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angstyaches · 11 months

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Payton Gets Spiked

Loosely inspired by reading this post.

If you want more of an introduction to Dani, read this first.

CW: gender stuff, dysphoria, misgendering, brief mention of gendered bathroom dilemma, intense social anxiety, people with varying shitty opinions, spiking with alcohol, references to past binge drinking/alcohol dependency, low self esteem, emeto, crying, panicking, insecure/awkward caretaker.

Word Count: almost 8,000 - oops. If you finish this to the end, you're a real one.

___

“Alright, Dani! I’m just heading out back... to...”

It was fifteen minutes after the coffee shop had closed, night had settled in on the streets outside, and Payton had just finished closing the till. It should have been the most glorious moment of their day, the moment just before their time became their own again and they could bask in the knowledge that they’d done a great day’s work, but that reward was stolen by the swooping sensation in their stomach. Their day wasn’t over just yet.

They’d been in the middle of calling out to Dani, who had been assigned the closing shift alongside them, to tell her that they were heading out back to get changed.

But they stopped themself.

Dani was engrossed with sweeping the floors to the beat of whatever she was listening to on her headphones. Payton decided to leave her to it. She didn’t like being interrupted in the middle of a task, as Payton had quickly learned during her first few weeks here.

And besides, it wasn’t as though Payton was in a hurry to get to the pub, where, if the group chat was anything to go by, the others had already convened. The longer Payton could delay being wedged into a dimly-lit nook surrounded by the smell of alcohol and cigarette smoke from the 80s, the better.

Guilt gnawed at them now, along with the nerves. They shouldn’t be dreading Jake’s birthday; they liked Jake. He deserved to have people coming to his birthday drinks who were excited to be there.

Payton went out back and stood in front of their locker.

They closed their eyes, allowing their mind to wind down after their shift. They stretched their arms out to the side and breathed in, slowly and deeply letting their lungs press out against their ribs. They didn’t feel particularly compressed, but they’d gotten into the habit of doing breathing exercises regularly while binding – in no small part to keep Autumn from worrying about them.

They undid their apron and pulled their polo shirt off over their head. They opened up their locker to grab the cropped purple hoodie they’d brought to change into for the evening. Payton didn’t usually partake in the loungewear look unless they were grocery shopping or travelling or chilling out at home, but Jake had requested that nobody ‘dress up nice’ tonight.

Before picking up the hoodie, Payton glanced down at themself, their sides bare above their waistband. Now that they thought about it, they wished they had worn dungarees instead of cargo pants today. Not for any reason they could put their finger on, which was frustrating. They just had the vague, hollow feeling in the pit of their stomach that they would have felt fifty times better about themself if they’d been wearing dungarees.

They sucked in another deep breath, this time to try to soothe the flare of anxiety.

Their phone screen lit up with a message, and they snatched it up from the shelf in their locker.

A: Finished work yet? X

Payton grinned. The simplest check-ins from Autumn always made their heart flutter.

P: Finished!!! x

A: You've got someone to walk over to the bar with you, right? X

P: Yep, Dani and I are sticking together, don’t worry! <3 x

A: Awesome! Have fun tonight, baby x

Payton kind of wished they’d insisted that Autumn come along tonight, but as far as they knew, nobody else was bringing their partner, so they would have felt a little awkward making themself the exception. Besides, it was good for Payton to get out there and be independent every so often.

And it made Autumn worry less.

P: I will x

A: Message me when you get home x

They glanced over their shoulder as Dani came into the changing room.

She didn’t have her headphones on anymore, but she was humming to herself as she walked. Not in a gleeful kind of way; she hummed intensely, as though her sanity depended on whether or not she hit each individual note. She went straight over to her locker, disappearing from Payton’s line of sight, but Payton didn’t hear her open it.

They put their phone in their pocket and reached into their locker for their hoodie.

“Does that hurt?”

Payton looked over their shoulder again – Dani was looking at them – and then down at their torso. They were still standing there in just their black cargo pants and their binder. It hadn’t really occurred to them that they were topless, but they supposed they were.

“Sorry,” Dani said bluntly, mistaking their embarrassment for offence. “Was that rude?”

“It’s fine,” Payton smiled. “And no, as long as I don’t wear it for too long, it doesn’t hurt.”

Dani blinked. For a second, Payton considered that she might have been working up to asking a follow-up question.

“Okay,” she said instead, turning to open her locker.

The two of them finished getting ready without talking any more. Dani didn’t actually change her clothes; she just swapped her apron for a baggy grey zip-up hoodie that she didn’t zip up. She had already been wearing dark blue jeans and a graphic tee, even though the dress code for staff members was black trousers and block-coloured tops. Dani would never have paraded that outfit in front of Annie or Jake; she must have kept in mind, while getting dressed that morning, that Payton was supervising today.

They weren’t sure how this realisation made them feel. Was it a sign of disrespect that she only challenged the rules on their watch? Or was a good thing that she felt comfortable being herself with them?

Anxiety spiked in Payton’s stomach again. The last thing they wanted was for the newer staff members to dread the sight of them, or watch how they acted around them, but it was also in their nature to be a pushover, and they hated to think they were falling into old habits.

They smiled as they gestured for Dani to step out of the shop before them. Not because they were being a pushover, but so that they could set the alarm, lock up, and then check twice to make sure that the door was actually locked.

It soothed them a little as they stood outside and peered through the glass into the dark shop, sure in the knowledge that nothing was left out of place. Annie was on the opening shift tomorrow, and Payton would rather not get any passive aggressive text messages about crumbs on the floor or lights left on before 9am.

They turned away from the shop. Dani was rocking back and forth with the balls of her feet on the edge of the path as she waited for them.

Payton’s stomach dropped all over again as they observed her in the streetlight. Had the two of them ever even interacted outside of the shop before?

Despite their promise to Autumn, Payton realised they had kind of hoped that Dani would start walking by herself while they locked up, getting enough of a head start so that they wouldn’t have to make conversation. They liked Dani as a person but they didn’t have a friendly banter like Payton did with Paul, and Dani didn’t talk the ear off anyone who would listen like Rachel did.

“You’re opening with Annie tomorrow, right?” Payton asked as they both started walking. They immediately cringed. Defaulting to talking about work had to have been the laziest, most cowardly option.

“Yeah,” Dani said. Her tone might have indicated that she’d rather have all of her wisdom teeth pulled at once. It also might have indicated that opening the shop with Annie was her favourite activity of all time. Payton had no idea which was closer to the truth.

“I... like your t-shirt, by the way.” It’d taken them several glances throughout the day, since the print was faded in parts, but they’d deduced that it was from some horror movie or another.

“It’s vintage.”

“Oh, really?” Payton thought that maybe they’d be treated to the story of how it’d come to be in her possession.

Dani tugged at the headphones that were still sitting around her neck. “I’m putting my headphones back on. For the traffic noise.”

“Oh, okay,” Payton smiled. Since they’d come outside, only about six cars had passed them by, but they weren’t about to point that out. If Dani didn’t want to talk, that was fine. They were still walking together. That was one promise to Autumn locked in.

Now for the second one, which filled them with a little more dread; to have a fun night.

___

The group was still lingering by the bar when Payton and Dani arrived.

The store owner and manager, Annie, stood with one arm across her chest and what looked like a gin and tonic in her hand. She was chatting – probably about one of her husband’s recent business ventures – to Jake, whose cheeks were bright red and whose pint of cider had almost run out.

Rachel was perched on a bar stool, swinging herself gently from side to side as she nursed a Coke-based drink. Paul seemed to be in the middle of telling her a story; judging by the bittersweet smile that played on his lips, and the way Rachel seemed to be completely tuning him out, Payton guessed Paul was talking about Mei, the girl who’d recently broken up with him.

I know way too much about these people, Payton thought with a wry smile to themself.

It was Paul who spotted them first, which brought his story to a halt.

“Hey, boss!” he cheered, shuffling towards Payton and scooping them into a quick but tight hug. They forced a smile despite their surprise, hugging him back. They’d last seen him at the coffee shop yesterday, but he was acting as though it’d been months.

“Welcome! And Dani!” Paul grinned at her as she stood to Payton’s left. “Oh – don’t worry, I’m not going to try to hug you. Learned my lesson on that one. Come on, come over here! What are you guys drinking?”

“I’ve got it, Paul, don’t worry,” Payton assured him. He was drunk enough that he’d probably buy a round for everyone and forget he’d done it, which Payton would rather save him from. They reckoned they should buy Jake’s next drink, seeing as it was his birthday. And Dani seemed tense – either from the walk outside, or from the Paul hug she'd been temporarily threatened by – so they decided to offer to get her first one, too.

“Dani?” Payton tilted their head when Dani didn’t look at them; she still had her headphones on. They waved their hand gently to get her attention.

She dragged her gaze around to look at them, and they gestured bringing a glass to their mouth. Drink?

“Bulmers,” she announced loudly.

Payton nodded and turned, waving to get Jake’s attention this time. He beamed when he saw them, and Payton pointed towards the near-empty glass in his hand.

“Bulmers!” he called over the din, winking his thanks behind his thick-rimmed glasses.

Payton smiled at the bartender and ordered the two pints of Bulmers, plus a Coke for themself. The others started making their way towards a booth. Dani stayed near the bar, not talking to or looking directly at Payton. She was making them think of an anxious stray cat who didn’t trust any of the humans present, but had decided that Payton was the least untrustworthy of them all.

Guilt churned their stomach at that silly assumption. She was clearly just waiting politely for her drink, so Payton wouldn’t be left with three glasses to carry.

She thanked them for her drink as it came out. Payton smiled at her and took their own glass, plus Jake’s pint, over to the table.

Annie and Jake had slid into the booth first, on opposite sides of the table, followed by Paul on Jake’s side and Rachel on Annie’s side. Payton would have preferred – just slightly – to sit beside Paul rather than Rachel, but Dani had already slid into the booth next to Paul by the time they’d decided this.

“Here you go, Jake,” Payton said, handing the Bulmers across the table. They were momentarily relieved to be free of the heavy, sickly smell of it, but as soon as they sat down, they were hit by the equally pungent scent of vodka wafting from Rachel’s glass. First, it made their head swim, and then their stomach lurched. Just the smell of it made them feel like their thought process was being scrambled.

They were seated for a few seconds before realising that all six of them were leaving wet rings on the tabletop.

“Oh! Coasters,” Payton said, relieved for the excuse to get away from the vodka smell for another few seconds. They stood up again.

Rachel squinted up at them, shaking her head. “Genuine question, Payton; do you ever switch out of work mode?”

Payton gave her a smile, wondering how many more they’d have to force before they became relaxed enough for a genuine one. “Yes. Sometimes.”

They started back towards the bar. The smile slid from their face and their stomach took a dive towards the floor as they heard Annie’s voice from behind them.

“Where’s Payton going, Rachel?” she asked.

Except...

She didn’t say Payton’s name, and she didn’t say ‘they’ either.

They pressed a hand to their chest and breathed in slowly through their nose. Misgendering didn’t always get to them like this, but hearing it from someone they spent so much time around felt like a punch to the gut after already enduring so, so many. They tried to force down the throbbing sensation, which was like a scream that was rising to their heart instead of their throat.

They were probably the first trans person Annie had ever met, and they’d always known they’d have to be patient with her. It was either that, or lose their mind, and in this economy, one couldn’t afford to lose their mind at work every other day.

But breaking their chronic people-pleasing habits was hard when this was a constant issue. Correcting people didn’t come naturally to Payton, and on the few occasions where they did correct someone, the weight of the guilt they felt afterwards was almost just as bad.

And guilt wasn’t a compatible companion for self-love.

___

“Oh... getting coasters or something,” Rachel had responded to Annie’s question.

Dani blinked, baffled by what she'd just heard. Had she missed something? Who the hell were they talking about? Payton had just left to get coasters; they had announced that, right before Rachel’s snide remark about how they always seemed to be working. Had Rachel misunderstood Annie’s question, then? Was there some conversation happening that Dani hadn’t –?

Oh.

White noise swelled in Dani’s ears for a couple of seconds. She squeezed one of the beads on her bracelet and focused on keeping her breathing steady.

Say it, she screamed in her head, tugging at her bracelet, They. Where did they go? They went to get coasters. Just freaking say it!

But judging by the murmurs of continued conversations, Dani the moment had passed for her to say anything to fix Annie’s mistake. She found herself equally frustrated with Rachel, who could also have corrected Annie, or at least used Payton’s pronouns in her response.

Through the fog of irritation, Dani became aware of Paul, who was sitting to Dani’s right, handing something to Rachel, who was sitting at the other side of the table. Rachel took whatever it was and whispered harshly in Paul’s direction.

Dani gripped her bracelet harder, resisting the urge to yank her headphones up. She fucking hated the sound of whispers, but she knew if she put her headphones on now, she’d have to deal with eye rolls at best, and verbal lecturing at worst.

A dull clink brought her back into the moment, and she looked up to see Rachel running her finger through a streak of clear liquid that had been spilled on the table in front of her. Rachel put that finger in her mouth – yikes, gross – and grinned as she handed something back to Paul.

A naggin of vodka, Dani realised. In blatant disregard for the no outside food or beverages request that was posted at several points around the pub, Paul had brought shop-bought alcohol into the establishment, and now Rachel was availing of it, too. This night was shaping up to be even more overwhelming than she’d expected.

And they hadn’t even gotten around to singing ‘Happy Birthday’ yet.

___

The bartender looked up from where they had not-so-subtly been checking their phone behind the counter. Payton flashed them a smile of apology and gestured towards the case of paper coasters. They counted out six and wandered back over to the table, sucking in a deep breath before they were once again submerged in the smell of vodka, cider, and the risk of being misgendered.

“Are we going to sing Happy Birthday?” Payton wasn’t sure when Dani had taken off her headphones, but before she’d even taken a sip of her drink, she seemed to have shed her inhibitions. She was speaking now, at least. “Because if we are, you should all know that I am going to have to stick my fingers in my ears.”

Rachel sighed, Paul took a pointed swig of his drink, and Jake half-chuckled as though he was unsure if Dani was joking or not. Payton had the feeling she was not.

Rachel begrudgingly slid a coaster under her drink as Payton passed them around, but not before using it to mop up a long smear of clear liquid from the table. Payton didn’t remember noticing it, but maybe there had been a dribble of water there when they’d sat down.

“And also –” Oh – Dani wasn’t finished apparently. Payton tried to cast her their most sympathetic look, but her eyes were focused on the tabletop, not on any person in particular. “If there’s going to be a billion rounds of for he’s a jolly good fellow afterwards, can you all just please tell me now? I’m not, like, opposed to it or anything, but I would like to know in advance.”

“Oh, god. Can I ask that we… not do any of that?” A nervous grin spread across Jake’s face. “I hate Happy Birthday and all that stuff, honestly. Especially in public places.”

“Ah, come on, it’s a bit of fun,” Rachel muttered, clicking her tongue.

Payton caught Jake’s eye and smiled to reassure him. “How about a toast instead, then, Jake? Just a short one.”

Jake met their gaze and matched their smile. “That, I can endure, P.”

“Oh! Me. Me, I’ll do it. Can I do it, boss?” Paul exclaimed, as though it was Payton’s job to delegate the task. He hoisted his beer into the air, glanced around at the others, and cleared his throat dramatically. “Aheh-hem!”

“Remember, Paul. Short and sweet now, for the love of god,” Jake grinned.

“Happy birthday... to the best senior assistant manager, and, of course, the owner of the best beard in town – Jake. You might be ginger...”

Jake feigned a scoff and put a hand to his hair and beard.

“But we bloody love you, you legend!” Paul waved his glass. “Cheers!”

“Cheers!” everyone agreed.

“Slainte,” Annie tossed in.

After taking a drink from their glass, Payton gasped forcefully, and took another. They were far thirstier than they’d realised, and ending up gulping down half their Coke before making themself stop. They'd had a glass of water at lunchtime today, but barely anything to drink since then. No wonder there was a funny taste in their mouth. Possible dehydration might explain why they felt especially on edge this evening, too.

They grimaced, holding a hand against their sternum and suppressing a burp. That was a lot of carbonation to force down all at once, but they weren’t about to relieve the pressure in front of all of their coworkers.

“Here.” Annie was flapping her fingers in the direction of Jake’s phone, which sat next to his elbow. “Give me your phone, Jake. I’ll get a picture of you, Paul, and the girls.”

Nausea and Coke residue fizzled in the back of Payton’s throat. They parted their lips, hands trembling on either side of their glass as they prepared to correct Annie, but the fear that curdled their stomach also put a clamp on their tongue. What did they even want to her to say? Paul and Payton and the girls? Paul and the others? Just the others?

Anything that didn’t lump them into a group they didn’t belong to would have been nice.

They shivered at the familiar sensation of the moment passing, of another wound officially taking up residence in their body. Autumn would be so disappointed if she could see them right now.

“And Payton.”

Payton’s ears practically pricked up like those of a cartoon dog. They looked across the table to see that Dani was looking vaguely in Annie’s direction, her hands fidgeting with something underneath the table. Her lips were mashed together, her eyebrows tense, and she definitely the one who had just mumbled those words under their breath.

A little bit of the sick feeling in Payton’s stomach dissipated. Annie hadn’t heard, but... just knowing that someone else at the table had clocked the mistake made them feel infinitely less lonely at this table.

Annie stood up, wielding Jake’s phone, and Payton felt a resurgence of queasiness.

“Alright,” Annie declared, “lean in, everyone, lean in. Dani, lean in, please! Thank you. Alright, good…”

In the last few seconds, Payton pulled the clear plastic clip out of their hair, letting their bangs fall loose over one side of their face. They held up a hand in a peace sign to partially obscure their jawline on the other side. They almost retched as they followed Annie’s instructions and leaned in; there was a stronger smell wafting from Rachel’s drink than before, if that was even possible.

Payton could almost imagine they could taste it, it was so thick in the air. God, they really didn’t feel well...

“Say cheese!”

“Cheese!!”

Payton sighed softly in relief when Annie sat back down, satisfied with just the one picture. Payton didn’t hate a lot of things, but they really didn’t like spontaneous photos taken on other peoples’ phones. Jake wasn’t a big social media guy, so maybe that one would never see the light of day anyway.

They took another mouthful of their Coke, hoping to wash away some of the bad taste in their mouth, but it only seemed to make it... worse? They brought the rim of the glass to their nose and sniffed, and then recoiled so fast that they almost fell out of the booth. The glass skidded a few centimetres across the table but, miraculously, didn’t tip over.

Dani jumped in her seat and made the closest thing to eye contact that she’d made with Payton since they’d left work. “What? What? Is it a spider?”

The whole room felt like it was tipping on its side. Payton wasn't just imagining they could taste the alcohol because of the strong smell; they were actually tasting it in their mouth. There was alcohol in their drink, and they had gulped down more than half of it... As they sat there, struggling to wrap their head around how this could have happened, it was inside of them, sloshing in their stomach, swirling into their capillaries, messing with their brain –

Sweat beaded on the back of Payton’s neck.

This wasn’t happening. This couldn’t be happening –

“Payton,” Dani said loudly. “What. Is. Wrong?”

“N-no...” they whimpered, not caring that no didn’t make sense on its own. The only thing they could feel was the feeling of no, and with it came the heady weight of memories that weren’t supposed to be a part of them anymore.

They felt all alone again, like they were being slowly sucked into a pit of darkness.

“Th-they messed up my – m-my drink.” Sharp gasps littered Payton’s speech, and they couldn’t get a good sense of how loudly they were talking. They... couldn’t even feel angry. Not yet. Maybe they never would; messing up drinks was an inevitability for any establishment. Payton had once served full-fat milk to a lady who’d requested skimmed, and by the time they had realised their mistake, she’d already left with her latte. They still had nightmares about her coming back, months later, to complain.

But this was different, right? This was…

Dani wrinkled up her nose and leaned towards Payton’s glass to sniff it.

“I think there – there’s vod... vodka in it... N-no,” Payton said again, the word bursting on their lips like a giant blister. This was how it always used to start. With a ‘no’. No, no, not this, this can’t be real, this isn’t real.

When had it gotten so hot in here?

Dani put her whole hand around Payton’s glass, eyeing the bar. “You want me to go yell at someone?”

“No, no, no, don’t,” Rachel hissed, leaning conspiratorially towards the centre of the table. It seemed that she only wanted Payton, Dani, and Paul to be able to hear her. Her urgency made Payton stiffen. “Will you relax, for Christ’s sake, Dani? Payton, I took a few mouthfuls of your drink and topped it up with Paul’s vodka. I didn’t know you were such a lightweight!”

Payton’s head swam as they looked at Rachel’s face, searching in her green eyes for any indication that she joking. Her face was bronzed and freckled from all the field hockey she played, and they seemed to shift about nauseatingly in front of Payton’s eyes. She... she had to have been joking, right? Nobody would admit to something like that. Besides, they’d been with their drink since they’d bought it; when would she have had the time to –?

Coasters.

Payton had put their drink on the table and then gone back to the bar for the coasters. She must have done it then. Their body stiffened as they remembered the clear liquid spill on the table.

“Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen you drunk, boss,” Paul half-laughed. The fact that Paul was seemingly in on this too, or was in support of it, at least, only piled onto Payton’s horror, but they’d have to process that later.

“Th-that’s because I...” Payton’s voice was trembling. “I-I’m... I’m sober.”

The grin started to slip from Paul’s face, but Rachel didn’t seem to grasp what Payton meant.

She shrugged. “But it’s not like you’re driving home. And you’re off tomorrow, aren’t you? So, what harm?”

“No, I mean I haven’t… I haven’t h-had any alcohol in…” Payton’s lucidity spiked briefly, long enough for them to experience the stab of grief that hit their gut. “About two and... a half years.”

“Oh, on purpose?” Paul asked weakly.

“Yeah.”

Paul half-chuckled, his energy levels dropping noticeably. Next to him, Dani looked like she was witnessing a train crash in slow motion but couldn’t bring herself to move. Payton couldn’t bear to look at Rachel.

“But it’s not, like… that serious or anything, is it?” Paul pressed.

“Is it Alcoholics Anonymous serious?” Dani questioned, as though that were the qualifying factor. “Like in the movies, with the chairs, and the free coffee, and the…?”

She trailed off, gleaning her answer from Payton’s expression.

“It was Rachel’s idea!” Paul complained. “She did it!”

“What’s going on?” Annie demanded suddenly, only tuning into the conversation now that Paul had started raising his voice.

Rachel half-stood up in the booth and pointed at Paul. “You agreed with me, dickhead!”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t know...”

“Neither did I!”

Their voices faded into an echoing clamour. Payton felt so detached from their body that they wondered if they were having an attack of some kind. They’d had barely a few mouthfuls of vodka and Coke. Why did it feel like their stomach was on fire, forcing its way up their throat? Why did their whole body feel like jelly? Back in the day, it had taken so... so much more.

Had they gone so long without alcohol that they’d developed an allergy? Were they dying? After all of their work, were their last thoughts going to be swamped in dread and despair and drunkenness?

They didn’t know if it was wooziness or generalised terror that made their knees buckle as they tried to get out of the booth, but either way, Payton crashed to the floor, just about keeping a shaky grip on the edge of the table above. They weren’t sure where they were trying to go. They couldn’t even remember deciding to get up.

A hollow, desperate sob racked their ribs. Their stomach was lurching like an injured, frantic rabbit in a trap.

No...

Lucidity came in flashes again. Were they really hyperventilating on the floor, in front of their co-workers and their employer? Were they really making a scene at Jake’s birthday party? Were... were those Dani’s stockinged feet, resting on the floor next to her chunky Doc Marten boots?

Payton shook their head. They had to get away from here. That seemed fairly rational, no matter which they looked at it.

They started clambering upright. The sight of Dani reaching out to give them a hand up made them snap out of their panicked daze just slightly. They straightened their back and mumbled something to reassure her they were fine, they were good, they didn’t need any help –

They heard Rachel ask them something, and they ignored her. They ignored her on purpose – it felt terrible, but they couldn’t bring themself to react any other way – and raced for the bathrooms with tears streaming down their face.

___

Dani was only vaguely ashamed of her first thought after watching Payton bolting towards the back of the pub.

If someone at a small party has a breakdown, is that it? Can the party officially be declared ruined? Is it fair game for me to just... slip out? There were enough hours left in the night that she could probably squeeze in a few hours of Overwatch before going to sleep.

She flinched. Voices were being raised at the table again, which only made her want to leave even faster. No one was yelling at her, but her cells reacted as though they were. Her nerves felt like they were being twisted, twisted, twisted, until –

“You agreed with me!” Rachel hissed at Paul, much to Annie’s apparent dismay. “You said it’d be good for her!”

... Snap.

“It’s ‘they’!” A wave of dizziness hit Dani right in the face. Rachel and Paul and Annie and Jake all stared at her, and Dani’s stomach wobbled. Oh, stars. How loudly had she spoken?

Rachel groaned. “What?”

“They.” Dani felt out of breath as she reached for a bead on her bracelet and squeezed it between her fingertips. “Payton’s pronouns are they/them.”

“Payton’s... not even here, Dani,” Paul said softly.

“It doesn’t matter! You can’t call them anything else.”

“Okay, I’m sorry,” Annie interrupted, though she didn’t sound sorry in the least. It was the kind of ‘sorry’ that really meant I have the right to speak and I shall continue to do so, even if I don’t have any idea what I’m speaking about.

Dani hated people who said ‘sorry’ like that, even more than she hated whisperers.

“But ’can’t’?” Annie went on, cocking an eyebrow at Dani. “It’s not very tolerant to go around telling people what they can and can’t say, Danielle.”

Danielle?! White noise clogged Dani’s ears again.

“I swear,” Annie said, shaking her head. “It’s always a morality contest with your generation. It is just –”

“Dani,” Dani grunted. “My name is Dani!”

“Do not speak over me.”

“You spoke over me first!” Dani’s voice turned into a squawk towards the end. Shit, shit, shit. “And I was talking to Rachel before, not to you. Do you even know what she di–?”

“You’re going to have to lower your voice.” Rachel laughed without mirth as she glanced around the pub. It was as if she herself hadn’t just been practically shouting at Paul across the table. “People are starting to look at us now.”

Dani’s head burned. She slammed a hand on the table. “I don’t care.”

Paul put out a hand, as though he was going to put it on her shoulder to calm her down. She flinched, jerking away from him in her seat, and he seemed to think better of it.

“Dani,” Jake said, tilting his head to see her from the other side of Paul. Jake was one of the more reasonable people left at the table, and his round face and thick beard gave him a soothing, teddy bear-like appearance, but Dani still didn’t trust that he wasn’t just talking down to her. Like she was a child having a tantrum. “Let’s talk this out, okay? What did Rachel do?”

“She… she…” Dani stopped pinching her beads and pointed across the table – not at Rachel, but at Annie. What Rachel did was significant, yes, but several things were screeching at Dani from inside her head, and Rachel’s thing wasn’t screeching the loudest right now.

“She said our generation is having a morality contest,” Dani said. “You’re upset about it, Annie, so that must mean... mean that you think you’re losing, and if that’s what you think –” She was getting out of breath. Too many words, too few seconds. “Then – then you must see that I’m being more moral than you, so you know there’s something wrong with what you're saying.”

Annie didn’t say anything in response.

Victory flashed briefly and hotly through Dani’s veins.

So... why did she feel like she was seconds away from crying? She wasn’t a child; she wasn’t about to be reprimanded by a parent or a teacher for speaking her mind. She was an adult. She could make her own choices, and –

Oh, right. She’d just pointed at and then yelled at her boss. She’d probably just thrown away the only day job she’d ever found bearable, as well as the only co-worker she’d ever genuinely liked.

Ah, crabs. Payton. How had it taken her so long so get around to worrying about Payton?

“Oh,” Dani announced, sliding out of the booth. She realised too late that she had taken her boots off, but it didn’t seem dignified to sit down again to put them back on. She looked Rachel square in the eye – for about half a second. Then, she lowered her gaze towards Payton’s glass. “Rachel put alcohol in Payton’s drink without them knowing.”

“You sat there,” Rachel choked out softly, “and said nothing, Dani!” There were tears in her eyes now, her face pale with terror.

Throat tight, hands trembling, and shoeless, Dani got up and went looking for Payton.

___

Payton had thought they’d need to force a finger or two down their throat to start emptying their stomach of the unexpected poison, but it turned out that their tolerance was low enough – or their panic high enough – for their body to begin rejecting it all by itself.

The force of the first heave had their ribs pitching inwards, their belly muscles folding in on themselves. A strangled cry came rolling out of their throat along with a mouthful of frothy vomit, and it took everything in their power not to let the crying continue.

No...

They... they had cried so much back then. They had cursed and screamed and roared like they were trying to invoke some god to come and release them from the pain that they didn’t have the words to describe. No words except no. They had always told themself that they didn’t know why they cried and shouted so much when they were intoxicated, but deep down, they realised that had always been a lie.

It was because they didn’t think it mattered. Whether they were stone-cold sober and coherent, or black-out drunk with vomit and snot dripping down their face, nobody listened to them or took them seriously. At least when they were drunk, they could make noise and act like an ass and convince themself that it was okay, that it was only to be expected, that they were free of the consequences.

All of it a lie.

No.

The tingling in their limbs felt like phantom tentacles reaching up from a dark pit, pulling and sucking them under –

Payton’s belly curdled and they spewed harshly into the toilet. They let out a dry sob that nearly ripped their lungs loose. All those years, all that work, all those miles between their past haunts and their current life... and they were back here. A different pub in a different city, but still the same old them. Hours of therapy; long, honest conversations with Autumn about their past; all those times Autumn had taken their face in her hands, tears in her eyes, and told them she was proud of them.

All of it was washed away in less than fifteen minutes.

Because it was pointless, wasn’t it? The thing they had once drank to escape – the helpless knowledge that nobody was listening to them – was still very much real. It lived inside them, keeping them small, keeping them polite, keeping them trapped as the pathetic, useless teenager who was never good enough...

No...

Annie’s constant criticism of the little things Payton did differently at the shop; the way Dani bent the uniform rules, only during Payton’s shifts; Donnacha... Donnacha’s outright refusal to listen to Payton’s side of the story when it came to their relationship with Autumn –

“No,” Payton whimpered, gripping the sides of the toilet with both hands. The thought of Autumn finding out about this made their soul feel like it was withering. Something slipped up their throat – a belch, a sob, a hiccup?

Even though their stomach had been completely vacated, the lingering smell and taste of the vodka kept their insides twisting and writhing. They wanted to hug their aching belly, but they had no hands left to do it. They were shaking, wilting against the toilet bowl like a dying flower; they’d surely headbutt the porcelain if they let go.

Frantic heartbeats assaulted their eardrums. They could barely see, barely breathe, barely... barely believe this was happening.

No.

___

Dani was glaring at two stick figures – one with their legs spread, the other with their feet together under a knee-length dress – and having a crisis.

Why were gendered bathrooms even a thing? Cubicle stalls existed for privacy. Lesbians and gay men existed, who used the bathrooms of the biological sex they were attracted to. Besides that, people who were inclined to trespass would and could do so, regardless of whatever little plaque was stuck outside of it. She found it hard to believe that anybody woke up one morning, decided to go out to a public bathroom and be a perv, and then end up being discouraged when they found a little plaque on the door that did or didn’t depict a human in a skirt.

Why had it taken her so long to question this? And why was she questioning it now, of all times!?

Right. Because back at the cafe, there were gender-neutral toilets and gender-neutral changing rooms for the employees. If that hadn’t been the case, maybe Dani would have had some idea of which way Payton would choose to go if they were forced to.

She flashed back to the moment she’d walked into the changing room earlier, and seen Payton’s binder for the first time. Right, right... Did that mean they saw themself as more masculine than feminine?

She pushed open the door to the men’s bathroom, leaning as far into the room as she could while keeping her feet outside and clutching the side of the door. A middle-aged dude was finishing up at a urinal, and he jumped when he saw her.

“Wrong place, love,” he half-smiled.

“Oh, gee, thanks, love,” Dani said, employing her Hollywood starlet voice in order to stop herself from retorting with something unsavoury. And then she yelled out, making the man jump on his way to the sinks; “Payton?!”

After waiting for a few seconds, Dani huffed, noting that none of the cubicles were locked anyway, and no feet were visible under any of them.

She retracted her torso from the bathroom and ducked into the one next door.

“Payton?” she called out again.

Two women were by the sink, one of them washing their hands, the other touching up their lipstick with a bit of a sheepish expression.

“Maybe in there?” the one with wet hands said softly, nodding towards the only cubicle that had been locked. Sure enough, Dani noted the presence of feet near the bottom gap in the door. “Is she okay?”

“They.” The correction sprang out of Dani’s throat, already locked and loaded this time. “And... I dunno. Maybe. Payton? You okay?”

Dani’s heart felt like it’d just been dragged down into her stomach when the reply came.

“No! No, no, no.”

___

Payton’s lungs fluttered with the effort of breathing. A mixture of a smile and a grimace sliced their face as they heard Dani talking to the other bathroom occupants. The novelty of Dani gendering them correctly had worn off so quickly that Payton struggled to remember what that rush of serotonin and acceptance had even felt like.

Their teeth were chattering, their fingers still tingled with the knowledge that their internal chemistry had been altered, and their stomach lining was still painfully irritated –

They were powerless against the no blisters that burst on their lips, over and over again.

“Payton, open the door!” Dani screamed, and even though they were the one yelling no continuously, Payton thought screaming was a little over-the-top.

They weren’t dying. They knew that now. They just felt like they were dying.

“NO!” Payton sobbed lucidly amidst the rolling cries of despair. No, I won’t open the door. What on earth might they would unleash on her if they let her in? They had a reputation as the cool, easy-going supervisor; how could they ever face her at work if they were revealed as the fraud they were?

“I’m so sorry,” Dani’s voice said from the other side of the door. “I wasn’t in on it, but I also wasn’t – I wasn’t paying attention to what they were doing. And I should’ve been.”

Payton squeezed their eyes shut. As badly as they wanted to stay quiet, hoping she would go away, they couldn’t leave her hanging. That was what they did. They soothed people.

“It’s... okay,” they croaked, their voice reverberating in the porcelain bowl. They recoiled. Ew. Was that how they sounded right now?

“No?” Dani retorted. “It’s not. It’s awful.”

Payton coughed, feeling the last of their fighting energy drain out of them. She was right. This was awful. It would be very nice if this could, somehow, not be happening.

Panic flooded their lungs again like liquid, and this time they were struck through with fear, because they didn’t feel they had it in them to continue panicking, and they definitely didn’t want to wind up unconscious next to a toilet –

“Come on, get out of there,” Dani was begging. Her voice sounded strange. Maybe Payton was imagining things again, like they’d imagined her without her boots on earlier.

The door of the next cubicle down creaked. A toilet lid slapped down. There was a muffled thump...

Goosebumps pricked the back of Payton’s neck. They tilted their head back, all the way, so that they were facing towards the ceiling.

The sight of a head hovering above the cubicle divider was unexpected and unsettling enough to make Payton’s breath catch, and once it did, it was like a cycle had been broken. They blinked, once, twice, three times, and suddenly became hyper-aware of their surroundings.

“I... Hi?” they croaked pathetically.

“Hi, boss,” Dani muttered. Payton wondered if that was her version of being playful.

Payton scrambled to flush the toilet, their face burning at the thought of Dani getting an ariel view of their neon yellow vomit.

“Get... get d-down,” Payton stammered. “Y-you’re gonna fall–”

“Open the door and I’ll get down.”

They reached up for the latch and then sank back down, still catching their breath. The tears on their face were starting to solidify. They couldn’t bear to look Dani in the eye when she circled the cubicles to stand in front of theirs, so they kept their gaze low.

A dry laugh popped out of them, like it’d been lodged in their throat and then squeezed.

Dani’s socks were black and covered in tiny green alien heads. She was standing on the tiles in her socks.

“You... actually took your shoes off.”

“Yeah, so?” Dani growled.

“Nothing, I just – I thought I was hallucinating earlier.”

“I find it more comfortable.”

Payton nodded, sniffling as they felt their nose run. They felt as though they were already in the throes of a mini hangover – the hollow pangs of nausea in their stomach, the ringing in their head, the burning agony in their throat.

But worst of all was the shame. The storybook of images of themself – ariel view, as though they’d been up on that toilet alongside Dani, watching their own pathetic display from above – flipped its pages over in their mind.

“So, did – did you have, like, a board somewhere at home that said ‘something-hundred and something days since last drink’, or...?”

Payton almost choked at the image. Why had they never thought of that? They’d only ever kept track of their sobriety on the calendar in their head, but even that would have to be reset to zero now. “No.”

“Mmm. Sorry.” Dani shuffled her stockinged feet. “I never know what to say in... Well, any situation. Ever.”

“You’re fine,” Payton sighed. A part of them noted how exhausting it was, to still be the one to comfort everybody else when something bad had just happened to them. They tried to squash that part. Dani was here, trying to help them.

Besides, they felt most like themself when they were making others feel at ease. Maybe they didn’t need to be so ashamed of that.

“Do you... need something?” Dani asked the question stiffly and awkwardly; was this how she took down orders from customers at the coffee shop?

Payton wanted the exact same thing they’d wanted about an hour ago.

“I want to go home,” they whispered.

“Samesies.” Dani’s feet rearranged themselves again. “Do you need me to help you up?”

The reluctance in her voice made Payton want to say no. But they were dizzy and weak, and tired of saying no. The thought of just a little bit of help brought tears of relief to their eyes.

Payton looked up from the floor. Dani’s appearance hadn’t changed at all from the moment she’d turned up for her shift that afternoon, but Payton got the feeling that they were looking at a whole different version of her.

“I... I mean, would that be okay, Dani?”

“Yes. Of... course.” Dani had clenched her fists by her side, and was looking at Payton as though they were a cliff that she was supposed to step off the side of. “Just don’t grab onto my waist, shoulders, back, or sides.”

#Lucyverse Payton #Lucyverse Dani #Lucyverse #OC sickfic #sickfic #emeto sickfic #emeto #emeto fic #alcohol #alcohol mention #angst fic #spiking mention #misgendering mention #gender dysphoria mention #emetophilia #whump fic

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