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All hell and its fire are burning within his skull, lighting up a path into agony and away from reason. His eyes are clenched shut, waltzing with the sweet relief of shadows that so boldly proclaim, “Come, it’s safe here,” and then leave him unmoored when the pain follows.
Daniel has a migraine. Plainly put. He hadn’t even made it out of his bedroom that morning, already taken down by the sheer torment his head decided to put him through the minute he’d woken up. By some miracle, none of the other horsemen had decided to check on him yet. He reasons they’re probably counting their blessings before he sweeps in to demand they practice some more. He doesn’t snort at the idea, he wants to, but the migraine is enforcing silence and he doesn’t feel inclined to argue with it.
The air is wrong. It’s too thick and loud. It presses against him like something weighted and sharp at the same time. The faint buzz of the refrigerator down the hall drills through the walls and burrows behind his eyes, settling there, satisfied. He wonders briefly how something so mundane can feel so violent. The curtains are drawn, but not well enough. A blade of light slips through the gap and stretches across the floor like an accusation. He can feel it without looking. Looking would mean opening his eyes, and opening his eyes would mean acknowledging the world still exists. It shouldn’t. Not today.
He shifts carefully, experimentally. The mattress responds with a whisper of fabric against fabric, a sound that might as well be thunder. The movement sends a spike of pain through his temple, hot and cutting. He stills immediately, breath held like he’s waiting for applause that will not come.
He considers his phone. It’s somewhere on the nightstand. Close enough to reach. Too far to risk moving. The screen will be bright. The notifications louder than they have any right to be, even on vibrate. He imagines Jack’s inevitable message. “Are we practicing or what?” followed by something from Merritt that pretends indifference and fails. Actually, they might as well be enjoying the time off and leaving their group chat alone for the time being.
He could text. He could say he’s rescheduling. He could admit-
No.
He exhales slowly through his nose and tells himself this is temporary. He has worked through worse. He has performed through worse. Stage lights hotter than this. Crowds louder than this. He has bent reality to his will in front of thousands. He can certainly bend his own body. The thought is so absurd he almost laughs. Almost.
The knock, when it comes, is not gentle. Neither is it aggressive. It’s just ordinary. Knuckles to wood. Two short taps. And still, it detonates behind his eyes. Daniel inhales sharply and regrets it immediately. Even breath feels intrusive, like his lungs haven’t received the memo that today requires silence. And silence is exactly what returns in cautious increments. The refrigerator’s buzz resumed its steady torment. The world, inconsiderate as ever, continues.
Maybe they’ll assume he’s out. The thought is hopeful and he feels naïve for thinking it, for another knock resounds. It’s louder the second time, and followed by Jack’s voice. It’s slightly muffled through the door. “Danny?”
Daniel considers not answering. There’s power in silence. In withholding. He’s built entire illusions on that principle. But the quiet stretches, and Jack’s weight shifts outside the door, a soft scuff of shoe against carpet that might as well be a cymbal crash.
“Daniel, we’re supposed to-“ A pause, “Are you in there?”
He really wishes he wasn’t. He opens his mouth to tell him to go away, but he closes it again when the effort of speaking requires breath, which in turn requires effort. Effort requires tolerating the way his pulse is currently trying to escape through his right eye. He rolls carefully onto his back, immediately regretting the change in pressure. The ceiling swims even through closed lids. There’s a faint flicker at the edges of his vision, not light, not quite darkness either. Something shimmering and wrong. Like heat rising off asphalt.
Aura. Wonderful. He presses the heel of his palm against his temple, as if he can physically hold his skull together. The pain pulses against his hand in steady, deliberate waves.
“Daniel?” Jack again, closer to the door now. Concern is creeping in. That won’t do. Daniel swallows. The motion alone is enough to make his stomach twist unpleasantly. Nausea curls low and slow, patient as a cat. But vicious when its claws sink into his insides and all he’s left able to do is gasp against it.
“Go away,” he manages, the words thinner than he intended. His voice scrapes on the way out, lacking its usual polish.
Cautiously, Jack speaks again, “You sound … weird.”
Weird. He would laugh if it didn’t feel like self-sabotage.
“I am perfectly capable of scheduling practice without supervision,” Daniel says, aiming for cutting. It lands somewhere nearer brittle. “Kindly inform Merritt he may return to whatever it is he does when I’m not improving his life.” The effort of the sentence leaves him dizzy. The room tilts slightly, like a ship deciding whether to capsize. Jack doesn’t move away. He’s still at the door and Daniel can feel his presence, lurking.
“I didn’t say anything about supervision,” he replies slowly. “We haven’t seen you at all, this morning.”
Daniel stares at the darkness behind his eyelids, and it presses back.
“I overslept.” It’s a poor lie. Jack is quiet again. He’s too quiet, like he’s thinking, which would be inconvenient. There’s a soft click of the doorknob being tested. It’s locked, of course. Daniel allows himself a small, private smile. He’d gone to bed with a headache that had the makings of a migraine, so he’d locked his door as a precaution.
“Daniel,” Jack says, and now the concern is unmistakable. “Open the door.”
“No.”
The word comes quickly, and his head throbs in reprimand. He shifts again, just enough to reach blindly toward the nightstand. His fingers brush wood, then air, then finally cool glass. The water he’d left there the night before. He curls his hand around it, brings it toward his chest like a fragile trophy. The movement pulls the pain tighter.
He imagines the others in the living room. Merritt pretending not to care. Maybe Dylan pretending to be busy. They’re used to Daniel sweeping into a room with purpose, with commentary and a plan already in motion before anyone could say anything. He hates that he can’t just will it to go away, barrel through the pain and tell them they can rest after they’ve practised. He hates that more than the pain.
The migraine spikes suddenly, sharp and blinding, as if offended by the thought. His vision fractures briefly, jagged threads of light streaking through the darkness. He inhales sharply, the sound small and involuntary.
There’s immediate movement on the other side of the door.
“That didn’t sound good,” Jack says.
Daniel tightens his grip on the glass until his knuckles ache. The cold condensation slick against his palm.
“I am,” he says, and even he can hear the weakness in his voice. The lie sagging under its own weight. “Experiencing a minor inconvenience.” The word feels almost obscene.
He presses his tongue to the roof of his mouth and breathes carefully, counting the seconds between pulses. One. Two. Three. The pain crests. Recedes. Returns. This is not a performance. There is no audience to sway. No misdirection to deploy. Just his own nervous system, misfiring with theatrical cruelty.
The doorknob rattles once more and he grimaces at the sound.
“Daniel.”
His name sounds different when it’s not followed by something sarcastic. He doesn’t answer this time, he’s pretty sure he might not be able to keep the tremor out of it.
On the other side of the door, Jack exhales. It’s audible, controlled, the kind of breath someone takes before deciding something.
“Okay,” Jack says, voice firmer now. “I’m getting Dylan.”
“No, you’re not,” Daniel snaps, and instantly regrets the volume. The word ricochets inside his skull like a fired bullet.
“So, you are alive.” Jack almost sounds … relieved? Daniel swallows against another roll of nausea. He will not have an audience for this. He will not have Dylan hovering over him, or Merritt leaning against the wall with that infuriatingly perceptive stare. He will now-
He needs to get up. The thought arrives fully formed and entirely unreasonable. If he can stand, if he can open the door himself, if he can look marginally human, this becomes manageable. An inconvenience. A headache. Something ordinary. Something survivable without commentary.
He shifts the glass of water onto the nightstand with trembling precision and rolls onto his side. The movement is a mistake. The room tilts violently, even through closed eyes. His stomach lurches in delayed betrayal. He clenches his jaw and forces himself upright anyway, pushing up on one elbow, then the other. His muscles feel distant, like they belong to someone else and he’s operating them by remote.
“Daniel?” Jack again, sharper now.
“I am coming to the door,” Daniel says, and it sounds almost dignified if one ignores the breathlessness threaded through it. He swings his legs over the side of the bed.
Gravity pounces. The blood rush is immediate and catastrophic. The floor seems to shift several inches to the left. The shimmering in his vision blooms outward, swallowing what little stability he had. He inhales sharply and the motion tips the nausea from threat into promise.
He grips the edge of the mattress with white-knuckled intensity. The carpet is far too loud. The air too bright. Even the dark feels excessive.
“Daniel?” Jack says again. “You don’t have to- “
“I’m aware of what I do and don’t have to do,” Daniel mutters, and attempts to stand. He makes it halfway before his knees unlock without warning. The pain surges in vicious synchrony with the movement, hot and splitting and absolute. The room lurches. His shoulder clips the nightstand. The glass topples. It doesn’t shatter, mercifully, but the sound of it hitting the floor might as well be an explosion.
Daniel folds. He doesn’t hit the ground hard, but he hits it enough. One hand catches him. The other presses instinctively to his temple as though he can physically contain the chaos there. The carpet burns against his palm. His stomach heaves, empty but determined.
Outside the door, everything changes.
“Daniel!” The handle rattles violently now. “Daniel, open the door!”
He can’t answer. He’s busy not being sick.
The nausea claws upward, sharp and humiliating. He swallows convulsively and curls slightly onto his side, breath shallow and uneven. His vision flickers, fractured light, then dark, then light again. Like theatre lights mocking him. Every pulse feels like something splitting open behind his eyes.
“I’m getting help,” Jack says, no hesitation this time. Footsteps retreat quickly down the hall.
Daniel lies there, cheek pressed to the carpet that smells faintly of dust and something citrus from the last time someone cleaned. The scent is overwhelming. Wrong. Everything is wrong. He hates this. Not the pain specifically, though that is spectacular, but the helplessness of it. The loss of choreography. There is no illusion to cast over this. No misdirection to redirect it elsewhere.
Just him. On the floor. Undone by his own nervous system.
Footsteps return. There’s two sets that he can make out.
“What happened?” Merritt’s voice, low and immediate. He’s not flippant, nor amused. It would be refreshing had he been laying anywhere but the floor.
“He tried to get up or something. I heard- something fell.”
There’s a sharp knock, more purposeful now. “Daniel,” Merritt calls, voice pitched differently than usual. Not loud, but still stern. “Open the door before Jack picks the lock and ruins your aesthetic.”
Daniel lets out something that might be a breath of laughter if it weren’t so thin. He did try that already.
“I will. Just not right now,” he manages, barely. There’s a brief pause before Merritt speaks again,
“Okay,” he says, tone shifting into something steadier. “Then talk to me. Are you on the floor?”
Daniel closes his eyes harder, unwilling to answer, but knowing he’s going to have to tell him the truth.
“Yes,” he admits. Denying it would be too much effort, he tells himself. Jack makes a distressed sound beside Merritt.
“Did you hit your head?” Jack asks quickly.
“No.”
No one says anything and it oddly feels like doubt.
“Yes.”
It’s minimal. His shoulder, mostly. But the world is still tilting in unpleasant ways and honestly feels slippery. He can’t really recall if he’d actually hit his head, but it definitely feels like it. It’d felt like it the moment he woke up, truth be told.
Merritt exhales slowly. “Alright. We’re coming in.”
“The door is locked,” Daniel reminds him, because he clings to control where he can. He also knows nothing is really locked.
“I know,” Merritt replies, choosing not to mention that Jack is standing right next to him and could have unlocked that door long ago. “Which is why you’re going to crawl over here and unlock it, or Jack is going to do it for you. Pick.”
The suggestion is so insulting Daniel almost refuses out of spite.
He tries to push himself upright instead. The pain detonates again, bright and merciless. His vision whites out at the edges. The nausea surges with renewed fury and this time, he doesn’t quite manage to suppress the broken sound that escapes him. On the other side of the door, all sound ceases for a moment.
Merritt’s voice loses the last of its levity. “Daniel.”
Daniel presses his forehead briefly to the carpet, cool and grounding. The fibres scratch faintly against his skin. The world narrows to breath and pulse and the humiliating awareness that he cannot, in fact, will this away.
He exhales. Fine.
“Open the door,” He says softly. For a moment, he fears his words were too quiet and he really doesn’t want to repeat them. He braces to do so, anyway. Before he can open his mouth, there’s a sound from the lock before a click signals it’s now unlocked. The door opens a sliver, careful of light.
Jack’s face appears first, pale, wide eyed. Then Merritt, taking in the scene in one sweeping glance. Daniel on the floor. Water spreading across the carpet.
“Well,” Merritt says quietly, crouching down without another word of commentary. “That answers that.”
And Daniel, still curled on the floor, despises the relief that floods him when they step inside.
“Oh my god,” Jack breathes.
“I’m not dying,” Daniel mutters, because priorities.
“You’re on the floor.”
“That’s not a fatal condition.”
Daniel’s colour is wrong, ashy and shining with sweat.
“Head?” Merritt asks.
“Yes.”
“Concussion head or migraine head?” He asks bluntly. Daniel hesitates before answering,
“Migraine,” he admits. Jack exhales like he’s been holding his breath for the last five minutes.
“You could’ve just said that!” His voice is way too loud.
“And invite an inquisition?” Daniel closes his eyes again as another pulse tears through his temple. “Hardly.”
His stomach rolls sharply, cutting off anything else he might have said. The shift in his breathing is subtle, but Merritt notices. Of course he does.
“Jack,” Merritt says calmly, already moving. “Bathroom. Trash can. Now.”
Jack is up and gone before Daniel can protest.
“I don’t require-“ Daniel begins.
“Shh,” Merritt says, not unkindly. “You’re about thirty seconds from regretting pride.”
Daniel would argue, but the nausea surges again, hot and immediate. He clamps his jaw shut and presses his hand harder against his temple, as if that will anchor him to something solid and keep the contents of his stomach firmly in place.
The carpet feels like it’s moving. Jack is back almost instantly, sliding the small bathroom bin across the floor like he’s defusing a bomb. He places it carefully within reach.
“There,” Jack says, unnecessarily. Daniel glares at it.
“I’m not-“ The wave hits before he can finish.
He doesn’t have the dignity of further argument. He reaches for the bin with shaky precision and bows over it, breathing shallow and controlled. For a moment, it’s just him and the awful reality of his body deciding it has had enough.
Jack hovers helplessly. “Should I,” he starts, “I don’t know what to do.”
“Text Dylan and Lula. Tell them to stop at the pharmacy,” Merritt says. He rests a steady hand between Daniel’s shoulder blades. The worst of it passes quickly, leaving him hollowed out and trembling. His head pounds in vicious retaliation, as if offended that he’d dared divide attention. He sags back and away from the bin, breathing uneven.
“No floor,” he manages faintly, because if he can cling to one victory, it will be that.
Jack makes a strangled sound that might be a laugh. “Yeah. Gold star.” Merritt shifts, gently guiding Daniel back so he’s not hunched forward anymore.
“Easy.”
“I’m perfectly capable of sitting upright,” Daniel says automatically.
“You’re swaying,” Jack blurts. Daniel’s eyes narrow, offended.
“I’m not.”
He is.
The room dips slightly to the left, confirming Jack’s betrayal. Merritt’s hand tightens briefly on his shoulder, steadying him without commenting.
“Okay,” Merritt says, practical now. “We’re moving you back to the bed.”
“I walked here.”
“You fell here,” Jack corrects with a wince, phone in hand and staring at what Daniel can only presume is their group chat. He has to look away, though. The light of Jack’s phone, sending sharp knives shooting through his skull. He considers arguing, but decides the energy expenditure is not strategically sound.
“Fine,” he says reluctantly.
Between them, they help him up. Slowly. The shift in elevation makes his vision spark again, white threads crackling at the edges. He inhales sharply but keeps his footing this time, leaning more heavily than he intends to against Merritt’s steady grip.
The mattress feels like salvation when they ease him back onto it. Jack immediately moves to fix the curtains, pulling them fully shut. The room dims into something tolerable.
“There,” Jack says again.
Merritt retrieves the fallen glass, sets it upright on the nightstand, then disappears briefly into the hall. He returns with a fresh glass of water and with what appears to be a damp cloth. He presses the cloth gently against Daniel’s forehead. The relief is immediate and humiliating. He exhales before he can stop himself. He’s sure they notice, but no one says anything.
Jack perches on the edge of the desk chair, hands twisting together. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
Daniel keeps his eyes closed. The darkness is no longer absolute chaos, it’s just heavy.
“It’s a headache,” he says by way of explaining.
“It’s not,” Merritt replies. The room goes quiet again. Blessedly quiet.
Daniel becomes acutely aware of the room in a different way now. The absence of light. The reduced noise. The fact that neither of them has left. He hates that his voice wavers slightly when he speaks next.
“You can return to whatever it was you were doing,” Daniel tells them. Neither Jack nor Merritt move.
The migraine has receded half a step from its peak, but it leaves exhaustion in its wake. His limbs feel heavy. His thoughts slower. The fight draining out of him in increments. Outside of his room, past the hallway, he can hear the fridge singing soft little vigils.
“I was managing,” he mutters. Merritt huffs quietly, but the amusement was lacking from the sound.
“Sure you were,” he says. Daniel opens his eyes just enough to glare at him. His vision is blurred, but he doesn’t break eye contact when Merritt meets the look. “You don’t have to perform for us.”
The words land somewhere tender and unwelcome and it forces him to look away first. He doesn’t say thank you. But when the cloth shifts and Merritt adjusts it without being asked, when Jack wordlessly sets the trash can closer to the bed just in case, when the room stays dim and quiet and undemanding, he doesn’t tell them to leave again.
He falls asleep to the cool cloth soaking up the pain and the company of people he’d reluctantly started appreciating having around.