Have you written anything where Benji had to ride out an illness by himself? 👀
I had wayyyy too much fun writing this.
CW: emeto, implied scat, hurt with no comfort, character living out of a car, abuse mention, blood mention, financial insecurity.
Apprehension clung to Benji as he turned to face his boss guiltily.
“What?” he grit out through clenched teeth. He’d been holding a torque wrench to his forehead, basking in the coolness the metal offered. Without the blissful cold against his skin, he could already feel another hot flash starting to trickle down the back of his neck. He swallowed with unease.
Rick was leaning against the doorframe to his office with crossed arms, looking thoroughly unimpressed with the 20 year old in front of him. He clicked his teeth and looked the boy up and down. Benji squirmed under his watchful eye and met his eyes defiantly when he received no immediate reply to his question.
“What the fuck do you want, Rick?” He snarled, bracing himself against the hood of the car he was ‘working’ on. He had half a mind to regret his lapse in judgment. This is your boss, shut your fucking mouth, dumbass. The other half of his mind was too clouded to consider the potential consequences of his insubordination.
Rick’s face hardened, but his eyes were shining with what Benji could only assume was pity. What a pain in the ass. I’m fine.
“Go home, kid,” his boss ordered. He sounded like he wanted to tear him a new one, but something was holding him back. His gaze was steady as ever, but his lips were pursed in a frown.
Benji scoffed, but didn’t voice his first thought aloud: What fucking home?
“Give me one reason why,” he said instead, knowing full well the reason he was being told to pack up and leave for the day. Every word he spoke scraped his throat painfully, and the wrench in his hand was so heavy it might as well have been made of lead. He readjusted his grip on it when it started to slip from his sweat-slicked palm.
“I already clocked you out,” Rick replied. His voice was patient despite his employee’s disrespect. “I’ve watched you stand in the same spot for the last twenty minutes doing nothing, lookin’ like you’re two seconds from keeling over. You’re of no use to me right now, so go the fuck home.”
Benji swallowed, feeling heat rise to his cheeks. How dare he call Benji useless? Like any of these other fucking losers are much better, he thought vindictively. Anxiety rolled through his stomach. He thought he’d finally found a person that didn’t consider him worthless. Of course that had been too much to ask for.
“You gonna fire me?” He asked. It came out meeker than he would have liked it to, and he wasn’t sure why he asked in the first place. As if he wanted to know the answer to a question like that.
“I—what? No. Maybe I will if you don’t start listening to me when I tell you to head out. I’m serious. Take the rest of the day off and sleep. You look like you need it and you’re dragging down the crew.”
Benji looked Rick up and down, searching for a hint of dishonesty.
Something was really wrong with him. He didn’t know how long he’d been asleep in the backseat, but it was dark out now. The chill in his bones ran too deep to simply be attributed to the cool night air leaking into the car. Despite the icy cold chill solidifying in Benji’s veins, his skin was on fire, sweat gathering in every crease and fold of his body. Gravity finally broke the surface tension of a droplet of liquid that had been forming on his sternum. He shivered as it started to trail down his skin, breaking into separate rivulets where it met the divide between two of his jutting ribs.
The shudder ran the full length of his body and jostled his stomach terribly. Fucking A. Because my luck couldn’t get any fucking worse. His digestive system had been unsettled since yesterday; something he chalked up to his horrendously inconsistent diet of late. But this feeling was clear-cut nausea, and he had a sneaking suspicion his fever had something to do with it.
Benji rolled onto his back and stared up at the mystery stained ceiling of his car. Window-filtered light from streetlamps invaded his eyes; he squeezed them shut in response to the ice pick it drove through his brain.
This isn’t so bad, he told himself in a last-ditch effort to convince himself things could be worse. I’d rather be here than back in that fucking prison. Benji didn’t think of the stony jail cells he’d spent nights in when he thought of prison. He thought of a tall black iron gate and a modern, boxy house far too big for anyone to justify owning, filled to the brim with judgmental stares and a perpetually wound up fist. Anything was better than that, right?
An acidic burp gurgled up his chest and he rolled onto his side with a hand on his abdomen, swallowing hard against the burn the gas brought to his throat and sinuses. Hot lava licked at the back of his throat, and he gulped back the pungent taste of vomit that exploded across his tongue, dancing on every tastebud with a different flavor of awful.
“Oh, fuck—” he choked on his words as his belly rolled under his palm. It let out an obnoxious gurgle; a harbinger of things soon to come. Another belch crawled out of his mouth, deep and wet. It trailed off with a chunky noise, and Benji didn’t even realize he was about to retch until his body was already locked up in the midst of it.
He shot out a hand, blindly reaching for the door handle. He fumbled to unlock it and wrenched it open as a gag barreled up his throat. The cold air hitting his face stung his eyes and seeped into his skull like a brain freeze. He gripped the edge of the seat and dragged himself over the edge as his body lurched forwards. It was just in time too, for this one was productive.
A spicy trickle of vomit sprayed from his lips, and he moaned against the cramp it left building in the pit of his belly. His shoulders hitched and he belched, pulling himself further over the edge, bracing one hand on the open car door. His next deep gag sent a slurry of orange vomit splattering across the pavement, the first real wave. The taste of half-digested three day old pizza repeated on him and only served to make him puke again.
Benji could feel his sweaty hand slipping from the car door and he tried in vain to sit up. Even if his aching muscles and leaden bones had wanted to cooperate, his stomach was too busy purging itself to grant him the opportunity. His back arched and his shoulders gathered by his ears as he choked on a gulping retch, coughing up everything inside him onto the black asphalt. The glistening puddle of vomit below him seemed to mock him. How much money did it take to eat all this?It seemed to jab at him, you can’t even hold on to this much? Pathetic.
How…how much? Being poor was so expensive, it hurt him to think about how much the vomit on the ground had once been worth. Ten dollars was more than he could afford to just literally cough up. A dry sob chock full of frustration ripped from his chest and he dipped his head towards the ground. You wasted it. Spoiled brat. Ungrateful piece of shit.
It seemed no matter how long he spent away from his parent’s unending criticisms, Benji could never truly escape. A lifetime of echoed sentiments such as these had instilled a similar voice in his head. Despite being of his very own making and not external, the effects it left felt nearly just as real.
Tears of exertion trailed down his cheeks, joining forces with his sweat once the droplets reached his neck. He gagged drily and burped forcefully, bringing up a few sticky strings of stomach acid. A dry heave gripped him so strongly he had to white-knuckle his grip on the car and seat to avoid throwing himself towards the ground. The muscles in his throat strained against the force, and the pressure pulled at the back of his eyeballs until he saw black at the edges of his vision. Shit.
His ears felt stuffed full of cotton, throwing off the balance in his inner ear. He coughed relentlessly, trying to clear his throat of remnants of sick. A thick, sticky glob of mucus worked its way out of his mouth, but he wasn’t even sure if it had come from his lungs or his stomach lining. Every muscle screamed at him to stop moving, but he couldn’t stop gagging.
Water, he thought. I need…water.
He slowly pushed himself back to sit up and clutched his reeling head for a second.
Dimly illuminated by the streetlamps, Benji surveyed the floor of his car for a water bottle. If he had any, it would definitely be here. His eyes frantically flitted back and forth as each sweeping scan of the floor failed to find anything.
Fuck! He slammed his fist against the headrest of the passenger seat, then pulled his fist back and gave it a proper punch. The hard plastic hurt more than he was expecting it to. It felt good.
Benji wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting from a junkyard car worth less than a grand that hardly turned on, but it somehow shocked him when the headrest snapped off and hit the dashboard.
“Damn it!” He screeched, clapping a hand to his mouth when the exertion of yelling made a heave bubble up his throat. A foamy line of bile splashed across his fingers, and he curled into himself with a sharp gasp as one of his knuckles seemed to light on fire. What the fuck? He unfurled himself to look at it. Oh. Shit. He must have cut his knuckle on the plastic when it had snapped, and he’d just unleashed a stream of stomach acid directly into the open, slowly bleeding wound. Just my fucking luck.
He really needed water. When was the last time he’d had anything to drink, anyways? Benji couldn’t even remember. He was about ready to bite the bullet and call Gunner. He didn’t want the help, let alone need it. But it would be nice to have some free water.
What, and let them see you like this? No fucking thanks.
There was a gas station across the street, if he could just—
A horrible gurgle from Benji’s stomach made the organ sink to the floor, and in an instant he became distinctly aware of a growing feeling of fullness in his bowels. An urgent feeling.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” he croaked miserably. He fished around in his pocket for his car keys to make sure he wouldn’t lock himself out of the car, because there was no way he could breathe through this. He knew the gas station had a bathroom; he got most of his meals from that store. He just had to make it a few hundred steps.
It was fine. He could do it, no problem. Benji dragged himself back towards the still open door and hardly remembered to sidestep his puddle of vomit while slowly rising to his feet. His intestines rumbled and shifted inside him. Just—hold on.
The pain was everywhere. His guts, his throat, his sinuses, every muscle and every bone, his head, his hand. Benji couldn’t remember the last time his body had betrayed him so badly. Hangovers didn’t compare to this, not by a long shot.
By some miracle though, he made it the gas station. He stumbled through the convenience store doors clutching his stomach. He probably looked a sight, sweating like a pig and reeking of vomit with a dirty, bleeding hand. The bright LED lights drilled into his skull, and he blinked hard to ground himself as much as he could.
The cashier looked up at him flatly, but recognition flashed through their eyes. Benji could only assume he was one of their least favorite regulars. He trudged to the counter and braced himself against it, meeting the guy’s bored stare with his own glower.
“Bathroom key,” he said gruffly, digging his palm further into his churning belly. He was so close, just a few more seconds—
“Paying customers, man,” the guy drawled, sounding stoned. “I don’t wanna clean up your puke either.”
So I really smell that bad, huh?
Benji gripped the edge of the counter with white knuckles and panted. That wasn’t exactly what he was in for, but now that the guy mentioned it…yeah, he could work with this.
He thanked God for the ability to burp on command and forced up a tight, sick-sounding belch into his fist. He looked up at the guy with false panic and held out a hand. “I’m gonna puke on your floor right now,” he said urgently, biting back a hint of a smirk when the cashier scrambled to toss him the key. The guy looked like he was closer to shitting his pants than Benji was.
The puking part had been an act; the mad dash he made to the bathroom definitely wasn’t.
Benji must have been stuck in there for half an hour before his body declared itself completely empty. He had nothing left to give. He’d even stopped sweating now despite the fact his skin was still burning to the touch.
He cleaned up his cut and purchased a water bottle and saltine crackers.
He echoed his displeasure aloud as he scrounged up a five dollar bill from his pocket. All that for a fucking bottle of water and crackers. If he hadn’t gone and gotten sick, he wouldn’t be wasting this money.
The cashier looked at him as he handed him the measly change.
“Feel better, man,” he said earnestly.
…What? Benji drew himself up taller and glared back as he made his way out of the store on shaky legs. As if he needed encouragements from a deadbeat loser like that. Says the guy who lives in his fucking car. He shook away the thought and walked just out of sight of the doors before planting himself down on the curb. He just—he needed a second before he could walk back.
He started slowly on the water. As much as he wanted to chug it, he wanted to make the $1.79 last as long as possible. He wasn’t that down on his luck, but he’d still rather not waste it like he had his few previous meals.
His stomach gurgled harshly at the arrival of the saltine crackers, and Benji dug his forehead into his knees with a bubbly burp. Come ON, he pleaded with his body. Keep it down, keep it down, keep it down—
His jaw jerked and he rapidly spread his legs out, ducking his head between his knees and belching up a wave of just swallowed crackers and water effortlessly. It fell heavily to the pavement and pale, watery chunks of mushy cracker soaked into the cuffs of his jeans where the vomit splashed back.
This was too much. The mere effort of opening his mouth to puke was suddenly the hardest thing Benji had ever been tasked to do. He couldn’t. More puke filled his cheeks and his lips hardly parted when it spilled out of him. He bent further forwards and grabbed his knees to keep himself from being sick down his own front. He was starting to think he might pass out, and out in the open around these parts was not the place for it to happen.
His stomach protested loudly as he stood up, and a dizzying wave of heat spread through his body like wildfire. He stumbled on the first step and vomited the last of the water and crackers, squeezing the half-empty water bottle so hard that his hand crushed the flimsy plastic. He spit a leftover chunk to the ground and wiped his vomit-coated lips with the hem of his shirt. He’d—he’d take care of it later. Some of the sticky liquid had dribbled down his chin, soaking into his overgrown stubble in a way that was horrifically uncomfortable. This was why he fucking hated facial hair. Ugh. He scrubbed his chin with a clean part of his shirt, but it still felt damp to the touch.
He managed to make it back to the car, but not without a few breaks to bend over and dry heave.
He could handle this. It wasn’t fine, but…he could handle it. As he dragged himself into the backseat of his car, Benji curled around his churning belly and let out a near imperceptible whimper.
