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Nathan woke up with a pounding headache. It was dark- completely dark, and he fumbled for his phone or a light and found neither. What he did find was- wet. Squishy. What in the world…
He snatched his hand back, only to come to a bit more and realize the surface he was lying on was also wet and squishy and scramble upright to try to get off it. He just blundered into some kind of wall, if walls were also wet and squishy.
A sound from above made him jump. A lot like a person speaking, but- different. Muffled and weird, like someone’s voice if you put your ear right against their chest while they talked.
“Hello??” Nathan called out.
Was it his imagination, or was the “floor” moving under him, almost like it had a mind of its own? Maybe it was just his mind playing tricks on him in the dark. He couldn’t possibly be imagining the rapid, constant thumping above him, which sped up suddenly.
“Nei-san?” That was what it sounded like, anyway. “You awake?”
Okay what the fuck.
“Hello?” Nathan tried again as the scariest thought he’d ever had in his life began to occur to him.
Get a grip, Nathan, that’s not even possible.
“Oh good! It me- Shoma. You okay?”
Oh. My god.
Nathan sucked in a lungful of humid air. Not great smelling. He scuttled backwards on his hands, slipped, and fell against another wall that yielded to his weight like rubber. “ Shoma?! ”
“From skating?”
He didn’t know any other Shomas, or how to proceed. “Where- what? Where are you?” For some reason, that was less scary than asking, “Where am I?”
“You safe. You in, ummm…” The heartbeat- hopefully not a heartbeat- Shoma’s heartbeat? good grief- above Nathan was really racing. “In my stomach? Yes. In my stomach.”
No way did he just hear that. It was too warm in here, but Nathan felt cold all over and sort of like he was shriveling up inside.
“Are you serious?” His own voice sounded so small and thin, it was kind of pathetic.
Shoma gasped above him, and suddenly the squishy walls weren’t so squishy anymore. Then gravity disappeared entirely, Nathan yelled as he went weightless, and then he collided again with the floor(?) of Shoma’s stomach (dear God) in the dark and got the breath knocked out of him.
If Shoma’s heartbeat had been fast before, now it was turbo speed. He might have been whispering something, but all Nathan heard was air through his lungs, not any of what he was saying. Then he was completely still, nothing but the frantic pace of his heart and shallow, barely-there breathing.
“Hey man…” Nathan had no idea what to even begin with. “… Are you good?”
Shoma didn’t answer him.
“Okay.” It felt like Nathan was breathing heavily enough for the both of them. “Okay, no way is this really happening. Shoma!”
The walls crushed in on him. Nathan gasped- he hadn’t seen it coming, and now it was so tight he only had a little space to move, or just hyperventilate for a second, which he did.
“Shoma!”
Shoma squeezed him, really squeezed him, and Nathan let out some choked sound of pure fear before the walls, slowly, slowly released and let him slide down to the pit of Shoma’s stomach. He did nothing but breathe for several seconds, huge puffs of air that didn’t really stay in his lungs long enough to feel like breathing at all, and slowly drew his knees up to his chest. He looked around, but there was nothing to see, and he let his forehead drop against his knees while he slowly caught his breath.
This wasn’t possible. But here he was, and it was so strange that he didn’t know if he could even say he was scared. Well he was, but mostly he was just… failing hard at making sense of any of it, and somehow that was even worse than being scared.
“Shoma?” It was mumbled into his legs, barely audible even to himself. Nathan looked up. “Hey.”
The stomach tensed.
“What are you doing?”
No answer, but tense again. A warning. Nathan gulped. Shoma was very still, and Nathan was, too, not daring to speak again because that was clearly not welcome.
First question: How? None of this should be physically possible, which should have been a comforting thought because that must mean it was a dream, but… something just told him it wasn’t.
Second question: Why? Assuming it was real, of course. Nathan was stumped there. Shoma had said he was safe, which- no? Not for long anyway. Shoma wouldn’t hurt him (he was pretty sure- one way or another, he would soon find out) but if he did have good intentions, Nathan was unsure what they were and how eating him didn’t defeat the purpose.
“This is insane,” he whispered to himself.
He felt like he needed to run or fight or scream, but none of those things would actually get him anywhere, and he did NOT want to be squished again. It was agony to just sit, however, and wait for whatever would become of him, and it felt like ages before Shoma made any other move, a long breath whooshing out of him.
“Neisan? Sorry, sorry, have to- quiet. You okay?”
“Why?”
“Hiding, from bad people. You fall, hit head, I carry you. Sorry I scare you.”
“Oh.” Nathan slumped against him like a puppet whose strings had been cut.
“I keep you safe.”
“I don’t know if this is safe…”
“I do this, sometimes, is safe. I not… I not hurt you.”
Shoma had no reason to lie; Nathan couldn’t do anything about the situation regardless. And if he could somehow wake up whole and alive (but tiny, he supposed?) inside another person’s stomach, was it really that outrageous to think he could be there safely ?
“Okay.” He was so tired it felt like he was melting from the inside out. Not the outside in, he checked. “Are we safe now?”
Shoma made a noncommittal sound. “Soon.”
Time to worry again. This time, mostly for Shoma, although still definitely for himself, too, since they were sort of one entity at the moment. “Can I do anything?”
“Not now. We okay, lots of people here.”
Nathan lay down entirely again. It was pretty comfortable, all things considered, or maybe that was just his adrenaline crash talking. He almost certainly had a concussion, too, so maybe he shouldn’t sleep, but he could go completely limp and just… chill. A long, long sigh escaped him.
Shoma started to hum, the sound a lot like a cat’s purr vibrating through his chest. Nathan wasn’t sure if he was trying to act casual in whatever situation he was in, or if this was primarily for his benefit, but it was- it was nice. That sounded weird now that he thought it, but it was. It was nice to hear Shoma , not just his heart and breathing and sometimes scary gurgly noises, and, like a cat purring, it was just calming.
“Stéphane!”
“Whoa!” Nathan jolted upright just in time to fall over thanks to Shoma’s running. They stopped suddenly with a bit of an impact, and he guessed Shoma must be hugging Stéphane, with Nathan hidden right in the middle. This was all so weird. His head really hurt.
Shoma was talking, and a different, much more muffled voice outside was answering. Nobody would have any idea where Nathan was unless Shoma told them. Or maybe if he screamed loud enough while someone was close enough. That was kind of terrifying. Well, it could be, if he thought about it that way, so he didn’t.
“Okay, I let you out now, hold still.”
What happened next actually was scary. He was squeezed quite forcefully, squeezed again, and again, and coughed up like a hairball into Shoma Uno’s hands.
“Ugh.”
It was bright and cold and he was wet and slimy and still concussed. But he was alive and non-digested, non-murdered, non-kidnapped, and non-whatever it was called if someone swallowed you and didn’t tell anyone and just kind of kept you. Probably still kidnapping.
Shoma’s gigantic fingertip brushed wet hair off his face. Then he was gently set down somewhere, endured another weird, weird sensation, and- ah. There was Shoma, normal-sized again, and a worried-looking Stéphane Lambiel next to him. Mercifully, Nathan’s clothes had grown with him, but somehow the slime and wetness hadn’t. He still felt gross.
“Hey,” he rasped.
Shoma hugged him. Nathan hugged him back and sort of forgot to let go.
“You okay?”
“I think so. Are you okay? Someone was chasing you?”
“Not so much, but I hide. Sorry I scare you so much.”
“Well…” Nathan didn’t want to make him feel bad, but he also didn’t want to make it weird- any weirder than it already was. “I mean, I guess you probably saved my life, or saved me from getting kidnapped or something, so… I mean it’s fine, you know?”
“You are very brave.”
“I mean, not really.”
“Yes.” Shoma left no room for further discussion. “Now someone check your head; it hurts?”
Shoma hovered around the whole time like he felt personally responsible for Nathan’s well-being now, and then he hovered some more like he wanted to be near but worried being too close might scare Nathan. Maybe he worried that Nathan worried that he would eat him again. Nathan was just doing his best to stop sneaking looks at Shoma’s belly, but his eyes kept going there anyway, and Shoma kept catching him, and he kept looking away. He wouldn’t mind getting eaten again, just to escape all this awkwardness.
Wait. What?
That’s just the concussion talking, don’t worry about it, Nathan.