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Dylan startled when stumbling footsteps echoed from the bedroom, the door flinging open. He and Kaitlyn had left Ryan alone after he requested complete silence and darkness (despite how much it hurt to leave their boyfriend alone when he felt like shit), so she jumped too, both turning to see Ryan stagger across the apartment into the bathroom and…
“Oh dear…” Dylan mumbled as they heard Ryan throw up.
“I’ll get him some water,” Kaitlyn said. “Why don’t you go see him?”
That felt like code for ‘you can do the job that’s easiest with one hand’ (it’d been three years since he lost his hand, and yet he was still so fucking clumsy and it was pretty embarrassing) but Dylan didn’t get snarky with her. He just nodded and wandered off to the bathroom.
It was very dark in the bathroom, but Dylan didn’t turn on the light. Ryan wasn’t good with bright lights at the best of times, and during one of his killer migraines was certainly not a good time. He hovered in the doorway, squinting in the gloom, but he soon made out the shape of his boyfriend crumpled in front of the toilet, hands gripping the seat as he puked, breaths coming out as shuddery, pained moans. Having never vomited when also experiencing a migraine, Dylan could only guess how painful it was. Poor Ryan hadn’t eaten all day, his nausea too persistent, but of course his body still made this happen.
“Do you… need anything?” Dylan asked.
“No…” Ryan groaned. He heaved but didn’t throw up this time, exhaling slowly.
“Should I go?”
Ryan burped and moaned again. “No.”
Despite the shitty situation, Dylan smiled slightly. “I can do that.”
---
After what felt like forever, Ryan finally crawled away from the toilet, robotically hauling himself upright. He stumbled, and Dylan hurried to grab him, his hand resting on Ryan’s back. Dylan kept it there as Ryan rinsed his mouth out and washed his trembling hands, each movement slow and sluggish. As he stumbled back to the bedroom, Dylan gripped Ryan’s arm when he wobbled, and Ryan didn’t push him away, nor make a comment about it. He just accepted the help. And that’s what proved exactly how shit he felt.
Kaitlyn awaited them in the bedroom, having collected a water bottle among other things. She helped Dylan ease Ryan back into bed, and then slotted the bottle into Ryan’s hands. He only managed a few sips before he gagged, but at least he didn’t puke again.
“Do you need any food?” she asked. “Painkillers?”
Ryan looked horrified at the mere thought of putting anything in his mouth. His grimace answered the question. Without speaking (they knew how hard he found speech when he felt like this), Ryan laid down and pulled the blankets up over his head.
Knowing that Ryan liked being wrapped up tightly (they really needed to get a weighted blanket), especially when he felt crappy, Dylan got an idea. He left the dark room and bustled around the apartment, finding every blanket they owned, including the ratty old blanket Dylan had brought from home for stupid sentimental reasons and then got embarrassed about and shoved in a closet. It was surprisingly hard to carry so many blankets, and he was aware he must have looked ridiculous, especially when fumbling to open the bedroom door again with his elbow.
In the gloom, Kaitlyn pulled a face as if to say, Weirdo.
Dylan wiggled his eyebrows in a way that he hoped communicated something like, Takes one to know one, bitch.
Nudging the door closed with his foot and plunging them into near total darkness, he stumbled blindly across the room, dumped the blankets on the floor, and then began laying them on the bed, above the lump that was Ryan. Her eyes clearly more adjusted than his, Kaitlyn began to help him, adding enough weight with all the blankets that even a very distracted Ryan noticed.
“Wha’… what’re you doing…?” he mumbled, voice slurred. Dylan hated how Ryan sounded when he had migraines, so slow and faltering and wrong, the pain so intense that it made even simple things almost impossible. Fuck, Dylan wished so much they could do more to help.
“Just making you comfy, dude,” Kaitlyn whispered.
Ryan just groaned in response, but he didn’t tell them to stop.
Once their boyfriend was thoroughly wrapped up, Dylan and Kaitlyn looked at each other. He could see better now, able to make out the way Kaitlyn’s eyebrows pinched together, biting her lip. Dylan smiled despite wanting to cry, reaching across the bed to squeeze her wrist.
“Hey, Ry-man, do you want us to leave now?” Dylan asked, remembering to keep his voice quiet. Truthfully, he didn’t want to leave, but he’d do whatever Ryan needed.
For several, long seconds, Ryan didn’t respond. But then he finally mumbled, “You… you can stay.”
“You sure?” Kaitlyn said.
“Yeah… Can you do the… the thing?” He let out a frustrated little grunt, and Dylan wondered if Ryan was struggling to locate a word in his mind (it must have been hard to focus on anything when in so much pain). But they didn’t push him, letting him find the words himself. Finally, Ryan said, “Y’know… rub my head?”
They still couldn’t see his face, but Dylan knew the question was directed towards Kaitlyn. Last time Ryan had a migraine, they’d been travelling, staying in a shitty motel where they couldn’t block out the light with the shitty curtains, and the shitty bed was super uncomfortable, leading to a frustrated Ryan using Kaitlyn’s lap as a pillow. She’d touched his head gently and Ryan had asked her to do it harder, and she ended up giving him some kind of scalp massage that, if nothing else, seemed to distract him from the pain for a while.
“Sure thing,” Kaitlyn said. “Mind if I squeeze in?”
It took some manoeuvring, what with the mountain of blankets, but Kaitlyn managed to slip into bed next to Ryan, sitting with her back against the headboard. Still buried under the blankets, Ryan wriggled over to her and planted his head on her thighs. Kaitlyn’s fingers dug into his short hair, beginning to rub his scalp.
“This okay?” she asked.
Ryan only murmured in response. But it sounded like a pleased murmur.
“Hey, can I get in on this?” Dylan asked, pretending to sound needy and left out.
As Kaitlyn rolled her eyes and smiled fondly, Ryan said, “Yeah…”
Smiling, Dylan eased himself under the pile of blankets (fuck, they really were heavy all together like this) and closed the distance between him and the others. Ryan was on his side facing away from Dylan, breathing slowly as Kaitlyn rubbed his scalp, so Dylan decided to snuggle up against Ryan’s back, draping his arm across Ryan’s body and pressing his hand to Ryan’s chest. Gently kissing the back of Ryan’s neck, he whispered, “We’ve got you, man.”
It was stupid and sappy, but he didn’t know what else to say.
Fingers still rubbing Ryan’s head, Kaitlyn didn’t mock Dylan for his stupid words, and instead said, “Yeah, we’ve got you.”
And they fell into comfortable silence, prepared to stay here for as long as it took for Ryan to finally feel better.