I think something a lot of other people can relate to is the way that you get so conditioned to discomfort that you stop registering it.
I remember sitting at the table with my family, eating dinner as a child. I’d try to eat, because of course I was hungry. But sometimes the flavor or texture was so repugnant that it moved into a category of Not Food.
“Two more bites before you can leave the table.”
“I can’t,” I’d say, trying to explain the impossibility.
But because I was a child they heard, “I won’t,” and made me sit at the table. I’d sit in dull agonized silence, bored and hungry for hours until bedtime when they’d give up. I’d hate myself for not eating and my parents for forcing me to sit there. The few forcefeeding moments ended in vomit.
They’d say, “If you don’t eat this you can’t eat a snack later,” and I moved past trying to communicate my discomfort into accepting that I’d just be hungry.
That state of affairs didn’t last, because my parents realized nothing could force me to eat so they catered to my palate, worrying they’d starve me. But the message stuck. If you can’t do anything about a situation, just accept the suffering.
A few years later my mother called me off the playground to ask, “Are you limping?”
I shrugged. My feet had hurt for a long time, but that was just the way things were now. My mom pulled my socks and shoes off and gasped. The soles of my feet were covered in huge painful planters warts.
“Why didn’t you say anything?!” She demanded but I could only shrug at her. I’d learned a long time ago that saying things about my discomfort didn’t matter, so now I had no words. Sometimes things hurt and sometimes they don’t. I simply accepted and did my best.
Now as an adult trying to learn to improve my own conditions can be hard. If I make food that I can’t eat I’ll force myself to sit at the counter still, full of guilt and self loathing, trying to will myself to eat it.
At first I needed my betrothed to gently take it away to present me with something I could eat. Now on my own I can usually admit that it’s not happening before too long and get something else, but I still feel guilty.
Laying in bed at night waiting for my betrothed to finish getting ready I let out a huge sigh of relief when they turned the lights off.
“Why didn’t you turn them off if they bothered you?” they asked the first time it happened.
“I didn’t even know it was bothering me until it was gone.”
Assessing my physical state now to see if I can improve it is something I’m still relearning but I’m relieved to finally have the space and support to do it.
In some DPxDC fics, Kryptonite is made of solidified ectoplasm.
This is often used for humor - Danny gets to eat the Kryptonite like it’s no big deal.
But what if it was taken in a different direction?
Ghosts are made of ectoplasm.
Kryptonite’s dangerous effects towards Kryptonians mainly came about after the planet’s destruction (in at least some interpretations, the material is dangerous because it’s infused with radiation from the destruction of the planet).
The destruction of Krypton caused a lot of death—a lot of ghosts—all at once.
The first time Danny laid his eyes on some Kryptonite, he had to run to a wastebasket before he emptied his stomach.
WOOOOO gosh this one started out well and then I got WAY too lost in the weeds. All the good stuff is in the detail, I know the composition's pretty goofed, but I think it's cool anyway. Lessons were learned and that's what matters!
My meds stopped giving me productivity superpowers unfortunately, but I did a full week of paintings when I typically do like, one a month, and that's cause for celebration! There's one more I'd really like to do so I'll see how I'm feeling tomorrow; maybe can squeak out one more before the month ends. If I don't see you, Happy Halloween!
Working admin as an agent, you were used to filing away the worst of the worst. You knew every agent had a breaking point, no matter how strong their exterior can be. When Leon’s acting off after a particularly long mission, you can’t help but wonder if he might finally be reaching his.
Word count: ~3k
Tags/warnings: re4!Leon, agent!Reader, hurt/comfort, reverse-comfort, physical whump, emotional whump, implied/referenced ptsd, crying, mentions of vomiting, mentions of canon-typical violence, soft content, stomach ache, sickfic (??), cuddling, anxiety, panic attacks, vulnerable!Leon, caretaker!reader, angst with a happy ending.
A/N: Yeah so. I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t actually wanna write porn and I kinda just want Leon to suffer?? I feel like there’s no content where Leon’s the one getting comforted by you so if you’re like me, this is for you.
Leon was an expert at hiding how he felt.
You’ve seen it time and time again, how easily he’s able to keep his emotions from bubbling to the surface. Each time he’s come back from a mission just to be thrown into another one. Each report he’s had to make in your home office and recount every gruesome detail of what he’s seen. Leon was good at making sure the mask didn’t crack until he had no choice.
It wasn’t like you judged him much for how he acted. It was natural to stay closed off in this profession. You were no stranger to work that hurt, feelings you’d prefer be stored in old boxes. Filing away the government’s dirty secrets wasn’t the happiest job, not when you knew the kinds of things that happened out in the field. But it gave you Leon. So long as he stayed working for these people, you knew you would, too.
When you picked Leon up from the airport that evening, he seemed restless to get in the car. He dumped his duffle in the back seat and tried not to wince when you snaked a hand through his bangs.
You felt your chest tighten when Leon’s face set in a scowl instead of smiling back instinctively. He looked wrung out. Since meeting him through the agency, he’d always been a tough egg to crack.
“Mission go sideways?” You asked. You knew the drill. It wasn’t right to poke around for bad details. Leon would give them to you if he thought it was necessary, usually disguised as him asking to proofread his reports. “They kept you for a while before they cleared you.”
Leon offered you one of his famous smirks, tainted by the uneasy look on his face. He looked a little too nauseated for you to buy it.
“I made it out,” Leon swallowed hard and shrugged. He wouldn’t look at you when he said it. “So did the rescue target. Best case scenario, right?”
“Sounds like it,” You nod softly. If he didn’t want to talk about it, that was fine. You knew it would trickle out eventually.
Without a response, you shift gears and head towards home—which was really your home that Leon had slowly moved into in between missions. It was one of those times you were thankful you worked up in admin instead of on the field. The idea there was a stable place for you both to go back to when you weren’t drowning in work made all the difference.
It was hard to mind your own business when Leon’s leg bounced feverishly up and down in the passenger seat. Eyes glued to the highway, you caught a glimpse of him every few seconds. His compression shirt seemed too tight on him, arms squeezed over his stomach like his innards might fall out if he didn’t. You watched him swallow compulsively, again and again until he let out a shaky breath and turned to the window.
“Motion sick?” You keep one hand on the wheel, reaching another one over to rub at his shoulder. Leon tenses up at your touch, face a little too sweaty. You could tell he wasn’t feeling himself.
“I’m fine,” he shrugged you off, looking out toward the endless grey roads and occasional trees.
“You’re looking a little gray,” you comment anyways, because you cared more about his paling face ruining the detailing of your car than you did his mission confidentiality. Leon choked back whatever feelings he kept lurking somewhere beneath his skin and chuckled.
“What, you saying I’m getting too old for you already?”
You snort, feeling some of the tension dissipate with his words. “You know that’s not what I meant.”
The moon was high in the sky by the time you pulled into your building’s parking lot. Leon kept a hand brushing gently over his stomach on the elevator ride up. He tried to make small talk about the weather and the time of day and the houseplants of his that you managed to keep alive.
You could see through it almost as clear as he probably could. Pretending he was alright was better than isolating himself, you figured. Maybe that was what he needed.
Leon showered as you put away your dried dishes from earlier that day. You crossed off a few items on your shopping list and tried not to think about how long Leon was taking to decompress.
Suggestions of a late dinner, a movie in bed, a normal talk about your days like normal people were swiftly rejected by the time the shower stopped running. Leon had sprawled out on his side of the bed, staring down at his phone when you headed into the bathroom. When you came back out in your pyjamas, the lights were already out.
Leon sighed, slow and sleepy as you crawled under the covers and kissed the back of his head. Leon turned around to press his face into yours, arms brushing over you. He kept you at an arm’s length, determined not to cling to you after being away for so long.
You tolerate his subtle, avoidant pushes away from you until you feel your eyes closed, Leon’s body warmth just a few feet away from yours.
Things were fine until they weren’t.
The night went on peacefully until you felt yourself lulled awake by certain sounds, certain motions from beside you. As you slowly awaken, moon still in the sky, you turn to the back of Leon’s sleeping frame.
As your eyes adjust to the darkness, you realize he’s no longer sprawled, instead curled into himself, face pressed into his pillow like he’d make less noise. You could hear the short, uneven breaths escape him, the occasional whimper of discomfort making your heart heavy.
“Leon,” you snake your arms over, touching his now-sweaty hair and pressing a palm to his back. You can feel him shaking under your touch. “Leon. Hey.”
“G’back to bed,” Leon chokes out so harshly, it sounds like he’s holding back vomit. His body convulses again before he mutters out a painful, “Fuck.”
Leon seems to curl in tighter when he realizes you’re awake. You sit up, more awake now and aware that Leon is holding his middle like his stomach is about to break out of his skin.
“Hey,” you inch forward, pressing your body up against his back and spooning him from behind. You can feel his heartbeat hammering away against your chest. “Talk to me. You feeling sick?”
Leon turns, his head coming up and under your chin. You brush back his bangs, feeling his hot breath on your arm while you check for a fever. You wonder for a moment if he’s caught one of those bad bugs from the airport.
“Wasn’t s’posed to—” Leon turned, pressing his knuckles up to his mouth. He let out a thick, sour-sounding burp that devolved into a panicked-sounding groan. “Sorry—I’m sorry, this is so stupid—”
Leon hugs himself tighter, and alarm bells go off when you recognize the desperate, apologetic tone he uses when he’s pushed things too far into his own head. The strong agent veneer they all thought they knew at the agency was covered in cracks tonight. This must have really been a rough mission.
“Come here,” You lift the blanket with one hand and wrap you both in it, your hands snaking around his middle.
You pull him close, your fingers hike up his shirt and go straight to his stomach, feeling the contents churn and jostle with what you can only recognize as the worst case of anxiety you’ve seen from him in months. He lets out a groan of indignation as you encourage him to accept the touch.
“I know. You’re the big guy at work, and you think you have to be him right now,” you murmur, letting your hand drop from his belly and up to his rigid shoulders. “You can put that away. It’s okay to feel bad. You’re okay.”
Leon needed to let things out, one way or another. You didn’t think it’d be like this. It was worth it, reminding him he could be smaller with you. His best qualities were the ones that made him human, even if human meant ruminating until he felt sick to his stomach.
Leon’s breathing picked up, his heartbeat in his throat as he turned around and pushed himself into you. You rubbed his back in slow circles, patting him gently when his stomach groaned low and painfully loud.
“Thought it would—get better,” Leon tried to save face, but it was hard when everything felt so wrong. “It wasn't so bad during the flight. Didn’t wanna talk about it. Didn’t think—”
You’d only seen it happen a few times with him. Watching the anxiety he filed away turn into something more physical. It was usually a headache, loss of appetite, maybe he felt more irritated or isolated than usual. This seemed a little different.
“Is that when it started? The flight home?” You keep Leon in your embrace, hands trailing over his arms, back and stomach. You hummed in sympathy when his stomach churned from the tough.
Leon shook his head, and you carded a hand through his bangs again. “Before.”
“And they cleared you medically,” you repeat the words you’ve had to say since what happened in Spain. That nothing was left inside of him, that there wasn’t anything physically wrong with him.
“They said I was fine,” Leon pushed out through his teeth. It felt like every breath was torture, though you had a feeling from the start that it wasn’t because of any physical injury.
“Okay. So you’re wound up. You’re having a strong reaction,” you suggest gently. You slipped back into your work voice, hoping Leon would take it better. “If you don’t talk about what’s setting you off, it bubbles up in worse ways.”
“Don’t say it like that,” Leon muttered, a little too desperate. The edge to his voice was back. You knew it was hard for him to admit when he didn’t feel strong. For someone in the field, it was unnatural. Dangerous, even. You had to remind him this wasn’t the field.
You pressed a gentle kiss to the back of his neck. “I think you’d feel better if you talked about what’s bothering you.”
“You shouldn’t have to know about it,” he swallowed. It seemed he’d forgotten exactly what you did for a living.
“I’ve dealt with bad. You know I have. You don’t have to worry about that,” You reassured him. Leon tensed up hard enough for you to get your answer.
You both lay there, wide awake as Leon kept himself turned away from you in your arms. He wouldn’t budge on it, no matter how much you tried to coax it out of him, remind him that he was safe and that this wasn’t your first bad mission rodeo. You could tell the thought was stuck in his head. You hated seeing him get so torn up about things beyond his control.
It was not soon after that Leon let out a groan, much sicker than before. You held him, letting him ride out the nausea until he jolted up and out of bed.
“Don’t—don’t follow,” he gagged, gruff voice trying to mask its unravelling. You let him go, and Leon scrambled to the bathroom connecting to your bedroom.
You sat up, turning away as you heard him purge whatever he’d eaten on the plane. It was better to respect the boundaries he put into place. You’d realized that over the years of knowing him. Pushing him made him feel unsafe. It would only set him off, even after he’d already fallen apart.
Leon was troubled, every agent was a little bit troubled, but he wasn’t as detached as he wished he was with you. You knew if you gave him time to fall apart on his own, he’d come back. He knew you’d wait for him here without judgement.
Wordlessly, you felt around for your bottle of ice water sitting on the nightstand. You lifted up the plastic waste basket you kept by your bed just in case, eyeing the antacids you always kept in your bedside drawer.
You winced at what you heard in the room over. The thought of leaving Leon there any longer tore you up, but you knew better than most how Leon needed to process things. He was used to being alone.
Sure enough, he emerged from the bathroom a few minutes later. His shirt was gone, his breath still unsteady. You could smell the mouthwash on his lips from your spot on the bed. Leon stared at you with glassy eyes, keeping a part of that cold persona intact despite the wetness that leaked from the corners.
“Feeling better?” You offer him a smile. That seemed to break him more than any forceful push to talk could. You watched Leon stumble forward, hand still pressed to his stomach, and fall right into your arms.
“Leon. Honey,” you wrapped him up and pulled him close. When you started seeing each other and became whatever this was, you both couldn’t stand the nicknames. This one always felt right in the moments where Leon didn’t seem to want to hear his own name.
“I shot a kid,” Leon whispered. You felt a weight fall on your chest as a deep, guttural sob broke the silence. Thick tears stuck to your night shirt as Leon gripped onto you, rocking you both back and forth like he couldn’t quite rid himself of the energy.
“Okay,” you cradle his head against your chest and shoulder, under the crook of your neck. “How did it happen?”
“Looked like a kid. A little girl,” Leon’s voice broke when he said it. His breath came out in laboured bursts, like he couldn’t get enough air in. “Was—wasn’t herself anymore. Dead already—didn’t have a choice, but it—she looked at me like a little kid would—before I—”
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry it happened,” you squeeze him tighter. No wonder he felt sick to his stomach thinking about it. You understood how rough the field work could be, even if you never did much of it yourself. “She wasn’t there anymore. You were able to let her rest, Leon. I know it’s hard to think of it that way—”
“I kill everyone,” Leon whimpered, “Can’t be around anyone normal, feels like I hurt people for a living, I never wanted to kill anyone—wanted to help people, I just—”
Your heart hurt for him. It took him years of after-work drinks and midnight dates and sleeping in the same bed for him to tell you why he really joined the agency. Like most of you, it wasn’t by choice. Leon was damn good at pretending like this job didn’t get to him.
Anger simmered deep beneath you as Leon let everything spill out into your embrace. His handler should have made him speak with a professional after sending him away for so long. Clearly, they hadn’t let Leon unpack his mission beyond the physical assessment.
“You saved who you could have saved,” you reassured him. His shoulders trembled at your kind words, and he pressed himself so close to you, it felt like he’d crawled under your skin. “You’re even braver for talking about it. It’s so hard to say out loud. But you’re gonna be okay.”
The two of you went back and forth for what felt like hours. Leon letting all his demons run out in the open. You beside him, ensuring his thoughts didn’t spiral.
When Leon had his breathing under control, you stretched your arm out and wriggled your fingers towards your water bottle until it was in your grip. He drank half of it, still rocking back and forth against your chest from the excess adrenaline. You ran a line over his bare skin, tracing each scar, burn mark, and bullet hole.
“Sorry,” he choked out. Hydration seemed to bring him back to his senses. He laughed, even though he didn’t look very amused. “Didn’t…think I’d do that. I just couldn’t stop thinking about it and…”
He didn’t look like agent Kennedy. Instead, Leon felt like the rookie cop he’d once described to you in detail after sharing two bottles of red wine.
“You had a lot of things build up before that moment. Sometimes you just need to let it happen,” you kept a hand on his back, the other tracing over his stomach muscles, which seemed to settle from earlier. He hadn’t thrown up since having to scramble out of bed earlier. “Still feeling off?”
“Mmmh,” Leon breathed into your neck. The tension in his shoulders was still there, but nowhere near as tight.
“I’ll get you some tea,” you kissed him tenderly on the cheek, ruffled his hair and untangled yourself from his hold. When a strong arm grasped onto your shoulder, you fell back with a laugh. “You can come with me if you’re feeling up for it.”
“Only if I can hold you the whole time,” Leon looked up and smiled back at you weakly. “At least let me feel like the big strong agent.”
“I’ll let you project all you want if you get some sleep after,” you throw back.
Leon stifled a yawn, shoulders still a little shaky. “Deal.”
As Leon trailed behind you to the kitchen, strong arms hanging weakly over your shoulders, you wondered if you’d finally cracked Leon open wide enough to keep his needy side open. That wouldn’t be so bad, you thought. The way he’d trusted you completely in your arms made you feel warmer than anything.
All you knew now was that Leon was getting at least a month off after you called HQ tomorrow. After all, you were known to be very persuasive with your work.
A/N: Letting big strong character become weak vulnerable character does things to me. Let Leon cry. Let Leon be a wreck. Yum yum yum.
I'm in love with the idea of forcing someone to puke where you want. Like, you're cuddling with someone who's nauseous and ready to puke. Their face is buried in your chest, and you are petting their back and telling them it will be okay. It looks so wholesome and sweet, but you're also holding them tight enough that any of their weak efforts to move away are pointless, leading them to let it out all down your chest. Same goes for puking over your shoulder and down your back. You can also take someone's bucket from them at the last second. They grasp frantically at it but you've already tossed it to the other side of the room and their stomach is already starting to push all its contents up onto the bed sheets. They know they'd make more of a mess trying to fetch it, so they sit there pathetically, making a huge mess as they burp up puke onto the blankets. All of this would be easier to do with someone who's drunk. You could tell someone is about to puke so you position them over yourself on the bed, and in their delirious state, they puke all over you without even knowing what they're doing while you squirm in pleasure underneath them.
drew these a while ago! for some reason (and i know exactly the reason it's because they gave us c.aine angst) c.aine flipped that switch in my brain and now i'm obsessed with him. i'm not 100% sure how to draw him, don't like him in my style, but i had to draw him
thinking about shy, socially anxious sickies who tremble at the thought of having to announce that they’re going to vomit and end up embarrassing themselves more in the long run.
on a road trip with friends, they only work up the courage to ask the driver to pull over when it’s too late.
in a long line for the bathroom at a sports game, they throw up on the ground before asking the boisterous, intimidating fans if they can cut in front.
during an exam in a silent lecture hall, they try to power through the test but have to stumble to the trash can by their professor’s desk.
before a performance they tell themself the show must go on until they have to run offstage in front of a crowd of a hundred people.
waiting to be seen in the ER, they try to hold it in instead of asking a nurse for something to vomit in, making a mess in their lap and on the floor.
