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Request from anon on Tumblr: a generally stoic and strong character getting sick from emotions? like from a panic attack or anxiety? their s/o is worried because ???? what happened?? turns out they’ve been having a Really Stressful Week TM and proceed to get pampered and loved. For felix and elliot. omg also how about : a little outsider shot of the two of them here pov ryan and nancy. thanks! 🍄
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“Good morning, darling,” Felix chirped as he entered the kitchen. Elliott was sitting at the marble countertop, one hand propping up his chin while the other tapped away at his laptop keyboard. Felix wasn’t sure what Elliott was working on these days – and he tended to get huffy and defensive when asked – so Felix made a grand gesture of cupping a hand around his eye while walking past. Look, darling, I’m not looking!
“Morning?” Elliott glanced down at his watch, tilting the laptop screen so that it was almost halfway shut, despite Felix making it obvious that he wasn’t looking. “It’s basically the afternoon.”
“Hmm?” Felix took hold of Elliott’s wrist, tilting his head to read the time. “No, it’s still the morning for seven more minutes and twelve more seconds.”
Elliott grunted. “Oh. Well. You got me.”
Felix chewed his lip, his feathers a bit ruffled by Elliott’s tone. He glanced through the kitchen towards the sitting room. “Where is everyone?”
“I think Nan dragged Ryan to the farmer’s market.”
“No!” Felix gasped. “I wanted to go, too.”
“Should’ve woken up earlier then, huh? Maybe joined me on a morning run?”
A grin spread across Felix’s face, his natural response to Elliott’s attempts to mould him into a morning person. It hadn’t happened in the last seven years, so it wasn’t going to happen anytime soon.
He leaned his head against Elliott’s shoulder, even though his hair was still dripping wet from his shower. “I love it when you nag me. You in the mood for a drop of coffee?”
“No, Fee, I’m fine.” Elliott tugged the laptop screen even lower, as though he thought Felix was trying to peek.
Felix looked up, a bit startled by the solemn tone of Elliott’s voice, and confused by just how protective he was being on his screen. His partner looked down at him, still the taller of the two while sitting on the island stools. His eyes portrayed an uneasy darkness that made Felix frown.
“Is…” Felix’s heart skipped a beat. “Is everything alright, darling?”
Elliott blinked. “Yes. Why?”
“I – you just seem…”
One of Elliott’s eyebrows arched.
“… Tense,” Felix grimaced.
“Tense?” Elliott repeated dully. “Well, excuse me. Not all of us had fifteen hours of sleep.”
“Huh. Okay.” Felix pursed his lips and padded unhappily across the white tiles, towards the coffee maker. He felt silly. He could usually handle Elliott’s teasing and such, but something about the way he was acting felt strange. It was like something had shifted between them.
Felix felt his heart sink as he scooped coffee grounds into the machine, his motions slowing.
It had been three weeks since Felix had returned to the Aldridge’s townhouse, after spending a few weeks up north and visiting his mother in her nursing home. Beyond his first few days back, Elliott hadn’t questioned him too much about what had happened up there, so Felix had assumed – hoped – that he’d decided to put it all behind them. But there was a chance he had changed his mind since then, right?
Felix blinked, realising he’d spilled grounds on the glistening white countertop. He barely cared. He turned around. “Elli?”
“What?” Elliott had lifted the laptop screen again, still sitting stiffly as he navigated some screen that Felix wasn’t allowed to see.
“Are – are you still angry with me?” There was a tiny hitch in Felix’s voice, which he couldn’t help. He didn’t want to take Elliott’s mood and make it all about himself, but the thought of Elliott quietly holding onto resentment made Felix’s stomach hurt.
Elliott let out a rasping sigh and slapped the lid of his computer shut. Felix jumped on the spot, watching with wide eyes as Elliott dropped his head into his hands where he sat. Felix was overcome with worry, sure, but for a tenth of a second, all he wanted to do was check that Elliott hadn’t broken his laptop and lost whatever secret project he was working on.
“Darling?” Felix laid down the coffee scoop and wrung his hands. “If – if this is about anything that we talked about, I would want you to tell me.”
“No.” The word was murmured so softly that Felix barely heard it. Elliott let out a shaky, audible breath, his face still hidden in his hands. “No, boo, you – you and I are fine.”
“You – I’m sorry, you keep using that word. Fine…”
“You and I,” Elliott huffed, “are perfect, Fee.”
That should have been reassuring, but Felix still had that sinking sensation in his chest. Elliott’s shoulders rocked forward slightly, like he was trying to curl into a ball where he was seated.
At least this time, Felix didn’t have to hesitate in coming to Elliott’s side. “Elli,” he sighed, sliding his arms around Elliott’s waist, resting his forehead on his back. “Talk to me.”
“I…” Elliott started off shakily, gulping so hard that Felix heard it from where he was positioned behind him. “I-I don’t…”
As he waited for Elliott to find the words, Felix gently moved a hand up and down over his ribs, hoping the contact was soothing and not stifling. Elliott’s chest was rising and falling way too quickly for Felix’s liking. He decided he should probably back off and give his partner space to breathe, but as soon as he started to move, Elliott grabbed one of his hands and tugged it towards his chest again.
“You have something, now, or someone who… who can tie you to your old life.” The words vibrated within his chest and his back as he choked them out.
Felix frowned and lifted his head, looking up at the back of Elliott’s. The taller boy’s dark hair was scooped into a messy bun. The ends were knotted and ratty. It hadn’t been cut in so long. “Darling, I don’t want to be tied to that life. I want to be tied to this life, with you.”
“I know, I know, but it got me thinking about the people I used to know, and how…” Elliott shuddered in Felix’s grip. “How they would all… I knew it was a long shot, but I tried finding some names online, but we – Jesus, most of us didn’t even have full names, we were just trying to survive –”
“Darling,” Felix whispered, at a complete loss for anything more substantial to say.
“I mean –” A dark tremble of laughter broke through Elliott’s voice. He swivelled the stool, stepping down and taking a few steps across the tiles. “It’s pointless to even look for them, right? What are the odds any of my old friends also happened to end up becoming immortal vampires, huh?”
“I… I don’t know.”
“Rhetorical question, boo.”
“Sorry.” Felix followed a few steps behind Elliott as he went to the kitchen window. It didn’t even seem like he was looking at anything in particular, but simply exposing his retinas to the light from outside.
“Elli?” Felix said quietly.
Elliott glanced at him, just for a moment. His eyes were dark and wet, his lips trembling as he gradually lost the battle against full-on hyperventilation. He shook his head violently, gaze wandering aimlessly again. “I don’t – I don’t feel right. What’s wr… What’s wrong with me, Fee?”
“Darling, try to slow your breathing.”
Elliott slammed his palms down either side of the kitchen sink, his shoulders buckling forward under the pressure of the gasps and heaves racking his body. “Felix, what’s wrong with me?”
“You’re panicking,” Felix said, shocking himself with how calm he sounded. He closed the last few paces between them, unable to resist being next to Elliott while he was in this state. “I’m right here, alright? I’m going to touch your back, Elli, but – but please, tell me if it’s not okay…”
“Don’t,” Elliott gasped, shaking his head violently. His mouth bobbed open as he lowered his shoulders even further, eyes widening. “G-going to –”
A moment before Elliott started dry heaving, Felix realised what was happening, and obediently took his hand back. As a rule, Elliott detested being touched when he was sick, and Felix had learned to stop fighting that a long, long time ago.
Felix flinched at how violently sick Elliott suddenly was. His head was practically in the sink at one point, his body buckling under the intense convulsions. It was impossible to distinguish between the laboured breathing and the dry heaving, but every sound and every lurch made Felix’s heart twist a little tighter in his chest.
“Darling, I’m sorry,” Felix choked out. “I’m sorry I didn’t realise you had all of this going on inside you.”
Elliott whimpered at that, attempting to lift his head a little higher. “Fee, I just –” He was immediately interrupted by a wet belch, and a clear stream of saliva that he needed to spit away from his lips into the sink. “You just got back, I w-want – wanted things to be normal… for you.”
“Elli,” Felix whined. He couldn’t believe what was happening here. Elliott was trying not to cry as he spoke, and Felix almost lost it too, though he did his best to keep a hold of things. He couldn’t be sure, of course, but he had a feeling he knew exactly what Elliott meant by ‘normal’. He meant the normalcy where Felix could be a mess and Elliott was forced to be the strong one.
He watched as Elliott brought his elbows down gently in front of the sink, letting his head drop against them as the nausea finally seemed to past. He trembled and sighed deeply, seemingly in resignation.
Felix cleared his throat softly. “May I touch you?”
A very quiet chuckle emerged from Elliott’s buried face. “You may.”
Felix rested a hand gently on Elliott’s back, introducing the slightest amount of motion so that his fingertips grazed over a small portion of his spine. He lowered his forehead to Elliott’s shoulder again, this time with very little weight behind it. He needed Elliott to know he wasn’t leaning on him, but that he was there for him.
And he was capable of being the strong one sometimes.
___
“You know, there was a time where you would have helped me bring the bags in from the car,” Nancy sulked. Her arms were outstretched and wrapped around half a dozen bags from different vendors which were pressed against her chest.
“It is not my fault that you insist on buying so much,” Ryan said calmly, following her wife to the doorstep with her hands in her pockets. “For example, you did not need to purchase onions from three different stalls.”
“I told you; they’re different varieties!”
Ryan sighed as she opened the front door and stood back to let her wife into the front hallway of the townhouse. “An onion is an onion, love.”
“Felix,” Nancy grumbled, turning as she walked and narrowing her eyes at Ryan. “Felix will back me up. Felix! Felix, sweetheart!” she called towards the stairs.
The response from within the house was a muted sshhh, which sounded much closer than the upstairs bedrooms. Nancy frowned, meeting Ryan’s gaze for a moment as she closed the front door. Ryan made a beeline towards the kitchen and Nancy followed, dragging her feet slightly on the tiles as she struggled with her bags. She paused by the kitchen island to deposit all of them, watching as Ryan rounded the far corner and stared at what was happening on the sofa.
“Oh, sweethearts, what’s happened?” Nancy gasped, rushing over to stand next to Ryan.
Felix was sitting – almost upright – at one end of the sofa, white Elliott curled up next to him, his head resting in the smaller boy’s lap.
“Is… Is he asleep?” Nancy whispered.
Felix nodded silently. His poor eyes were red and a little puffy as he glanced back and forth between his two foster mothers.
“Anything we can do?” Ryan asked in a low voice, slipping her hands into the pockets of her slacks again. Nancy couldn’t help but pout; oh, sure, you’ll ask them if there’s anything they need you to do, but you won’t help me carry a couple of bags into the house.
A weak smile tugged at Felix’s exhausted expression, and he shook his head. His fingers drifted over Elliott’s head, brushing back a thin strand of his dark hair. Nancy once again couldn’t help herself, this time pursing her lips and wondering how long it had been since Elliott had cut his hair.
“Everything’s okay,” Felix murmured softly. “I’ve got him.”