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How could he have known if there was anything abnormal?
All the dishes were made meticulously with care, a rat could have gone in and contaminated the food, foolish. Pierrot could eat one whenever he pleased and nothing about him would change. Not a cell from his autonomy.
Lying like a dead fish, exasperated, bloated like a young teen girl going through her first punishment of dumping pregnancy. The scrutiny pounding his brain made the absence of activity a loss for coping with the nausea growing in his guts. Breathing was the one thing keeping him together.
His silhouette was another messy mound of fabric, long replaced by clothes meant for breathing in hotter weather, tight skin fitting. Yet still, there's a whine beckoning to throw away everything from under blankets. No clothes at all would've been a hundred times better. Would’ve made his lungs work a whole lot less.
Breaking the beads of sweat, dampening the scalp wetly, running claws through the grey left a faint shine. A different universe would have replaced his horns for something simpler, a head band he’d suggest—but no, pressure at all is a force of touch epilepsy.
During the entirety of yesterday, outside from the tiny trips to the nearest disposable garbage bin, attempting (and failing) to dispose of the litter caked in his meaty bag of bile for the thirtieth time tonight. Pierrot’s laziness had flourished ten fold, and he couldn't perform that night in the midst of newfound obsessions of trying to sleep away these issues. Lifting one pinky is enough to force mewls so guttural it actually gave his gag reflexes a variable of probability.
Nettled bed ridden by a cause left to swell in his digestive track. Many hours on the clock and not once had his body risen for a reason differing from the misuse of hibernation. If Pierrot hadn’t been so lazy the circus’s Apothecary would have concluded a diagnosis already. Better yet, directions to actually fixing the ugly aspirated look on his face.
Leaving in itself became an annoyance. Visiting cold pavement kept him second guessing; was it contagious? In what world— what point would it make to potentially fester his sickness to others? Would you die from this? He feels like you might.
Was it food borne? How should he know a damn thing? Stories don't equate to getting trained for proper food handling. He wished the fools paid closer attention to meal prep.. or maybe it wasn’t the snacks, maybe they were infected?
Maybe they put poisoning in the meat when they weren't looking— not watching where their grubby hands swept? or does possessing fools mask their symptoms? What a joke. And for someone to tell him what he has? Just one person? He'd rather not get his hair tangled.
But Pierrot will get up.
leave his bouquet of comfort all neat and nicely dressed for a completely different reason.
—
Interior lights in fridges had no respect for him. Recent models had bulbs which lit too whitely. What kind of fridge doesn't have white light? Which had none at all?
There's been a bottle of cranberry juice sitting to the side by saran-wrapped leftovers. Its cap left unbothered at the ready.
The back of his throat had been dry since, if a piece of what belonged in your fridge went missing, would you notice? Would it be alright?
Quiet like the many nights before, still the same as lying in his bundle of blankets.
Again his belly swelled. Twisted.
Worse than empty gags— no little pressure to his body was enough to calm it. Pierrot felt like a pitcher, his throat etching the thought of spilling with the room inside fit to cradle organs had grown smaller, contracting, caving in.
“...” Tightened on the inside.
“I can’t hear you properly if there's a hand covering your face.”
Hadn't thought twice about being caught in your residence. It hadn't came to mind he’d be the one voicing out anything either. Begging to say, couldn't advocate for his senses but if you heard it, maybe he has.
He's being wrangled.
An open frown born from tragedy with beady bug yellow eyes meant for a corpse, he acts as if he’s never lived a life in his body. Everything had too much weight to it and optimizing how he moved was like trying to learn how to use stilts. He's better off hugging his hip to the sink instead of being counterintuitive with wonky hand placements.
His fingers intertwined with yours, holding seconds too short and at the beginning, all the soft words he used to swoon you were sucked so dry of its contents that he mentally ends up working away around every syllable until it returns to its single-word definition.
It's adorable. Adorable how. Little your hands were. Little like the rest of you. You were so tiny, his hands were in yours and it was a crime of physical assault.
Swallowed spit so harshly, drops might have leaked into his windpipe, from how he breathes there's not any frothing. nothing at all. It wasn't choking but had to clear his throat in case. “The garbage, dear I-..”
“—fffeel… Horrible.” His throat stretches, “Honey. I think the bathroom sounds better for you.”
Nothing else besides a low hum. You walked him like those old pull toys, and he tracked the string with so little awareness he really could be lacking a brain.
He goes to sit by the ceramic white seat, chime bells laughing at his fullness.
Another unpleasant swirl. Mask thrown away like a cheap toy, discarded with a hardy plastic drag when it met the tile floor. The dirt crumbs probably chipped a few lines of makeup. Replaced by a face perverted of any previous softness for a black burden, Pierrot would rather die attempting to remain ambiguous than to try following an image of the contortions mirroring what assumptions you had on him.
The high look on his face in the toilet's water couldn't insult him more. Unsurprising. He did not have the energy to stress it, just how could he? The mirror too would have gone along with it—
His body lurched, jaw popping, throat throttling. A spine so curled its like fish skin being torched at the feeling of a throbbing midsection. Loudly his throat squirted chemical mush of chewed junk made complicated by the wrongful context of orange. A pungent waste worse than any fungal poison sneaking in its weird spindly arms into organics.
He sounds monstrous. Visceral, disgusting.
Yet you combed away the hair free from his face. Trenched in oil, withdrawing your nails with a glossy finish.
The bile could be smelled from his taste buds alone, it didn't matter if he wanted to breath from his nasial cavities because it burned either way. He puked and it felt like HE was the one who got manipulated coming here.
The guilt he had for thinking of you while his throat was lined by films of boiling belly juice, genuinely in the nicest way possible; made this whole thing a chagrin. He should have picked the safer option to stay home— better off making a mess on the floor in his tent because at least the freedom wouldn’t be fist-strangled by any likes of bystanders.
About a whole cup fell in, another moved at a sour impulse in sheer spite for the rancid smell, repeatedly it kept him hurling until not a wheeze of air could wake him from any static maladaptive daydream.
He's the one who broke in and now he's making it your problem to swaddle him at three in the morning. He's going to be bullied by Harlequin for this.
No, no, no. He can take the banter but that green snot will be jealous instead. Better or for worse.
Several great suggestions for a special face reveal were already planned at a later time but never was it remotely close to attempting to lodge out his intestines in front of you.
Soft hands nearing his nape, withdrawing his mindset for something less intense, allowing a little break to allow oxygen to flow. Normally he'd croon, jitter from feeling tickled but he could not bring himself to be receptive.
And his face, oh that poor face. A frown from him was like watching a kitten cry.
This was manipulative too. “M’sorry,” Stop it.
His head turns but not to the person at the doorway. Took everything out of him to push away what felt to be your thigh. “h’need space— please..” Shut up.
“That's alright, I need to grab a few things anyway. Hang in there for me.” what do you think about having the world's whiniest demon quarrel in your bathroom? Watching you step afoot outside, the light’s pollution here is horrible. every time he attempts to read an object in the other room, all he's met with is black and the glow fluffing up textures of the floor.
“The light on your way out, it's bothersome.” His urgent plea is so uncalled for but had not been unanswered, ushered by scuffling and a tiny “sorry,” Pierrot had devolved into another black splotch inside your bathroom.
and It's not to say the shift was subtle. It was instantaneous, laced with a self numbing agent. it was Relieving. it was Pleasuring. He's here but so over there and elsewhere— any word sounding remotely nurturing makes Pierrot fold.
“Can you gargle this for me?” Yes.
Warm salt water. Bubbly.
“You need fluids in your system.” I do.
Cold cranberry, unsweetened apple sauce. Gross.
“You can't sleep there, Pumpkin.” Say it again, please.
It's so warm here. You feel so nice.
“Do you want to put your mask back on..?” Not now.
You are so kind.
“The trash can is right beside the coffee table, okay?” I want you near.
Thank you.
He mumbled through his headache. Another string of foreign tongues.
Sitting upright against your bed’s headboard. With the talon of his thumb he traces the creases of your palm.
It wouldn't be a surprise if you found him passed out asleep on the spot.
because when you looked up from your novel he's already out cold.