Hicvember 2025: Burps
Delving into Bran's character again with this one. Written all in the post text-box, so excuse any glaring typos. Or if you find them, celebrate them and take them out for dinner or something. They need love, too!
CW:
New characters! (created on the spot)
Embarrassment over hiccups and burps
Light, good-natured teasing
Based on a card game I just recently learned on Halloween
Burps and hiccups from alcoholic cider
Dan knows
Kortney is a pure and good child and will be protected at all cost so help me I'm an atheist!
Everyone knows an NB called Ren, don't say you don't; I know two!
Attempts to cure hiccups failing
My dear sweet ginger bear is dramatic and loving and I need to pay more attention to him!!
Dan is also the only non-artist in the group.
Token straight white cis man present and self-deprecating
Bran's belly should just be an additional character; that's how I see it.
It's 3am, you all. What am I doing with my life?
Bran took another gulp out of his can of cider and put it down beside him next to his cards. Around him at his card table in his apartment were three of his friends: Kortney, Ren, and Dan.
Kortney was a chubby trans woman, a Korean American adoptee, who he met in his ceramics class in college. Ren was a tall, thin, dark-skinned nonbinary artist he'd made friends with at an art show. And Dan was the token white het cis man Bran had stayed close friends with all throughout high school, one of his oldest friends.
Dan also knew, after a particularly drunken night with Bran when they were high school seniors at a house-party they'd both crashed, about Bran's 'thing' with hiccups. Though he tended to forget until Bran actually got the hiccups.
The card game was new to all of them. Bran had just picked it up from a local book shop. The artwork on each of the cards was adorable. The rules, however, were a little harder to grasp.
"Wait," Dan was saying rubbing his tawny-toned beard. The rest of Dan's hair was completely lacking in any gingery shade. Rather, he had light brown hair. But his beard was only a shade darker than Bran's bright orange one.
"So, I can't switch with one of the cards I took from someone else?" Dan continued. "Do I have to just switch two other player's cards?"
"Uh..." Bran said with a squint. "Wait a second."
"I'm so confused..." Kortney admitted as her eyes darted around to everyone else's spreads and narrowed to read the score indicators on her own cards.
"I'm pretty sure I'm losing," Ren interjected. They touched each picture on the cards in front of them. "But I really don't care, because these are so fucking cute."
Bran chuckled in response as he read from the rules. He absently took another drink from his can.
"Okay," the ginger started, "it looks like ER'RAAAUUUP! Oh gawd! Excuse me!"
Dan gave a guffaw and laugh. "Oh, is that all? Well, why didn't you say that in the first place?"
Bran giggled and shook his head, bemused. That belch had come out of nowhere! He didn't even have time to muffle it!
"Makes sense you'd be fluent in burps, Dan," Kortney said with a smile.
"You are kind of full of hot air," Ren added. They blinked lazily at him, though not unkindly.
"Okay! I get it! Gang up on the straight white guy!" he said as he held up his hands.
"You know the rules, Danny. Errp!-'scuse me, no playing the minority card in my home." Bran grinned. He suppressed yet another belch and patted his chest with a look of surprise.
Dan's grinned back. "Okay, okay. But I honestly think you're winning the whole hot air thing."
"Ugh! I know! UUUURRRP! Shit! I don't know where these things are coming from. Augh. Sorry for being so gross guys!" If he kept burping like this, Bran knew he'd get the hiccups. It was only a matter of time.
Cider didn't usually give Bran this much gas. But this was a new brand he hadn't tried, yet. He side-eyed the can wondering if there was something in it that was encouraging more of a reaction than normal.
"Okay! The rules say...yeah, when you play Mischief you can only switch two ERRUH!-sorry, ugh, two players cards, not your own," Bran said.
The artist could feel a tremor start to form in the center of his chest. He tried to swallow it down and take a deep breath. Bran liked having hiccups a lot, but he hadn't planned on being aroused during a nice card game with his friends.
"Ah, crap. Okay," Dan said, a little disappointed. He made a decision on what cards to switch between Bran and Kortney a little sullenly.
"That would make me way more upset if I knew exactly what you did by switching our cards, Dan," Kortney informed him.
"Honestly," he replied, "I'm not exactly sure what I did, either, if it makes you feel any better!"
Bran chuckled, "Okay Urp! now pass your cards Mmrrrp!-dammit, to the left, dears! Aaarup!-guh!"
Branson covered his mouth then flapped his hands dramatically, more than a little flustered as he felt the flutter in his chest get more intense. He slapped his chest a few times for good measure, though it did little to help the situation.
"Ha! You gonna be alright, B?" Ren asked.
"Yeah-no, I'm fine! Ur-up! Just exploding on the insi—Urp!-inside!" Bran's face immediately heated up with that last word. A silent hiccup had prefaced the burp. He'd broken the seal. His diaphragm was now activated.
Dan looked up at Bran's expression and his eyebrows went up when he caught his friend bounce again, another airy burp following. The ginger caught the look from his friend for a moment to confirm the reaction and looked down. The nonverbal exchange was fortunately not caught by the other two.
"It's very considerate to explode on the inside, dear," Kortney said as she pulled a card from the two that had been passed her way and put it face down in decision.
"Bran's such a people pleaser," Ren added, "that he's very tidy about exploding so he doesn't offend anyone."
The snark was completely on par with Ren's personality. Dan still mouthed 'WOW' at the deep cut.
"Okay, you Hih!URP! I did not ask Hmp!Murp! to be attacked," he paused to cover his mouth with the back of his hand as his body defied him and another diaphragm spasm brought up another airy burp, "ugh, excuse me, in my own ho-Her!Up!-ugh! Home!"
Ren was outright giggling now. Dan was staring at Bran with high brows and an amused grin. Kortney, however, was studying her cards again.
"Wait, does that mean I need two more of these ones?" she asked. No one was paying attention to the cards, though. "Aw, did you get the hiccups?"
"Hiccup-burps," Ren corrected.
"Uh...hicca-burps?" Dan asked.
"Mmm...hicburps?" Ren suggested.
"Burp-ups!" he blurted excitedly with a point to Bran.
"Ew, no," Kortney protested with a wrinkle of her nose. "That sounds too much like throwing up."
"Yeah," Ren agreed, "it kinda does."
No matter what his friends decided they were called, they were flustering the hell out of Bran as he tried holding his breath while they discussed the creation of a new word for his current condition. He'd laid a hand on his belly and now felt it bouncing under the table. Holding his breath, he discovered, didn't work when there was gas involved, apparently.
"Ugh, gawd," Bran muttered between more gassy spasms he tried to keep behind his lips, but that needed to be expelled for comfort. "I'm gonna HIP!Urk! get some water!"
"You good, man?" Dan said in sudden concern and sensitivity to Bran's situation.
"Yeah Huh!Urr! just gonna try to drown these fu-Huh!Urrup!-uh, fuckers!" Bran said. "Jeezus!"
Bran stood at his kitchen sink for a moment as he slowly drank water from a glass. Slowly, the gas started to dissipate, but the hiccups nestled in deeper. By the time Dan came over to check on him, laying a hand on his shoulder, he was all hiccups without the burps.
"Seriously, you okay?" Dan asked. Bran had to look up at him as he was about 3 inches taller.
"Yeah, ye-HUP!-yeah! The burps stopped. HU'UP!-uh, but these things are HRMP! here to stay, it seems," Bran said with an exaggerated eyeroll and shake of his head as his belly pushed into the sink in front of him again as he grunted.
"You need a moment?" the other man asked with only a hint of knowing mirth in his eyes.
Bran huffed, hiccuping, and shook his head.
"No HULP! I'm good." Bran lowered his voice to a low murmur. "Not li—ike I'm gonna HMPH'UH! start humping the ch-HIP!-chair or anything. HMP! I know you're disappointed. HU'ULP!"
Dan laughed, maybe a little too loudly.
"Eh, well, I guess I'll still hang around anyway," he said with a shrug and a smirk.
The token straight guy rubbed Bran's back again and patted it.
Bran struggled with his hiccups (and tried not to enjoy them too much) for another 5 minutes until they went away on their own. In that time, he managed to win one round, and lose another 3 to Kortney who, despite having continued confusion on the rules, miraculously won more than any of them.






