Under Pressure
Note: This fic is set after the events of Ginger & Mint, and so there are some mild spoilers. Nothing that, in my opinion, would detract from the dramatic tension of its plot -- but if you’re very picky about spoilers, you may want to avoid reading this until I get off my butt and finish that story!
The light coming through the window was still pale blue when Elliott was woken up by insistent meowing.
“Ugh…” he groaned as he rolled blearily out of bed. “Fine, fine… I’m coming….”
A soft, furry body wound around his ankles as he made his way to the kitchen and — critically — the tins of cat food. The only problem with his new pet, he mused, was how punctual the little thing was about his mealtimes. Apparently, sleeping in on weekends was a thing of the past.
But that was okay. Now that Elliott was up, he was up. As the kitten happily chowed down on his breakfast of fishy mush, Elliott went to the bathroom to wash up and brush his teeth. Then he returned to the bedroom and began picking out clothes from the neatly-folded piles he’d stacked on the large bookshelf adjacent to his bed.
Most of the furniture in Elliott’s apartment had been left behind by the previous owner. It was all rather antiquated and shabby — the paint was peeling off the bed frame, the kitchen table was scuffed and worn. The bookshelf wobbled fiercely on its mostly-broken front leg as Elliott rummaged through his clothes. But despite their shortcomings, they were all high-quality pieces, made of fine solid wood. And besides, Elliott sort of liked the idea of little projects.
Someday he would repaint the bed frame. Someday he’d sand the table smooth and refinish it. Someday he’d switch out the bookshelf for a wardrobe. Little projects to leave his mark on his space, to make it his own in every way.
The thought made him pause in the middle of picking out a pair of socks. He turned to look at the view out his bedroom window. My view, he thought, a faint smile creeping over his face. Of all the things that were now his, the view was his favorite — the streets and buildings of Oppendorff, not spread out below him, but enveloping him.
Elliott’s thoughts were interrupted by a sharp crack. He had just enough time to glance wildly around the room before something slammed into his back. He was knocked to his knees, and then the weight came bearing down on his shoulders and he fell flat on his face.
He lay on the floor in the sudden stillness, adrenaline burning in his blood. A heaviness was pressing down on his back. It took him a moment to realize what had happened — the wobbly leg on the bookshelf had finally given out, and five feet of solid wood had come crashing down on top of him.
“Fuck,” he murmured, squirming experimentally. He was wedged so snugly between the bookshelf and the floor that he could scarcely move at all. The weight on his back was so oppressive that it was almost hard to breathe, his chest tightly compressed under the shelf’s bulk.
Luckily, nothing felt bruised except his knees. He had landed with his arms straight out in front of him and his chin resting comfortably on the bundle of clothing he’d dropped. The rest of his clean laundry had come pouring off the shelves as the bookshelf had toppled, and the fabric was, for the most part, cushioning his back against the hard wooden edges.
It wasn’t a horribly uncomfortable position to be stuck in. But he was well and truly stuck.
“Fuck,” he said again, more decisively. A shiver of panic stabbed through him. What was he going to do? What if nobody ever found him? Should he yell for help? Would anybody hear?
A quiet meow from the direction of the kitchen broke his racing thoughts. The kitten stood in the doorway, tail raised in greeting. If he found the situation unusual, he didn’t show it. He padded over on his little white paws, turned two circles on the rumpled sweater near Elliott’s face, and settled down for a nap.
Elliott pressed his cheek into the soft fur and let out a long sigh.
Everything was going to be okay. Grayson was expecting him at school this afternoon. When Elliott didn’t show up, surely Grayson would come looking for him. That wouldn’t be for several hours — which was deeply unfortunate — but Grayson would come, and he would get Elliott out.
Feeling a little calmer, Elliott closed his eyes and waited.
The wait wasn’t actually that bad. Aside from the stifling feeling of heaviness on his back, the position he was stuck in wasn’t uncomfortable. The biggest annoyance was that the mishap had occurred before Elliott had had a chance to get breakfast.
Sometime after the light in the bedroom had turned from the blue of dawn to the yellow of morning, Elliott’s stomach rumbled pointedly. He squirmed a little, feeling the empty place under his ribs pinching. Nothing to be done. He gritted his teeth and hoped Grayson would come soon.
Time trickled by. Elliott alternately drowsed, daydreamed, and struggled half-heartedly against the weight of the bookshelf in what he knew in his heart were futile escape attempts. The sun was glaring directly through the window, like it did in late afternoon, when Elliott finally heard the sound of his spare key turning in the lock.
“Creator!” he muttered, relieved. “It’s about fucking time.”
He heard the lock click, the door creak on its hinges, and Grayson’s voice calling, “...Elliott?”
“In here!” Elliott’s voice came out hoarser than he’d have liked. He was very thirsty.
Grayson appeared in the doorframe and stopped short. “Creator’s blood! Elliott!” He ran over and knelt down. “Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine,” Elliott grumbled. “I just… can’t get up.”
“When did this happen?”
“I don’t know. A little before sunrise?”
Grayson’s mouth dropped open “You’ve been there all day?”
“Grayson, I’m stuck. I cannot move. What part of this are you not understanding?” He flinched as he was interrupted by this stomach growling, muffled but still very audible under a heap of shelving and fabric. “Ugh, it happened before I could eat breakfast.” Elliott felt his sense of panic rising again. He had expected that he'd feel better once Grayson was there -- but it was now dawning on him that Grayson couldn’t really do anything to free him. He’d have to leave to go get help, and Elliott did not want to be left alone.
But Grayson was already feeling the place where the shelf was digging into Elliott’s shoulders, trying to squeeze his fingers underneath to get a good hold. “Don’t worry, Ell. I’ve got this.”
Elliott snorted. “Do you really think you can lift this shelf?”
“Not all the way, but maybe I can move it just a little and then you can squirm out. Hold still a minute.”
Obediently, Elliott held still, only letting out a soft grunt when Grayson wedged his fingers between his shoulder blades to get a good grip.
“As soon as I lift, you try to wiggle out,” Grayson instructed. Then he braced himself and began straining at the front edge of the shelf.
Elliott hoped to feel the pressure on his back release -- but it didn’t. Even with all his strength, Grayson was only able to budge the heavy furniture a fraction of an inch. Elliott squirmed, hoping that maybe that tiny bit of extra room would be enough for him to free himself. But it wasn’t, and a moment later, he felt the air being squeezed out of his lungs as the full weight of the shelf came bearing back down on him.
“Shit,” Grayson panted. “That’s not gonna work. Sorry.”
Elliott coughed, still getting his own breath back. “It’s a heavy fucking shelf,” he acknowledged. “I don’t suppose you have any other ideas....”
“What about magic? Can we get you out with magic?”
“Hmm.” Elliott pursed his lips. “There is a spell for moving objects, but it’s not easy. It’d be easy for a sign-mage.”
“Maybe I can run and go find—”
“No,” said Elliott quickly. “No. Stay here, please.”
Grayson reached out to squeeze his hand. “Alright. What about an intangibility spell?”
“I don’t have the right ingredients.” Elliott did not keep much food around the apartment—there was no reason to, when OSM served such good meals. “But... I do have the right stuff for the movement spell. It’s simple ingredient-wise, just… technically complicated.”
“You mean it’s gonna give you a stomachache?”
Elliott shook his head slowly. “It’ll all be easy to digest. It’s just… high-volume. But I can handle it.”
“You’re sure?” Grayson frowned. “Even squished under a heavy shelf like that? It’s not like your stomach’s going to have a lot of room to, uh… expand. Maybe you should let me try.”
“I can handle it,” Elliott repeated insistently. “No offense intended, but I think I have a higher chance of success between the two of us. Besides, I’m hungry anyway. Go look in my kitchen cupboards and get out all the bread and crackers you can find. Also, the carton of milk in my fridge. And some water. Please.”
Ten minutes later, Grayson had gathered everything requested and arranged it on the floor within Elliott’s reach. “This looks like a bunch of starch,” he said a little doubtfully.
“Mmhmm.” Elliott drained the entire glass of water that Grayson had given him in three big gulps and then sighed in relief. Fuck, he’d been thirsty. “The spell basically requires starch, with a little bit of something rich. Hence the milk.”
“You’re sure you can do this?”
“I’m sure I can try.” Elliott pulled the bag of bread towards himself and tore open the plastic around it. It wasn’t very good bread – it was the flimsy, spineless kind that came from the factories in the north, which he’d bought because it’d keep longer in his cupboard than anything baked fresh – but still, as he bit into the first soft slice, he felt himself shiver a little. He was so hungry that even the bland flavor of dry bread seemed to explode on his tongue.
It didn’t take him long to devour half the loaf, after which he stopped and fidgeted a little as a few soft burps came up. This was more bread than he’d normally eat for breakfast, but it wasn’t a lot of bread really. Eating in such an awkward position must be causing him to swallow air.
“You okay?” Grayson, who had settled down on the floor next to Elliott to wait while he tackled the filling, patted his shoulder gently.
“Mmm.” Elliott closed his eyes for a moment, enjoying the warmth of Grayson’s touch almost as much as he’d enjoyed his first bite of bread. “Yeah.”
“Maybe you should take it slower?”
“I’m fine. It’s just -- urp -- because I haven’t eaten all day.” Still, Elliott knew Grayson probably had a point. He pushed the half-empty bag of bread to the side and switched to the crackers, which were more difficult to get down too quickly.
The spell called for the starchy filling to be consumed in two parts, with the rich filling in the middle. When Elliott had eaten what he estimated to be half of the amount of starch he’d need, he put down the box of crackers and reached for the carton of milk.
The movement of stretching one arm forward pressed his belly firmly against the ground, and he winced as a strained burp was forced up his throat. “Ugh. Fuck.”
“Getting full?” Grayson scooted in closer -- and then backed off a little, wavering. No doubt he was thinking that this was normally the point at which his soother skills would come in handy, if the majority of Elliott’s body hadn’t been compressed beneath a monstrosity of wood and fabric.
“Not really.” Elliott tried to squirm into a more comfortable position, scowling as he strained fruitlessly against the heavy weight on his back. “It’s just this fucking stupid way I’m stuck. I haven’t eaten all that much, there’s just… a lot of pressure on my stomach.”
“Kinda worried that’s gonna be a problem.” Grayson’s fingers combed through Elliott’s hair, and Elliott felt a little wave of confidence ripple through him with their gentle movement.
“I can handle it,” he said decisively, unfolding the spout of the milk carton.
Drinking while lying facedown on the floor was even more awkward than eating. Elliott wound up spilling nearly as much milk as he got into his mouth. He had to swallow forcefully, and he could practically feel the liquid squeezing its way down his throat and into his stomach.
He was really starting to feel the bulk of everything he’d eaten. Each swallow of milk seemed to soak into the lump of bread sitting inside him, swelling it up a little more firmly. It felt good at first. After spending the morning hungry, the heavy press of food against the inside of his belly was a pleasant and familiar sensation. But by the time he’d gotten down enough milk, everything was starting to feel a little too tight.
“Can you pass me the bread again?” Elliott’s voice came out as a breathless groan. He had taken as much weight as he could forward onto his arms, and moving so much as an inch felt impossible.
Grayson obligingly passed him the bread bag. “You doing okay?”
Elliott sighed deeply. The heaviness in his belly was making him feel somehow even more tightly wedged, with his back pressing hard into the wood and his full stomach pressing hard against the ground. “I’m... not the most comfortable I’ve ever been.”
“How much more do you think you’ll have to eat?”
“Mmm….” The bag of bread seemed to look more daunting the longer Elliott stared at it. He sighed and pulled out a slice. “Best not to think about it.”
The first bite of bread felt thick in his mouth. Elliott groaned softly as he chewed it, and then again in a more heartfelt way as he forced himself to swallow it. More than likely it was his imagination, but he swore he could feel his stomach swelling to fill every scrap of space he had as it settled inside him, squeezing him even more firmly between the shelf and the floor.
Two slices in and he could feel his insides starting to rumble against the hard press of the ground. There was air in his belly, but it felt trapped under the pressure just beneath his ribs, and he was stuck far too tightly to squirm around and help it up. He tried anyway, swearing under his breath as his belly twinged sharply and the heavy wood of the shelf dug into his back.
Another cramp deep inside him swelled into a wave of pressure that began to squeeze up through the tightly packed contents of his stomach. Elliott hissed in discomfort and shut his eyes.
“Shit, are you okay?” Grayson asked, but before Elliott could answer, an enormous burp tore free from his throat. It came from so deep and roiled up so quickly that Elliott could feel acid burning on his tongue, and the contents of his stomach rumbled unhappily in its wake.
“Creator’s blood, Elliott.”
“Ughhh.” Elliott paused to take a few slow breaths. “Fuck. Eating in this position is not agreeing with my stomach.”
“Guess that’s not a surprise.” Grayson patted his shoulders, looking concerned. “This sucks. I wish I could do more to help you.”
“Can you take maybe… mmm… three slices of bread out of the bag? That should be enough to finish off the spell. Ooh.” Elliott winced as another cramp shot through the pressure in his compressed middle. Creator, he wished his stomach wasn’t being squeezed so tight.
“You’re almost there,” said Grayson as he pulled the requested bread from the bag and set it in a neat stack where it’d be easy for Elliott to reach. “You got this. I’ll give you a really nice belly rub once you’re out.”
“Ugh, yes please,” Elliott groaned. “I’ll need it.”
“You’re almost there,” Grayson said again, his voice firm and encouraging, and Elliott latched onto that calm resolve and let it fill him up. Of course he could do this. He’d done much worse. And he was starting to get angry, and it was when he was angry that he was always at his most powerful. He was so fucking uncomfortable. How dare this damn bookshelf trap him like this? He wanted to break it into a million tiny toothpicks. He wanted to move.
Simmering with resolve, Elliott got down a little more bread. With one more slice in his stomach, he became acutely aware of the fact that he was never going to be able to finish all three pieces he’d had Grayson set out. One more -- he could do one more. That would have to be enough.
He was so short of breath now, wheezing against the weight of the shelf and the pressure of everything inside him. “Grayson…. when I lift the shelf… you’re gonna have to… pull me out. I… don’t know... how much I’ll be able to move…”
Grayson’s brow creased in concern, but he nodded.
Elliott forced down one last bite and let out a ragged groan. His stomach felt like it was pulsing against his spine and against the floor. This was going to have to be enough. He couldn’t fit another swallow.
“Okay,” he panted, closing his eyes. “Get ready. M’gonna try.”
There was so much tightness and pressure on his middle. Searching for the spark of magic inside him felt like trying to dig for a pin in a bucket of wet sand. Even the movement of breathing sent little twinges shooting through him, and he couldn’t help but groan on every exhale.
“You got this,” Grayson murmured encouragingly, rubbing rhythmic circles over Elliott’s shoulders. Elliott growled under his breath, narrowing in his focus on that repetitive touch, bringing himself to a mental center. He let himself feel the heavy weight of the wood pressing him into the floor, and think about how much he wanted out until it felt like fire in his bones. Then he reached for his power.
Suddenly, the pressure on his back vanished. Elliott gasped in the first deep breath he’d taken all morning, feeling the dull ache of his ribs as they rose from their compressed position -- and then he moaned as he felt his stomach expand along with his lungs. The sensation was so intense that the wood of the shelf creaked above him as he nearly lost his hold on the spell. But he managed to wrench it back under control just in time, and then he felt Grayson’s hands hook under his shoulders and drag him forward.
Everything inside him sloshed enormously. He let out a strangled whimper, clenching his jaw and swallowing hard against the feeling of cold milk and bread surging against his throat. The moment Grayson let go of him, he rolled onto his side, curling up around his swollen belly as the bookshelf crashed back down onto the floor.
“Holy shit.” Grayson sounded breathless. “You did it, Ell! You’re free!”
Elliott wasn’t quite in a condition to celebrate. “Oooh.” He clutched at his bloated stomach as a deep, strained belch bubbled up. “Fuck…”
“Easy now.” Grayson’s hand gently brushed Elliott’s aside to rest comfortingly over his belly. “Are you in pain?”
“No, I’m just….” Elliott couldn’t really find the words to describe how the sudden release of the pressure on his stomach felt. It didn’t hurt, exactly. Everything inside him had surged outwards, which was immensely relieving, but which had also caused a sudden stretch across his middle that was all the more intense for how suddenly it had appeared. “Ughhh… My stomach feels so tight.”
“I mean, it kinda is.” Grayson began circling his thumb over the tender stretch of Elliott’s belly. “That bread really made you swell up.”
“Ugh.” A rumble deep in Elliott’s stomach came up as another sizable burp, and he moaned as he tasted acid. “Ooooh, I’ve got fucking indigestion...”
“Aww, you’ll be alright.” Grayson’s voice was warm and gentle. He put his hand over the churning lump of bread and milk sitting under Elliott’s ribs, steadying it with careful pressure. “We’ll get you feeling better in no time, Ell. Just gotta settle things down in here.”
Elliott groaned with relief as Grayson began to rub slow, soothing circles over the tender tightness pulsing inside him. He shifted onto his back to provide better access to his belly -- fuck, it felt good to be able to move again! He could feel his joints creaking with relieved tension and blood flowing back into the places where the shelf had been digging into his flesh. And after all that time pressed against the hard floor, it felt so good to have Grayson’s hand on his stomach.
He had started to drift off into a starch-fueled haze when Grayson’s voice brought him back to awareness: “How’re you doing?”
Elliott grunted noncommittally. “Starting to feel better.”
“That’s good. You didn’t get hurt at all when the shelf fell, did you?”
“Don’t think so.” Elliott sighed peevishly as Grayson tugged insistently at the hem of his shirt. “Ugh, I don’t want to move.”
“You don’t have to move much. Just roll back onto your side. Let me make sure you didn’t get banged up.”
“Mmm. Fine.” Reluctantly, Elliott eased himself back onto his side. He hiccuped softly as his belly sloshed. “Ooh. There.”
He shivered at the sensation of cool air on his back as Grayson lifted up his shirt, followed by the gentle probing of fingers. “Aww, you’re all bruised, Ell. And you’ve got these marks on your back where the wood was digging into you.”
“Those are hardly going to kill me,” Elliott mumbled tiredly, but he still closed his eyes contentedly as Grayson rubbed gently into the still-tingling places where he’d been pinched under the shelf’s weight. Grayson’s other hand returned to Elliott’s belly, circling over the taut place just below his ribs, and Elliott sighed as his fingers pressed away the remaining tension in his stomach.
“Thanks,” he murmured, opening one eye and twisting his head to give Grayson a warm look. “For helping me get out.”
“I mean, what did you think I was gonna do? Leave you stuck under there?” Grayson grinned at him. “You may be a pain in the ass sometimes, but also, I love you. So, you know.”
“Shut up, I’m being serious.” Elliott wasn’t quite sure how to say it. The way that Grayson had helped -- never once leaving him, never once getting impatient, encouraging him through the process of freeing himself and comforting him afterwards -- had left him feeling calm and safe. It wasn’t about the shelf, really. Anyone would have dealt with that. Fuck, even his mother would’ve gotten him out from under a shelf, but afterwards, Elliott would not have been left feeling like he’d been rescued.
“It’s good to feel like someone’s looking out for me,” he said eventually. “Really good.” He paused as a quiet meow from the doorway announced the return of his kitten, who was likely padding in to investigate the loud crash that had woken him from his afternoon nap. “Especially because this little shit wasn’t going to lift a finger.”
Grayson chuckled and stretched out a hand. The kitten meowed again, leapt lightly over Elliott’s legs, and bumped his chin against Grayson’s fingers, purring softly.
“Happy to see your dad’s okay, huh?” Grayson asked as he scratched the kitten’s chin. “Me too.”
Elliott stifled a big yawn. “Think I’m going to take a nap,” he said, sinking down into the fabric pillowed under his cheek.
“What? Right here, on the floor?”
“Sure. S’my apartment and I can do what I want. And what I want to do at the moment is sleep off all this fucking bread with my boyfriend and my cat in a pile of clothes on the floor.”
“Guess I can’t deny you that.” Grayson chuckled as he settled onto his side, snuggling up to Elliott’s back, and Elliott grinned as the kitten clambered on top of him and nested in the crook of his neck.
It was good to be free.
