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fumifooms · 16 days

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Chilchuck, family & alcoholism

Collection of thoughts and speculation on Chil’s upbringing, his dynamic with his family and how alcoholism ties into it all. If you want the groundwork info on Chil’s background I recommend my masterpost on his family, here it’s really just me speculating from the crumbs we get of his parents and siblings, how it’s all affected him and in turn affected his own wife and kids etc etc.

There’s nothing more I’d like on mother’s day than to speculate about Chilchuck’s maladaptive attachment style. I’m fascinated by how distant everyone is and how much he’s been devoted to them all despite having been so absent. Intergenerational trauma get over here

Actually it’ll be easier if I make a rundown here too, it’s just stuff I reiterate from my masterpost tho.

Tiny table of contents: 1- rundown: family facts 2- rundown: alcoholism 3- dad 4- parenting 5- daughters 6- wife

^ Every time his dad gets mentioned. His mom never gets mentioned. His siblings I think are only ever mentioned in this extra, and then there are more ambiguous relatives cameos.

We know is hometown isn’t Kahka Brud, but we’re not sure wether he moved there upon getting his own house (presumably around when he got married at 13), or if it’s only after his wife when he rented out his place to relatives then rented the place in Kahka Brud.

If he rented it out to relatives, maybe that meant it was in his hometown? Especially if he and his siblings are "almost strangers" so presumably he doesn’t really keep in touch with his family. And I mean, he hasn’t seen his wife or daughter in 4 years so you can imagine how he’s like with his more distant family…

Additionally half-foots and Chil are very coded to be from an impoverished opressed working class people. So that’s the context.

I’ll say that I mentioned intergenerational trauma at the beginning, and I def think the distrust of elves is part of that, but here I want to focus on the interpersonal effects rather.

Copy pasting my masterpost thoughts overall: Chilchuck is hinted to have had a rather dysfunctional family himself (alcoholic father, distant siblings, etc). So he doesn’t really have the best model on how to raise someone and such. I imagine it was a sort of neglectful home situation, where the kids are encouraged to be independent. If they didn’t have to work or help around much, then a free range parenting sort of thing.

We do see how the family has full and warm feasts, where someone cleans his mouth with a rag, so it’s not like he didn’t have caring people or had a tragic childhood though! I don’t remember if it’s explicitely stated but he’s heavily implied to having grown up poor, as most half-foots, and I just think it’s the hardened hardworking family type of childhood where just like he does with others, they instilled somewhat harsh life lessons in him, which in turn encourages him to indulge in the simple pleasures of life like alcohol and sex, or at least women’s beauty and crass jokes. We do see he seems more optimistic when he’s younger in flashbacks, so a bunch of his harsh view on the world is still likely learned and earned rather than taught.

I still think he inherited many flawed views from how his father acted, like his attitude about excessive drinking not being a big deal, it being worth it. That work hard play hard, enjoy life die young mentality he has, shown mostly in the “alcohol” section of his Adventurer’s Bible profile, could very well be partly a result of the general poverty half-foot communities are that he grew in as well, like how he doesn’t hope for things to be as best as they could be and contends with good enough. As far as I remember, his mother is never mentioned, but I doubt it implies she was out of the picture. She was probably a regular sort of mother that took care of the home and was still around when his father died, not unlike how Chil’s wife was implied to be a housewife. It looks like there’s a good age gap between one sibling to the next, that could be interesting to speculate about too. Mostly though I think it’s big family because it’s just sorta what happens when you regularly have sex and you don’t have contraception, being poor often makes family planning harder for various reasons and leads to more children.

Alcoholism context rundown:

Good Chilchuck analysis baseline here. Alcohol seems to be his main stress reliever/coping mechanism, especially for how emotionally constipated he is, and his job is being stressed about his party’s safety. Then he also mentions as a changeling that having his senses dulled feels relaxing to him, further confirming alcohol, as a drug that dulls senses, is something that he likes for the intoxication aspect and feels it’s relaxing. Alcohol also acts as a hunger suppressant, so it for sure has played a role in his dieting and unhealthy eating/diet habits, especially since he shows the instinct to drink to soothe hunger, all of that about how going hungry for 3 days used to feel manageable. Chil dieting info compiled here.

Chilchuck is at his most effortlessly cheerful when drunk or drinking. Compilation of every time he was drunk here.

And to be clear, a cheerful drunk is still a drunk. He literally will drink anytime he gets the opportunity to even if he’s aware overdrinking leads to health problems and death. Like canonically. He does NOT see how drinking should be a problem and does not seek to show restraint with it.

Dad of the dad

Marcille and Chilchuck having a talk on how losing a dad be like "You lost your dad young too…? I know how it is, it must have hit you hard…" "No not really tbh. Do you want lasagna or chicken for dinner?" <- either genuinely doesn’t feel much about his dad’s death or has 10 layers of repression, idk which is worse

I think Chil not making a big deal out of his dad’s death, not having worries in following into his footsteps that way in the least, is super interesting.

As a buddy @saccharineomens puts it: " I kinda imagine chilchuck and his dad didn't have a bad relationship, but in general chilchuck is so blase about drinking (he sees it as a delightful time, a wonderful thing! he wouldn't mind dying doing something he loved!) that he's not very upset about his dad's passing? like "yeah, he died, but i was already an adult, he was an adult, he made his choices, i make my choices, it's cool" " And I’ll nitpick that we don’t know how old he was when his dad died, I always assumed it was pretty early since Chil left home when he got married, and like I’ve gone into he doesn’t seem to be the keep in touch type. It’s on the table though, and he could have learned about it through letter if nothing else and that contributes to the "meh" reaction.

And that is very Chilchuck, the whole "we made our choices, it is how it is, he died doing something he loved", and you can totally believe that that’s the crux of it, but I do think the nonchalance hints at the family overall being distant and not only the siblings, that there’s dysfunctional shenanigans going on in there more than just… Healthy coping and having moved on.

I wonder when Chil first drank… And I wonder how he came to realize he liked alcohol a lot. His father probably gave him sips… Or he stole them

No because, with how disaffected he is about his father and siblings I could definitely see him having started to kind of numb himself/dissociate with the help of alcohol in that home environment that felt so… Either devoid of feelings or too messy to get attached. I can totally see his family being one that encourages dealing with feelings by bottling them up.

Because too… We saw him have a family/community feast of some sort presumably when he was a kid, in that chapter cover, so it’s not like there’s no warmth or sense of family at all, but then like… What went wrong? If as I theorize that girl with short black hair in that panel is his future wife, since she’s his childhood friend and all, what if his family/home life was always kind of cold and distant, even when gathered and cheery or despite those occasions? So then it’s like, at the family gatherings, she’s the most important person there to him, the one he actually connects to the most, the warmest presence he has…….. Someone he jokes around with that feels on the same speed as him, that doesn’t have the same connotations as everyone else present, a bit of a haven, someone different, a breath of fresh hair and a regained sense of childhood… Spitballing of course of course

I feel like they had a pretty big family and they were poor and such so there were always chores to be done etc, so their household might have operated like a mini busiess of sorts where everyone’s too busy, always has this and that to do and the mother asks them to go do tasks. I used to think it might be more of a neglect situation, where the kids are expected to provide for themselves and so cook their own meals and whatnot, both parents distant, but I don’t think so with the feast illustration. Chil at the beginning of canon used to see eating as a practical thing more than anything, you have to eat to live but don’t eat much or your weight will make your job more dangerous, might as well skip meals and have beer instead, etc etc. So the thought that he doesn’t know how to cook all that well despite this speculated background where he cooked for himself and keeps cooking minimalistic, since he does tell Senshi he taught him about cooking, is fair, but still… There could definitely be a situation where his older siblings were pushed into a parental role too, where they helped with the food and raising the younger siblings etc etc. As mentioned, the age gap between siblings may play into the dynamic as well. But on this front I have less ideas…

So yes my general take on Chil’s family is that everyone was too busy to emotionally connect as much as is normal, the parenting leaving things to be desired with alcoholism and emotional neglect.

Fathering

And I think that’s especially interesting considering he hasn’t been keeping in touch with his daughters either. It’s "they’re independent now" and that’s kinda it. His daughters haven’t sent him letters or visited him or tried to make him talk to their mom again. It does feel like with his own parents and siblings to me, where people are almost strangers, where relationships grow apart and everyone shrugs and goes ‘that’s how things are’. Is it that everyone including all his daughters gave up on trying to keep in touch, or is it that they all went "well divorced or not he’s absent, this is our normal tbh", and which is worse?

So yes, I think his relationship with his daughters is probably similar to his relationship with his parents, sort of hands off. Chil's dad was probably not a good dad but probably not quite a bad dad. A definitive He Was There, to quote another friend heh

Imo the thing with Chil is that he was pretty absent bc of work travels to dungeon dive, right. He’s working hard to provide for his family but in the process he’s not spending much time with them, slowly making a gap grow between him and them as they drift apart and change as people. He’s a career dad who never realized spending time with his family was more important and threw his pager into the ocean— But also here’s the thing!! You want to say being his family is more important, but money is arguably more important! They’re poor, they don’t have the privilege of free time as much. Sure he’s not there, but he is providing for them what they need to keep living and growing healthily. Similarly, you want to say Chil should stop doing harsh dieting for weight management, but, he has a point, maybe starving is still preferable than dying in traps. Of course the ideal would be to change jobs, but again, life is a struggle and that’s not always an option.

^ Truly the classic "if you don’t listen to me, your parent, a cryptid is gonna kidnap you!" international experience………

He is so so so the "What? My way of parenting is kinda bad? But my father raised me like that, and look how great I turned out!" <- emotionally dysfunctional…….. "Pshhh what do you mean having an alcoholic parent negatively affects you? My father was an alcoholic too and look at me" 🤡

All of it was behavior normalized to him. And listen, I’m saying this but not as like, shirking of his part in it. This isn’t a teen or young adult, he’s middle aged, he’s become the one giving and not receiving the generational trauma. He’s chosen to never think deeper on the topic.

And like, he himself is so indifferent to his father and what their relationship was like, of course he wouldn’t notice if a parenting choice wasn’t great for his daughters. He doesn’t have a relationship with his dad, he’s not (at least not consciously) traumatized by him, so from his perspective it’s mission success! He got raised decent enough 👍⭐️ Except he doesn’t realize that like, not particularly caring if he died is sign of a problem between them in itself… And this even as he remains somewhat of an important figure in his life, especially since that’s who he sees on the other side of the life river in the ghost chapter. It’s implicitly the biggest instance of loss through death Chilchuck has in his life I think.

But despite it all he obviously does love his family a lot, right. So I do believe that like, while he has imperfect standards when it comes to parenting he still tries to be better than his dad was, that even if it’s necessary that he has a lot of long work travels, he spends time with them. And there’s sort of this dissonance that he’s both "it doesn’t matter wether i’m here or not, they’ll live, they’re tough girls. Oh they didn’t like my scolding earlier? It’s just how kids are" dismissive and "I love them so much and I want them to have a good life. I want to do my best by them" devoted and so so caring. And like that’s why he works so damn hard, he does it for them, but also that’s why the girls grew up with an absentee father and aughhhh AUGHHHH the unsolvable dilemma of it all Chilchuck in Dunmeshi truly represents like, the harshness of reality & the world and how sometimes things will just suck no matter what, and then of course balancing that with Marcille in their shared arc where she tacks on "And despite that there is beauty everywhere even in the small and menial things, despite that your flawed relationships and dreams are still worth fighting for" ie giving reconciling with his wife a shot, etc.

All that said I think the very strict "you’re gonna grow up to have a stable job by god, young miss" attitude, those strong work ethics he highly values and focuses on and no doubt tried to instill in is own kids, is something he somewhat inherited from his own upbringing and parents.

In my masterpost bit on his parenting, I said I don’t think he’d do any kind of corporeal punishment, but. I do wonder about spanking aftee all. It can be so so easy to rationalize it… Sigh

Daughter pov

Again, my general interpretations for the daughters are written in my masterpost. I think Patti knows her father the least and is the one least worried about jobs and stability and least settled down as a result. Flertom is the more social one who I imagine tended to be the one worried about her parents’ couple and their emotions the most. And Meijack… Ohh Meijack.

When your father tried his best to provide for you but he worked all the time and even when he was home he was either tired or stressed and he’s always liked to get drunk to relax and cheer up. When you know he values work ethics and respectability so you grew up to be capable and quiet. And when he says you’re like him you’re sort of puzzled, does he really know you so little, or does he know himself so little? But you like the feeling of your father ruffling your hair so you accept it and still you stand next to your mother just as quiet and just as stoic during family gatherings. He leaves again and again and when your mother leaves him nothing changes, really. You wonder if it’s more telling that you know him better than he seems to himself or that you don’t know him as much as you wish you did, or that you don’t think about him all that much these days. Out of sight out of mind

Thinking of those posts about how kids never forget and during the "draw your family!" things at school, some of the kids draw their working parents seperate from the rest of them...

Absent father and when he’s at home you get the crumbs of him that you get and you’re grateful for it and that’s that <333

She doesn’t know how much he loves them bc he hasn’t showed them in a long time </3

The horror of drunk Chil in my fics is often about what in this state he can’t do rather than what he could do, how someone who’s as proud of his skills and work ethics as he is has truly changed, not comprehending how he could become so sloppy or how he could allow himself to get like this, marred the values he preaches above all else. It’s in the way that he fumbles with doorknobs, that he could never lockpick a door if you were to lock it, and it both being your salvation and bringing you extreme distress at the thought of it all. His footsteps usually featherlight now sound heavy as stone, like a troll’s.

You know the thing that gets me so bad with alcoholism angst is when people describe the drunk person as a stranger. Often making a metaphor that they’re monsters, have some monster they shapeshift into uncontrollably once in a while, as a way to split the unreconciliable halves of the person sober and drunk in your vision of them……. It gets me soooo bad Little Puckpatti growing up on tales of trolls kidnapping disobedient kids and replacing them with doubles so no one even knows they’re gone… Coming face to face with a drunk Chilchuck that roams the halls of the house with heavy steps in the night, because she wanted to go drink a glass of water, too thirsty to sleep………..

And this is where I reveal that I wrote a fic about just that!! Trolls that thump and tiptoe through the night Mei @ Chil, You made me of stone and still every day you wear me down and chip away at me bit by bit

In the end notes I describe my takes and interpretations: With Mei I tried to give the sense of a kid who sacrifices some parts of childhood to feel closer to her parent, like not playing games to spend more time with him no matter how empty, or wanting to be worthy in his eyes. With Fler, since she was the one in canon to take in their mother and write Chil a letter explaining the situation, I feel like she’s always been the one most involved and aware of the problems in their family. The one most there to emotionally support or to understand what the vibes in a room meant. Puckpatti I think knows her father the least, since with time I think Chilchuck was more and more away from work and more and more cynical like the flashbacks of younger him dungeon diving. I think because of her not minding unstable odd jobs that she’s the most passive, that she’s the most go with the flow. I do also love when Mei is the one most aware of her parents’ flaws and most critical as the eldest, but not in this fic. Meijack grows up to never touch a drop of alcohol, what people joke is the one difference between her and her father. Flertom drinks, too much sometimes, but she considers drinking should be a social activity rather than a habit. Puckpatti only drinks on special occasions when she has the chance.

They already don’t have that much time together because of his work, I wonder how big of a percentage the amount of memories the daughters have of him are when he’s not himself truly… How they kinda reconcile it all. It’s their normal.

And the thing that’s gutting too, is that Chil always looks so so much more open, relaxed, cheerful and happier when drunk than he usually is. He doesn't know how to get his defenses down without alcohol

"you're all that's good"

Because we do see how he truly used to not be so closed off and bitter. But distrust and fearing for betrayals from both coworkers and then his wife aka the person who’s supposed to be closest to him (he doesn’t even have close family besides his daughters. Does he even have close friends) turned him into what he is now. He was so cheerful!! Happy and trusting and optimistic.

He leaves and she left

God there’s the whole ‘wife leaving him’ trauma too is the thing… It had to have fucked him up so bad like no wonder he got paranoid and decided not to open up to ANYONE like. He never saw it coming is the scariest thing. He didn’t expect her to just up and leave. He didn’t see the warning signs. He won’t know if it’s coming this time either.

….. But then also, why he didn’t reach out to her (besides hurt) was because it was a petty silence treatment, like "oh she left without saying a word? Fine well I won’t reach out to her either" <- man who is so not fine and collected about it. It’s been FOUR YEARSSSSSSS I wonder if he always was like… "This week she’s gonna send a letter. … Ok fine, this month she’s gonna crack. … Within the year she’ll come crawling back." and it’s a bit why it was allowed to go on for this long unchecked like… Why he still considers her his wife even though functionally she’s more of an ex by that point after 4 years.

I can never stop thinking about him and his wife they’re fucking crazyyy. Him not reaching out to her started as a silent treatment from frustration. She never reached out to him either, she just up and left, didn’t even leave or send one last letter she’s just gone and has left this all behind, the house and everything in it. It’s been 4 years but he still considers her his wife and considers themselves only "estranged", "due to circumstances we haven’t seen each other in years". His face in the panel he said this is interesting too, trying to be casual but defensive and exasperated, already dreading the judgement and questions. He moved out of his house to rent a place in Kahka Brud instead. How much of him not reaching out was avoidance… Guilt, frustration, sadness, confusion, just procrastinating and dread and fear of a rejection more concrete, or something else… Maybe realizing he doesn’t miss her as much as he should, not enough to chase after her or try to get her back, just resigning himself to it… Is he a bad husband, is he a bad person? Should they reconcile?

Not seeing it coming… It’s half trust, that this person who’s so dear to you could never just up and leave and hurt you like that, half entitlement, thinking that she would never think of leaving, and third it’s blinding himself to the warning signs, not wanting to believe or acknowledge them. Because like, there WERE some, he said she "suddenly fell into a bad mood on the way back [from the outing]" and I don’t think he’s too dumb to be aware that something was off, he literally just dismissed it and then went surprised pikachu face when it turned out things were indeed off.

Part of it is definitely, how do you even react if your wife walks out on you without warning. If it happened to me I think that I wouldn’t reach out for a while either, wait for them to reach out to me first, give them space. As I put it in one of my marchil wips, "I respect your right to be rid of me too much to try and shackle you to me if you want to leave". Inaction is easier than admitting he’s scared to check and find out that the worst case scenario is true. It’s been years and he still hasn’t worked it out why she left. Do you think that’s on purpose. That he doesnt want to know for sure. It’s so so so scary to try and do anything about it

He said he didn’t reach out right away when she left because he was petty and wanted to give her the silence treatment back. Ok but is it that he blames her for their marriage falling apart or does he blame himself and he’s just misdirecting the conflicted feelings? Did he not reach out because a part of him was too scared to know why she left or if she would refuse to come back? Did he just think that she’d come back on her own, and things would get fixed while still staying unsaid and unconfronted like they always have, the first month, then the next and the next, until it was a year in and it sunk in that oh, maybe she wasn’t coming back?

He seems genuine here when he says that he was angry about it and gave her the silent treatment, but it is an habit of his to lie to make himself look worse instead of showing vulnerability, so who knows.

He is so so scared of being affected by relationships. Same thing with his compulsive habit to disguise his worry for anger. It’s why he doesn’t want people to have expectations of him, "I’m a coward I’m selfish", because then they can’t be disappointed, they can’t be surprised if he bites, they can’t leave when you lose what they’ve been staying for.

He has avoidant tendencies too. Every time there’s an interpersonal issue he just accepts it’s out of his control immediately. He’s passive when it comes to relationship problems, just like with coworkers, relationships are a ticking time bomb to him, and he just wants to be left out of it and come out unscathed. It comes back to his pessimism. He doesn’t think that like, things could be better. According to him life is tough and cruel, you accept your lot in life and make the best out of it and that’s it. If people are scummy you don’t whine about how unfair it is, you close yourself off and work to not be taken advantage of again and adapt. So then with his wife, when Marcille is like "Have you tried… Talking?" it’s such a crazy idea that it might work at all, that he could have the power to fix things… And that’s why it’s such a big deal when he goes "Alright I’ll try… I don’t know if it’ll go as well as in the stories, but I’ll try". That CRUMB of allowing himself to be hopeful is so huge

Honestly for the longest time I misread this bit, I thought she left in the night like how Marcille framed it, but no she left after he left for work. She left after he left again.

The way it’s told, it really sounds like Chilchuck just came home from work, stayed probably a couple of days in which they went to that outing together, then left for work again right away/soon after and it’s like. Was that outing the most special thing you guys did together. You came home from like a month of work, you had one outing where she ended up having a bad time, y’all didn’t talk about it further and then you left for another couple of weeks. Are you kidding me

Your married life is waiting for your husband to come home, spending mediocre time together, being shut down when you voice discontentment, and things being left unaddressed before he leaves again.

She left when he was gone for work, but did she leave the day of, or did she flip flop on it and took a while before working up the strength to leave? Was she waiting to see if he’d say anything before leaving and when he didn’t that was the last straw?

Chilchuck trying to prove a point that half-foots can make it out there, trying to rely more on himself because that’s the only person he can trust. His wife feeling like he's leaving her behind (because he does. over and over and over and over.) This guy just keeps throwing himself into work because he thinks it's what's best for everyone. Hey sir neglecting emotional needs can be kinda detrimental to everyone involved, I think you might wanna know that ^ quotes courtesy of @soappox

And to come back to alcoholism for a bit, alcoholism is alcoholism, and someone asked why I thought that a Chilchuck with depression would drink and cope through alcohol, since drinking seems to be something cheerful to him. It does puzzle me a bit but it’s worth going over, so… I don’t think him using drinking as a coping mechanism is far fetched at all. Cheerful drunks that are alcoholic still can absolutely use alcohol in ways like that. If something makes you happier, or even just more numb which translates to you feeling more free etc etc, then I definitely think it tracks that he’d keep drinking. Like personally I do think he’d drink a lot after his wife left him, and in rough patches like that. Depression -> not wanting to have to think, the days are blurring together and you either don’t want to be conscious or you want to feel something etc etc -> drinking for the alcohol. Alcoholics tend to be, well, dependent on alcohol. If something bad happens etc they’re usually more likely to go harder on it rather than stop. We can debate on when and why Chilchuck first started to drink but it’s straight up his favorite food now and it’s deeply ingrained in his life, in his favorite outings and activities and priorities and moods and meals. A CHEERFUL DRUNK IS STILL A DRUNK!!! They drink to get happy not drink because they are happy, though obviously the two can have overlap.

Chil represses sooo much. His solution to interpersonal conflict and feelings is just don’t think about it and dull your feelings & senses to everything ✨ I love him. I need to kill him with hammers Like the other day I was thinking about an AU where he might have ran away from his neglectful home or something, but then I remembered he deals with everything including his family by dulling his feelings and senses to things 🫠 He wouldn’t leave

I’d say he doesn’t look troubled by loss through death, moreso loss through mistakes. His nightmare is his daughters dying yes, but moreso them being killed, there’s an axe in the wall etc, it’s about having failed to protect them.

If he can’t fuck something up or if he’s already fucked it up there’s this pacifying sense that he can’t have the rug pulled from under him, because that’s what having connections is, having a wife isn’t an insurance it’s a rug waiting to be pulled. And his brand is sort of Flawed Mr Mistakes Man so he’s kinda been having to cope lol. I do think he throws himself into workaholism, because it’s sort of the only way to live he knows, making yourself capable and useful and spending his days working like that, less time to think, too tired to think. Senses dulled, senses that are usually too sharp, cutting with clarity that he prefers ignoring and avoiding. Work is something he doesn’t have to feel through, something that gives him pride and self-esteem, something through all the danger and life or death risk feels safer, emotionally. No one taught him how to deal with things another way, it’s always been suck it up and work.

Conclusion

Stop smoking we love you and we don’t want you to die

No drinking will not externalize your feelings no it won’t vent them out well please Chilchuck ple-ea-ease…….

</3 They should invent an alcoholism that doesn’t make you dysfunctional and hard to be around

^ Drunk, by The Living Tombstone

I’ve been thinking about enneagrams and Chil is 6w7 highkey. Becomes 3 when stressed, a little 8 but it’s more that he wants security so much that he becomes paranoid rather than having the core of an 8 y’know. I haven’t dug into it for quotes yet but this paper goes hard if you’re curious.

Dropping my relevant Spotify playlists here bc why not: Chilchuck & his wife, marchil angst

#I’m allergic to making short casual speculation posts apparently #Dungeon meshi #chilchuck tims #chilchuck’s family #Chilchuck’s wife #theories #meta #analysis #It was mother’s day when I decided to gather my old discord message and work on posting this so. Not fixing that intro #I’m always too late </3 #Marcille singing A Girl Worth Fighting For @ Chilchuck #Spoilers #i lost half of this post TWICE. This is my Joker arc #Hopefully i can finish my web weaving about this today #Chilchuck is so cool I wish dads were real #Chilchuck “my family doesn’t need me” tims #This almost killed me it’s not even the topic it’s bc tumblr wanted me dead. This silly post. It was supposed to be CASUAL and SHORT #Analysis #i just ended up talking about chil a lot again. Give me excuses to talk about him more #Character analysis #meijack #Puckpatti #flertom #fanfic #Fumi rambles

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ghoulodont · 6 months

Text

β-Lactam

Getting sick on the road is a well known phenomenon in the touring world, but only a folktale for the newly summoned ghouls — up to this point. Dewdrop gets hit particularly hard by whatever illness the roadies are passing around, but the show must go on. Rain considers the nature of his relationship with his bandmate in light of subsequent events.

Relationship: Raindrop Characters: Dewdrop, Rain, Aether Words: 6846

Sickfic, Hurt/Comfort, Prequelle Era, Pre-relationship, warning for vomit and needles

Read below or on AO3

A plague is spreading among the production’s cast and crew.

For the more experienced members, it’s to be expected. Having that many people in close proximity for enough time is bound to encourage contagion, and they know from experience that it will. For many of the musicians — the ones who are freshly summoned from Hell, tailor-made to fill that role — it’s something they’ve only been warned about. Their ability to perform is the top priority, and they are expected to take care of themselves.

So illness prevention becomes part of their daily routine. Immune fortifiers and remedies of all kinds start showing up on the bus and at the venues, added to the hospitality rider, fetched by staff on errands, picked out themselves during their downtime.

Understandably, the vocalists are all extra concerned about how this situation might impact them. Copia keeps his distance from anyone he deems a potential disease vector, usually squirreling away to his dressing room before and after the show. Cumulus swears by a tea that purports throat soothing properties. Swiss eats cough drops nonstop, though it’s later determined that he just thinks they taste good.

Mountain hands out tiny bottles of vibrant yellow-orange juice one afternoon before the concert. The blurb on the label is packed with scientific-sounding words about vitamins and antioxidants. Rain reads the ingredients — he doesn’t recognize any other than lemon and ginger — and knocks his bottle back all at once like a shot of alcohol, as suggested. The back of his nose burns for the next two hours. Upon searching the internet he learns that “cayenne” is a type of pepper. Several other ghouls fall victim to this as well, excluding Dewdrop, who sneaks away with the bottle and passes it off to an unsuspecting roadie, and Aether, who drinks the juice but seems to genuinely enjoy the taste.

But, otherwise, it’s business as usual. As showtime approaches everyone focuses on the task at hand. They’re warmed up, soundchecked, costumed, ready to go.

And after the performance, the ghouls can relax again, for the time being. Most of them usually end up in the green room while the crew is tearing down, and tonight is no different. At some point they’ll all head to their dressing rooms and get ready to get back on the bus, and then the cycle will repeat. For now, they can revel in this brief low tide in their ebbing and flowing responsibilities.

It’s nearing the time that the party inevitably dies down when things go awry.

Dewdrop has been subdued since coming offstage. He’s always more reserved day-to-day than he is in front of a crowd, but his behavior tonight, by Rain’s assessment, is uncharacteristic. He had gone straight to a couch near the corner of the green room and barely interacted with anyone, even when Swiss pelted him with a grape from the catering table, something that on any other day would have warranted a ruthless counterattack.

At one point over the course of the evening he ventures away from his outpost to retrieve a bottle of water, but he brings it right back to where he had been sitting.

Later, out of nowhere, he drags himself up from the couch and staggers to the big commercial-grade plastic trash bin next to the door. He grabs the edge of it with enough horizontal momentum that it hits the wall with a hollow thunk before he leans his whole body over it and retches. This sudden series of actions makes everyone still in the green room pause. The sound of whatever was in his stomach — just water, presumably — hitting whatever else is in the trash can is stark in the now quiet space.

Rain is the first to react; he stands from his seat and promptly freezes in place. Aether is the first to actually get up and walk over towards the door. It snaps Rain out of his daze, and he follows behind.

Before they can get there, Dew is already on his way back to his spot on the couch. Aether recalibrates their trajectory to meet him there. Dew flops back onto the seat, his head tipped back against the top of the backrest, legs extended out in front of him, arms limp at his sides.

“What’s going on, you okay?” Aether stands over Dew, and Rain stands next to Aether. Dew doesn’t respond. His eyes are unfocused.

From this distance Dew is visibly shaking, his entire body inundated by a fine vibration that itself pulses in intensity, like a modulated wave.

“Hey,” Aether tries again, “you okay?”

Dew groans and puts his hands over his eyes. Then he jolts upright, the soles of his costume shoes squeaking against the laminate tile floor. He takes short, hitching breaths.

Aether immediately anticipates what is about to happen and drags over the trash bin. Dew leans over it, gripping the edge, and releases a tendril of saliva. He gags.

Swiss runs out of the room, hands over his ears.

The trash bin is so large compared to Dew’s seated form that it looks like he could fall into it and disappear. Rain finds a small plastic-lined wastebasket by one of the other seating areas and swaps it with the big bin. Dew relinquishes his grasp on its folded rim as Rain pulls it away. He relaxes somewhat, slumping forward with his elbows on his knees and the wastebasket between his ankles.

He heaves again, unproductive. Aether and Rain hover over him like if they look at him long enough the power of their concern could will him to be better somehow.

After a few more dry heaves, Aether prompts again, “What’s going on?”

Dew responds this time. “My throat hurts so much.”

“Your throat? Are you sick?” Aether puts the back of his hand against Dew’s forehead. Dew tries to lean away from him as he approaches, but his dodge is ineffective and Aether makes contact anyway. His gesture is so maternal, but as far as Rain knows, Aether is just as experienced with this kind of situation as he is, which is to say not at all.

“For how long?” Rain asks.

“Just today.” Dew pauses, amends his statement. “Just since the show.”

“Maybe he has what all the roadies had?” Aether wonders out loud.

"It hasn’t been this bad for anyone else, though, right?" Rain mentally tallies the casualties so far. It’s only been crew members, none of the musicians, and none of them have had to take any time off.

Aether's brow furrows. "Do you think he needs a doctor? We probably have enough time to get one here before bus call."

"Why are you asking him? I'm right here." Dew directs this comment to the wastebasket.

"Do you think you need a doctor?"

"No."

"And you're going to be better for the show tomorrow?"

"I was fine for the show tonight."

"Sure, but it seems like you're not fine now."

Rain isn’t sure whether Dew's tight-lipped expression is indicative of the nausea or the denial. Dew might not be sure himself, either.

"I think you should let a doctor look at you, at least, just in case," Rain suggests. He’s never seen Dew this sick before, or anyone else, for that matter, and it’s scaring him a little.

Dew actually always seems to be the most likely ghoul to throw up — repeatedly, even — when they're all hung over on a day off. He’s prone to motion sickness as well; Rain wasn’t there, but he’s been told it gets bad enough that on Dew’s first tour he had to swap bunks because the top one swayed too much whenever the bus took an exit on the highway. But he never really seemed bothered about any of those incidents. He certainly wasn’t trembling like a newborn fawn. So this feels different.

“Fine.”

Aether nods. “Okay, I’m going to go find someone who can help.” He briefly places his hand on Dew’s hunched shoulder before leaving.

—

Rain leans against a nearby table for a few minutes while Dew drools occasionally into the wastebasket. He’s stopped outright dry heaving over it at this point, but he doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to part with it. Then he suddenly moves to get up.

“I need to go shower.” Dew has to brace against the couch with his hands as he stands.

He sways in place as he rearranges his feet to avoid kicking over the wastebasket. Rain steadies him with a hand on his upper arm.

“Okay, yeah, let me walk you there.”

Dew is already walking toward the door. Rain keeps his hand on his arm and follows, letting him lead the way to his dressing room. At some point in the hallway Rain adjusts his steadying hand to hook around Dew’s waist instead. He isn’t supporting any of Dew’s weight, and only applies any pressure at all when the two of them start to veer from their intended bearing.

Dressing room situations varied between tour stops, depending on what the venue offered and what the management requested. Usually the ghouls ended up sharing them, in groups of two or three. The worst so far was actually when they had individual rooms — each room was so small that Rain could almost touch both sides at the same time if he extended his arms all the way. By the time they were all on the bus that night, there was at least one dent in the drywall that hadn’t been there before.

This time, Dew is sharing a dressing room with Aether. When they get there, it’s empty and quiet. Dew rifles through his bag for clothes and toiletries and heads for the ensuite bathroom, closing the painted steel door behind him.

Now Rain is alone in a dressing room that isn’t his. He checks the time on his phone. There’s still plenty of time before bus call. He should shower too. His shoes are glued to the worn low-pile carpet. He listens to the shower turning on in the bathroom.

Aether shows up a couple minutes later.

“Oh! Hey,” he greets, looking a little surprised to see Rain there. “I explained what happened and they’re calling a doctor to come out.”

Rain nods. “Here?”

“Yeah, and then hopefully he can be on the bus in time.”

Rain nods again, checks his phone. Aether stands there.

“You should go shower,” Aether offers.

“Yeah.” Rain doesn’t move.

“Don’t worry, I’ll make sure he’s okay in there.”

This finally unglues Rain’s feet. He nods, thanks Aether, and heads for his own dressing room.

He ends up pacing around the room, and later up and down a segment of the hallway, while he waits an eternity for Swiss to finish showering. He takes his own shower as quickly as possible — normally he would be in there at least as long as Swiss was, if not longer — and finds himself drawn back to Dew and Aether’s dressing room when he’s done.

When he gets there, the door is propped open. Aether isn’t there, but Rain can hear the shower running. Dew is slouched in an armchair, curled up with his feet on the seat. He’s changed from his costume into jeans and a hoodie, and his hair is damp. As Rain steps through the door, he’s in the process of forcing down a minuscule sip of water. Dew looks up at him and offers what he thinks is supposed to be a polite smile but ends up more like a tight-lipped grimace.

“Are you feeling any better?” Rain leans against the makeup counter along one wall of the room.

Dew shrugs.

The two of them sit in relative silence for a few minutes, Rain tapping his fingers rhythmically on the laminate countertop and Dew fiddling with the lid of his plastic water bottle, before Dew leans over a strategically placed wastebasket — if Rain hadn’t walked him here himself he would have assumed Dew brought this one from the green room — and throws up the tiny mouthful of water from earlier. He sighs, quietly, turbulent air rushing out through his nose, and leans his head back against the chair.

Eventually a member of the venue staff arrives outside the room, knocking politely on the doorframe. She explains she’s here to escort Dew to where the doctor is set up. Rain hovers next to him as he stands, ready to steady him if he needs it.

The three of them zigzag through the backstage hallways. The trip isn’t far, but Dew is moving slowly, still wobbly. The staff member, seemingly stuck in a state of haste, has to stop and wait at each intersection for Dew and Rain to catch up.

Their journey ends at a door propped open by the tour manager. He waves them into a dressing room, the larger kind that might be used by an ensemble cast. It is devoid of everything but furniture, clearly not intended to be occupied tonight. There is a couch against one wall; two others are lined with makeup counters and mirrors. The doctor stands at one end of the counter, picking through a hefty bag of supplies.

They walk single file through the doorway, Dew first and then Rain. The doctor glances up at them through the mirror, then turns and introduces herself. She’s wearing inconspicuous, casual clothes, nothing that would explicitly indicate she’s a medical professional.

“Please have a seat.” She gestures toward the couch.

Dew settles onto one end of the couch, but doesn’t relax. He folds his arms loosely around himself. Rain considers his own seating options and decides to perch next to him on the couch’s padded arm in a pose somewhere between sitting and leaning.

At the counter, the doctor drapes a stethoscope around her neck and picks up a small collection of equipment.

“I’d like to start by checking your vitals,” she says.

“I’ll leave you to it, then,” says the tour manager, taking a step toward the hallway while holding the door open. Rain realizes it’s a cue for him, that he is expected to leave as well.

He suddenly also realizes there was no real reason for him to have followed Dew here in the first place. The venue management had been considerate enough to find him a private room, and Rain had invaded that privacy without even thinking. He stands up from the couch arm, turning back towards Dew to tell him he’ll see him on the bus and —

Dew is looking back with his eyes wide and his shoulders tense. One of his arms is extended toward Rain from where it had been wrapped around his body, his hand resting limp on the couch in a noncommittal, minimal energy version of physically reaching out to him.

Dew has his mouth slightly open like he’s going to say something, but he doesn’t.

“Should I stay?” Rain finally asks.

“If you want to,” Dew counters, not ready to admit that he’s the one who wants it.

“I don’t mind.” Rain settles back down on the arm of the couch.

Dew looks away from him and deflates, compressing back in against himself.

The tour manager just nods and waves goodbye, then lets the door swing closed.

—

The doctor crosses the room from the counter to the couch and hands Dew a digital thermometer. “Hold this under your tongue, please.”

Dew complies, holding it in place with one hand. She clips a pulse oximeter on the other.

The shrill beep of the thermometer breaks the silence in the room. Dew removes it from his mouth and hands it back to the doctor without looking at it.

She takes it and reads the glowing screen. “You have a fever. Are you having body aches? Chills?” She reaches to collect the pulse oximeter as well.

Dew lifts his hand slightly so she can unclip it from his finger, the minor exertion causing it to tremor. He shakes his head. Rain thinks about how he looked when he was flopped on the green room couch and wonders if they have different definitions of those words.

The doctor checks the measurement, hums quietly, then places the device on the couch and picks up a blood pressure cuff. She wraps it around Dew’s upper arm and then squats next to him, donning her stethoscope. She takes his forearm and flips it so his hand rests supine on his knee.

The room is quiet except for the rush of air as she inflates the cuff, then lets it slowly deflate again. The sound of the velcro ripping apart when she unwraps it echoes in the still room. Dew tucks his relinquished arm back around himself. The doctor stands and removes the stethoscope from her ears and drapes it over her shoulders again. She replaces her other equipment in her bag.

When she returns, she sits down next to Dew on the couch, perched close to the edge so she can turn to face him.

“Can you tell me more about your symptoms? The sore throat started tonight, after your performance?”

Dew nods. “I felt fine during the show. But then it was like I noticed…” He pauses, considering, as if he’s trying to string together the events. “My throat hurt a lot and I tried to drink water and I threw up.”

“Your body is full of adrenaline when you’re performing. It masks your symptoms and gives you energy, and then when it wears off you suddenly feel worse.”

Rain nods at this. It makes sense. He’s accustomed to that feeling after every show — being hit by a sudden wave of exhaustion when the excitement of the situation finally falls away. It’s absolutely never been this dramatic before, for any of them.

“Have you been drinking water since then?”

“Trying to,” Dew answers. When she raises her eyebrows, he elaborates, “It keeps coming back up.”

The doctor nods. She holds out her hand toward Dew’s. “Can I see your hand for just a minute?”

Dew offers her the hand that’s closer to her, which because of the way he’s folding his arms is actually the one from the other side of his body. She takes it and gently pinches his skin, then presses on his fingernail and watches it change color.

“You don’t seem too dehydrated right now, but it’s something to watch out for.” She releases his hand and he tucks it back against his side.

“I need to look at the inside of your throat.” She picks up a tiny flashlight.

Dew unwraps his arms from around himself, resting them in his lap instead. He sits up a little straighter, tilts his head back slightly, and opens his mouth.

She shines the light into Dew’s mouth. Rain can’t see what she sees because Dew is facing away from him. Whatever it is, her face doesn’t reveal anything. She doesn’t look for very long. Seconds later, she clicks off the light and places it on the couch. Dew closes his mouth and drops his shoulders.

“I’d like to feel the outside of your neck.” She’s paused halfway though the motion of reaching out to touch him. Her hands are palm-up, fingers curled loosely, nonthreatening. The gesture reminds Rain of someone holding their hand out for a cat to sniff before petting it.

Dew nods, staring over her shoulder at nothing.

She presses her fingers into both sides of his neck where it connects to the underside of his jaw. She walks them forward from beneath his ears towards his chin. As she feels, she asks, “Is that sore?”

“A little.” His brow is creased slightly and his mouth is drawn into a straight line.

She lowers her hands to her lap. “Have you been coughing at all?”

Dew shakes his head.

“Still nauseous?”

He pauses, then nods.

“Alright.” She sits back slightly. “Based on your symptoms it sounds like you have strep throat, but I want to run a test to confirm. It takes about ten minutes, and if it comes back positive I’ll give you an antibiotic which should have you feeling better within a day or two and also prevent you from spreading this to anyone else. Regardless, I can give you something for your symptoms so you get through your performance tomorrow night.”

She pauses. Her unasked question hangs in the air — is that okay? She’s giving Dew a chance to say no, or request another option, or do anything other than drift through this situation like an unmoored boat.

“Okay.”

“Great.” She stands up from the couch and returns to her bag on the counter. As she comes back to the couch, she peels open the paper package of a sterile cotton swab. She sits back down next to Dew, facing him like before.

“I’m going to take a sample from your throat. I need you to open your mouth and stay as still as you can.”

Dew sits up and opens his mouth again. This time, he closes his eyes.

The doctor pulls the swab from its packaging and inserts it through his open mouth and all the way to the other side of his head, rubbing it against the back of his throat. He gags, but doesn’t close his mouth. He reflexively lifts one hand from his lap like he’s going to grab her arm; it hovers for a moment before he pulls it back down.

“I know.” She keeps rubbing.

Dew lets out a tiny sound, a round, open-mouthed “ah,” and squeezes his eyes tighter shut. The flush in his cheeks spreads.

“Done, I’m sorry for that.” She stands and returns to her supplies, holding the swab upright like a lit match.

Dew slouches forward. His eyes are still closed. He sniffs once, quietly.

Rain rubs his hand back and forth along Dew’s shoulder blade. He feels the tension in his muscles ease just a little under his touch. His breaths are slow and intentional.

Rain pulls back his hand when Dew leans back on the couch, pulling his feet up in front of him. The two of them watch the doctor performing some alchemical ritual with the swab, combining reagents and swirling them in a plastic tube. When it’s complete, she pulls a laptop from her bag and types on it, which is less interesting. Rain lets his eyes drift shut.

He opens them again when Dew speaks.

“I’m sorry for making you stay. You didn’t have to.” His voice is quiet. He’s curled up now, with his arms draped loosely around his knees, leaning one side of his body against the back of the couch so he faces Rain.

Dew, in fact, didn’t make Rain do anything. He didn’t even ask him to do anything, really. But Rain knows what he’s trying to say.

“It’s okay, I wanted to,” is how Rain decides to respond. He cringes inside at the implication. He did want to stay, but it feels creepy to say it outright like that, like he had been selfish to intrude on Dew’s vulnerable situation, even though Dew just claimed he had asked him to. They’re both talking about an imaginary interaction instead of what actually happened.

If Dew hadn’t stopped him like that when he went to leave, if he had wanted privacy, Rain would have understood. He probably would have gone back to his dressing room and paced around, or made himself busy doing something useless. He would have been worried, but he would rather be worried than make Dew uncomfortable.

And if Dew hadn’t stopped him despite actually wanting him to stay, hadn’t been able to ask for what he needed in even the most subtle, minimal way — it makes Rain’s chest ache. He imagines Dew sitting in this unfamiliar room being touched by a stranger, wishing he was there with him.

But Dew looks almost comfortable now, all things considered. He’s resting the side of his head against the back of the couch, eyes closed. His face is relaxed except for a single crease between his eyebrows. Rain is nearly overpowered by a sudden instinctive desire to reach out and touch him again, to feel his forehead like Aether did, to press his hand against his flushed cheek, to tuck a strand of mostly-dry hair behind his ear. But he doesn’t want to violate the trust Dew is putting in him by simply allowing him to be here. Instead, he counts Dew’s steady breaths.

—

Rain shifts his attention to the doctor when she closes her laptop and moves back to her makeshift alchemy lab. She barely glances at the test before she’s on her way back towards the couch.

She sits next to Dew again. He pivots so he’s facing forward, but leaves his legs tucked up in front of him.

“The test is positive for strep,” she explains, “which is treatable with antibiotics.”

Dew nods.

“Because of the vomiting I would recommend an antibiotic injection. Given your schedule, I think it’s the most reliable choice. The other option is pills, but if you can’t keep them down you won’t see any benefit.”

Dew is staring at the carpet somewhere near the middle of the room. He nods again, slowly, like he’s on autopilot.

“It’s just one dose and it will start working right away. I really do think it would be the best way to ensure you’re feeling better by tomorrow night.”

Dew glances at her and nods again, a little more present this time.

“Does that sound okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. I can also give you a corticosteroid to help with the inflammation in your throat until the antibiotic starts working.”

“Okay.”

She nods. “I’ll be right back.”

She stands and crosses the room once again to the counter. She picks an assortment of sterile packages and medicine vials out of her bag. She unwraps empty syringes and plastic-capped needles.

Rain has gotten shots before — each of the ghouls had been vaccinated against earthly diseases soon after being summoned. He didn’t mind them. They hadn’t really hurt, though his arms were sore afterwards. The idea of something being injected into him makes his stomach turn, but he had made sure not to look when it was happening and the actual experience ended up being uneventful.

These syringes are significantly larger than any he’s seen before, though. He watches the doctor fill one of them at least two thirds of the way full in a single motion. It makes his stomach drop.

Dew, on the other hand, has never been squeamish about anything. Blood, gore, and other stuff like that doesn’t phase him whatsoever. He isn’t really averse to pain either. Rain wouldn’t expect needles to be an issue for him. Looking at him now, Rain can’t place the expression on his face. It’s not one he would have imagined.

Dew is watching the doctor closely. He looks exhausted, which is expected. His eyes are lidded and rimmed with dark circles. He still has that single crease between his eyebrows. He’s frowning, just barely, a slight deviation from his usual neutral expression that you might not notice if you didn’t know him. There’s something else in his face that, if Rain had to put a word to it, he would guess it was nervousness, or apprehension. It’s visible in the way he tracks the doctor’s every move despite his eyes clearly wanting to be closed. He seems to be carrying more tension than he can afford to right now.

The doctor has gone back to searching for something in her bag. “Okay,” she instructs, “can you lower your pants a couple inches and lie facing down on the couch for me please?”

Dew’s eyes widen just a bit, just for a moment. But he stands, unbuttons his jeans, and slides the waistband down slightly. Then he lowers himself back onto the couch.

He doesn't actually lie all the way down; his hips and legs are flat against the couch, but his head and shoulders are propped up with his elbows. Rain imagines he's ready to fling himself up from the couch and scuttle away. It’s at odds with how sluggish his movements have been since he came offstage tonight.

Dew turns his head to watch the doctor cross the room but looks down at the couch when she gets close. She squats next to the couch and places her supplies on the seat near his leg: two prepared syringes, two adhesive bandages, a few alcohol swab packets and some small gauze pads.

She pushes the edge of his hoodie up to expose the bare skin of his hip. She tears open the wrapper of an alcohol swab, saturating the air with its sharp smell.

“I’m going to start with the steroid.”

Dew nods without looking at her, plucking at a loose thread on the edge of the couch seat cushion. He flinches slightly when she wipes the back of one hip with alcohol. She picks up one of the syringes, pulls the cap off the needle.

Dew glances up at Rain with that same inscrutable expression — tired, apprehensive. He’s blushing, or maybe it’s just because he’s feverish. Rain smiles, tries his best to look reassuring. Dew’s flush deepens. He breaks away from the eye contact.

The doctor places one gloved hand on Dew’s sanitized hip. “Try to relax your leg as much as possible.” She taps her fingers against his skin a few times. Dew’s body is lean and wiry, but this is one of his softer places.

Dew wiggles his feet a bit to loosen the muscles in his legs.

“Good. Here we go.”

She sticks the needle in quickly like an animal striking its prey. Dew doesn’t react to this, but the sudden motion makes Rain flinch.

She presses down on the plunger of the syringe painstakingly slowly. Rain decides he can’t watch this part. He watches Dew’s face instead. His eyes are closed but he looks mostly the same as before. A muscle in his jaw flexes.

When the doctor withdraws the needle she immediately flips an attached plastic cover over it. She presses a folded square of gauze over the tiny puncture wound on Dew’s hip.

“Well done. One more.” She’s praising Dew for doing absolutely nothing, but Rain supposes that must be the point. He still looks like he’s considering in the back of his mind that he could get up and run away.

She removes the gauze and smooths a band-aid over the puncture. She selects another alcohol swab and unwraps it, renewing the lingering smell in the room.

“Relax,” she reminds him, rubbing his other hip with the swab.

She picks up the other syringe and removes the cap from the needle. This one seems bigger. Not the needle, but the contents of the syringe are greater. Rain is trying not to think too much about details like that.

She repeats the same procedure — hand on his hip, needle through his skin like a predator, slow pressure on the plunger. Rain looks away from it again.

Dew’s eyes are closed again, and his jaw is still tense. His fingers curl slightly against the flat surface of the couch seat cushion. He cranes his neck to look behind him at what the doctor is doing. The plunger has barely moved. He turns himself back around and lets his head hang forward between his shoulders. He pushes a slow breath out through his nose.

Rain watches Dew's hands close fully into fists.

Rain offers his hand to hold instead. He’s not sure if Dew would accept it. His understanding is that affectionate touch is a gray area for Dew. It’s more likely to be okay when it’s playful and unserious. And onstage, anything goes; it’s all a game. Rain would place hand holding firmly in mushy, lovey-dovey, serious territory, completely off limits. But his other supportive and even comforting touches tonight had been uncharacteristically tolerated, and it's not like anyone else is here to see them besides this doctor — who he's pretty sure they will never encounter again. Plus, it’s not necessarily romantic at all. He would do this for anyone, he tells himself.

Dew grasps his hand immediately, without looking up. He doesn't squeeze it tightly, but his grip is firm. Rain presses back with just as much force. He glances up at the doctor, unintentionally making eye contact. She looks away, back to her task, without saying anything. Rain looks back to his and Dew’s hands.

Dew is still looking down, motionless. It makes Rain think of the way a sick wild animal will shut down and hide from predators in some secluded place. Or, more broadly, the instinct of fight or flight. He already observed Dew’s desire to flee in his body language, and there’s clearly no fight in him right now. All that’s left for him to do is accept what’s happening.

Rain ventures a glance to the syringe again. It’s probably about halfway emptied. Which means half of what was in it is now deposited inside Dew’s flesh. He snaps his gaze away from it and tightens his grip on Dew’s hand — just sympathetically, he justifies, not because that makes him feel queasy.

Dew squeezes back a little tighter too.

“Keep breathing slowly,” the doctor encourages. “You’re doing great.”

This first comment makes Rain notice his breathing sped up just now, and he has to glance up at her to see if it was actually directed at him. It doesn’t seem to be — she’s looking at Dew — but he realizes that Dew’s breathing has been mirroring his. So maybe it was, in a roundabout way, an instruction for him. He focuses on setting a good example.

He counts eight measured breaths before it’s over.

“Good job,” the doctor says as she removes the needle. “You’re all done.”

Dew’s shoulders droop. Rain releases his hand. The doctor continues with the rest of the procedure from before — needle cover, gauze, band-aid. Then she gathers her discarded items and returns to the counter.

Dew rolls himself onto his side and gingerly sits up. He runs his hands over his face, pausing for a few seconds with both palms cupping his jaw, eyes unfocused. Then he stands and shimmies up his pants and fastens the button. Rain stands too, ready to support him if necessary.

The doctor is digging in her bag again.“You’ll be contagious for the next day or so, so try to avoid close contact as much as possible.” She returns to the ghouls with a small stack of disposable face masks and offers them to Dew. “You should wear a mask at least until your performance tomorrow.”

Dew nods, taking them and putting one on right there. The pastel yellow contrasts with his otherwise all-black outfit.

“Try to keep drinking fluids and get as much rest as you can. The steroid will give you a bit of a boost, so don’t overdo it.”

“Okay.”

“Okay? Anything else I can do for you?”

Dew shakes his head.

“Well, if you think of anything, you can have your tour manager get in contact with me. I won’t be able to see you again but I can answer questions or consult with any other providers you see."

Dew nods. He’s thumbing through the stack of masks like the world’s most boring flipbook.

“Alright, take care. Feel better.”

“Thank you.”

“Thanks,” Rain echoes.

—

With that, the two of them wordlessly split to their separate dressing rooms to retrieve their bags.

After packing, Rain backtracks down the hall to Dew’s dressing room instead of heading straight to the bus. He checks the time on his phone. He’s cutting it much closer than he would ever consider doing on any other day. Their schedule is usually strict — the shows are the top priority, of course, and everything surrounding them is carefully arranged maximize their success — but maybe illness would be an extenuating circumstance. Regardless, he’s already decided he won’t let Dew risk getting left behind alone. If the bus leaves without Dew, it will leave without Rain as well.

In his dressing room, Dew is haphazardly throwing items into his bag. He startles slightly when he notices Rain through the mirror, but goes right back to packing his luggage. When he’s done, the two of them head for the bus.

Thankfully, the bus is still there when they get outside, parked just past the back door of the venue. Dew wobbles on the first step of the steep staircase, and Rain steadies him with a hand on the middle of his back. They proceed up into the warmly lit front lounge.

Everyone else is already there, and so everyone’s eyes are on them as they get to the top of the stairs. Swiss is the first to greet them.

“Hey, look who made it!”

Dew glares at him. “Back off, I’m contagious.”

“I see how it is,” Swiss says, looking pointedly at Rain, who is still following Dew closely.

Dew tugs at the top of his mask like he’s going to pull it down. Swiss raises his hands in surrender.

Dew and Rain continue through the tight space of the lounge into the aisle between the two rows of bunks. Rain lets the door swing closed behind them. It’s quiet, and darker than the front lounge.

Dew hurls his bag at the closed curtains of his bunk. It ends up halfway on the mattress, halfway on the floor of the aisle. He nudges it with his foot, to no effect, wobbling as he tries to balance on one leg. He grips the platform of the middle bunk to steady himself and kicks at it again. It remains stubbornly on the ground. He crouches and shoves it all the way inside.

He groans quietly as he stands back up, one hand against his hip and the other clenched into a fist. The sound makes Rain pause where he’s stowing items in his own bunk. He watches Dew stand there, unmoving except for the heaving rise and fall of his chest.

Then Dew moves the hand on his hip to one belt loop of his jeans and yanks the waistband down slightly. He hitches up the hem of his hoodie with the other hand, exposing the band-aid there from earlier. He cranes his neck so he can look at it. Rain isn’t sure what Dew was expecting to see, but it’s just a plain, unmarred band-aid, looking like it could be covering up nothing at all.

Dew prods at the flesh of his hip with one finger, pressing into a spot an inch above the band-aid. Facing away, masked, head tucked behind his shoulder, it’s the only part of him Rain can see.

Rain isn’t sure what comes over him, but this image of Dew metaphorically licking his wounds, with his frustration simmering over, pulls at his heart. He reaches out and places his hand over the band-aid.

Dew’s sharp inhale hisses through his teeth.

“Sorry.” Rain snatches his hand back.

“It’s okay. It actually feels nice. Your hands are cold.”

Rain lays his fingers over the spot again, touching as lightly as possible. Dew exhales, almost a sigh.

“Does it hurt?”

“No, it’s okay,” he answers, too quickly, a question Rain wasn’t asking. “But yeah, more than I expected. Feels like I pulled a muscle.”

Dew turns around so they’re facing each other, but doesn’t make eye contact. Instead he looks down at the hem of Rain’s shirt, pinches at it, worries it between his fingers, not actually touching him but bridging an indirect connection between their bodies.

Rain lets his hand fall away when Dew moves, but puts them back, both of them this time, on Dew’s hips. He strokes his fingers up to his waist under his shirt, then back down again. The skin there is so warm.

“It’s not that bad. Everything is just, a lot. Right now.” Dew’s voice is so small. “My brain is frying.”

It sort of is, in a literal way. Dew leans forward and rests his forehead against Rain’s shoulder. Rain can feel the heat radiating through his shirt.

“And my throat really fucking hurts and now my ass hurts too and I still feel like I’m going to throw up everywhere.”

Rain thinks his chest might crack open and swallow him up.

“Oh,” is what he manages to say to express this feeling. “Can I get you something? Water? Tea, maybe?” He thinks. “An ice pack?”

Dew chuckles, or maybe scoffs.

“I don’t know,” Rain backpedals. “I’ll get you anything on this bus. Or I’ll make the driver stop somewhere before we get on the highway if you want.”

“I mostly just want to sleep right now.”

“Okay, well, text me if you need anything.”

Dew pulls back from his shoulder to look up at him. He’s smiling; the mask is covering his mouth but Rain can tell by the way his cheeks are raised near the corners of his eyes.

“Maybe an ice pack would be nice.”

#ghost band fanfic #raindrop ghost #fic i wrote #sorry this is an old fic again but i just need it on my blog #i almost made one single-word edit but i kept it as is #and did i change my fic posting format again? yes i did

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