Madeleine Grows a Pair

19 - Trust Me, You Need The Sleep; Part 2

CW for gore and vomiting (I love writing this stuff, y'all)

Man, this one brought me back to when I wrote Chapter 1 (hence the name), and I really wanted to outdo myself so I pulled out all of my stockpiled similes and metaphors. And! If you're a big hurt/comfort fan like me, there's quite a bit of it moving forward :D 

Madeleine could feel the spines of anxiety stab into his throat with every panicked breath that left his lungs. His hands shook against the rough bark of the tree he leaned against, not even sure it was still there, or that he was clinging onto it at all.

Instead, his mind was filled with images of jam pooling at his hands, soaking his gloves and splattering across the walls of his home like a decorative piece of modern art.

He was overcome by the memory of the same sickening feeling of feathers slipping out of him like silky smooth strips of fabric, hundreds of tongues licking deep red trails of jam across his dough; pieces of his hair, terribly damp and matted, ripped off by clammy hands with nothing else to hold onto; the sound of himself being ripped open from the inside, crumbs dropping to the ground.

Madeleine heaved another shallow breath. Each pin on his back throbbed like a sharp burn, unable to leave the forefront of his mind as the world helplessly spiraled around him.

He blinked harshly, trying to find some semblance of composure inside him despite the mind-numbing pain and panic. He tried to speak, but all that left him was a throaty gag. Then he tried to scream and his mouth filled with the taste of bile as his body lurched forward. He could feel fluid surge against the back of his throat, spilling out of him loudly while he retched. His eyes stung and his legs shook under him, hardly able to support his weight. The sickening taste lingered after he purged himself, but he sucked in air like he'd been drowning.

His mind fought between the horrors of reliving an unspeakable agony and screaming at himself to stop. He needed to calm down. He was too absorbed in his memory. He was too overwhelmed by the all-too-real sensations crashing over him again. He was going to die.

Madeleine retched again, his entire body burning from exertion. The acidic taste, smell, everything mixed in a cocktail of gut-churning nightmares. It all slopped to the ground with a sickening splash. Part of it still clung to his face, trickling down his chin.

He was going to die. He never got to protect the kingdom from danger. He never got to send a recent letter to his family. He never got to ask Espresso if he wanted to be friends.

What felt like needles stretched his dough thin as a thread, and he could feel himself ready to snap. Each torturous second ticked by like a lifetime, and every time Madeleine felt like the scorching pain finally reached its peak, the sensations doubled again.

One moment, he was young and struggling with any form of combat. In the next, he was training hard with calluses on his hands, his magic-imbued sword slicing sunlit beams through the air. He was graduating, shield proudly pointed in the sky. He was on missions, quests, and expeditions. He lived.

His head pounded and he could feel his sense of reality slipping with each memory that he recalled becoming less and less coherent. The faces and names all blended together, no cookie different from the next as they all chanted his name. Their voices were so distorted that he couldn't tell their screams apart from his own.

Madeleine felt his dough pulse, strain, and tear as a feather ripped out of him.

Then, each other pin consequently split free without order, fracturing short scars across his back. Feathers bloomed from his body like flower petals sharp as lion's teeth, and with each puncture, jam beaded his plumage like morning dew. They bubbled out of him, popping like blisters and contorting himself into the perfect image of what a cookie shouldn't look like. Stop.

Madeleine pleaded for it to stop. He would do anything. He would endure any other pain.

His dough rippled with every feather that burst free, spasming at the unavoidable sharp stabs. He flailed, unable to control the way in which his body seized.

His mind blanked. He could only feel the overwhelming agony that consumed him.

He was empty and his back was full of feathers.

...and then he woke up.

–and he woke up confused. His mind felt scrambled and hazy. He squinted his eyes and made out the faint wisps of grass dancing in the wind. They tickled his face.

He was outside.

Before he could process anything else, he stood up. His head pounded and his back tingled. He leaned against some tree for support. It was smooth.

He turned his gaze to the tree and he recoiled slightly. Bark was fiendishly ripped off the side, leaving the pale wood underneath.

One of his hands was wet. He shifted, looking at the tainted glove that clothed it. It was completely saturated with his own vomit.

Then, all at once, it hit him again. All of the memories started backtracking, filling in all of the gaps. The vomit was him, the tree was his doing, and there was jam staining the grass blades below. Also his.

He could feel his back itch with feathers.

It happened again.

...but this time it was different.

Madeleine audibly gasped when he remembered he wasn't alone. He almost turned around too fast for his body to keep up, immediately locking eyes with Strawberry Crepe. As it turns out, he wasn't passed out for too long.

They looked at him with equal parts disgust and discomfort, eyes wide.

Madeleine couldn't describe the vivid wave of emotion that overtook him. He felt horrible. Nobody should see that, hear that, or experience anything about that.

They seemed speechless until they finally blinked, looking like they were trying to process what just happened.

"Holy shit," they said.

Holy shit was an understatement. Madeleine felt thoroughly wrung out. His throat ached from screaming and his legs could barely support him. His back felt like one big throbbing mess, unable to distinguish between the hundreds of lacerations splitting his dough open.

He realized it would probably be a good idea to get some form of medical treatment, so he took a step forward, let go of the tree, and promptly fell face-first into the ground.

Scratch that, it would definitely be a good idea before he inevitably passed out again.

With a lot of difficulties– not only trying to hold himself up but also attempting to communicate with Strawberry Crepe of all cookies– he managed to have the strength and communication cards to finagle them into bringing around one of their wafflebots to carry him.

He was being lugged around like a backpack, but that was better than trying to walk it all by himself. His energetic reprise, if he could even call it that, started to wear down. His damp clothes, soaked with jam in the back, were almost soothingly cold like a compress, but uncomfortably sticky. It felt almost like glue binding his feathers against him. He shuddered, though he made no move to fix the discomfort. He was too tired.

He blinked blearily, slowly relaxing his aching limbs and making the wafflebot bob a little as he slumped against it.

It was alright. Strawberry Crepe was alive. He was alive. His body was caked with jam and he hurt everywhere, but he was breathing.

Madeleine couldn't tell if it was relief washing over him, exhaustion, or some combination of both, but he let it lull him into a state of security. His eyes fluttered shut and he hummed softly.

He could worry later.