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Louis grew up being told repeatedly not to eat too quickly- "chew your food twelve times, boo", "just because your spoon looks like a shovel doesn't mean it is one", and the constant "too much food too fast leads to much pain". And yes, when he was seven, he knew that he ought to listen- ought to chew more, ought not to scoop an entire serving of mashed potato into his mouth at once. And when he found himself curled up on a couch when he was seven, he learned from his mistakes and actually started listening.
But at twenty? Surely his stomach was matured enough to manage food that hadn't been eaten with the speed of a baby snail. So when an entire tray of cookies- his favorite kind, too!- lay waiting in their dressing room, he shrugged off the warnings from his childhood and grabbed a stack.
Louis was sprawled across several chairs, a hand pressed to his stomach. Harry was staring at him, a focused expression on his face. The other boys were crowded around Louis, looking down at him
“Where does it hurt?” Liam asked, peering at Louis’ face.
Louis groaned and pointed to just under his rib cage. “I feel like I’m going to be sick.”
“Oh, god,” Zayn said, grabbing a trash can and thrusting it at Louis.
“No, never mind,” Louis said. “Now it just hurts.”
“Sit up and put your head between your knees,” Niall instructed.
Louis sat up and did that before swooning slightly and lying back down.
“Not a good idea,” Louis muttered.
“Drink this,” Zayn said, grabbing a ginger ale from the mini fridge in the hotel room.
Louis took the can and drank a sip. They waited, watching his face. He suddenly lunged up and vomited into the trash can.
“Ugh,” Liam commented. “Zayn. That didn’t help.”
“Lie on your left side,” Harry said. “It helps digestion.”
Louis made a face and laid back down, wrapping his arms around himself.
They all stood there, looking down at him for a few minutes.
“Do you feel better?” Liam asked.
“No. I think something is eating me from the inside out.”
“Try taking really deep breaths,” Liam said.
Louis did that for a while before stopping.
“Why’d you stop?”
Louis shook his head, his face turning a worse, greenish color. His hair was already slightly sweaty from his fever, so overall he looked dreadful.
“You look like you have the plague,” Niall said. “Maybe you should go to sleep.”
Louis threw up again, grabbing the trash can just in time.
Harry felt his forehead, grimacing at the heat. “Maybe you should put some ice on your forehead.”
An hour later, Louis was lying with his legs propped up, on his side, with a bag of ice on his head, and a disgusting trashcan on the floor beside him. His face was pale and tinted an alarming shade of green, and his breath was rather shallow.
“I’m getting Paul,” Harry said, standing up. “This is ridiculous.”
Harry ran out, returning after a few minutes with Paul, who crossed his arms and looked at Louis for a few seconds before calling the non-emergency line at the hospital. The boys stood sheepishly next to Louis, feeling bad that they hadn’t done that themselves.
“We’re driving down to the hospital,” Paul said, hanging up the phone. “If this is because of alcohol, I’m going to strangle you,” he said to Louis, picking up the weak, sick boy.
“It’s not,” Louis moaned. “I can walk!”
“No, he can’t,” Liam said. “Don’t let him try.”
“This is the most ridiculous job,” Paul muttered, heading out of the hotel room with an ill twenty year old boy in his arms.
The hospital pumped his stomach- the five boys couldn't convince them that he wasn't chock-full of alcohol, so they rushed him in for emergency care. When all that they pumped up was half-digested cookies, not massive amounts of alcohol, there was an understandable amount of confusion.
"Are you feeling better?" Harry asked, gingerly swinging the door to Louis' temporary room open.
"What do you think?" Louis snarled, his voice hoarse from the stomach pumping. "I avoid binge drinking for exactly this reason."
"Maybe you shouldn't have eaten all of our cookies in the first place," Niall said, following Harry inside. "Maybe this is payback."
"Well, whatever the cause, I just know there's going to be a headline in a day or two announcing that I'm an alcoholic and it got to the point that they had to pump my stomach," Louis said. "I just wanted one cookie."
"I think the problem here can be found in your use of the word 'one' just now," Harry said. "Denial is one of the first stages of overcoming an addiction."