Delicious Benitez whump concept because I think you would appreciate it:
Vincent's spent most of his life eating a very simple largely vegetarian diet, because most of the places he's worked there wasn't a lot of money to go around, and there were always better uses for it than buying meat. He usually didn't eat meat except for special occasions.
Then after he moves to the Vatican, due to the sudden and drastic diet shift to but richer foods he becomes quite ill.
Ooooooh I love this!! I kinda changed it a little bit because I wanted to draw out the suffering,,, hope u enjoy!!
Vincent had expected a lot of hardships to come from his role as pope. He had been well aware of the scrutiny of the press that would analyze his every move and word, had been expecting working long hours and spending countless days in meetings with diplomats and members of the Curia. He had known that the papacy would make him unable to ever live a normal life again.
What Vincent hadn’t expected was the constant nausea. During the conclave, when tensions were running high and he often skipped meals in order to pray for guidance or walk alone in the gardens whenever he had a chance, he had felt weak and tired, but in comparison to his normal routine of working from sunrise to sunset, his lack of energy and slight nausea had been nothing to worry about.
During his first weeks as God’s representative on earth, Vincent had assumed the sickness came from the anxiety of suddenly being one of the most famous men alive, suddenly in charge of the entire Roman Catholic Church. Whenever he woke up with an aching stomach or ended up on his knees in front of the toilet, he thought the illness came from the grief of leaving his flock behind.
It wasn’t until a month and a half had passed, that anyone noticed how Vincent seemed somehow skinnier than the already borderline malnourished man that had appeared in the office of the Santa Martha. How the new Holy Father would seemingly have to force himself to swallow the food presented to him by the nuns, as if each bite was torture.
The nuns panicked, thinking that the Pope disliked the food they were cooking, Aldo kept inviting himself over to the Holy Father’s table at meals to watch him eat, and Thomas was fretting over the pope as if he were an overprotective mother.
Vincent never complained. Whenever the nuns would ask him his favorite foods he would, to their great dismay, wave them off with a comment of appreciating every meal they cooked. When Aldo would gently try to pry about his eating habits and weight loss, Vincent would tell him that he would make sure to take better care of himself. When Thomas practically begged Vincent to tell him what was wrong, Vincent would reassure him that it was simply the stress of the papacy getting to him, and that he would surely become better at handling it as time went by.
But time didn’t remove Vincent’s ailments. He would keep going through the days burdened by not only the papacy but also the pain that never seemed to leave him alone. He would pray for guidance and help, for forgiveness - just in case his pain was some kind of punishment. For a while he considered that God was finally striking him down for the sin of being born with a uterus.
Three months into Innocent XIV’s papacy, the pope was invited to share a meal with some of Rome’s homeless population. Vincent had loved the idea, finally getting to interact with and help people in need instead of trying to lecture world leaders on the importance of basic human decency.
The lunch was great. Vincent hadn’t been that happy since before the conclave began. He got to share a table with men, women, and children who told him of their lives and the things they’d experienced. He could comfort the hurting and feed the hungry. He’d even been able to almost ignore the pain that had become his constant companion.
Until, of course, it all went wrong. A short while after finishing the meal, Vincent felt the now all too familiar sensation of nausea, and knowing that there was no way to prevent the inevitable, he quickly excused himself from the table. Yet, this time something felt different. The nausea was accompanied by a strange itching in his throat, and the strange sense that he could not get enough air to enter his lungs.
He only made it a couple of steps away from the table before he realized something was very wrong. It felt as if his throat was closing, and every breath became more difficult than the next. He clawed on his cassock, trying to pull it away from his throat as if it were the white vestment that was suffocating him.
Vincent heard a voice yelling something, and he recognized it as one of the homeless men he had just been dining with, but his mind was fuzzy and he couldn’t understand what was being said. As he felt his body start to give up, his knees folding underneath him and his vision blurring, the last thing he felt was fingers on his neck and hands lifting his legs into the air.
-
Vincent awoke to the sound of beeping and the sterile scent of a hospital. His mouth was dry and instead of his normal white cassock, he had been dressed in a flimsy blue gown. Next to him, on a chair, was Thomas. The man looked exhausted, his skin a pale, almost gray color, and dark bags were present underneath his closed eyes.
Vincent watched silently as Thomas moved from bead to bead on the rosary, his lips twitching in silent prayer. He wondered for a moment whether Thomas had regained his ability to pray, because it didn’t seem as if the man had any issues right now.
When Thomas opened his eyes and saw Vincent looking back at him, he nearly fell off his chair in surprise. “Vincent! You’re awake!” Vincent smiled at the man’s excitement, “I wouldn’t have you hold another conclave so soon.” He joked, only to be met with a stern expression.
“Well you nearly did, Your Holiness.” The title was spoken as if it were an insult. “You didn’t think to mention to anyone that you’ve been feeling sick? We’ve all been trying to get you to open up to us, and you’ve been saying that you’re fine!” Thomas pauses his rant, grabbing Vincent’s hand as the anger seems to drain from his body.
“I’m sorry for yelling, Vincent. But you nearly died. If it weren’t for Mr. Bilal, you would be dead.” This shocked him, he knew something had been wrong for quite some time now, but to have been that close to death? In a situation so much safer than most of his work had ever been?
“What happened?” He asked.
“You had an extreme allergic reaction. Anaphylactic shock, they said. Mr. Bilal used to work as a doctor in Syria, and managed to recognize the symptoms fast enough that the ambulance arrived in time to give you epinephrine.”
Vincent was confused, “allergic reaction?” He asked. “I don’t have any allergies.” Thomas looked at him with raised eyebrows and an expression that showed how stupid he thought the comment was. “Right, sorry, I obviously do… but I didn’t know that!”
Thomas sighed before speaking, his tone that of a tired man trying to explain something to a child. “You wouldn’t have known, for a while. But once you came to the Vatican, it should’ve been quite obvious. And I know that it has been. We’ve all seen you lose weight, leave meetings to throw up or try to skip meals whenever you feel sick, unfortunately we all assumed it was because of the stress… because that’s what you told us.”
Vincent grimaced at the frustration in Thomas’ voice. But calmed when the other man grabbed his hand in his own, gently caressing it with his thumb.
“The doctors believe you have an allergy to…” he pauses to squint his eyes at a paper lying on Vincent’s bedside table. “Galactose-alpha-1,3-galactose protein.” Vincent levels him with a blank look, conveying that he has no idea what Thomas is talking about. “Apparently it means you’re allergic to red meat.”
Vincent once again blinks in confusion. “But I’ve had red meat lots of times?”
“Apparently, you can develop this allergy through a tick bite. You probably got bitten and didn’t even realize it. But God…” Thomas runs a hand over his face. “You must have been feeling so sick, for months!”
Vincent nods shamefully. As he thinks back to the previous months, it all seems so obvious, how he’d suddenly started eating a whole new type of diet, and how he would never leave food on his plate, not wanting the nuns to think he didn’t appreciate their food. How he’d been feeling nauseous constantly and throwing up more often than he’d ever done before. The pain that had become part of him. And the fact that hiding it all could’ve killed him.
After that day, Thomas makes Vincent promise to never ignore medical problems again, and to always tell someone if he was feeling sick. Vincent promises to try to take better care of himself, and to start asking for help when he needs it.
5 months into the papacy of Innocent XIV, one Mr. Bilal receives a letter requesting his expertise as the private doctor for the pope.
