Would love to see a lil gabe migraine fic with Rory as caretaker 🥰 lowk find it soo hot when he accepts that it’s happening and is all nonchalant about it while writhing in pain. Tbh I love any gabe + prolonged nausea (can you tell he’s my favourite?) 🍄 (from flick’s and soup’s blogs!)
Hi 🍄! Thanks for the ask - I realized it had been a while since we'd seen Rory and Gabe together just being all bro-ish. I like the idea that Rory is one of the best people at taking care of Gabe when he's got a migraine because he's been doing it for so long. Not as much prolonged nausea as you may have wanted, but the plotty fic I'm working on has a lot of Gabe feeling sick, and from his POV too.
Migraine Madness
Gabe collapsed on the sofa with a relieved groan. “Fuck I’m glad not to be sitting at my desk.” He took the beer Rory handed him and then watched idly as Rory puttered around, making sure the connections on all three televisions were secure. “Where’d you get the third TV?”
“Borrowed it from the office.” Rory gave a satisfied huff as all three screens clicked on, showing three different pre-game programs. “A couple of our tech guys are coming over Saturday to watch round two.” Normally they watched the first rounds of the NCAA basketball tournament in a sports bar, where it was easy to see multiple games at once, but Avery was coming over this weekend so Rory had hauled the TV out of his and Noa’s bedroom and brought the third from work. He plopped down next to Gabe. “If Adam wins our pool again I’m boycotting your family’s bracket next year.”
“By next year it’s gonna be your family too,” Gabe grinned, “should’ve thought of that before you asked my sister to marry you.” He kicked Rory’s foot. “No give-backs.”
“Never.” Rory kicked Gabe back, hard enough to push his foot off the coffee table. “And it’s not like we’re already family.” He smirked, “maybe we can kick Adam out instead.” Rory didn’t say so, but it was kind of a relief to be just him and Gabe today. They’d ordered a trashy Dominoes pizza and cheap beer and Gabe had shown up in a decrepit hoodie that Rory was pretty sure he’d had since high school. Which didn’t matter because Rory was wearing a pair of equally ancient pajama pants.
“Did Logan really try to pick Penn over Illinois just because you went there?” Rory shoved half a piece of pizza in his mouth. Dominoes tasted like college and so did the Coors beer and Rory sank comfortably into the sofa, feeling the more “adult” parts of his brain shut off for a while.
Gabe rolled his eyes. “I had to explain to her that school loyalty doesn’t matter during March Madness.” He took off his glasses and rubbed the heels of his palms into his eyes. “Told her it was okay to pick UCLA to beat Central Florida though.”
“Well, duh.” Rory clicked around on the remote until two of the televisions were showing closed captions and then turned the sound up on the third. “Okay if we listen to CBS and read the others? They have the least annoying announcers.”
“Yeah.” Gabe was cleaning his glasses with the corner of a napkin before he put them back on. “Can you turn it down a little though?”
Rory looked sharply at him. “You okay?” WIthout waiting for an answer he leaned over and grabbed Gabe’s face in his hands and peered into his eyes. “Are you having auras?” Gabe didn’t look too bad but Rory recognized the slightly pinched expression at the corner of his eyes, “you’ve got your meds, right?”
“I already took Excedrin; I’ll be fine.” Gabe pulled his head out of Rory’s hands and leaned back against the sofa, “it’s just a regular headache.”
Rory didn’t exactly believe that, but since he wasn’t Gabe’s mother or his girlfriend he let it go. The first game had just tipped off and the second was starting in five minutes and soon there was going to be a lot of basketball to focus on.
And for a while, that’s what they did. Gabe stopped eating pizza and got a glass of water instead of more beer, and Rory kept his mouth shut. But when Rory caught him squinting at the line of televisions he just shrugged. “I’m fine,” he promised, and then squirmed under the weight of Rory’s disbelieving gaze, “or. . . fine enough. I wanna keep watching.”
“You’re an idiot,” Rory sighed, “d’you want me to turn off the overhead lights?” If this was starting to be a real migraine Gabe wouldn’t want the light from the televisions either, but one thing at a time.
Gabe paused for a half-second. “Yeah,” he finally admitted, “I’m jus’ gonna watch this one,” - he nodded his head at the TV directly in his line of sight - “it’s too hard to keep switching back and forth.”
“I can turn the others off,” Rory offered. Yeah, it was fun to keep track of multiple games at once but a couple of them were already looking like blow-outs. “We can just keep on Wisconsin/High Point.” Gabe gingerly shook his head.
“Nah, ‘M okay. I jus’ won’ look.” Gabe’s words came out clipped and Rory sighed to himself.
“Hey - “ he touched Gabe’s jaw with his finger - “unclench, dude, you’ll make it worse.” There was no question that this was a migraine - or would be soon. Gabe tended to tense up without realizing it when a bad headache was starting. “Should I get an ice pack? You can lie down in the guest room.”
Gabe relaxed the muscles in his face and blew out a breath. Some of the pain in his features receded. “It’s not that bad; I can stay out here,” he said stubbornly, pushing back until he was nestled into the corner of the sectional. “Just . . . turn off the lights; I’ll close my eyes if I need to.”
Rory gave up. He turned off the overhead lights and lowered the sound on the television a little more, and then went into the kitchen and pulled a gel-filled headband out of the freezer. “Here, put this on,” he instructed. He pretended not to notice that Gabe had closed his eyes while he’d been gone. “Should you maybe take your stronger meds?”
“Not . . . with the beer,” Gabe mumbled. His voice was getting slower but he sat up and took the migraine cap, wrapping it around his forehead - “M’ fine.”
“Yeah, so you keep saying,” Rory rolled his eyes and then scooted towards Gabe on the couch, staring directly at him, “can you see my entire face?”
“Why would I wannto?” Gabe quipped. He rubbed at his temples. “It’s . . . manageable.”
He hadn’t answered Rory’s question, which meant his vision was going wonky, but he was still looking determinedly in the direction of the television, even though it was currently showing a commercial for life insurance or something. The skepticism must have shown on Rory’s face because Gabe blew out a frustrated breath. “This is my first day off work in almost three weeks and I don’t want to spend it curled up in bed unless I absolutely have to.” His lips quirked. “unless Logan is there, of course.” He put his hand on Rory’s leg; “you don’t need to go all nursemaid on me, I promise.”
“Fine,” Rory blew out a breath too. He’d seen Gabe power through migraines before and it usually wasn’t pretty. But it wasn’t like they were out in public or anything. “If you want to be a stubborn fuck then go ahead.”
“I will, thank you.” If Gabe’s voice sounded a little strained, well then, that was his issue. Rory turned back to the TV.
He got sucked in - the end of the Wisconsin-High Point game was crazy - and by the time the buzzer sounded, confirming the 12-seed as the winner, Rory’d almost forgotten about Gabe’s headache.
He punched the air with satisfaction. “Hah! - I knew High Point’s fast pace was going to wear the Badgers down; Morrison didn’t believe me, -” he glanced over at Gabe, “who’d you . . . aww, fuck.” Rory couldn’t even bring himself to say I told you so, not when his friend had gone about five shades more pale and was back to clenching his jaw, eyes scrunched closed with discomfort. He switched the TV to mute and wondered if he should close the blinds here or just move Gabe straight to the guest room, - “now can you take your stronger meds?”
“If I didn’t think I’d throw them back up.” Gabe’s face contorted in a grimace, “I’m nauseous as fuck.” He swallowed hard and slumped back into the sofa cushions. “Can we watch with no sound?”
Rory stared at him incredulously. “Dude, really?” When Gabe just stared back without answering, Rory threw up his hands. “If you puke on the sofa, you’re the one telling Noa.”
“M’. Fine.”
Rory had lost track of the number of times Gabe had said that. He smacked him lightly on the knee, feeling only somewhat bad when Gabe flinched. “You’re not fine, and when you finally decide to admit it, let me know. Maybe I’ll help haul your ass to the guest room.”
“Fuck you.”
“Love you too, bro.” Rory thought about turning up the sound on the television just to push Gabe to go lie down but by the way Gabe was looking he figured it wasn’t going to be long anyway. Instead he grabbed the small garbage can from the guest room and plunked it on the coffee table. Gabe glared at it and then gulped, and Rory thought he’d won. But instead Gabe squeezed his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose. After a second he hiccuped and opened his eyes again.
“Gotta watch . . . UCLA,” he ground out, voice strained. He slammed his hands into the sides of his forehead and rubbed hard. “At least the first half.” His eyes found Rory’s, who was momentarily startled to see the broken blood vessels in the left one, which was streaming tears. It had totally freaked him out the first time he’d seen it happen when they’d been fifteen, but now he just grimaced in sympathy
“Can you even see the TV?” he asked, not completely unkindly, but this was getting ridiculous.
Apparently, Gabe was about ready to agree. He pulled roughly at the edges of his hair and Rory could actually see a vein throbbing in his temple “God, it hurts,” he groaned, and then lurched forward to retch. Rory leaped for the trash can. Gabe waved it away.
“Bath . . . bathroom,” he muttered, holding out his hand in Rory’s general direction. He tilted his head up but Rory doubted he could see him.
“C’mon; please don’t puke on me.” He hauled Gabe to his feet where he immediately swayed dizzily into Rory’s side. He retched again, and Rory swore. At this point it would probably be his fault if Gabe did puke on him, since he’d been the one to allow Gabe to stay out here despite his obvious and rapid deterioration.
“‘Kay,” Gabe gasped, “I can wait.” He let Rory guide him to the guest room and its attached bath, and then pulled away to lower himself to his knees in front of the toilet. After he lifted the lid and spit he waved his hand back in Rory’s direction. “You . . . you can go,” he rasped. “Gonna puke and then lie down.” He leaned back to try to look in Rory’s direction - “it’s not one of my worst ones; throwing up should help.”
“Well then get on with it,” Rory joked, voice low, “I’m not leaving until you’re safely horizontal.” Gabe wasn’t swaying as much as trembling now, but it still didn’t look very good. He gave a tight nod.
“Gimme a second,” - he planted his elbows on the toilet seat and rested his head in his hands, drooling helplessly into the water below, - “fuck it’s throbbing.” He began panting, rocking back and forth over the bowl, making small, pained noises under his breath.
Rory risked the noise of the sink to wet a washcloth, which he lay across the back of Gabe’s neck. “I’ll get you another ice pack once you’re in bed. And Gatorade.”
Gabe didn’t answer. He went suddenly very still and then leaned forward to retch, hard. His elbows slid off the toilet seat and his head flew forward and almost hit the back of the tank. “Oh god,” he moaned, and then burped, long and wet. Rory watched for a moment to make sure Gabe wasn’t about to fall over and then stepped out of the bathroom to give him a little space. He went into the bedroom to close the curtains and turn down the bed and had just pulled over the garbage can that was usually under the desk when Gabe started throwing up, the sounds harsh and painful. Rory knew that as bad as the nausea could be, it was the way vomiting made the pain spike that was actually the worst part. When the migraine was really bad, Gabe might throw up for hours, blowing out the blood vessels not only in his eyes but underneath, coming out looking like he’d been in a fight or something.
“Here, there’s water by your foot.” Rory put a cup down on the floor, careful not to touch him after years of learning what helped and what didn’t. Gabe burped and then nodded, leaning forward to throw up what looked like the little bit of pizza he’d eaten. He reached a shaky hand up to flush, and then sat back on his heels.
“Thanks,” he mumbled, fumbling for the cup of water. His hands were shaking so badly he spilled half of it down his front but finally managed to get it up to his lips to take a hesitant sip, which he swished around in his mouth and then spit out. “Fuck.”
“Any better? I’ve got a trash can by the bed if you’re ready to lie down.”
Gabe took the wet washcloth off his neck and scrubbed it over his face. “Head’s still killing me but I think I’m done puking. For now.” He climbed slowly to his feet and leaned heavily against the sink to rinse his mouth better. “You win.”
Rory knew what he was talking about but he pretended he didn’t. “What, my bracket? Dude it’s only the first round.”
“No.” Gabe leaned forward for a second and then heaved up a small mouthful of beer into the sink. “I should’ve stopped watching an hour ago.” He turned around and gazed tiredly at Rory. “Are you going to tell Logan I’m an idiot?”
Rory smirked. “I think she already knows.”
