Work Text:
Request from 🍄 anon on Tumblr: hey! it is a rather different request this time. uh. i know you’ve been having some Mental Health Days tm too, so you absolutely do not need to write this if it’s too much or if you don’t want to. so i’ve been having some pretty fucked time lately, and that included me getting weirdly nauseous because my thoughts were too fast? if that makes sense? like. emotional motion sickness? so i was wondering, if any of your ocs suffer from depression or any other mental illness, could you write them getting sick from that w their partner comforting them? (id especially love shayne and charlie, but it’s up to you!)
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Charlie had been sitting in the single armchair with his laptop all morning, lost in the depths of the Internet. It had started off as a single scouring of his university’s website, which had ended in him lightly stalking the Facebook page for their LGBTQA+ society. From there, he’d ended up finding a Facebook group for incoming students for his course, and gotten added to a private chat with a few of them. One girl had found a copy of the semester’s reading list, and from there, Charlie had gone on a tangent of trying to find cheap copies of the books on various websites. His older brother Jonathan had warned him about how university libraries sometimes only stocked one copy of a book that sixty students would all need on the same day, and Charlie wanted to be prepared.
It wasn’t until someone in the chat said they were leaving to go get lunch that Charlie realised how long it had been since he’d looked up from the screen. He said goodbye to them and closed the lid of his laptop, stretching his arms out over his head. His legs were draped over the arm of the armchair, so he stretched those out too, almost kicking Shayne in the head since he was sitting on the sofa.
“Oh! Sorry,” he giggled, hopping up and placing his laptop on the cushion where he’d been sitting. “I hope you don’t feel like I’ve been ignoring you.”
“Nope.” Shayne had his head propped up on one hand, his eyes slightly glazed over. He sounded like he could have been in a bad mood, but those were sometimes hard to distinguish from normal moods, so Charlie tried not to read into it.
“How are you doing?” Charlie asked, slumping down on the sofa. He reached over and brushed his fingers through Shayne’s hair, his heart sinking when Shayne flinched at the contact. “Something wrong?”
Shayne shrugged, gaze dropping to the floor as he folded his arms across his middle. Charlie immediately began to analyse the situation, his heart thrumming with the frantic worry he always felt when Shayne began to clam up.
“Are you feeling sick?”
Shayne shrugged.
“If you are, I can get you some medicine.”
“No.”
“Okay.” Charlie cleared his throat. “I was thinking of having lunch soon, if you want to join me.”
“No, I don’t –” Shayne leaned forward, burying his face in his hands. “You don’t get to decide what goes in my body, Charlie.”
“Whoa.” Charlie sat forward too, wishing he could get a glimpse at Shayne’s expression. “That’s not what I was trying to do.”
Fists clenched by his sides, Shayne got up from the sofa. “Just leave me the fuck alone, okay?”
“Okay,” Charlie said in a small voice. He wrung his hands in his lap, letting his eyes follow Shayne across the living room.
He paused by the door to the hallway, like he was considering whether or not he actually wanted to storm out. In the end, he turned around again, crossing his arms.
“Shayne?” Charlie eased himself to his feet. He knew sudden movements probably wouldn’t make Shayne any worse, but it was better to be safe than sorry.
“No.” Shayne shook his head and started walking back and forth. His fingers were digging into his upper arms. “No. Don’t. Don’t.”
Charlie felt sick. He couldn’t tell if Shayne was talking to him, or to himself.
As much as it killed him to just stand and watch, he kept himself planted on the spot and let Shayne pace back and forth. It was better for him to use up some of his nervous energy for a few minutes. Charlie knew the last thing he should do was try to control him when his anxiety acted up, since it was usually the feeling of losing control that caused it.
What he wasn’t expecting was for Shayne to suddenly turn and fling himself towards him, head hitting Charlie’s shoulder with force.
He was gasping as he tried to get words out. “I-I can’t – Charlie, everything’s messed up. My stomach, my chest – I can’t fucking breathe–”
“Oh, lovely, it’s okay, it’s okay,” Charlie whispered as calmly as he could.
Shayne exhaled deeply, his body falling still for a moment. It felt like a calm before a storm. Charlie held his breath, not quite sure what kind of storm to expect. He realised he wouldn’t have been shocked if Shayne had turned around again and punched a hole in the wall.
In the end, Shayne just jerked his head back, his eyes watery and unfocused. The tension in the air changed, becoming less intense but a lot more delicate.
“Are you okay?”
Shayne shook his head.
“What’s wr–?” Charlie started to ask, cutting himself off when Shayne abruptly spun on the spot and leaned over, a weak stream of sick pouring from his lips. “Oh.”
“Fuck,” Shayne whimpered, pressing a hand over his mouth. It had landed mostly on the glass coffee table and not on the rug, at least. He gave a muffled “Sorry” from behind his hand before he sank back onto the edge of the sofa.
“Hey, don’t – don’t worry.” Charlie dragged over a metal bin that lived in the corner of the sitting room, mostly for used tissues and snack wrappers to be thrown into. Luckily, it was empty now. He knelt down in front of Shayne, who was still covering his face as he leaned on his knees. “There’s a bin, in case you feel sick again.”
Shayne just shuddered in response.
“Hey,” Charlie sighed, resting a hand on his shoulder. His breath was a serious of ragged gasps again, making his body convulse so badly that Charlie couldn’t tell if he was still retching or not. “Are you okay? What – what happened there?”
“Everything… Everything was too fast, in my head.” Shayne let out a shaky sigh, fingers clinging to his hair now. His eyes were squeezed shut. “Charlie, what the fuck’s wrong with me? What am I going to do?”
“Hey, hey, hey, look at me.”
“I can’t.”
“Look at me.”
“I can’t, Charlie!”
“Shayne, trust me, alright?” Charlie extended both arms, palms facing up. “Squeeze my hands.”
The breath shuddered out of Shayne as he took Charlie’s hands, closing his fingers tightly.
“Alright, now, count backwards from ten with me. Ten –”
“Ten…”
By the time they reached zero, Shayne’s grip on Charlie’s hands had relaxed, and there didn’t seem to be any fresh tears on his face. He was shaking, and his eyes were searching Charlie’s like he was waiting for them to spit out the meaning of life. Charlie had never felt like more of a fraud, a charlatan; he hadn’t even been sure that the counting-backwards-from-ten thing would work, but he was glad that it had.
“Okay? You with me?” Charlie whispered.
Shayne nodded distantly.
“Feeling better?”
“Yeah. No.” Shayne’s teeth chattered as he fought to compose himself. “Sorry. Physically, yes, but everything – everything else is just…”
Charlie shook his head, feeling like his heart might break from watching Shayne try and fail to find the right words. “Lovely, it’s okay.”
“Fuck. The coffee table,” Shayne groaned.
“Hey, that’ll be easy to clean up,” Charlie half-laughed. “I’m gonna go do that now, and then I’ll make us some tea, okay? Do you want to lie down while you wait?”
A short nod, a glassy gaze.
“Okay. Maybe don’t lie on your tummy, though,” Charlie said as Shayne began to move, anxious that he would resort to his preferred position for sleeping and relaxing. “It might make you sick again and make it hard to breathe.”
“’Kay,” Shayne murmured, curling up on his side with his knees almost all the way up to his chest.
Charlie stroked his shoulder and prayed to a god he didn’t believe in that he’d be able to understand what went on inside his head one day. He had a heavy feeling in his chest as he got up from the floor.
Charlie turned around at the door. He both loved and hated how tiny Shayne looked, curled up on the sofa. He drew a deep breath. “I love you.”
Looking exhausted, and also like he was about to start crying again, Shayne nodded and said something in a very low voice before letting his eyes close. He’d mumbled it – badly, even by his own standards – but Charlie was almost certain that Shayne had said, “Thank you.”