Demons (A Mumford and Sons fanfic)

Chapter XVI

Chapter XVI

Ben is waiting for the pain to hit him for the entirety of the next day, and he’s beginning to think that maybe he wouldn’t even have a migraine at this point, because it’s never taken a full day and a half to set in before.

He’s helping Marcus to clean up after dinner, drying plates and putting them away as they talk.

“We ought do a run through of some songs; we haven't all played together for almost a week,” Marcus suggests, handing Ben another plate to dry.

“I should be able to play with no problem now.” Ben replies, wiggling his fingers. He’d taken out his stitches on his own a few days ago. It’d hurt like hell, but he didn’t care. The injury is mostly healed, but it would probably scar no matter what. All he knew was that he’d been sick of not being able to play, and the stitches were driving him crazy.

“Ted is feeling better too, so hopefully we can just sit and play tonight.”

“That's good, I-” Ben is stopped mid sentence by a sudden lightning strike of pain through his head. He swallows painfully, setting the plate on the counter so he doesn’t drop it.

“You okay?” Marcus asks quickly, looking over with concern.

Ben squeezes his eyes shut tightly, leaning against the countertop heavily as he tries to get things under control. It feels like all of his nerve endings had caught fire.

Marcus reaches out to him, but Ben jerks himself away from his touch, knowing it would just make things even worse.

Ben can see the hurt in Marcus’ eyes, and then the realization that it’s one of those types of migraines. Ben can barely feel his heart breaking beneath the pain in his head when he sees the look of crushing fear and love that Marcus wears.

“Go lie down,” Marcus says softly, wanting so badly to just pull Ben into his arms and hug him. “I’ll sit with you... if that’s okay.”

Ben can’t even think straight, much less walk. He sinks to the floor, struggling to keep from letting out a moan of pure agony.

It could’ve been hours, or minutes, or seconds later when Ben can feel himself being moved. He gasps, spitting out several violent curses. But fuck everything hurts so badly.

Marcus is letting out a stream of apologies even as he carries Ben to their room, setting him on the bed as gently as he can.

Ben grits out another set of curses, squirming uncomfortably on the bed.

Marcus is gone in a flash, off to find Ben’s medicine. And Ben can only lay still, already in so much pain that he’s floating in and out of consciousness. The touch of the sheets hurts, his shirt against his skin hurts, everything just hurts.  

*(*)*

Winston is just stepping up the stairs as he sees Marcus rushing to find something.

“Hey mate what’re you-,”

Marcus shushes him. “Not so loud, okay, Benji is...”

“Oh,” Winston mouths silently. He supposes that now is the time he needs to be more useful than that bag of bricks. “Marcus, calm down.”

Marcus finds the bottle of pills he’d been looking for, but Winnie takes it from him and sets it aside, taking Marcus by the shoulders.

“I’m calm,” Marcus says, though Winnie can hear the rising hysteria in his voice.

“No, you’re not,” Winston says gently. “I’ll go take this to Benji, okay? But you're staying here for a minute till you’ve calmed down.” Marcus takes a deep breath and lets himself fall into a seat.