his knees in the tub.
The sick came fast, no buildup this time. Just a hot, violent surge of bile and water and air. He braced one hand on the tiled wall, the other clutched over his midsection as the nausea tore through him again. His vision blurred. Steam clung to his lashes. His throat burned, raw and overused. He kept gagging even when there was nothing left, coughing and retching, saliva thick in his mouth.
It felt endless.
When it finally eased, he stayed there for a while—kneeling under the stream, trembling, water running pinkish from his ruined makeup, his sweat, the bitter ghost of sick washing down the drain. His arms shook when he finally pushed himself upright.
By the time he finished washing—face, body, hair, everything—his fingers were pruned and his head was pounding.
His stomach cramped hard the moment he stepped out. Not nausea this time—lower. A deep, sour twist that left him doubled over, one hand braced on the sink. He shuffled to the toilet, sweat springing fresh across his skin as his stomach cramped again and his body gave in completely.
Diarrhea, of course. Of course.
He didn’t cry, but it was close. Not from pain. From sheer exhaustion. From the misery of it all, from the way his body felt foreign, disobedient, like nothing belonged to him anymore.
When he was done, he cleaned up quietly, mechanically. Washed his hands three times. Rinsed his mouth with water until it tasted less like acid. His legs were unsteady beneath him, and when he stepped back into the room, he had to stop in the doorway and lean against the frame.
The bed was untouched. The lights had been dimmed.
Elias was back.
The soft click of the hotel fridge filled the silence, and then Elias turned, his arms full—ginger ale, ginger chews, a bag of electrolyte powder, a small tin of balm, a cool rag already damp in his hand.
Vale didn’t speak. He just looked at Elias like he wasn’t sure if he’d earned this—this care, this gentleness.
Elias met him halfway, brow furrowed, voice quiet. “Shower help at all?”
“A little,” Vale rasped. “Threw up again.”
Elias didn’t flinch. “Okay. Got a bit more out of your system, then.” He handed over the rag. “Here. Sit down, let’s cool you off.”
Vale obeyed this time without protest. He perched on the edge of the bed and pressed the rag to his face—first his cheeks, then his neck, then curled it under his jaw and just breathed. His body felt too warm and too cold all at once. The chill of the air hit his damp skin and brought goosebumps instantly. His teeth ached. His hands wouldn’t stop shaking.
Elias sat beside him, close but not crowding, the quiet steady pulse of him a balm in itself.
“You’re running hot,” Elias murmured, brushing damp curls back from Vale’s temple. “I think you’ve got a fever.”
Vale closed his eyes. “Feels like it.”
“You want to try sipping something?”
Vale opened his eyes again, weary but willing. “Maybe the ginger ale.”
Elias opened the bottle and passed it over. Vale’s hands trembled too much to hold it steady, so Elias kept his fingers loose around Vale’s, guiding it gently as Vale sipped. It was warm—not the best—but it fizzed softly in his mouth, sharp and sweet and grounding.
“I’m sorry,” Vale said again, quietly, without looking at him.
Elias didn’t respond at first. Just kept his hand curled around Vale’s. Then, softly:
“You always say that.”
Vale finally looked up. “Because I mean it.”
“I know.” Elias smiled, faint but warm. “But you don’t have to apologize for being human.”
Vale huffed a breath that wasn’t quite a laugh. “Tell that to the guy who threw up on you.”
“I am that guy,” Elias said dryly. “And I’m still here.”
Vale leaned sideways, pressing into his shoulder. Letting himself be held.
And Elias, quiet and steady, wrapped an arm around him and said nothing else. He didn’t fuss. Didn’t scold. Didn’t smother.
this fic takes place before the band but after high school. around the same time as this fic.
if you have any requests, questions, comments, etc., send them my way.
tw for overwork, emeto, implied past severe health problems.
Lex had been awake for almost twenty hours by the time his hands started to shake enough that he noticed.
Not the clean tremor of nerves — this was deeper, a low electrical hum under his skin, like his body was vibrating at the wrong frequency. He ignored it the way he ignored most warning signs. There were crates to move, cables to coil, signatures to chase down from people who kept disappearing the second he turned his back. Someone needed coffee. Someone needed a replacement mic stand. Someone else needed him to sprint three blocks because a courier had gone to the wrong building again.
Lex said yes to all of it.
He always did.
The hallway outside the studio smelled like old carpet and burned coffee. His stomach had been tight all morning, that familiar dense fullness sitting high and hard under his ribs, like he’d swallowed something that refused to pass. He hadn’t eaten anything real — not since yesterday afternoon, unless you counted the half of a gas-station protein bar he’d choked down while jogging across an intersection.
He didn’t count it.
He popped another pill dry, barely breaking stride. The chalky bitterness stuck to his tongue. Not his prescription. Never had been. A friend of a friend, a little orange bottle passed hand to hand with rules that were more suggestions than anything else. Just enough to stay functional. That was always how it started.
His phone buzzed. Lex glanced at it while unlocking a supply closet, brain skimming the message without fully processing the words. Something about a schedule change. Something about tonight running late. His head felt thick, stuffed with cotton, the edges of his vision fuzzing just slightly when he moved too fast.
He moved faster anyway.
By early afternoon, the chills started.
They came in waves — a cold sweep down his spine, goosebumps breaking out across his arms despite the stuffy heat of the building. Sweat clung to the back of his neck. His shirt stuck to his ribs. Every time he bent down, nausea rolled up through him, slow and heavy, like his stomach was a waterlogged bag being lifted from the bottom of a lake.
Lex swallowed it back. He always did.
When he finally ducked into the bathroom, it wasn’t because he wanted to. It was because his body stopped negotiating.
The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead. The mirror showed him a version of himself he didn’t pause to study: pale under the grime, eyes too bright, pupils blown wide. He barely got the stall door shut before he was on his knees, one hand braced against the tile as his stomach clenched violently.
It came up fast — sour, burning, the miserable half-digested remains of coffee and bile. His abdomen spasmed, tight and distended, muscles jumping under his skin as his body forced relief the only way it knew how. He gagged through it, breathing hard through his nose, jaw clenched like if he let go he might shatter.
When it was over, he stayed hunched for a few seconds longer, forehead pressed to his arm, waiting for the dizziness to pass.
Good, he thought distantly. Done.
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, flushed, and stood up too fast. The room tilted. He grabbed the sink until it righted itself, fingers leaving damp streaks on the porcelain. His stomach still felt wrong — bloated, stretched, that awful heavy pressure lingering like a threat — but the nausea had receded enough to be manageable.
Manageable meant ignorable.
Lex splashed water on his face, didn’t bother drying it properly, and checked his phone again. Missed calls. He sighed, already moving. There was no room in his day for being sick. Sick was a luxury for people who could afford to stop.
He swallowed another stimulant in the hallway, heart already picking up speed, pulse fluttering hard against his throat. The chill hadn’t gone away, but the drug smoothed it over, wrapped his fatigue in a sharp, artificial clarity. His thoughts snapped back into focus. His body followed, obedient as ever.
By the time evening rolled in, the headache had settled behind his eyes like a vise. Light hurt. Sound scraped. His stomach swelled again, tight and unyielding, every step jostling it just enough to remind him it was there. He ignored that too, running on momentum and adrenaline and the unspoken rule he’d lived by since he was a kid: keep moving or you’ll fall apart.
It wasn’t until he finally dragged himself back to the apartment — the narrow stairwell, the peeling paint, the familiar smell of dust and old cooking oil — that the cracks started to show.
The door shut behind him with a soft click. The noise felt too loud. His head swam. He leaned back against the door for a second longer than necessary, chest rising and falling too fast, skin clammy under his jacket.
Somewhere inside, someone was talking. A kettle hissed. Life went on.
Lex pushed off the door and stepped inside, already bracing himself to keep going.
The rest of the day blurred into a series of small, ugly negotiations with his body.
Lex kept moving because stopping felt worse.
He drank what he could—lukewarm water from whatever bottle was closest, half a sports drink someone had left behind, a few mouthfuls of cheap juice that burned going down and came back up not long after. Each time it happened, he treated it like an interruption instead of a message. Kneel. Breathe. Spit. Wipe his mouth. Stand back up. Keep going.
He grabbed a wrapped sandwich at one point, peeled back the paper, stared at it like it had personally betrayed him. He took two bites anyway, chewed mechanically, swallowed. His stomach cramped almost immediately, swelling tight and sour, pressure building until it crowded his lungs. He didn’t even make it ten minutes before he was back in a bathroom, retching quietly, eyes watering, jaw aching from how hard he clenched it.
Fine, he thought afterward, rinsing his mouth. Liquids only.
By the time he finally made it home, night had settled in heavy and close. The apartment was dim and quiet, the kind of silence that pressed in on his ears after a day of constant noise. The door shut behind him, and for a second he just stood there, keys still in his hand, pulse thudding too fast, too loud.
He toed off his shoes and didn’t bother with anything else. His head felt full of fog, thoughts slipping sideways when he tried to grab them. Fever heat flushed his face, chased by chills that left him shivering despite the stale warmth of the apartment.
Still—there was work to do.
Lex dropped onto the couch with his laptop, shoulders slumped but fingers already moving. Emails first. He squinted at the screen, rereading the same sentence three times because the words wouldn’t stay put. His dyslexia flared when he was tired like this, letters swimming, numbers transposing themselves just to spite him. He corrected the same typo twice and still sent the email with another one glaring back at him.
It made his jaw tighten.
He forced himself to sip water between messages, small careful swallows. Sometimes it stayed down. Sometimes it didn’t. When nausea surged, he leaned forward, breathing shallowly until the room steadied again. When that stopped working, he stood up, laptop tucked under his arm like this was all perfectly normal, and took it into the bathroom with him.
He sat on the floor with his back against the tub, knees drawn up awkwardly because his stomach felt too full, too tight to stretch out. He balanced the laptop on his thighs and kept typing.
The vomiting came in short, miserable bursts. Not enough to empty him out, just enough to hurt—acid and bile, his stomach clenching hard against its own distension. Each time, he paused, waited it out, wiped his face, and went right back to the screen.
He hated how slow his brain felt. How the fever made everything slippery. He hated that even now, sick and shaking, he was still better at this than anyone else they could pawn it off on. That if he didn’t do it, it wouldn’t get done.
At some point, the bathroom door creaked open.
Ksenia leaned against the frame, arms crossed loosely, her makeup already half-off, hair pulled back in a way that meant she was done pretending for the night. She took him in with a single, assessing glance: the laptop, the pallor, the faint sheen of sweat on his skin.
“…yeah,” she said after a beat. “That tracks.”
Lex huffed a weak laugh without looking up. “Hey.”
She didn’t rush him. Didn’t ask if he was okay. She assumed what made sense to assume.
“Comedown?” she asked, casual, like she was asking if he wanted tea.
“Something like that,” he said, which wasn’t exactly a lie.
Ksenia slid down the wall until she was sitting in the doorway, knees drawn up, bare feet flat on the tile. She started talking about work—some asshole client, the DJ who kept changing the lineup, a bouncer who thought he was God’s gift. Her voice filled the small space, grounding and familiar, like background noise he didn’t have to parse too carefully.
Lex listened with half an ear, nodding at the right moments, fingers still clumsy on the keys. His stomach rolled again. He muted himself mid-sentence, leaned forward, and retched quietly into the toilet. It burned. His eyes stung. His abdomen felt swollen and sore, muscles trembling with the effort.
When he sat back, Ksenia handed him toilet paper without comment.
“Thanks,” he murmured, voice hoarse.
She studied him a little longer this time. “You look like shit.”
“High praise.”
“You know I mean that lovingly.”
He tried to smile and missed by a mile.
Minutes stretched. The nausea kept coming back faster, his body losing the fight a little more each time. His hands shook harder now, not the sharp edge of stimulants but the deep exhaustion underneath them. The laptop slid once, and he fumbled to catch it, irritation flaring hot and immediate.
“Lex,” Ksenia said finally, softer. “You sure this is just that?”
He hesitated.
That was the thing—he didn’t know any other way to interpret it. His entire life had been a cycle of override and aftermath. Push, pay for it later. Push harder, pay more. There had never been room to stop long enough to feel what his body was asking for.
“I just need to finish a couple things,” he said. “Then I’m good.”
Ksenia sighed, not unkindly. She leaned her head back against the doorframe. “You’re allowed to be human, you know.”
He swallowed, throat sore, stomach churning again. “Yeah,” he said. “I’ll pencil it in.”
She snorted despite herself.
They sat there together like that—him working, getting sick, working again; her keeping him company without trying to fix him. It was a quiet kind of intimacy, built on proximity and understanding rather than touch. She didn’t scold. He didn’t explain. They existed in the mess of it, two people who knew what it meant to keep going because stopping felt dangerous.
Lex kept working because the screen still lit up when he tapped the keys.
That was the only metric he trusted.
Ksenia came back from the kitchen with a bottle of water and pressed it into his free hand without ceremony. The plastic was cool, slick with condensation. He took it automatically, eyes never leaving the email he was rewriting for the fourth time because the words kept rearranging themselves when he blinked.
“Drink,” she said, already sitting back down in the doorway.
He did.
Small swallows at first, careful, paced. The water sat heavy and cold in his stomach, a weight he could feel settle immediately—sloshing, unwelcome, but tolerable. He kept typing. The glow of the screen tunneled his focus, narrowed the world to sentences and bullet points and deadlines that still needed to exist whether he felt like hell or not.
The bottle slowly emptied. He didn’t notice until it was gone.
It stayed down for maybe three minutes.
Then his stomach clenched—hard, violent, unmistakable.
Lex froze mid-keystroke. His abdomen tightened to the point of pain, bloated and stretched, pressure spiking fast and brutal, like something inside him had finally hit its limit. Heat flushed through him in a dizzying wave, nausea roaring up his throat with no warning this time.
“Oh—” was all he got out.
Ksenia was on her feet instantly.
The first retch doubled him forward, sharp and wet, his body finally letting go of its restraint. Water surged back up, followed by everything else he’d forced down over the last several hours. His stomach convulsed powerfully, each heave dragging more up and out, loud and relentless now that the dam had broken.
“Okay,” Ksenia said, voice steady as she slid the laptop off his legs and set it safely on the counter. “Okay, I’ve got you.”
She gathered his hair back in one hand before he even realized he needed it, the other braced between his shoulders as he gagged again, harder. It kept coming—acidic, sour, the unmistakable volume of a stomach that had been upset for hours and was only now purging everything it had been hoarding in protest.
Lex shook with it, breath stuttering, forehead dropping to the rim of the toilet. His stomach cramped brutally, muscles jumping under Ksenia’s palm, distended and aching as it emptied in waves. He barely had time to breathe between heaves, tears streaking hot down his face.
“Oh, Lex,” she murmured, no judgment in it at all. Just fact. Concern. Presence.
He couldn’t answer. He could barely think.
When it finally slowed, he sagged back against the tub, chest heaving, skin flushed and damp. The relief was real—but it was the hollow, wrung-out kind, the kind that left his limbs heavy and his head spinning.
Ksenia didn’t let go of his hair right away. Her knuckles brushed his temple as she shifted, and that’s when she felt it—how hot he was.
“Jesus,” she muttered, pressing the back of her fingers to his cheek, then his forehead. “You’re burning up.”
Lex swallowed thickly. His throat hurt. Everything hurt. “I’m fine,” he said automatically, even as his stomach gave a weak, unhappy twitch like it might revolt again if given the chance.
She made a noise that was halfway between a scoff and a sigh. “Sure you are.”
Time blurred after that. She wiped his face with a cool cloth. Rinsed his mouth. Helped him sip just enough water to wet his lips without risking another round. He leaned into her without realizing it, head lolling slightly, eyes glassy with fever and exhaustion.
At some point, light began to seep under the bathroom door—thin and pale, early morning creeping in.
The door opened again.
Soren stood there in soft sweatpants and an old t-shirt, hair rumpled from sleep, concern already etched into his face before anyone said a word. His gaze flicked from the toilet, to Lex’s slack posture, to the fever-flushed skin, to Ksenia’s hand steady at his back.
“…oh,” he said quietly.
Lex registered him dimly, brain misfiring, latching onto the wrong meaning. “Hey,” he murmured hoarsely. “I’ve gotta— I’ve gotta leave soon.”
Soren’s expression tightened.
“No,” Ksenia said at the same time, flat and immediate.
Lex frowned, trying to push himself more upright. The effort made his head swim. “There’s stuff—emails, I didn’t—”
“You are not going anywhere,” Ksenia cut in, firm now, one arm braced across his chest to keep him from pitching forward again.
Soren stepped closer, kneeling in front of him. He pressed his palm gently to Lex’s knee, grounding, anchoring. “Lex,” he said softly. “You’re sick.”
Lex blinked at him, confusion flickering across his face. He looked genuinely startled by the idea, like it had never occurred to him that this was allowed to be the conclusion.
“I just need to finish—”
“No,” Soren repeated, voice calm but unyielding. “You don’t.”
Lex opened his mouth to argue and instead gagged weakly, stomach giving another sour roll. His body made the decision for him. He slumped back against the tub, eyes closing, breath shallow and uneven.
Ksenia exchanged a look with Soren over his head. A silent agreement passed between them—this stops now.
“Okay,” she said, gentler again, brushing damp hair back from Lex’s face. “You’re done.”
Lex didn’t fight it this time.
He didn’t have the strength.
The transition from the bathroom happened slowly, with resistance layered into every movement.
Lex hated being moved.
He hated the way his limbs felt heavy and uncooperative, hated the loss of momentum more than the pain itself. When Ksenia tried to help him stand, he reflexively pushed back, palm pressing against the tub like he could anchor himself there by sheer will.
“I’ve got it,” he muttered, voice rough and too quiet. His legs trembled the moment he put weight on them.
Soren didn’t argue. He shifted closer instead, shoulder lined up just enough to catch Lex if he tipped. “We know,” he said evenly. “We’re just here.”
Lex made a frustrated sound under his breath but didn’t fight further. He let them guide him out, one careful step at a time. The hallway felt too long, the light too bright. His head throbbed in time with his pulse, a dull pressure blooming behind his eyes and spreading outward. Every few steps his stomach gave a sickly roll, still hollowed out and angry, like it couldn’t decide whether it was done or just regrouping.
The couch was closer than the bedroom. Ksenia angled him toward it without comment, already anticipating the argument.
“I’m not—” Lex started.
“You are,” she replied calmly. “Just for now.”
He sank down with a soft, defeated exhale, back hitting the cushions harder than he intended. The impact jolted something loose in his chest—his heart fluttered, skipped, then thudded back into rhythm with a sharp, unpleasant lurch.
Lex went very still.
There it was.
Not new. Never new. Just… louder lately.
He pressed his hand flat over his sternum, more annoyed than alarmed, like his body was misbehaving on purpose. The sensation passed quickly enough—an uneven stutter, a brief rush of heat to his face—but it left him feeling hollowed out, vaguely shaky.
Soren noticed anyway.
His gaze dropped immediately to Lex’s hand, then back to his face. “Hey,” he said quietly. “Did you feel that?”
Lex rolled his eyes weakly. “It’s fine.”
Soren didn’t push yet. He reached for the throw blanket instead, draping it over Lex’s legs with deliberate care. Lex’s skin was hot under his fingers—too hot. Fever-hot. The kind of warmth that felt wrong.
“You’re burning up,” Soren said again, more firmly now.
Lex closed his eyes, lashes damp with exhaustion. “I’ve worked through worse.”
That, finally, got a reaction.
Ksenia leaned against the arm of the couch, arms folded, watching him with an expression that wasn’t angry but wasn’t indulgent either. “Yeah,” she said. “And you almost died doing it.”
Lex cracked one eye open, irritation flaring. “That’s dramatic.”
“Is it?” Soren asked softly.
The room settled into a tense quiet. Morning light filtered in through the blinds, pale and unforgiving. Outside, the city was waking up. Cars passed. Someone laughed somewhere down the block. Life continuing, indifferent.
Soren knelt beside the couch so he was level with Lex, elbows resting on his knees. His voice stayed gentle, but there was an undercurrent of seriousness now—clinical, focused.
“Any blood?” he asked.
Lex stiffened.
Ksenia’s head snapped up. “What?”
Lex swallowed. His throat felt raw, scraped. “No,” he said too quickly. “Jesus, Sor. No.”
Soren didn’t look convinced. “Not when you threw up just now?”
“No,” Lex repeated, more firmly. Then, after a beat, quieter: “Not this time.”
Ksenia’s jaw tightened. She knew. They both did. The memory sat heavy between them—Lex, younger, thinner, coughing into a sink until the water ran pink. Lex brushing it off like it was nothing. Like it wasn’t terrifying.
Soren nodded slowly, accepting the answer for now but filing it away. “Okay. If that changes, you tell us.”
Lex made a noncommittal noise and turned his face slightly into the back of the couch, like that ended the conversation.
His body, unfortunately, had other plans.
The fever climbed steadily, dragging him under in waves. Sometimes he dozed—restless, shallow sleep that left him more disoriented when he surfaced. Sometimes he lay awake, staring at nothing, heart pounding too fast for no reason at all. His pulse skittered unpredictably, little flares of tachycardia that made his chest feel tight and his breathing shallow.
Every time it happened, he tried to breathe through it, jaw clenched, refusing to draw attention.
Soren noticed anyway.
He hovered without hovering—checking Lex’s temperature with the back of his hand, timing his breathing when Lex wasn’t paying attention, watching for the subtle tells that meant things were tipping from “miserable” into “dangerous.” His psychology textbooks were scattered across the coffee table, forgotten. This wasn’t theory. This was a person he loved burning himself down in real time.
Ksenia adapted in her own way. She brought cool cloths. Saltines that went untouched. Ginger tea that Lex took two sips of before his stomach protested again. She sat close, grounded, talking about nothing and everything, keeping the air filled so Lex didn’t disappear too far inside himself.
At one point, Lex tried to sit up abruptly, panic flashing sharp and sudden. “I need my laptop.”
“No,” both of them said instantly.
“I have to—there’s shit I didn’t finish,” he insisted, breath hitching, heart picking up speed again. “They’re expecting—”
“They can wait,” Ksenia said, firm now, pressing a hand to his shoulder to keep him down. “You can’t.”
Lex shook his head weakly, frustration edging into something rawer. “You don’t get it. If I stop—”
“If you stop, you live,” Soren said quietly.
That landed.
Lex went still, chest rising and falling too fast, eyes glassy with fever and something dangerously close to fear. He stared at the ceiling like it held answers he couldn’t afford to look at too closely.
He had lived his entire life on high alert—every second tuned to survival, to staying useful, staying necessary. On the streets, stopping meant disappearing. It meant hunger, violence, being forgotten. Even now, safe in this half-broken apartment with two people who refused to leave, his body didn’t know how to stand down.
Rest felt like a threat.
“I don’t know how,” he whispered, so quietly it almost got lost.
Soren reached up without hesitation, resting his hand over Lex’s, still pressed to his chest. He could feel the erratic rhythm beneath it, the telltale flutter that made his stomach twist with concern.
“I know,” he said simply.
Ksenia softened then, her usual sharp edges blunted by something almost tender. She brushed Lex’s hair back, thumb lingering at his temple. “We’ll do it for you,” she said. “Just this once. You don’t have to be good at it.”
a little side thing because ksenia has her own personal headache too (aside from her boyfriends)
if you have any questions, comments, concerns, etc., send them my way.
*all the ukrainian is romanized to the best of my ability, it is my first language but i figure it would be easier to comprehend being spoken than the standard cyrllic
tw for past history of reckless behavior, assumed reckless behavior, hiding illness, emeto
also ksenia seems very abrasive in this, she is very much an abrasive caretaker to most people, Lex and Soren are the exceptions, but especially with what she knows about Maksym... she's not inherently mean just tough love
Maksym had been sick for two days before anyone noticed.
He told himself it was nothing. That was always the first lie—automatic, practiced, almost soothing. Nothing serious. Just a bug. Bad timing. Bodies were stupid like that sometimes. He could handle stupid.
The first night it showed up, it came as chills that didn’t make sense. Not the sharp, clean kind that came with adrenaline or cold air, but a deep, rattling cold that lived under his skin. He lay on the narrow hotel bed fully dressed, boots kicked off but jeans still on, hoodie zipped to his chin, the air conditioner off even though the room felt too warm. Sweat dampened the back of his neck anyway, a thin, unpleasant sheen that made the fabric cling. His muscles ached like he’d been bracing for impact all day—jaw tight, shoulders locked, spine wound too straight.
He didn’t sleep much. He dozed in fragments, waking every hour with that same heavy awareness blooming in his gut.
By morning, his stomach felt wrong in a way he knew too well to ignore and too well to name. Not sharp pain. Not nausea exactly. More like pressure—dense, waterlogged, swollen beneath his ribs as if someone had overfilled him and tied him off. Each breath pushed down into it, each movement sloshed it just enough to make his throat tighten reflexively.
He stood in the bathroom, hands braced on the sink, staring at his own reflection like it might confess something. Pale, sure—but he was always a little pale when he hadn’t slept. Eyes glassy, rimmed faintly red, but that could be anything. He splashed water on his face and told himself he was fine.
When his stomach lurched without warning, he didn’t even swear. Just turned and dropped to one knee in front of the toilet, one hand gripping the porcelain hard enough his knuckles blanched. He kept it quiet. That mattered. He leaned forward, elbows tucked tight, shoulders rounded inward as if making himself smaller could contain it.
The vomiting came up fast and heavy, the kind that left his abdomen burning and trembling afterward, the kind that dragged a sharp, involuntary sound from his chest that he bit down on immediately. He flushed quickly. Too quickly. Rinsed his mouth, wiped his face, sat on the edge of the tub with his head bowed until the shaking eased.
No one had to know.
That became the rule.
On tour, disappearing was an art form. Maksym was good at it. He knew how to linger behind gear cases, how to volunteer for perimeter checks that took him away from the main group, how to excuse himself with a grunt and a wave that said security business without explanation. The hoodie helped—thick, dark, loose enough to hide the way his stomach stayed distended and tight, how he kept one hand pressed low and flat against it sometimes when he thought no one was looking, grounding himself against the nauseating fullness.
He didn’t eat much. Said he’d grabbed something earlier. Said he’d eat later. Drank water sparingly because every swallow seemed to sit there, heavy and sour, like his body had forgotten what to do with it. The chills came and went, unpredictable—sometimes a shiver racing through him so hard his teeth clicked, sometimes heat blooming under his skin until sweat prickled at his temples.
He kept moving anyway.
That was the real tell, if anyone had been watching closely enough: Maksym stayed in motion. He walked when he could have leaned. Volunteered when he could have rested. Kept his posture rigid, alert, a body on duty. If he stopped too long, his stomach threatened revolt. If he slowed, the dizziness crept in around the edges, softening the world just enough to make him uneasy.
So he didn’t slow.
When the nausea spiked in public, he swallowed it down with brute force and timing. Jaw clenched. Breath controlled. Eyes forward. He waited for moments of noise—soundchecks, doors slamming, laughter down the hall—and slipped away then, quick and silent, to be sick where no one would hear. He learned which bathrooms were safest. Which stairwells echoed too much. Which trash cans had lids heavy enough to muffle sound in an emergency.
Every successful concealment felt like a small victory. Every close call left him wired and shaking afterward, adrenaline layering over illness until his body couldn’t tell the difference.
Ksenia, of course, was the danger variable.
She had eyes like a hawk and a mouth like a blade, and she already watched him like she was waiting for him to do something stupid. Maksym made a point of keeping his distance—not obvious, just subtle. Stayed a half-step farther away. Answered questions with fewer words. Kept his hoodie on even when the others complained about the heat.
When she glanced his way, he straightened. When she spoke to him, he kept his voice even. No slurring. No weakness. No leaning. Just Maks. Solid. Contained.
By the second night, his body was starting to lose the argument.
He stood alone in the hotel room again, lights off, one hand pressed hard into the bloated curve of his abdomen, breathing through his nose like it was a drill. His stomach felt stretched and sore, full in a way that bordered on painful, each movement threatening to tip it over the edge. When it finally did, it was violent and exhaustive, leaving him slumped against the wall afterward, forehead resting against the cool paint, sweat soaking the collar of his hoodie.
He stayed there longer than he should have.
Long enough that, somewhere in the back of his mind, a traitorous thought surfaced—quiet, unwelcome, dangerous.
If someone noticed, they’d make you stop.
He pushed it away immediately.
Maksym rinsed his mouth, wiped his face, pulled the hoodie back on, and squared his shoulders like armor. He checked the mirror one more time, adjusted the set of his jaw, and turned back toward the door.
Whatever this was—virus, bug, bad luck—it would pass.
And until it did, no one needed to know.
Maksym did everything right.
That was the bitter thing about it—if there had been recklessness, if he’d slipped, if he’d been sloppy or drunk or careless, this would have made sense. He knew how to be punished. He knew how to be caught.
Instead, he worked.
Backstage was a controlled chaos he understood well enough to disappear into. He checked credentials with steady hands. Kept his shoulders squared. Stood where he was supposed to stand. When the bass rattled through the walls and into his bones, it helped drown out the way his stomach rolled, heavy and unstable, like it was sloshing against its own limits.
He swallowed nausea like it was another order.
During the set, he stationed himself near the side barricade, eyes sweeping the crowd in practiced arcs. Lights strobed hot and white and then red, washing over faces, hands, movement. The heat from the bodies pressed in close didn’t help. Sweat soaked through the back of his hoodie, damp and sticky, and every so often a chill ripped through him anyway, sharp enough to make his vision blur for a half-second.
He didn’t let it show.
He shifted his weight when the dizziness crept in. Grounded himself by counting breaths. Four in. Six out. Jaw tight. Tongue pressed to the roof of his mouth to keep the gag reflex down when his stomach surged without warning, pushing up hard against his diaphragm like it wanted to climb out of him.
Not now. Not here.
When the last song ended and the crowd roared, the sound hit him like a physical force. Applause, shouting, feedback—too loud, too sudden. His stomach lurched violently, pressure cresting sharp and immediate, and his throat spasmed in reflex.
That was it.
He peeled away before anyone could say his name. Slipped past a stack of cases, down a side corridor that smelled faintly of concrete dust and old beer. The hallway was narrow, poorly lit, mercifully empty. He braced one hand against the wall and bent forward, breathing hard through his nose, every inhale a risk.
His vision swam. Black crept in at the edges.
The nausea was no longer something he could muscle through—it was total, consuming, a hot, sour wave that left him dizzy and shaking, sweat pouring down his spine. His stomach felt impossibly full, stretched tight and aching, as if every hour he’d spent holding it in had compounded into this one moment.
He swallowed. Gagged. Swallowed again.
“Fuck,” he muttered hoarsely, voice barely there.
He slid down until his back hit the wall, knees bending just enough to keep him upright. His head lolled forward, chin dropping to his chest as he focused on not vomiting right there, right now. Each breath scraped. The hallway tilted.
He didn’t hear Ksenia’s footsteps at first.
What he did hear was her voice—sharp, familiar, cutting through the haze like a blade.
“Are you kidding me right now?”
He flinched, head snapping up too fast. The motion sent a violent wave through his stomach, and he barely bit back a retch. His eyes struggled to focus, landing on her silhouette at the end of the hall—arms crossed, posture already coiled for a fight.
“Jesus, Maks,” she snapped, closing the distance in quick strides. “I leave you alone for five minutes and you disappear? What, you decide to get fucked up now of all times?”
He opened his mouth to respond and immediately regretted it. His tongue felt thick. Words tangled somewhere between thought and speech.
“Ne pochynay,” he rasped without thinking.
Her eyes flashed. “Oh, don’t start?” She scoffed. “Are you drunk? Or is this you being hungover and pretending you’re fine again?”
“Zamovkny…” The word came out slurred, blunt.
That did it.
“Don't you dare tell me to shut up.” Ksenia stepped closer, fury sharp and bright. “You know better."
He shook his head weakly, one hand coming up to his mouth as another gag tore through him, hard enough that his whole body jolted. His eyes squeezed shut.
“Ya… ya pohano sebe pochuvayu,” he said, the admission tumbling out rough and unguarded.
She froze.
“What?” she snapped automatically, in English—then frowned, something shifting as she really looked at him. His skin was flushed too dark beneath the sweat. His pupils unfocused. The way he swayed slightly where he stood.
“Maks?”
He didn’t answer.
The nausea crested, sudden and brutal. He doubled over with a broken sound, gagging hard—and then it came up.
Not a little.
He barely had time to turn his head before he vomited violently onto the concrete floor, stomach heaving with force that folded him inward. Thick, uncontrolled retching wracked him, one wave after another, the sound wet and awful in the narrow hallway. His knees buckled as the pressure finally released, everything his body had been hoarding for days forcing its way out all at once.
“Maks—shit—hey—”
Ksenia lunged forward, grabbing him under the arm just as his legs gave out completely. He sagged into her with dead weight, still gagging, saliva and bile dripping from his mouth as another harsh retch tore through him. She held him upright, one hand braced firm against his chest to keep him from faceplanting into the mess on the floor.
“Okay, okay—don’t you dare pass out on me, Lex probably already met the quota of one faint per show,” she muttered.
Her hand slid instinctively up to the back of his neck.
He was burning.
“Jesus Christ,” she hissed under her breath, palm pressing flat against his skin. “You’re fucking on fire. You really don't feel good.”
Maksym sagged harder, head lolling forward, breathing shallow and uneven. His forehead brushed her shoulder, damp with sweat, as he mumbled something low and unintelligible in Ukrainian—apologetic, maybe, or just broken fragments of thought slipping loose now that he couldn’t hold himself together anymore.
Ksenia tightened her grip.
She looked down at the mess on the floor, then back at him—fever-hot, shaking, barely upright.
And for the first time since it started, Maksym didn’t have the strength to argue.
The backstage room was dim and familiar in the way safe places often were—low lamps instead of overhead lights, a battered couch pushed against the wall, a small table already cluttered with water bottles, towels, and half-emptied pill organizers that absolutely did not belong to venue staff.
Lex was sitting on the floor with his back against the couch, long legs stretched out, head tipped back against the cushion as he focused on slowing his breathing. Sweat still dampened his hairline; the show always took something out of him, no matter how well he paced himself. Soren hovered nearby in practiced orbit—quiet, watchful, grounding without hovering.
Lex looked up when the door opened.
Ksenia came in first, half hauling, half holding Maksym upright. Maksym stumbled over the threshold, boots scuffing the floor, his weight sagging heavily toward her side. His hoodie was still on, but now it was obvious how wrong he looked—face flushed deep and uneven, eyes unfocused, skin shining with fever-slick sweat.
Lex was on his feet immediately.
“Hey,” he said gently, voice already dropping into that careful, unhurried register. “What happened?”
Ksenia didn’t answer right away. She steered Maksym toward the couch and let him sink down hard, one hand still locked around his forearm to keep him from tipping sideways.
“He’s sick,” she said flatly. “Like—actually sick. Not stupid sick.”
Lex shot her a look that held a flicker of relief and something like fond exasperation. “That’s a category now?”
She huffed. “With him? Yes.”
Maksym sat hunched forward, elbows braced on his knees, head hanging. His breathing was shallow and uneven, each inhale visibly measured like he didn’t trust his body not to revolt again if he took in too much air at once. His stomach was still distended beneath the hoodie, tight enough that the fabric pulled awkwardly when he shifted.
Lex crouched in front of him without hesitation, keeping a respectful distance, eyes scanning in the quiet, clinical way of someone used to reading bodies before words.
“You okay to answer a couple questions?” Lex asked softly.
Maksym lifted his head just enough to nod. The movement made him wince.
“How long have you been feeling like this?”
“…Dva dni,” he murmured. Two days.
Ksenia swore under her breath. “Of course.. Two days.”
Lex’s expression didn’t change, but something in his eyes tightened. “Have you been throwing up the whole time?”
Another nod. Slower this time.
Lex reached for his bag—already unzipped, already within arm’s reach. It was absurdly well stocked, as usual: electrolyte packets, antiemetics, fever reducers, ginger chews, alcohol wipes, a digital thermometer. Ksenia watched him with something between fondness and disbelief.
“You know,” she muttered, “one day I’m going to make fun of you for being a walking pharmacy, and one day I’m going to kiss you for it. Today’s definitely the second.”
Lex smiled faintly without looking up. “I accept both outcomes.”
He held the thermometer up. “Hey, Maks—can I check your temp?”
Maksym hesitated, then nodded again. He didn’t argue. Didn’t joke. Just complied, docile in a way that would have worried anyone who knew him even a little.
Lex waited, eyes flicking briefly to Soren, who had already grabbed a fresh towel and a bottle of water and set them nearby without a word.
Ksenia leaned over and pressed the back of her hand to Maksym’s forehead again, as if to confirm what she already knew. “Told you. He’s practically glowing.”
Maksym made a vague, dismissive sound and swallowed hard. His hand drifted to his stomach, fingers splayed, pressing lightly like he was trying to hold the nausea in place by force of will.
Lex noticed immediately.
“Nausea still bad?” he asked.
“…Tak,” Maksym said.
"He said yes." Ksenia said.
“Any stomach pain, or more like… pressure?”
Maksym frowned, searching for words that felt slippery and wrong in his mouth. “…Bagato,” he said finally, gesturing vaguely “Povnyi.”
"A lot, and full." Ksenia said
Lex nodded, understanding clicking into place. “Okay. That tracks.. ANything else we should know?”
"He says... dizzy. Very dizzy, and that breathing is a gamble."
"Okay," Lex nodded, "That means more than likely dehydration, and definitely going to throw up more probably."
He passed him a small pill and a cup of water. “This is for nausea. It’s strong but gentle. You don’t have to take it if you don’t want to.”
Maksym didn’t even hesitate. He took it, sipped the water slowly, deliberately, like he was bracing for consequences that didn’t come.
Ksenia watched him, jaw tight. “You didn’t tell anyone,” she said, not accusing so much as stating a fact.
Maksym shrugged weakly. “Robota,” he said.
"Work is significantly less important than you puking your guts up," Ksenia pointed.
Lex glanced up at her then—quiet, steady. “He did everything right, didn’t he?”
She exhaled sharply through her nose. “Yeah. That’s the problem.”
Another wave of nausea hit him without warning. Maksym leaned forward abruptly, gagging hard, one hand gripping the edge of the couch. Ksenia was already there, grabbing the trash can and bracing him by the shoulder, solid and unyielding.
“Hey,” she said sharply. “Don’t fight it.”
He retched, harsh and hollow this time, but there wasn’t much left. His whole body shook with the effort, breath coming out in broken gasps afterward.
Lex moved in closer, one hand warm and steady between his shoulder blades, rubbing slow, grounding circles. No pressure. No rush.
“That’s okay,” Lex murmured. “You’re doing fine. Just let it happen.”
Maksym didn’t respond. He just sagged, spent, forehead dropping briefly against Ksenia’s arm as she held him upright. She felt the heat again—unnatural, alarming.
“Yeah,” she muttered, softer now. “We’re not doing the tough-guy thing anymore.”
Lex nodded. “He doesn’t have to.”
For the first time since he’d been found, Maksym didn’t try to pull away or stand up or reassert control. He stayed where he was, breathing shallowly, letting the room hold him.
Three kinds of care moved around him—Lex’s gentle precision, Soren’s quiet presence, Ksenia’s fierce, immovable steadiness—and for once, he didn’t fight any of it.
