Disgusting

Sonny doesn’t really feel like eating, but after a while of hiding behind the buses he doesn’t feel safe on his own anymore, and fuck, he can’t stop shaking, can’t stop thinking about the way those girls treated him like he was just some kind of toy, a little rag doll they could play with however they wanted, manipulate into whichever position so pleased them- the feeling of so many hands on his body, the ogling gazes of passers-by. He knows the guys are gonna ask questions, and they’ll probably be dicks, too, but he doesn’t care anymore, at least he’ll find comfort in familiarity with them, know that none of them would have the gall to touch him like that, feel safe again. So, he goes to look for them at the barbecue. 

It’s still buzzing with life, but it’s not quite as densely packed. A few groupings of people sit spread out on the grass, talking and eating, some topless to combat the summer heat mixed with the smoke from the grill. Among them, he finds his own band, minus Derek’s shirt.

“Look who finally decided to join us,” Travis says with a grin as Sonny sits next to him, still trembling almost imperceptibly. Sonny weakly returns the smile and looks over to Derek.

“Yeah, yeah, I know… hey, why’s it always the drummers who need to get naked?”

“Because we work up more of a sweat than the rest of you,” Derek says, a smirk playing at the edges of his lips. “Why, you like what you see?”

Sonny feels his cheeks redden at the insinuation. He certainly doesn’t mind Derek being shirtless, that’s for sure. He’s easy on the eyes- all awkward teenage angles with soft edges. Even though he’s 22, he looks like he could be younger than Sonny is. Sonny can’t say he’s not into Derek at all, but he can brush it off, smacking his arm and chuckling, “Yeah but I’m half-blind, so don’t get cocky.” 

“I’ll get as cocky as I want,” Derek rebuts, shoving into Sonny with his elbow playfully. “I’ll be the cockiest cock to have ever cocked.”

“Fag,” Matt says around a chicken wing. 

“Yeah, says the dude with a mouthful of hot cock,” Derek sasses back, and Sonny can’t help but snort out a little laugh- hopefully it’s loud enough to cover up the way his stomach growls, oddly jealous of Matt.

But the way Derek looks at Sonny quickly crushes that hope.

“Hey, Son, are you getting hungry yet or what?” Travis says, finally voicing it out loud. “We were kind of just talking about it, and none of us have seen you eat anything in… like, a few days. Every time we get food you find some excuse to fuck off or just don’t get anything. What’s up with that?”

“Uh…” Sonny scoffs and averts his gaze. “Well, why were you talking about it? I told you, I ate earlier. Before our set.”

“Yeah, but… you never eat where anyone can see you, man.” 

A cold, aching feeling spreads through Sonny’s chest, and it’s like Travis’ eyes are staring straight into the depth of his soul, like calling his bluff came as easy as breathing. But right now, breathing doesn’t come all that easy to Sonny either.

“I just…” Sonny falters. What? What excuse can he come up with now, right on the spot, that Travis won’t see through in an instant?

“Sonny-” Derek cuts in, placing a hand over Sonny’s. His heartbeat pounds in his ear like Derek’s kick-drum. “We’re just worried, that’s all.”

“Well- tch, you don’t have to be, alright? It’s just… my mom used to tell me I eat like a pig and now I don’t like eating in front of people because I don’t want them commenting on it.”

It’s not entirely untrue, but Derek and Travis still don’t look convinced; Matt seems content enough to move on. Sonny sighs and appends, softly, “If I eat something right now, will you guys leave me alone?”

“Yeah,” Derek eventually says, sitting up a little straighter. “I was gonna go back for seconds, anyway, let’s go up there together.”

Sonny bites back a wince, but there’s no backing out of it, so he goes along. The line at the barbecue isn’t too long or busy, thankfully, but that doesn’t stop Sonny from wishing he wasn’t there at all. Having Derek there to watch him is nerve wracking on its own, and he keeps trying to talk music, which would be fine if Sonny wasn’t in his own head trying to figure out what he could get that would make everyone leave him the hell alone without having too many calories. He’s certainly starting to regret having that Monster, if nothing else.

Eventually they get to the front of the line, and Sonny still doesn’t have the slightest clue what he’s gonna get. 

So, fuck it, he decides in that moment. He’ll just go crazy and purge after. He gets a little of everything. 

As he’s stacking his plate up, the guy behind the grill comments, “You sure you’re gonna eat all that, pipsqueak?”

Sonny quietly wishes he could shrivel up and die on the spot, only making it worse when he looks up and recognizes Mikey Way. Mikey chuckles.

“I mean, it’s just a lot. You’re a small guy, you know? I think you’ll explode if you try to fit all that in you.”

“Fuck off, Mikeyway,” Sonny huffs out. He’s already having a bad day, he doesn’t appreciate Mikey making it worse.

“Hey, didn’t mean anything by it.” Mikey holds his hands up defensively, not letting go of his tongs. “Just looking out for you… and your waistline.”

Sonny rolls his eyes and moves past Mikey, catching up with Derek on his way back to the rest of the band.

“What were you and Mikey talking about back there?” Derek questions, and Sonny brushes him off despite the pit of dread and self-loathing in his stomach, the way just looking at all that food on his plate makes him feel fat and disgusting.

“Nothing important.”

The meal itself goes fine. Sonny stuffs his face and only feels a little guilty about it, knowing he won’t let it stay down long enough to do him any good, anyway. His bandmates, thankfully, don’t seem to pry any further about his eating habits. And likewise, they don’t ask too many questions when he gets up and wanders off after he’s finished his food and the conversation has drifted away from his interests.

It’s proof they don’t really care, Sonny thinks to himself.

Sonny lets his mind wander as he walks, putting his earbuds in so he doesn’t have to hear all the people, all the noise. He makes his way back to the parking lot, nearly vacant in the midday heat- everyone’s either onstage or trying to stay cool in the shade, and the heat radiating off the pavement is pretty counterintuitive to the daily challenge of not succumbing to heatstroke. Still, that’s what makes it a great spot to go hack up. The seclusion. 

Sure, there are porta potties. But they kind of fucking reek and they’re always stuffy and hot. No thanks.

Sonny squirrels himself away into the most desolate-looking corner of the lot, away from the stages and the barbecue, bordered by yellowed, heat-withered grass that looks almost more like hay, and a thin treeline. He looks one way, then the other, wrapping up his earbuds and stowing his IPod in his pocket as he looks, and when he’s confident he’s alone, he drops to his knees at the edge of the pavement. He catches himself with one hand, while shoving the other past his lips, knuckles grazing his teeth as he scrapes his throat with his nails. 

He’s almost worn his gag reflex down to nothing, purging as often as he does, but after a short struggle, his body relents to the prodding. He feels his throat contract, now involuntary, and lurches over the grass as he gags once, then again, and then feels everything he just ate coming back up. Somewhere on the back of his tongue Sonny recognizes the acrid taste of the Monster he drank earlier, and then it all fills his mouth and he spews. The vomit spatters into the grass, chunky and disgusting with a distinctly ruddy-brown, maybe orangish hue. The smell isn’t pleasant. 

Sonny kind of wants to just get up and go, but he knows he isn’t done. He ate more than that . He wants it out of him. He wants to throw up until he’s pathetically frail and skeletal, until he’s as nothing as he feels, fragile as glass and light as a feather. Trembling, Sonny raises his hand back up to force more from himself, but he stops when he catches movement in his peripheral vision.

Raising his head, Sonny turns to face the motion and recognizes Gerard Way. He’s the frontman of My Chemical Romance, forehead slicked with sweat even in little more than a bulletproof vest, holding a bottle of water in one hand to keep cool. The other hovers ominously above the front of his jeans. Sonny stares up at him wide-eyed, like a deer in headlights. Gerard is quiet for a long moment. 

“Gerard?” Sonny asks, eventually.

“Uh, don’t mind me, I just…” Gerard gestures with his bottle in a sort of awkward, un-thought way. “I heard vomiting out here, and I wanted to… make sure no-one was dying.”

Sonny blinks and wipes his chin, looking back to realize that yeah, this must be MCR’s bus he’s puking behind. He averts his gaze. The question hasn’t been asked, but he can feel it in the air, unspoken. Gerard steps forward and comes to his side, kneeling next to him on the sun-scorched pavement.

“You need help?”

“Wh- What?” Sonny stammers. It wasn’t the question he was expecting.

“You’re obviously trying to make yourself throw up.” Gerard cocks his head a little, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “It’s easier to set off your gag reflex if your body isn’t expecting it. Do you need help with that?”

Sonny stares, a little incredulously. He doesn’t understand, can’t comprehend in that moment why Gerard wants to help him. It doesn’t make sense- everyone else feigns concern, at least. Pretends to care that he’s so clearly sick. But Gerard’s offering to hurt him so he doesn’t have to do it himself. He holds up his hand to Sonny, two fingers extended- of course Sonny accepts them.

Wordlessly, the boy parts his lips, sticks his tongue out just a little. He imagines he looks kind of like a porn star, and he can tell the thought crosses Gerard’s mind too, but it goes unspoken. Gerard sets down his water bottle and caresses Sonny’s jaw with that hand, holding him still as his fingers invade Sonny’s mouth. 

Sonny gags before they even hit the back of his throat, but Gerard doesn’t flinch. He keeps going, shoving his fingers down Sonny’s throat, not caring how rough he is as his knuckles knock against the back of Sonny’s teeth. The boy jerks against the feeling, gags again. Gerard doesn’t pull back, even as Sonny retches and surges forward, vomiting up more. It’s somehow humiliating, though he’d accepted the offer, feeling his own vomit trapped in his mouth against Gerard’s fingers, knowing he’s tainting Gerard with his sickness. 

Tears well in Sonny’s eyes, even though he’s asked for this- it’s the floodgates breaking after far too long, his whole day crashing down on him, and Gerard doesn’t notice or possibly doesn’t care. Gerard’s fingers push further down, brushing Sonny’s uvula, and that really does it. 

A few involuntary contractions of the throat and Gerard pulls back, finally, watching Sonny double over onto his hands and knees, rivulets of black-stained tears painting his cheeks as his body ejects all that’s left, leaving his lunch splattered on the concrete. The smell of it, the texture coming back up, it’s so potent it drags another wave from Sonny. He moans lowly, the picture of abject misery in that short moment before his own nausea reaches critical mass, then gives his last hurrah; what rises this time dribbles from his lips pitifully, a more liquid formula than the last time.

His stomach aches in mourning of the sustenance it’s lost, and a feeling of satisfaction washes over Sonny. He’s finally empty. For just a moment, he doesn’t hate himself, until the high is over- and then it’s just Sonny, and Gerard Way, and a pool of vomit that’s managed to splash onto the both of them in this messy affair. A bird coos unknowingly in the treetops as Sonny takes in shaky, gasping breaths. His eyes don’t leave Gerard’s larger form, where his hand and wrist are coated with hard proof of Sonny’s gluttony, his failure. His heart sinks.

“I got it all over you,” Sonny points out, his voice low and strained. 

Gerard looks down at his jeans awkwardly, hardly noticing the small spots where they’re spattered with vomit- a little more distracted by the tent at his crotch. Sonny, politely, pretends he doesn’t see it.

“I guess you did.” Gerard hums. “I can just wash up on the bus. You wanna come with?”

“I, uh…” Sonny shifts nervously, in just such a way that reminds his body of his little rendezvous with Pete earlier that morning. He probably wouldn’t have let Pete do all that if he knew his ass would be sore the rest of the day, but it’s nothing he can change now. He knows there’s puke on his shirt and probably his hoodie too. And he knows the guys will probably be suspicious if he shows back up covered in puke.

“Yeah, I should probably clean up,” Sonny admits. 

Gerard nods and stands up, holding his clean hand out for Sonny. He doesn’t need the help getting up, but he takes it once he’s on his feet, letting Gerard lead him into his bus.