i’m still putting together a nice little introduction of the characters and settings of my work but i was eager to start posting fic so… here we go!
disclaimer: this cast of characters are residents in a long term facility due to varying mental health concerns. all characters are 18+. not much of any fics posted will feature heavily triggering materials. all fics will be tagged accordingly. none of the fics i write will be chronological/in any particular order (unless i decide to write two part fics)
please feel free to send any prompts, questions, concerns, or the like to my ask box! i’m so excited to be apart of this community!
tw for mentions of a dui, mentions of institutionalization (vague, at the beginning), emeto, fevers, self neglect (not admitting something is wrong)
The thing about Ezra Hale was that he never planned to come back. Or maybe he had.
But he had a way of running from the world with such ferocity that it always circled him back to the same place. White walls. Bleached sheets. Quiet check-ins at quiet hours. The ghosts of fluorescent lights humming behind his eyes.
This time, it was the DUI. No crash. No injuries. Just him, a tank full of bad decisions, and getting caught hitting nearly double the speed limit. Caught in that aching hour of the morning where even the radio DJ sounded like he was whispering.
Court gave him two options: jail, or inpatient.
And so here he was. Again.
This was the longest he’d been gone—he’d left when the trees were lush and green and now the walkways were covered with leaves in shades of red and yellow and brown. Everyone else had changed rooms, grown out their hair, vanished to the outside world or come crawling back with new trauma in their back pockets.
But Ezra? Ezra was the same. Scarred sarcasm. Smirking resignation. That slow, venom-laced charm that said I’ll make you laugh before I let you see me cry.
But tonight… something felt off.
He had. For the first time in what felt like weeks, maybe more, he’d gone down with the lights off and the air still. No podcasts whispering in his earbuds. No late-night muttering into his pillow. Just out.
Not to a noise. Not to Micah rustling in the other bed. Just—
It came first, pressing in from beneath his skin like he was burning from the inside out. His neck was damp, his shirt sticking. Sweat crawled down the line of his spine. Every breath tasted like something wrong. The kind of air that clings to the back of your throat and makes your stomach roll before you’ve even stood up.
Ezra blinked up at the ceiling, disoriented.
His heart was beating too fast. His mouth was dry. He didn’t feel sick—he felt… tilted. Like the room had slipped sideways and his body forgot how to adjust.
He pushed the blanket back. Slowly. Carefully. As if sudden movement might wake the nausea like a beast.
He sat up—and then it hit him.
A low roll of heat in his gut. Bitter taste pooling beneath his tongue. Dizziness coiling in the base of his skull like a slow-spin carousel. The kind of sickness that came on fast and mean.
Nope. No. We’re not doing this. Not tonight.
Ezra stood on legs that felt like twigs and padded out of the room barefoot, one hand brushing the wall for balance. He didn’t even bother glancing at Micah—just hoped he wasn’t being watched.
The hallway was dim. Pale, sterile light humming above the linoleum. He passed the nurse station like a ghost—and of course, of course one of the night nurses looked up from her tablet.
“Everything alright, Mr. Hale?” she asked, voice a little too perky for 2 A.M.
He flashed her a lopsided, lazy smile. “Unless I’m sleepwalking into your arms, I think I’m just getting some fresh air.”
She blinked, unamused. “Drink some water. You don’t look good.”
“Thanks, gorgeous. That’s exactly the confidence boost I needed.”
Didn’t wait for her reply.
The second the bathroom door shut behind him, Ezra’s façade crumbled.
His palm slammed against the wall for balance, knees locking as another rush of nausea clawed up from his stomach. His head swam, the overhead light buzzing like a hornet inside his skull. He managed to stumble to the sink—barely. Gripped the edges like it might anchor him.
Not when the first heave hit him, all muscle and memory. Not when the bitter flood surged up and splashed into the sink. He braced himself, forehead almost touching the mirror as he coughed and choked his way through it. His whole torso shuddered—his ribs catching fire every time his body lurched.
It wasn’t dramatic. Just brutal.
Quiet, but abundant. Food from hours ago—maybe even breakfast—making a reappearance he hadn’t asked for.
By the time it passed, his legs were trembling. His arms were too weak to hold him up. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, then stared at his reflection in the mirror. Pupils wide. Cheeks pale. Sweat slicking his hair back.
He looked like he had last winter.
The nights he drank to blackout and woke up with vomit on his shirt and guilt thick on his tongue.
This wasn’t that. He wasn’t that anymore.
He turned the faucet on. Let the water run. Washed out the sink, washed off his hands. Let the cold rinse over his wrists a little longer than necessary.
He opened the bathroom door and nearly ran into him.
Wide-eyed. Sleepless. Silent as ever, standing barefoot in the hallway like some kind of ghost kid from a horror movie.
Kai raised his hand. Signed slowly: You okay?
Ezra smirked on instinct, signing as he spoke. “Define ‘okay.’”
Ezra sighed. Let his eyes drift shut for half a second. Then he signed, rough and clumsy—Fine. Bad food. Not dying.
Kai didn’t look convinced.
He made a simple motion: Tell?
Ezra shook his head, moving his hands almost instinctively, “Don’t. Seriously. I’m good.”
Kai tilted his head. Swear?
Ezra gave a tired little salute. “Scout’s honor.”
Kai didn’t press. Just gave the barest nod and stepped aside.
And Ezra slipped past like nothing had happened.
He sank back into bed. Cold sweat stuck to his back. The sour taste in his mouth hadn’t faded. His stomach churned quietly, empty now, but not at peace.
He curled onto his side, away from the door. Closed his eyes.
The silence didn’t answer.
But the ache in his ribs did.
Ezra woke with a start, the way you do when you don’t remember falling asleep and your body is still angry about it.
His mouth was dry, tongue thick with the sour ghost of last night’s purge. His stomach gurgled softly—innocent, at first. Quiet. As if pretending it hadn’t spent the early hours clenching itself into knots and violently evicting everything he’d eaten the day before.
The air was stale. Too warm. A headache bloomed quietly behind his left eye like something unfolding its limbs.
Micah was still asleep across the room, his back turned, one hand peeking out from the blanket. Ezra sat up slowly, like gravity was a suggestion he could almost ignore. His guts sloshed with the motion—liquid and rebellion all in one.
Let the nausea roll through, bitter and unyielding, before it settled back into the background hum it had become.
You’re fine. You’ve had worse. You’re vertical. That counts.
The cafeteria smelled like lukewarm eggs and disinfectant. The kind of smell that burrowed into your sinuses and made everything taste like cleaning fluid.
Ezra didn’t flinch. Didn’t wrinkle his nose. Didn’t react.
He walked in like he owned the place—sharp-shouldered and hollow-eyed, hoodie sleeves shoved up to his elbows, a faded hospital band still half-looped around his wrist from detox last week.
Someone from another table called, “Back from the dead, Hale?”
Ezra shot them finger guns. “And still hot. Miracles do happen.”
He sat with the same people he always did. No grand reunion, no mushy welcome back. Just subtle shifts—chairs scraping closer, someone nudging over the salt without being asked, Kai signing a casual good while nodding toward his plate.
Micah sat across from him. Said nothing. Just studied him, eyes flicking between Ezra’s hands and the untouched food on his tray.
Ezra noticed. Of course he noticed.
Not fast. Not recklessly. But deliberately.
A few bites of eggs. Half a piece of toast. A single, unholy mouthful of overcooked oatmeal.
Every swallow felt like dragging concrete down his throat.
His stomach gurgled low, pissed but polite for now. Like it was waiting.
He sipped his coffee—decaf, mandatory—and kept smiling.
This was the time of day when everyone milled around before group. Some played cards. Some colored. Some stared out the window like their souls were trapped in the treeline.
Ezra sat on the beanbag chair like a lounging cat who dared anyone to acknowledge his comfort.
Someone tossed a deck of cards on the floor near his feet.
He kicked it gently toward them. “What do I look like, a blackjack dealer?”
“More like a cryptid,” muttered Avery, who’d been sketching on the floor.
Ezra smirked. “Flattering. Tell me more about how I haunt your dreams.”
He didn’t notice right away that he was swaying.
Not until the nausea swelled again—full-bodied and deep-seated, a tight grip around his middle that made his skin crawl under his clothes. He pressed a hand flat to his stomach and disguised it as a stretch.
Group was in the sunroom, which Ezra always hated. Too bright. Too cheerful. The heat baked the inside of his skull.
The chairs were arranged in a loose circle, everyone draped like reluctant angels waiting for someone else to speak first.
Ezra sat sideways in his chair, one leg hanging over the arm, back curled like a question mark. Classic disinterest.
The therapist was new. A substitute, maybe. Bright-eyed and too eager.
“We’re going to talk today about self-destructive patterns, and how we respond to shame…”
Ezra tuned out immediately.
His stomach, on the other hand, chose violence.
It gurgled so loudly he was sure Micah heard it.
The pressure bloomed beneath his ribs—tight and queasy, like a tide rising behind his lungs. Cold sweat gathered at his temples. His leg bounced. His jaw clenched.
Someone started talking. Something about spiraling. Triggers.
Ezra’s skin felt two sizes too tight.
The nausea wasn’t subtle anymore. It crept higher with every breath. His mouth filled with that taste—not quite bile, not quite stomach acid, but something foul and preemptive.
He shifted. Sat upright. Tried to force the flush from his cheeks with sheer will.
He lasted another three minutes. Maybe four.
Then—too fast to look casual—he stood up. Muttered something about needing the bathroom. Didn’t wait for approval.
He was out the door before anyone could answer.
He didn’t make it to the main hallway bathroom this time. Just ducked into the nearest staff-only washroom, one of the ones meant for nurses between shifts.
The oatmeal was the first to go—thick and gluey, clinging to his throat even on the way out. It splashed into the basin with a sickening slap. Then came the eggs. The coffee. The nothing.
By the end of it, his knees were knocking together. His arms shook just from holding himself up. His hoodie was stuck to his spine. The vomit left him dry-mouthed and dizzy, bile-slick and breathless.
He didn’t cry. Ezra Hale didn’t cry.
But he leaned over the sink for a long time, breathing in slow, broken drags, like if he inhaled deep enough maybe the world would stop spinning.
Washed his face. Swished water through his mouth. Tugged his hoodie back into place like it was armor.
By the time he walked back into the hallway, no one would’ve guessed.
Who was sitting against the wall, sketchpad in his lap, eyes flicking up just long enough to sign: Again?
He just sank down onto the floor next to him. Let his head rest against the wall. Let the silence say what he couldn’t.
After a moment, Kai bumped his knee against Ezra’s.
It wasn’t comfort. Not quite.
And Ezra, for once, didn’t pull away.
The cafeteria was louder at lunch. Brighter, somehow. Maybe it was the sun slanting through the long windows or the fact that someone had managed to get the Bluetooth speaker working again and now there was acoustic guitar playing under the clatter of trays.
Ezra was already sweating.
Not visibly. Not yet. But he felt it. The heaviness in his limbs. The oily sheen starting to form at the back of his neck. His stomach wasn’t just off—it was volatile. Gurgling in strange, hollow pulses that made his whole abdomen feel unstable, like it might cave in or explode with no warning.
He told himself it would pass.
He was used to ignoring the early warning signs.
He stepped into line. Scooped food onto his tray mechanically: lentil soup, grilled cheese, a side of carrots, and half a banana.
Eat. Look normal. Be normal. You threw up breakfast. This balances the scales.
He sat down with his usual table. Kai was to his right, sketchpad resting half on the table. Micah across from him, arms folded, eyes scanning like radar. Ezra gave them both a lazy grin.
“Feels like someone in the kitchen’s finally trying to kill us,” he quipped, staring into the lentil soup like it had personally wronged him.
Kai signed back: You ate breakfast. A lot.
Ezra raised a brow. “Thanks for the food journal, doc. Keeping tabs on me now?”
Ezra lifted the sandwich to his mouth and took a bite.
He made it through half the sandwich. Most of the soup. Every chew was work, like his body knew this was a bad idea and was daring him to continue. The nausea bloomed again, this time with heat—a creeping flush up the back of his neck and across his cheeks.
His hands were starting to tremble. Not dramatically. Just enough that he kept one under the table, gripping the edge to ground himself.
“I’m gonna go lie down after this,” he muttered, to no one in particular. “All this gourmet cuisine is wearing me out.”
Micah stared a little too long, then said quietly, “You’re pale.”
Ezra shot him a look. “Rude.”
“Tell me I’m pale again and I’ll lick your spoon.”
Micah actually snorted. But the concern didn’t fade.
The group had split into semi-structured activities after lunch. Some were in the art room, some in the small gym. Ezra ended up in the common room again—board games, music, coloring books spread across tables like someone spilled an after-school program across the floor.
He chose a puzzle. Something calm. Something stationary.
He sat cross-legged on the floor beside Kai, who was scribbling cartoonish outlines of the staff (complete with devil horns and speech bubbles). Ezra added a mustache to one of them, grinning weakly.
And then—his stomach turned.
Curled in on itself and howled.
It hit with zero warning. One moment, he was joking. The next, his stomach lurched so violently he thought he might choke on nothing.
His hand snapped to his mouth. Not dramatically. Just two fingers pressed against his lips, elbow braced on his knee.
He stayed very, very still.
Everything felt wrong. His mouth watered instantly, the taste sharp and sour. His ribs ached with the tension of holding still. His heart pounded. A wave of heat flooded his chest, followed by the distinct, sickening lift of everything in his gut begging to rise.
He swallowed hard. Again. And again.
Didn’t breathe deeper than absolutely necessary.
Set his sketchpad down. Tapped his fingers twice on Ezra’s arm—hey—and signed: Go?
Ezra shook his head no without meeting his eyes.
Couldn’t move. Couldn’t even trust his legs to get him to the bathroom. The moment he stood, he knew he’d throw up all over the floor, and that was worse. So much worse.
One hand pressed white-knuckled against his mouth. The other now gripping the edge of the couch cushion. Breath coming in uneven, shallow huffs. His entire body trembled with restraint.
Someone else—Avery, maybe—noticed.
He crouched, slow and steady, in front of Ezra, eyes wide and voice gentle.
“Hey,” he said. “You good?”
Ezra didn’t speak. Couldn’t. Just blinked hard, like that alone might hold it back.
Micah glanced at Kai, who signed something quickly—Sick. Since morning.
Ezra let out a small sound—half laugh, half cough—and shook his head. “I’m fine. Don’t—” His voice cracked. His jaw twitched as he swallowed again, visibly now, shoulders curling forward. “Just—gimme a sec—”
His stomach clenched hard. His eyes watered. His face contorted briefly with sheer effort. His hand never left his mouth.
Micah stood, quiet and decisive, and reached for Ezra’s arm.
“C’mon,” he said. “Let’s go.”
Ezra didn’t argue. Couldn’t.
He let himself be pulled to his feet, legs wobbling like soaked paper. His free arm clutched at his stomach. He didn’t speak, didn’t look around—just let Micah steer him toward the hallway, Kai trailing silently behind.
Hated being seen. Hated being helped. Hated the way his skin felt like it might peel off and his stomach roared and the heat burned beneath his eyes like tears he refused to let fall.
But he was also… relieved.
Because for once, someone didn’t wait for him to say help me.
Ezra didn’t remember getting to the room.
One minute he was on the floor of the common room, stomach clenching like a fist inside him, and the next—he was stumbling down the hall, barely upright, one hand still clamped tight over his mouth while the other gripped Micah’s sleeve like a lifeline.
Micah didn’t rush. He moved with this quiet, unshakable patience, like he knew rushing would only make it worse.
The hallway spun. Ezra kept his eyes on the floor tiles, the smear of sunlight along the baseboards, the way Micah’s socked feet moved steady beside his own.
Kai followed behind—silent as always—but present, his expression unreadable and too calm for Ezra to handle. But he didn’t tell him to leave.
Micah got the door open. Guided him in. The shared bathroom was small—off to the side of their room—bare tile floor, dull lighting, that faintly sweet-clean smell of hospital-grade soap and the half-hearted citrus spray staff used between deep cleans.
Ezra dropped to his knees the second the door clicked shut behind them.
Just—his body giving out.
He barely made it to the toilet before the retching started.
It was violent. Immediate. The kind of vomiting that didn’t ramp up—it arrived. As if the moment he let himself stop fighting, his stomach seized the opportunity to purge everything he’d forced into it.
Thick waves spilled up and out of him, soaking the bowl with soupy remnants of lentil soup, bile, and what might’ve once been toast. Each heave wracked through him like punishment. His ribs screamed. His eyes watered. His hands clenched white around the rim of the toilet as he shook through it.
The sound echoed off the tiles. Harsh. Raw. Awful.
Micah knelt beside him—close enough to help, far enough not to crowd. One hand hovered at Ezra’s back like he was waiting for permission to touch. He didn’t get it.
Ezra gasped between gags, chest heaving, sweat sliding down his neck and into the collar of his hoodie. “Fuck,” he rasped, voice threadbare, “—fucking hell—”
Another surge hit. Another round of wet, wrenching coughs.
Kai appeared in the doorway, gaze flicking between them. He signed to Micah—Sick all morning. Ate anyway. Tried to hide it.
Micah nodded, still focused on Ezra. “Yeah,” he muttered. “Figured.”
He was too busy vomiting up what felt like his soul.
Eventually, the heaves faded. Not because he felt better—but because there was nothing left.
Ezra sagged over the bowl, panting. His arms trembled with the effort of holding himself upright. His whole body was wet—clammy with sweat, strands of hair sticking to his forehead, his cheeks flushed and splotchy in a way that betrayed everything he’d tried to hide all morning.
Slowly. Gently. He reached over and flushed the toilet. Grabbed a wad of tissues and pressed it into Ezra’s hand.
Ezra wiped his mouth with a shaking arm first. Then used the tissue. Didn’t speak.
Micah’s hand touched his back, light but grounding. “Hey.”
“Think it’s a stomach bug,” Micah said, soft and steady. “Kai said you weren’t feeling great since this morning. That right?”
Ezra’s silence said more than words.
“You should’ve said something,” he added.
Ezra barked out a hoarse laugh. “What, and ruin the drama of it all?”
Micah huffed—half a laugh, half a sigh. “Could’ve puked in the trash can instead of doing a full exorcism.”
Ezra’s head dropped forward. His arms curled in tight against his body. “Don’t be nice to me,” he muttered.
He just reached over and pushed Ezra’s sweat-damp hair off his forehead.
And Ezra didn’t stop him.
Eventually, with Kai’s help, they got Ezra sitting back against the wall, a clean towel between his back and the cold tile. His hoodie was unzipped now, clinging to his damp frame, and he looked wrecked—the kind of wrecked that no amount of sarcasm could cover up.
Micah handed him a cup of water.
Ezra stared at it. Didn’t take it.
Micah raised a brow. “It’s just water.”
Ezra hesitated, then took it with one hand and held it in his lap. His fingers were still trembling.
Kai settled nearby, cross-legged. He signed: You okay?
Ezra stared at him. For a moment, something cracked in his face—just briefly.
Then he nodded. Lie. But he nodded anyway.
They stayed like that for a while.
Micah sitting beside him on the bathroom floor, shoulder close but not touching. Kai sketching again, silent, perched against the opposite wall. Micah grabbed the notebook when he went to tell a nurse about the situation. The tension in Ezra’s frame didn’t ease, exactly—but it stopped coiling tighter.
But he wasn’t alone. Not with Kai, not with Micah. Not at all.
And for someone like Ezra Hale… that was a start.
