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another-whump-sideblog · 1 year ago

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Jane’s Pets Chapter 76: Victory Lap

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When you wake up in the morning, you realize you didn’t have any nightmares at all. None that you can remember, at least. For a while, you thought that would never happen again, but here you are. You know that this is a temporary good period, and that the nightmares will eventually get bad again. But from where you are now, you can see that the temporary good periods are getting longer, and the bad periods are getting shorter. If things continue this way, and you think they will, you’ll eventually only have nightmares every once in a while, and you’ll be able to easily deal with them when they happen.

You can’t even remember the last time you woke up feeling this good. Not just safe- you felt safe for a while at Jane’s house, even though it was a lie. But you never woke up in Jane’s house feeling excited for the day. You don’t think you’ve woken up looking forward to the day ahead of you since you were a kid, actually. That’s… sad.

But now you are waking up excited. Now as you slowly go through the process of waking up your brain, you think of all the things you want to do today. You’re going to study magic and practice Dollie and Kit’s names and go on a walk and Diya said ey’d teach you how to bake bread, and maybe you’ll work on your knitting project or finishing up that book about trauma and nightmares if your head is feeling okay. If not, you’ll just play some simple card and board games with Diya and Ray and maybe Barron.

First, you do your morning work-out with Diya. You’re doing more push

-ups and sit-ups than you started with, but you’ve found that doing too many makes some old scars hurt. You looked up if scar tissue should be stretched and you didn’t fully understand the answers, so you just make sure to stop if you’re in pain.

You think that the scars limiting your movements would be a lot more upsetting if you hadn’t already been forced to accept that your body won’t ever work the same way it did before Jane took you. You get headaches from anything that requires prolonged focus and things that used to be easy are hard, now. Things will never be like they were before. But you can still be happy.

You really enjoy your morning runs. They don’t aggravate old scars or give you headaches, so long as you drink enough water. You tend to run for a lot longer than Diya every day. It feels really good, and if you could go beyond the reach of the magical protection, you think you’d be interested in trying to run marathons.

You definitely couldn’t run a marathon right now, but every day you’re getting stronger. It feels really, really good to feel strong.

After your run, you take a shower and join the others for breakfast. Ray made oatmeal for everyone, but says you can fix yourself something else if you don’t like it. You’ve never been a big fan of oatmeal, but you eat your serving enthusiastically. You can’t tell how invested they are in people liking what they made, so you’ve decided it’s better to be safe than sorry.

“Hey Liam, did you ever end up having lucid dreams?” Diya asks.

“Oh shit, I haven’t even been doing the things to make lucid dreaming happen! My nightmares have been decreasing, though.”

“Good!”

“What about you?”

“Hmm… I think I had a lucid dream last night, but I couldn’t always control it. It was more like being lucid was part of the plot of the dream, rather than me actually having a lucid dream.”

You nod. “That makes sense. Did it help with the nightmares at all?”

“Not really, but that’s okay. It was worth a shot.”

Once you’re done with breakfast, you help clean up and then dive back into some of the magic books Barron gave you, remembering to take some ibuprofen before you start.

Over the past few weeks, you’ve finished the first two books, the ones about magic in general and magic history, and now you’re working on the one about magical objects.

Magic is… weird. Repeatedly, you’ve gone to Barron to ask why the books contain so many contradictions, and its answers have ranged from “oh, that’s not actually a contradiction, the book is just using that word to mean something different than it does to non-mages” to “Yeah, it wouldn’t be magic if it made sense.”

“It’s all guesses and models.” It said. “Ways of thinking about magic that allow for the best results. Magic isn’t like science. It actively resists being studied and practiced. Don’t treat anything anyone tells you about magic as absolute truth. It’s all guesses.”

“So… when you said Jane doesn’t confirm to the ‘rules of magic’…”

“She doesn’t conform to the way most mages understand magic. Honestly, it kind of does feel like hearing about something that doesn’t conform to the rules of gravity or something, even when I know magic isn’t like science. We’ve used these models for so long, so for someone or something to just not fit? That’s kind of scary. But it doesn’t necessarily mean she’s more powerful than things that follow the rules. It just means we’ve found a way that our current way of thinking about magic can lead to blindspots.”

You think back to that conversation often, reminding yourself that the things written in these books are not literally true in the same way things written in a textbook might be. This actually makes reading them easier. If something doesn’t make sense, you just figure that it’s not a way of thinking about magic that clicks with you, and you’ll find a completely different explanation of the same vague concept within a few chapters.

Even with the ibuprofen, you can only focus on one thing for so long. In fact, when you’ve tried to push past the pain and difficulty concentrating, you’ve found that you get dizzy and your ears ring. Best not to push it.

You can still come back to the book later. It’s… fine. It’s fine. You’ve been dealing with the brain damage very well lately, you think. There was other stuff you wanted to do today anyway, so there’s no reason to get upset about needing to stop reading. Even if it’s only been 30 minutes, and you were able to read for nearly an hour without feeling bad at all yesterday.

It’s fine.

You find Diya and Ray outside, cloud gazing.

“Hi, Liam! How’s studying magic going?”

“Fine. It’s kind of hard to read today.” You were going to ask Diya if ey thought making bread required a lot of focus, so you could decide if you wanted to jump into that or take a break first. But… Diya and Ray seem to be having fun, and you don’t want to end it early. “Is it okay if I join you?”

“Of course!”

“Are you sure? If you just want to hang out as a couple that’s fine too.”

“No, we want to spend time with you! Well, I do, and I assume Ray does.”

Ray nods. “I do.”

You lie down in the dirt next to Diya. Ey points at a cloud. “Doesn’t that one look like a dragon?”

“Hmm… Actually, I think that cloud looks like… stuffing coming out of a pillow with a hole in it.”

You can tell Diya is rolling eir eyes without looking at em.

Ray puffs. “No, it looks like white cotton candy.”

“No, no, that’s not right at all. It looks like a bunch of soap suds.”

“You guys are terrible at this!” Diya exclaims.

“Okay, okay, it looks like soap suds in the shape of a dragon.” You say.

“Good enough! What about that one?”

The three of you share thoughts about clouds for a long time. It’s really nice. Warm and safe and peaceful.

Eventually, bugs start to bother you, so you go back inside and work on Kit and Dollie’s names. Diya and Ray follow soon after and start playing a care game in the kitchen.

It’s going faster than remembering your own name went. You can already think the names and you think you’ll be able to say them by the end of the day. And then you’ll be on track to hear other people say them!

“Kit” you whisper to yourself. “Dollie.”

You’re thrilled to have so much control back, but also terrified. You put the notebook away for now, and, in an effort to distract yourself, you go to get Diya.

“Hey, you said yesterday you wanted to teach me to make bread? Do you still want to do that?”

“Yeah! Me and Ray are almost done with this game. Oh, is it okay if Ray joins us.”

“That’s fine. Um, while you’re finishing up, I could start getting stuff ready? What stuff should I get out?”

“Oh, theres no need for that. We’re almost done.”

“Diya…” You don’t know what to say. You need to distract yourself so that the fear goes away without you ever being hurt, and your brain learns things are different now. Diya’s the one who taught you that, and it’s always worked before.

Diya finally looks up from eir cards at you. Eir face falls. “Are you okay?”

“I just… want to do something. Right now.”

Ray sets down their cards. “We don’t have to finish.”

“Right, right.” Diya gets up. “Can you put away the cards while me and Liam get set up?”

Ray nods, and Diya leads you to a drawer and takes out a big, clear bowl. “Fill this with flour. It’s in the pantry.”

Diya goes to another drawer and starts getting other stuff out. You drag a large container of flour from the pantry.

“Were you just wanting me to pour the flour in there? That seems messy.”

“Things do get pretty messy when you bake bread, but I figured you’d use a measuring cup to fill it up. They’re in the drawer to your right.”

You pick out a large measuring cup and start scooping. “And you just want me to fill the whole bowl?”

“Yep!”

If you focus on not spilling any flour, the job takes quite a bit of concentration. You’re able to think less about how Jane would hurt you and just focus. By the time the bowl is full, your hands have stopped shaking.

Over the next several hours, the three of you make some bread. It involves a lot more waiting than you were hoping for, but that does help prevent headaches, so you’re not complaining. You take a break during one of the waiting periods to make lunch, but mostly you just… hang out, keeping an eye on the bread and chatting.

“We should make a bird house.” Diya says, looking out the window at some birds.

“That would require a lot of tools.” Ray says.

“Yeah, that’s the fun part! We should try to make the cabin, but tiny and for birds!”

“What kinds of birds are around here?” You ask.

“I dunno. Normal birds? You could use the computer to look it up, if you want.”

“Maybe later. It would be really nice to have a bird house. I like birds.

Diya nods and gently pokes the bread-in-progress. “That’ll be our next little project, then. I’ll have Barron get us the supplies.”

You never would’ve dreamed you’d be living a life like this. Living with close friends and learning magic and having the ability to just… make things, if you want to.

You really wish Kit and Dollie were here. They will be, soon, you’re sure of it.

—

Once the bread is finally done baking, the three of you to for a walk while you wait for it to cool.

“Geez, Barron’s missing out on all this bonding time. If only it didn’t have a job…” Diya sighs dramatically. “Actually, maybe I should get a job. I don’t think there are any vampires actually hunting me, I don’t need to be at the cabin all the time like you guys. And if your friends are going to be joining us we’ll probably need more money. I think. I honestly have no idea how much its mage job pays.”

Briefly, you feel guilty that you’re so dependent on Barron working, and that Kit and Dollie joining you will make things harder. But… they’ve said repeatedly that they want you here, and Ray’s in the same position you are, and you don’t think their a burden. Diya could’ve gotten a job at any time and you don’t think ey’s a burden. You let the guilt slide off you. It’s not like you don’t help out, anyway, you have chores like everyone else.

You walk in silence for a while. You’ve been wanting to ask Diya something for a while, but you don’t know how to bring it up.

“Can I ask you a question, Diya? You don’t have to answer, but I’ve been reading about magical stuff and I’ve been wondering… what it was like for you to be the captive of a vampire?” It’s not a purely magical question. You want to know… how similar Diya’s experiences are to yours. But you can’t just ask 'what was your abuse like.’ That would be weird.

Diya laughs. “Why are you asking me about that and not Ray about being the captive of a faery?”

“Me and Ray have talked about that before.” You know Ray eventually just left. That they could’ve left at any time, but they chose to stay to protect their sister. It doesn’t make what happened to them any less bad, but it does make it different. “You definitely don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, it’s not important that I know or anything, and I can find other ways to learn about vampires.”

“No, it’s fine. It’s not super hard to talk about, I just assume that people will ask if they want to know. Which is funny because I also assume other people will tell me things if they want me to know, so I shouldn’t ask… Anyway, I don’t know a lot about vampires. I only saw him for a few minutes every day, and it’s not like we were chatting during those times. I know vampires drink blood and that’s about it. I didn’t even see Jane kill him, I just ran.“

“Oh. That’s okay. Um… if you ever want to talk about it, either of you, I’m- I’m here to listen.”

Ray nods. “Us too. You can talk to us too if you ever want to.”

“Yeah! But I think you already knew that. I hope so, at least.”

“Yeah, I know.”

The three of you make it back to the cabin. You each have a slice of homemade bread with jam. It’s delicious.

When Barron gets home, you all have dinner, before playing Clue and heading to bed. You lost, and you didn’t even cry this time!

It’s still frustrating to be bad at things you were once good at. But you’re getting good at things you were once bad at, too.

You want to work on your knitting or read a bit more before bed, but you’ve done a lot today and you’re really tired. There’s always tomorrow.

—

You reread the page a few times to be sure you understood correctly, but there’s really not a lot of ways to interpret it. It’s a good thing Barron’s home.

You knock on its bedroom door, book still in hand.

“Come in.”

You throw the door open. “Barron! There were spells that reduced pain this entire time and you didn’t tell me? I was in so much pain you wanted to take me to the hospital once!” You hold the book open so that Barron can see the page you’re talking about.

Barron pulls several expressions you don’t understand before settling on something apologetic. “It didn’t even occur to me. All the pain reducing spells we know of have really bad side effects. When I first learned about them, I thought ‘it’d be a better use of magic to just invisibly steal some painkillers,’ and then I never really thought about those spells again. The thought that you would want me to use one of them never even crossed my mind. I should’ve given you the option, at least. I know that even if you decided the side effects were too much to bear, it would’ve been easier if you felt like it was your choice. I’m sorry.”

Geez, Barron is good at apologies. You can already feel yourself calming down. You flip to the next page. Sure enough, there are several warnings highlighted in red for each pain-killing spell.

“I… guess I should’ve finished reading that section before I came to confront you.”

“I can see why that was upsetting. I should’ve told you earlier. I wasn’t intentionally hiding that information, though, I just never connected those spells to your headaches in my head. Do you want to try them?”

You glance over the warnings again. Why the fuck would a spell about relieving pain cause your fingernails to fall off, or blind you for a full week? None of the other spells so far have had warnings like this.

“Ugh, definitely not. I guess we’ll see how bad these side-effects sound the next time I have a bad episode, though. They might seem worth it if I was in enough pain.”

Barron nods. “Sounds like a plan.”

—

“The worst part wasn’t being fed from.” Diya tells you during your morning run. You take a second to catch on, then slow down so you can talk more easily. Diya follows suit.

"Oh? What was the worst part? If you want to share.”

“I was completely alone in that little cell. Once a month he’d drop off a bunch of food, and other than that I only saw him when he was drinking my blood. There were two books, and a cot, and nothing else.”

“Shit.” It’s not like what happened to you, but that’s okay. Well, not okay. Horrible. “For how long?”

“Around a year.”

That’s similar. “…It’s funny, I don’t know what to say. Like I should be able to just think of what I want to hear when I tell people about what happened to me, but…”

“There’s nothing you can say.” Ey finishes. “A lot of wrong things to say, and some inoffensive ones, but never really a good one.”

You nod.

“It wasn’t so bad. After a while I was anemic enough that I was unconscious most of the time, so I didn’t just have to sit there and be lonely and bored.”

“Ray mentioned that you were anemic when you first came here.”

“Yeah. No, being anemic wasn’t so bad. Cold and exhausting, but bearable. The worst part, the worst worst part, was the first week.”

“That makes sense. You probably didn’t really know what was going on then, so it was extra scary.”

“Well, that, but actually it was mostly that I was going through withdrawals for like… several drugs.”

“Oh. I should’ve let you finish.”

“It’s fine. But yeah, that was the worst part. Being completely alone while I puked and shook and saw things, fucking, drooling all over me gnawing on my body parts… I still can’t be positive that was a hallucination. Maybe Irving had some fucked up friends. But I think I was hallucinating. I could’ve died. For a long time, I wished I had. But not anymore. I’m… glad I made it through all that. It sucked, it was meaningless and unnecessary pain that should never have happened, don’t get me wrong, but I’m happy with where I ended up, and I don’t think I would’ve ended up here without that happening.”

That’s very similar. “I get that. I hate that everything happened this way, but I’m so glad I got to meet you, and Ray, and Barron, and Dollie and Kit-“

Fear flashes through you. You run a bit harder.

“Yeah! I’m definitely not an ‘everything happens for a reason’ type of person, but I also know that everything that’s happened to me has impacted who I am, and I like who I am, y’know? It didn’t have to happen. I could’ve ended up this happy in a million other ways. But, this is how I ended up here, and… I’m okay with that. Hey, slow down.”

“Sorry.” You take some deep breaths. “You’re really good at putting this stuff into words.”

"You’re really good at listening. I’m glad I decided to talk to you about this stuff.”

You slow down a bit more. “Can I tell you something kind of weird?”

“Always.”

“I… was kind of hoping we’d have more in common? Like, that you were afraid of Irving the same way I’m afraid of Jane. Sorry. It’s dumb, I shouldn’t have said anything. Just a weird thought I should’ve kept to myself.”

Diya is quiet for a while. “I think… you do have a lot in common with what happened to you and what happened to your friends who are still captive. So maybe… maybe you were hoping to have the same sort of bond with me?”

You stop running. Diya stops quickly after and turns around to face you.

“I- I think that’s it. Wow. I guess it’s good that I told you. Holy crap. How did you figure it out so quick?” You feel like a weight has been lifted.

Diya shrugs. “Guess I’m just super smart.”

You laugh. “I guess so.”

Now that you realize what was wrong, it’s easy to deal with. You’re never going to have a relationship with other people that’s exactly what like you have with Kit and Dollie. But that’s okay. Your other relationships are really good too.

—

Barron didn’t come to breakfast this morning. You, Ray, and Diya found it fast asleep in its bed, with its alarm still going. Its face is covered in sweat and it’s shaking beneath the blankets. You turn off the alarm clock.

Ray shakes Barron, mumbling “not again, not again, not again-“ to themself and smiling.

Barron jolts awake. “Huh?”

Ray gasps and hugs it tightly.

“Ray, honey?" Diya gently pulls Ray off of Barron and places a hand against its forehead. “Barron will be fine. It looks like just a slight fever, okay?”

You disagree that it’s a ‘slight’ fever, but the statement seems to calm Ray down.

You leave the room and head to the bathroom. You run a washcloth under cool water and ring it out, then bring it to Barron and drape the washcloth over its forehead. It seems to be asleep again.

“Thank you, Liam.” Diya says. “Ibuprofen helps with fevers, right?”

“Oh, I think so? They help with aches, at least.”

You go to leave and get some ibuprofen, but Ray beats you to it, sprinting out of the room.

“Uh… have none of you been sick since you met Ray?”

“We have. Ray… always struggles with it. We do our best.”

Ray hurries back into the room, though not sprinting this time due to the cup of water in their hand. Once they reach Barron, their movements become less urgent, and they gently prop it up with pillows before shaking it awake again.

“Medicine, here’s medicine. It’ll work this time. It’ll work, the medicine is better now.”

Ray sounds… younger. They help Barron take the pills.

Barron groans. “Where… who?”

Ray steps away abruptly. “I’ll get you some food. You’ll feel better after eating.” They sprint out of the room again. You’ve never seen Ray move so fast.

Barron is still shaking and sweating. It softly groans in its sleep.

“That’s not a ‘slight’ fever.” You whisper.

“No, it’s not. I’m going to go get our thermometer, can you keep an eye on Barron?”

You nod and Diya leaves. Ray enters the room soon after, with a tray carrying toast, yogurt, orange juice, and a water bottle.

They don’t acknowledge you and go straight to Barron, shaking it more gently this time.

“Barron. Do you want some food? I got you some food.”

Barron blinks slowly. “Wha- what’s happening? Where am I?”

“You’re in your bed. Do you want some yogurt?”

“Mmm… sure? What’s…”

Barron closes its eyes and sighs. Ray feeds it a spoonful of yogurt.

You feel… you don’t know. You don’t like that Barron is sick and Ray is upset. You keep thinking about Dollie coughing up blood and-

Well, best not to think about that right now. If you start freaking out Diya will have to take care of all three of you, and that wouldn’t be fair to em.

Diya comes back and takes Barron’s temperature.

“It’ll be alright.” Ey says. “The fever isn’t high enough that I’ll need to take it to the hospital. Barron, how long have you been sick?”

“Hmm? How long…” Barron trails off again.

“That’s more concerning.” Diya mumbles.

Ray nudges Diya out of the way and continues feeding Barron yogurt.

“…I’ve been reading about healing spells. I haven’t had a chance to pra- try any of them yet, but maybe I could help Barron?”

There is a risk to using magic here. If Barron has something that its body can fight off on its own, magic will speed up the process. But if there’s something seriously wrong, which you’re worried about with how suddenly this came on and how intense the symptoms are… magic might just make it worse. If it’s not something that can be fought off with its immune system alone, speeding up the healing will just exhaust its body’s resources.

You can’t say that with Ray in the room, though. They’re already very worried and having trouble separating the current situation from what happened to their sister. You pull Diya aside.

“There’s a chance that healing magic will make it worse. It just speeds up what the body is already doing, so if the body isn’t being helpful… that’s bad. I think if I use one of the less powerful spells we can see if it makes whatever Barron has worse or better without a ton of danger, but I don’t think I should make that decision alone. The less powerful spells are easier to prepare as well. What do you think?”

Diya glances over at Ray. “I think… that’s a good idea. Even if it makes things worse, that’ll help, because then we’ll know it can’t fight this on its own and needs more medical care than we can provide.”

You nod. You hadn’t even thought about that. “Okay, I was thinking of using a spell that gives food healing properties? There are a few, but I’d use a simpler one. That way we have even more control over how and when the magic is used. So we can do just a little at a time.”

“Oh, that’s a good idea. If we made it some soup, could you cast the spell on that?”

You nod.

“Awesome! We’ll wait a little bit, since Barron’s eating breakfast right now. And if we keep an eye on it for a while before we use the spell it’ll be easier to tell if the spell makes things better or worse.”

“Good plan.”

The two of you head back towards the bed. Ray has finished feeding Barron the yogurt and is working on the toast.

“This is the last of the bread we made.” They tell him. They look up at you and Diya, smiling. “You don’t have to hide things from me. I won’t be annoying. I’ll understand. You can tell me what’s going on.”

You look to Diya, not knowing how to handle this. Diya takes Ray’s hand. They continue feeding Barron with the other. “We just didn’t want to worry you. We’re not worried about you being annoying, or not understanding. You could never annoy me, and I think you’re super smart. I just… don’t want you to ever have to suffer. And you’re already so worried, so I didn’t want to make it worse. But you’re right, that’s not fair, and we shouldn’t hide stuff from you just to stop you from worrying. I’m-“ ey cuts themself off.

Ray’s smile wavers. “What were you guys talking about?”

“We were talking about Liam’s suggestion to use a healing spell. There are some risks, but ultimately we decided that it would be worth it. We’re going to make some soup and have Liam cast a healing spell on it, so that eating it would heal Barron, and we can administer it slowly and stop if it has a negative reaction. What do you think?”

Ray gives a pained smile. “What if that kills he- it. What if that kills it?"

Diya squeezes Ray’s hand. “I think that’s very unlikely. Healing magic speeds things up. It could have negative effects, but with the way we’re doing it it’s near impossible for one of those effects to be death. Plus, if it’s something Barron can’t fight off on its own, we want to know that as soon as possible.”

Ray looks at Barron, who has fallen back asleep. They nod slowly, still smiling. “Okay. We should do a healing spell.”

They get up and take the now-empty tray back to the kitchen and come back with another water bottle, which they set on Barron’s nightstand. Then they just… stand there and stare at it. Watching it breathe.

Diya pulls the chair from Barron’s desk over to Ray. “If you’re going to just stay and watch, at least sit.”

Ray sits.

Diya watches Ray watch Barron, concerned. “I guess I should try and figure out how to call Barron in sick to work, since it doesn’t look like it’ll be able to do that itself…” Ey looks at you. You don’t know what ey wants.

“Good idea. Um… when I was living back with Jane, we used to read to each other if we ended up stuck in bed, would- would that help?”

Ray doesn’t look away from Barron. “It might.”

Diya looks reassured, and ey leaves the room to go figure stuff out. You pick up a random book sitting on Barron’s desk, sit on the end of its bed, and start reading aloud.

—

You read for a long time. Barron has stopped shaking, which seemed to calm Ray down a little bit. They’ve replaced the washcloth on its forehead a couple of times.

Your head is starting to hurt, but… you don’t know how you’ll be able to help if you stop reading. So you keep reading.

Diya hasn’t come back. Maybe ey’s having trouble contacting people outside the cabin, or maybe ey just didn’t feel the need to come back and watch Barron sleep once ey was done.

You keep losing track of what the book you’re reading is talking about. Your reading aloud has gotten more and more choppy as time goes on. You know it has something to do with magic and culture and politics.

Ray hardly blinks as they watch Barron. Your heart aches for them. You don’t know how to convince them it’ll be okay.

Funny, how you don’t feel for Barron in the same visceral way. It’s much easier to out yourself in Ray’s shoes than to but yourself in Barron’s. Not entirely surprising, but funny.

You set the book down and try to ignore your headache. “Ray?”

Ray doesn’t look up. “What is it?”

“I… I didn’t mean to be condescending, earlier, when I talked to Diya and not you.”

“I know.”

“I… also had, um, someone I, uh, cared about- cared about a lot, get really sick. And… die.”

Ray does look up at that. “Why are you saying this now?”

“I just… I understand, at least a little, how you’re feeling. I didn’t want to make it worse. I know I don’t fully understand, because you clearly felt a responsibility towards keeping your sister healthy that I never felt towards… the person I really cared about. I was never expected to take care of him or watch over him, and his symptoms were very different. But I understand a little.”

“…You never talk about it.”

“Yeah. It would probably be healthier if I did. But mostly I just don’t think about it. It was a long time ago. Over a decade. I guess it was a long time ago for you too…”

"No. My sister didn’t die until after I left the fae realm. She died a few days after we met Barron, two years ago.”

“Oh geez. That’s hard. Two years after I lost my- my dad,” there’s no reason to keep it secret “I was barely functional. I guess I just assumed that it was a while ago for you too, since you’re handling stuff so well.”

Ray puffs. “So well. That’s why I’ve been watching Barron sleep for the past hour.”

Their tone doesn’t sound like they’re being sarcastic, but you’re pretty sure they are.

“I kind of want to give you a hug, but I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t like that.”

“What makes you think that?”

You have to think for a moment. “You just never really seek out stuff like that. Even with Diya, and ey said you’re, like, dating. I guess you hugged Barron earlier, but that was because you were really upset.”

“Public displays of affection are impolite. Diya says there’s nothing public about hugging your partner in a cabin in the middle of the woods. I still prefer to only do that stuff when we’re alone, most of the time. Someday I won’t be so scared of being impolite… But I don’t dislike it. I really like hugs, actually. It’s just… I feel rude touching people without permission, and I feel rude asking for permission… You can hug me if you want.”

You scoot towards Ray and envelope them in a very awkward hug. The movement makes your head hurt worse and you feel dizzy, but it’s worth it.

They freeze at first, and you wonder if you misinterpreted something, but then they rest their head on your shoulder and return the hug, very gently. Even though their arms are technically around your torso, they’re barely touching you.

They invited you to hug them, so you don’t think they’re uncomfortable. That’s just… the way they hug. As if they’re trying to hug a cloud.

When you pull away, Ray isn’t smiling anymore. You feel a flush of pride. They’ve been terrified all day, and hugging you is what finally calmed them down.

“Awww!”

You look towards the voice. Diya’s standing in the doorway to Barron’s bedroom.

“How long have you been standing there?” Ray asks.

“I was just going to get Liam to come cast a spell on the soup I’m making, but you were hugging and I didn’t want to interrupt! You two are adorable.”

You laugh and get up off the bed. You immediately fall over. Ow.

“Liam!”

You’d almost forgotten how dizzy you’d been getting. You really need to stop ignoring headaches… At least your ears aren’t ringing yet. “It’s fine, I just… read for too long. Can you help me up?”

You almost fall over again as Diya helps you up, but ey catches you.

“How about you stay here and I bring the soup to you?”

You nod. The world spins and you feel like you’ve been stabbed in the head. “Could you bring me ibuprofen too?”

“Yeah. Do you need, like, rocks and shit for the spell?”

“Barron has a bunch of that stuff in its dresser. I’m sure it won’t mind.”

Diya sets you back down on the bed and goes through Barron’s dresser until ey finds the drawer of magic stuff. “What do you need?”

You describe the type of leaf you want and the rune that should be drawn on it. “If there aren’t any leaves like that with that rune that’s fine, it shouldn’t be too hard to draw something on a leaf.”

Luckily, Diya finds the exact type of leaf you wanted. Ey hands it to you and leaves (ha) to go get some soup.

This spell doesn’t even require you to say anything. You just have to do the right movements. You go over them in your head while you wait.

Diya quickly returns with four bowls of soup on a tray and some ibuprofen, and sets the tray on the bed. “I figured we should all eat. So, is there else anything you need for the spell, or…”

“I can just do it. Does it matter which bowl?”

“Nope, they’re all the same."

You quickly take the ibuprofen. It won’t help that much after you’ve let it get this bad, but it’s worth a shot.

You pick up the bowl nearest to you and set the leaf under it, then set the bowl back down. You remind yourself which hand is your right and which is your left, and then do the motions for this particular spell.

…

Nothing happens.

“I, uh. Don’t know if that worked. When I made water start boiling it was pretty easy to tell, but this spell doesn’t really have a visual component… Barron’s magic always makes a popping noise. I don’t know what mine does when it works.”

“I think… for a second your eyes turned yellow? Maybe I just imagined it.”

“I think I saw that too.” Ray says.

You shrug. “Well, I guess that’ll have to be confirmation enough. Let’s wake up Barron.”

Ray shakes Barron awake as gently as its possible to shake someone awake.

“How are you feeling?” They ask.

“I wish you’d stop waking me up.” It grumbles. You feel kind of bad about annoying it, but hey, that’s the first full sentence they’ve said all day.

“Diya made some soup. Liam cast a healing spell on it. Can you eat some?”

It sighs. “Yeah, sure.”

“Don’t eat too quickly. And drink plenty of water.”

Barron grumbles something under its breath that you can’t hear.

“You can go straight back to sleep after.”

Barron starts on the soup, taking a drink of water every couple of bites. The rest of you also eat. It’s chicken noodle soup, which you really like. Normally you chat more during meals, but right now Barron doesn’t seem to want to talk.

Barron eats about half the bowl of soup before setting it down and closing its eyes. Ray glances at you and Diya, then leans in close and whispers something to Barron.

It rolls its eyes. “Yeah, that’s fair.” It starts slowly getting out of bed. “I’m going to go to the bathroom before I pass out again.”

—

Barron also ends up taking a long bath before going back to bed, and reports that it feels much better. You can’t be positive it was the spell, since its condition was improving before that, but you decide to take credit for it anyway.

Ray feels comfortable enough to not constantly watch it breathe, but doesn’t want to leave it alone, so the three of you quietly play card games on the bedroom floor while it sleeps.

By the next day Barron seems completely better, but Ray makes it stay home anyway. They get it to admit that it had been feeling sick for a while before it got this bad and just ignored it, and all three of you lightly scold it. Mostly stuff like “you wouldn’t want any of us to hide if we were sick” and “you really scared me” and “we can’t exactly call an ambulance out here and we don’t have a fucking car, I would’ve had to drag you through the fucking woods to the nearest hospital if things got any worse. And you scared Ray!”

It apologizes for hiding feeling sick and for ‘being grumpy’ while sick. It apologizes in a fairly roundabout way to avoid saying ‘I’m sorry’ and upsetting Ray, but you get the idea.

Barron and Diya spend a long time talking about how to make sure that if something does put it out of commission you all still have a non-teleportation way to get to the nearest town. Eventually they settle on Barron getting someone it trusts from work to agree to come and help if any of you message them on the computer.

Within a few days, everything is back to normal. A joyous, wonderful normal.

You feel like you’ve won. Against Jane, against your own brain, against everything that was keeping you down. Now all that’s left to do is help your other friends win too.

A/N: Let me know if I should tag anything else!

Tag list: @eatyourdamnpears @whump-in-the-closet @scp-1296 @fuzzybucketz

#whump #whump writing #whumpblr #creepy whumper #intimate whumper #multiple whumpees #nonhuman whumper #pet whump #whumpee #whumper #caretaker #drug abuse mention tw #emeto tw #2nd person pov #jane’s pets

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